Ideas@TheCentre
Abusing the logic of human rights
Welfare reform is now a human rights abuse, according to the welfare lobby and the special interest groups they represent.
At the heart of the matter are the Gillard government’s reforms to Parenting Payment, which will move tens of thousands of parents of school-aged children onto the less generous Newstart Allowance, which also has tougher job search requirements. The reforms were passed by the Senate on Tuesday.
This move will save taxpayers more than $700 million over the next four years and will improve the incentives Parenting Payment recipients have to move from welfare to work.
However, these sensible and relatively modest reforms have been branded a potential human rights abuse worthy of the United Nations’ attention by the welfare lobby, led by the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) and the welfare-dependent parents affected by the reforms.
They argue that the government’s legislation violates Article 9 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which states that everyone has a right to social security, including social insurance.
Additionally, the welfare lobby alleges that the government’s reforms violate the ‘principle of non-retrogression,’ which means if you have a right, that right cannot be reduced or removed.
By combining Article 9 of the convention with the principle of non-retrogression, the welfare lobby has added 1 + 1 to get 3.
A right to social security plus the principle of non-retrogression supposedly means if you receive welfare payments (in this case Parenting Payment), you can’t have that payment removed or reduced, which is what would happen if Parenting Payment recipients are moved to Newstart Allowance. Hence, the welfare lobby concludes, the government’s reforms are an abuse of human rights.
Clearly there is some very dodgy logic being employed here.
First, the right to social security is not being violated – people are simply moving from one social security payment to another – in this case, from Parenting Payment to Newstart.
Second, the principle of non-retrogression is not being violated – the right to social security as outlined in Article 9 is not being reduced or removed at all. The reforms do not ban or prevent people from receiving welfare – the only change is to the welfare payment they receive.
Third, Article 9 is being interpreted incorrectly – if you accept that everyone has a right to social security, it does not follow that everyone, or even a particular group of people, has a right to a specific payment paid at a specific rate – in this case, Parenting Payment.
Individually, each of these points repudiates the welfare lobby’s claims that the government’s reforms are a human rights abuse. Together they smash the claim out of the park.
Parents of school-aged children who move from Parenting Payment to Newstart Allowance should not be branded as victims of human rights abuse. What they really are is just another special interest group wanting to take more money out of taxpayers' pockets.
Andrew Baker is a Policy Analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies.
