Tracing the history of Australia’s social security system helps us to consider what reforms are needed for the present day. This paper explores how our social security system has developed over more than 100 years since Federation, and why it is no longer suitable for our changing world.

Australia’s current social security system is ill equipped to respond to the technological, demographic, environmental and geopolitical challenges the country faces. In this paper, the authors propose five indivisible principles to underpin Australia’s social security system, so that it contributes to a just, fair and compassionate society.

In the spring of 2010, with a close state election contest on the horizon, the leadership of the Brotherhood of St Laurence and Hanover Welfare Services both saw a chance to win political support for innovation in the youth homelessness sector.