Neoliberal welfare reform and ‘rights’ compliance under Australian social security law

Abstract

Recent neoliberal reforms to Australian social security and labour law privilege individual industrial bargaining and adopt a ‘job-first’ policy for welfare recipients, which exposes them to greater market pressures. This builds on earlier conservative Howard Government reforms, such as the privatisation of job matching services; insistence on mutual obligation and workfare expectations of social security clients; and intensification of loss of payment penalties for compliance breaches. This article examines the extent to which social security decision-making in Australia is favourably influenced by international treaties that include social security among the social and economic rights sought to be protected. It is argued that rights to social security are of their nature weak and sometimes internally conflicted, but this is compounded by their more limited purchase in Australian law. Consequently, international law has been of less assistance in protecting social security rights within Australia than is the case internationally.

Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization… of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for… dignity and the free development of… personality. [Article 22, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 10 December 1948.]