It is social security, not welfare

In the pre-Centrelink days, the unemployed, disabled, aged, marginalised and students were treated with some respect by the Australian government. Those days are long gone.

Up until 1997, Australia had the Department of Social Security, which administered social security payments. This is how they were referred to by both the government and the department.

Then in 1997, John Howard changed that, creating Centrelink to administer payments, and publicly rebranding most of the payments as welfare.

It was a curious move by Howard, as even today, Centrelink’s charter and legislation officially refers to the payments as social security, yet publicly refers to them as welfare.

The Act that administers these payments is called the Social Security Act, not the Welfare Act.

So what is the distinction, and why does it matter?

Firstly, social security has a more socially acceptable connotation. They are seen by the community as payments to keep society secure.

Welfare, on the other hand, has the connotation of branding recipients as getting handouts, such as when the poor and marginalised are forced to go to welfare agencies such as St Vincent de Paul, Anglicare and Lifeline.

According to legislation, Centrelink has never been a welfare agency, and its employees are not trained or classified as welfare workers.

So why do governments refer to these payments as welfare?

The answer is, they don’t always do this.

During the Rudd-Gillard era, the payments were referred to as social security. It was only when the LNP came back to power in 2013 that the government again started to refer to them as welfare.

There seems to be some sort of concerted effort by LNP governments to create a social division between the mainstream population and social security recipients.

Indeed, one could argue that the LNP maintained power by appealing to the base instincts of their right wing supporters and creating many divisions in society, but that’s an argument for another day.

All people, regardless of what support they get, are equally entitled to social security payments, and should be treated with respect.

Instead, various governments, for political reasons, have sought to portray them as a burden on society. The LNP government of the last nine years actually came out and publicly branded them as such on numerous occasions.

Now we have a Labor government again, and it can only be hoped they can fix the division created by the LNP government, and give the marginalised back the respect they are entitled to.

It will be a hard road ahead for Labor, as the attitudes have been firmly entrenched in society over the past nine years, but one can only be hopeful that with a man like Bill Shorten leading the charge, we can achieve that.

Craig Hill is a Brisbane-based Social Justice Campaigner, Writer, Teacher and Business Consultant. He has campaigned for social justice in Australia, promoted human rights in China and worked with the homeless in Honolulu. He holds a Graduate Certificate in Business, a Graduate Certificate in Education and a degree in Management. He is also the General Manager of The Australian Business and Leadership School.

If you liked this article, please click “Subscribe To My Blog” in the sidebar to receive an email each time a new article is published.

Visit the Australian Business and Leadership School

www.abls.com.au