The McClure Report (McClure 2000) provides a blueprint for medium-term reform of the Australian social security system. Designed to encourage participation, it is built around the principle of mutual obligation—the idea that those who receive social support should be required to ‘give something back to the community’. Some commentators are opposed to the idea of mutual obligation on the grounds that its compulsory nature involves a reduction in the rights of citizens, as articulated in social security legislation. However, the receipt of social security benefits has always involved an element of compulsion. Ever since unemployment benefit was first introduced in Australia in the 1940s, applicants have had to satisfy eligibility criteria that have included the requirement that they engage in active job search or other forms of approved activity.

I see nothing wrong in principle with the idea of compulsion—as long as it works in the interests of the client and his or her family and protects the legitimate interests of taxpayers. The key issues revolve around how things operate in practice. How much compulsion will be applied, with what degree of severity, how much assistance will be provided in the form of services, and what will be the consequences for those unable to achieve the participation outcomes expected of them? These practical questions are not addressed in any detail in the McClure Report, yet they are crucial to the functioning, impact and public acceptability of increased mutual obligation. Until we see the government’s response to the report’s recommendations and observe how the changes function in practice, it is difficult to reach any conclusion about the likely impact of mutual obligation on the prospects of the jobless (as opposed to the numbers receiving social security benefit).

A key concern with mutual obligation as developed in the McClure Report is not the idea itself, but its unbalanced application. Although mutual obligation involves imposing additional requirements on social security recipients, there are no parallel requirements (only expectations) on the other social partners—government, business and local communities. In relation to business, for example, there are many ways in which its obligations could be enforced through appropriate legislation, even if it involved increased taxation. If the social security system is to be tailored to ensure that the mutual obligation requirements on recipients are being met, should not the tax system serve the same purpose for the other social partners, particularly business?

Unless mutual obligation requirements are developed and imposed on all of the social partners, the McClure Report proposals will become the latest in a series of measures designed to make life increasingly difficult for those in receipt of social security. Even the impact of compulsion on job-seeking activity will be small unless action is also taken to address the labour market impediments facing those with few skills or little experience of the labour market. That is, unless compulsion is seen as a vehicle for further eroding the protections currently offered to those at the bottom of the labour market.

This is the US model, where minimum wages are very low, but where low-paid work is an option (in fact, the option) for those denied social security. Poverty on welfare is replaced by poverty in work, the work ethic is enforced, and the declining welfare bill provides the next round of tax cuts for the rich. Despite what some in the current government might wish, I do not see this as an approach acceptable to the vast majority of Australians.

What would most Australians be prepared to tolerate in terms of treatment of the unemployed and other groups? Some insight into this issue can be gained from the Social Policy Research Centre (SPRC) research on community attitudes to social and economic change based on a nationally representative sample of Australians undertaken in the middle of 1999 (Saunders, Thompson & Evans 2000). The results indicate that a high proportion of Australians see no end to the unemployment problem. Over three-quarters of respondents agreed that there will always be some unemployed people and that full employment is no longer a realisable goal. There was also a tendency to overestimate the level of unemployment and the incidence of long-term unemployment. At the same time, while less than 14 per cent agreed with the proposition that the unemployed ‘only have themselves to blame’, almost 44 per cent agreed that business should be required to create more jobs, while over 47 per cent agreed that solving unemployment is the government’s responsibility (Eardley, Saunders & Evans 2000).

There is thus little evidence here of a one-sided approach to mutual obligation when it comes to addressing the unemployment problem. Indeed, there is strong community support for requiring more of business and government as well as of the unemployed themselves, and broad agreement that mutual obligation should be extended to all three groups, through specific proposals. This suggests that mutual obligation must be linked to the notion of social partnerships, which is given considerable emphasis in the McClure Report, with government having a major role in fostering community capacity.

When it comes to views on the generosity of support for the unemployed, clear differences begin to emerge. Around one-quarter of people think that too much support is provided to the young (under 25) unemployed, the long-term unemployed, people constantly in and out of work, and unemployed migrants. In contrast, less than 14 per cent thought that too much was provided to the unemployed with young children, and less than 2 per cent thought that this was so for the older (over 50) unemployed. This differentiation of views is consistent with recent attitudinal research for the Netherlands reported by van Oorschot (2000). That research indicates that public support for welfare benefits is greatest for those seen as having less control over their circumstances, those who most closely resemble the respondents, and those who are seen as having ‘earned’ their right to support. Support is greatest, in other words, for those who are powerless and deserving, but also most readily identifiable as part of the mainstream.

When the SPRC researchers asked about attitudes to activity test requirements such as requiring people to look for work, participate in work for the dole, or undergo training, they found a similar differentiation in what is considered reasonable, according to the circumstances of the unemployed person. In fact, the variation was greater according to the characteristics of the unemployed than according to the kinds of requirements imposed on them. While a large majority favoured requiring the young unemployed and, to a lesser degree, the long-term unemployed, to do just about anything as a condition of getting benefit, support for similar treatment of other groups of the unemployed was much lower. There was much greater reluctance to impose activity test requirements on the older unemployed and those with young children, and strong opposition when it came to people affected by a disability (Eardley, Saunders & Evans 2000: Table 7).

Australians thus do not seem inclined to offer unconditional support to the notion of mutual obligation as applied to all of the unemployed. There is strong agreement that government should play a greater role in solving the unemployment problem, even if this involves additional budget outlays. But there is almost no support for further deregulation of the labour market as a strategy for reducing unemployment, with less than one per cent citing this as one of the changes government should be making.

Although the participation support system proposed in the McClure Report represents a uniquely Australian response to the problems of unemployment and joblessness, strong parallels have been drawn with ‘welfare to work’ programs introduced in the USA and UK and elsewhere (e.g. the Netherlands). There are certainly many similarities. These include the imposition of work-focused requirements and sanctions for those who refuse to comply, the according of a supportive role to enabling services such as training and child care, an emphasis on encouraging self reliance and independence, and the need to involve other key stakeholders such as business and the community. But there are also important differences in the emphasis given to obligation as compared with other objectives, as well as in the design of specific policies introduced to achieve change.