If welfare dependence is to be constructively addressed, we need to think differently about the way the social security system is delivered to Indigenous Australians. The question is how this can be done without undermining the existing strengths of many family structures, and without the exercise degenerating into social engineering. There is a need for an enabling policy framework in which Indigenous people can exercise both their personal and cultural autonomy, and their social and cultural responsibilities.
The community-level research highlights the fact that Indigenous social security recipients have specific characteristics and needs that are not always congruent with those of their mainstream counterparts. A ‘one-size-fits-all’ policy and service delivery model will fail to adequately represent the diversity of Indigenous realities on the ground, will impact negatively on families and will, as a consequence, provide less effective outcomes. Reforms that focus on encouraging the transition of Indigenous people from welfare to mainstream employment will need to address this diversity.
The research also indicates that Indigenous welfare dependence is a complex phenomenon which cannot be treated in isolation from other social, economic and cultural problems. Government policy will need to be applied in ways that are culturally and economically informed about these local realities if the circumstances of Indigenous people are to improve. Reform must necessarily happen down at the level of community economies, and must address families, not just individuals.
The research conclusions highlight the need for government to:
formulate an Indigenous Welfare Policy and an Indigenous Mutual Obligation Strategy to reflect the underlying common characteristics as well as the diversity of circumstances, of Indigenous social security recipients;
provide early intervention assistance and training to youth, young parents and sole parent families immediately upon their entry into the social security system;
develop strategies to address the growing demands placed upon service delivery by Indigenous young parents, and by youth and children at risk of inter-generational welfare dependence;
develop a revitalised role for the CDEP scheme and its organisations in providing mentoring, training and early intervention to a wider range of Indigenous welfare recipients, and in negotiating locally-relevant mutual obligation frameworks; and
develop working partnerships between Centrelink, DFACS, Indigenous communities and their organisations, to ensure more culturally-informed and coordinated service delivery for Indigenous social security recipients.
If it is going to have practical benefit, a policy framework for mutual obligation for Indigenous social security recipients must:
be flexibly defined to accommodate cultural, family and economic realities;
be realistically applied in respect to any activity test, and include exemptions;
accord value to voluntary, culturally-based and community development work;
accommodate the intricate conjunctions between individuals, their families and the wider community;
recognise the CDEP scheme as already fulfilling any mutual obligation test;
specify the ‘obligations’ that fall on government and the private sector; and importantly,
be linked to enhanced government investment in education, training, and employment opportunities for Indigenous social security recipients.
Earlier research analysis of NATSIS and comparative ABS survey data indicates that Indigenous Australians undertake voluntary work at a national rate of 27 per cent, compared to 19 per cent for the total population (see Hunter 2000; Smith & Roach 1996). The most common types of voluntary work undertaken by Indigenous Australians involve community and sporting organisations, working with school and youth groups, working on committees, and caring for sick and aged relatives. Over half of those persons who reported that they carried out voluntary work also stated that they received government social security payments as their main source of income (Smith & Roach 1996: 71). It would seem that a number of Indigenous people are already fulfilling the mutual obligation criterion by carrying out voluntary work in their own communities.
For Indigenous Australians, improving the delivery and administration of the social security system will not be a sufficient answer in itself. It must go hand in hand with a significant improvement in their access to, and take up, of meaningful paid employment and vocational training in their own communities. However, an underlying premise of the welfare reform agenda seems to be that Indigenous Australians have access to viable labour markets and paid employment, and that training is available to them in the communities where they reside. In fact, the 1994 NATSIS survey reported that a substantial proportion of unemployed Indigenous men and women (42 per cent and 33 per cent respectively), and especially those in remote, rural, and ‘other urban’ areas, cited the fact that there were ‘no jobs at all’ and ‘no jobs in the local area’ as their main difficulty in finding work (ABS—CAEPR 1996: 57–8).
Research by Taylor and Hunter (1998) indicates that substantial government investment in training and job creation would be needed to achieve employment equity. More recent research suggests that even with additional investment, if participation in education and vocational training (perhaps as requirements of mutual obligation), is going to assist in reducing welfare dependence, then it will have to take account of the local demand for skills, and locational constraints on labour markets (Daly 2000; Gregory & Martin 2000).
The future implementation of mutual obligation, if it is insensitive to the circumstances of Indigenous people, could translate into a form of welfare enterprise-bargaining in which Indigenous income support recipients would be at a disadvantage, and their rights potentially jeopardised. An element of discretion will be necessary simply in order to make feasible the requirements of mutual obligation (Keating 2000: 27; Smith 2000: 112–15, 126–9). These concerns might be addressed partly through a revitalised role for the CDEP scheme in which local CDEP organisations develop realistic guidelines and facilitate outcomes for social security recipients, and their families and communities.