Welfare payments and school attendance: an analysis of experimental policy in Indigenous education

• Larissa Behrendt, Ruth McCausland
• Australian Education Union

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13 August 2008Making the welfare payments of Indigenous people conditional on measures
such as their children’s school attendance is becoming an increasingly popular
policy measure in Australia. The stated aims of such an approach include
ensuring that money is spent on essentials such as food, clothing and housing,
and increasing children’s participation in school. The former Coalition Federal
Government supported the introduction of such schemes - most publicly, as part
of its intervention in the Northern Territory. The Rudd Labor Government has
continued this policy approach, with Minister for Families, Housing, Community
Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, confirming support for three
‘income management’ models in Western Australia, Queensland and the
Northern Territory. Though such schemes have been regularly characterised as
trials, there has been little public information or discussion about their
underpinning policy rationale.

This approach marks an unprecedented new phase in welfare policy in Australia.
This Issues Paper will set out the increasing influence of the concept of mutual
obligation in Australia and its particular application to Indigenous policy. It
canvasses the current trials linking welfare payments to school attendance and
outlines what evaluations have indicated about such schemes to date. It then
provides an analysis of key concerns about the approach - namely its lack of
basis in evidence, the fact that measures introduced under such schemes do not
necessarily serve its overall aims, that there are particular human rights
implications for such an approach. It also points to the reality that the resources
and attention focused on such schemes combined with the ongoing issue of
chronic under-resourcing in Indigenous policy generally is unlikely to ‘close the
gap’ for Indigenous communities.