Returning to our roots: Australia's new ‘deserving poor’

Abstract

This article locates current trends in Australian social welfare law and policy within the tradition of the English ‘Poor Law’. It argues that the recent reforms proposed by the Commonwealth Government simply reinstate the distinction between the deserving and the undeserving poor which became part of the Poor Law which followed the English reformation. It argues further that now, as in the past, the Poor Law and the laws regulating employment have one central aim, to produce a docile, replicable and compliant labouring population that can be exploited as required.