Responsible parenting
Welfare reform is a positive for all children
THERE are welcome signs that the federal Government is indeed serious about extending the tough love provisions linking welfare payments to responsible parenting to all Australians. Cannington in Western Australia will be the first metropolitan suburb to trial a scheme under which welfare payments will be cut off if parents fail to ensure their children attend school.
Cannington is a high welfare dependence suburb south of Perth that educators say has an average truancy rate of about 8 per cent. The Government estimates that about 1000 parents will be affected by the new plan, which also requires school enrolments to be notified to Centrelink.
The scheme will also be trialled at five Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory and in Katherine, south of Darwin. The new scheme is in addition to provisions that have already been announced to quarantine welfare payments for necessities if children are deemed to be at risk.
The Australian has long argued that welfare in Australia needs a good shake-up. When the NT intervention was criticised by some people because it singled out indigenous parents, we supported the expansion of welfare quarantining for the benefit of all children.
Welfare reform remains one of the great challenges for Western governments everywhere. Labor has recognised that, contrary to its rhetoric in Opposition, mutual obligation was not a conservative agenda pushed solely by John Howard. It was, in fact, a core reform objective for Tony Blairs New Labour in Britain and Bill Clinton in the US as well. When it comes to welfare, the rights and responsibilities reform push is far from over. It is only beginning. It is reasonable that government demands a reciprocal social obligation in exchange for welfare assistance. This is particularly so if payments are made specificially for the benefit of children.
Decades of poorly supervised welfarism internationally has shown that intergenerational welfare dependence is not in the best interests of either recipient families or the community at large.
Source: Responsible parenting | The Australian