When household income by source is considered, it is clear that social security payments constitute the core component of income for the surveyed households. In the 28 Kuranda households, the 180 people (adults and children) in residence are overwhelmingly welfare dependent, with the households receiving a total of 96 social security-related payments. In Kuranda, 77 per cent received their primary source of income from a social security payment, 20 per cent from CDEP, and 3 per cent from wages. In Yuendumu, 71 per cent of all adults received their primary source of income from a social security payment, 19 per cent received it from a CDEP income, and 10 per cent received a wages income. In both communities, 100 per cent of the surveyed households had at least one adult receiving a welfare payment, and the majority had several adults receiving a range of social security payments. For many households, total income per person per fortnight was under $300, with 40 per cent getting less than $200 per fortnight.

The research indicates that individuals in both communities are locked into a fortnightly pattern of immediate consumption, lending, and borrowing linked to the payment of social security income support. Many are living in a ‘feast and famine’ cycle where certain family members—in particular, children and the aged—are vulnerable to any fluctuations in income and care. Such a pattern leaves individuals with little capacity to save (see Westbury, Ch. 10, this volume). This situation is tempered, however, by facilities made available through CDEP organisations and Centre Pay, whereby individuals can have regular deductions made from their incomes for the payment of recurrent bills. These facilities provide a valued form of budgeting and de facto savings for many people.

Family members rely heavily on other relatives sharing available cash and resources with them. They also regularly use a system of ‘bookdown’ at local stores to purchase goods on credit during the period between social security payments. Another important form of local ‘micro-credit’ is the cash ‘advances’ made available by Centrelink and CDEP organisations. These loans are then repaid out of the individual’s future welfare or CDEP income. Over half the Kuranda respondents had received a Centrelink advance in the 12 months prior to the interview.

These factors, in combination, lead to a situation where many individuals recycle through the social security system over their lifetime, and where a number of families manifest inter-generational dependency on social security. In both communities, welfare dependency is therefore applicable not only to individuals, but to entire families and their households.

But the research results also suggests the need for important qualifiers about the nature of that welfare dependence. The dependence being experienced by families is quantitatively different from that experienced by other Australian families. It is also qualitatively different. Family members fall back upon culturally-based values, their own system of shared child-care, and networks of economic support and demand sharing. This Indigenous system of support is a form of risk-pooling that keeps many families financially afloat. It constitutes precisely the kind of ‘social participation’ and ‘social capital’ identified by the McClure Report (2000) as the very basis of strong families and communities (see also Hunter 2000). As such, they should be supported by government policy, especially given the enormous strains placed on support networks by wider community problems. Respondents identified health and substance abuse, domestic violence, inexperienced young parents, bored and uncontrollable youth, and lack of employment opportunities as major problems in their communities. They consistently pointed to the need for housing—especially for young families—and for local employment other than CDEP, and recreational programs and youth-workers.

Another important qualifier raised by the research is that families and their households can not simply be described as ‘welfare dependent’. Rather, they are dependent on a mixed domestic economy of low, often erratic incomes of which social security payments are but one, albeit an important component. In both communities a typical household has members receiving not only welfare payments, but also CDEP income, ABSTUDY monies, irregular income from art and craft production, occasional royalty receipts (in the case of Yuendumu) and some wages income. Only three of 102 adults in Kuranda, and 18 out of 182 in Yuendumu, received a non-CDEP wage income. Given the extent of kin relatedness in both communities, and the constant redistribution of cash within families and between households, it is analytically unsound to separate welfare dependence from people’s dependence on other sources of ‘welfare-equivalent’ income and other public transfers.

The policy and the personal reality for the families surveyed in both communities is that receipt of income support is both a form of entrenched dependence related to poverty entrapment, and a citizenship entitlement that provides a valued base-level income without which many would not survive. Furthermore, while government welfare reform focuses on attempting to move Indigenous Australians off income support, and out of the CDEP scheme into mainstream employment, the survey research suggests that some people are still unaware of their basic welfare entitlements.