https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0711-8389
Philip Mendes’ latest book affirms his place in Australian social work as its leading welfare state scholar. Mendes provides a comprehensively researched, critical overview of Australian social policy history. Impressive in its interdisciplinary range, it brings important economic and political analyses together with a social work perspective, reporting on institutional and community engagement and lived experiences of welfare state policies and practices.
Mendes has presented a thought-provoking body of evidence for an overhaul of Australia’s welfare state and provides “a case for an alternative participatory and decentralised welfare state” (p. 3). His case rests on the impact of a highly targeted and punitive system on people turning to the state for assistance. This case is all the more pertinent as little remains of the heady days of social democracy under the Whitlam government that came into power in 1972, the starting point of Mendes’ account of the Australian welfare state. Mendes’ proposed localised, empowerment-based social assistance model is in keeping with resistance to the dominance of global “neoliberalisation”, making an important contribution to social work’s role in leading ideas for effective social change. It is also a vital part of a critical analysis of Australia’s welfare state when, as social work educators, most students in our lecture theatres have grown up under rampant neoliberalism and demonisation of all people described as “welfare dependent”. As Mendes has pointed out, long gone are the days when government leaders spoke of the importance of welfare as a wealth distribution mechanism, a means of addressing inequality, or indeed as a social right.
Acknowledging that Indigenous Australians and people with disabilities deserve further attention, Mendes analysed the “the experiences of able-bodied workforce-aged Australians who are reliant on social security payments” (p. 3), focusing on Newstart Allowance and the Parenting Payment. Aside from the age pension, these are the dominant means of income support and are indicative of Australia’s very targeted system, which ensures recipients are living well below the poverty line.
The book has a four-part structure, each with chapters that outline a broad overview of the political and theoretical terrain, followed by details of the period it covers, focusing on particular governments, political parties, and other key players and their policies and political influence. Part 1 provides a useful historical summary of how we can understand the typology of the Australian welfare state and how it came to grow and emerge through various events such as the post-World War II era, the influence of Keynesian economics, the powerful impact of the Liberal party’s early commitment to a limited welfare state, and the important rights-based emergence of universalism under the Whitlam government. Part 2 covers the demise of Keynesianism in economic policy and the revival of classical liberal ideas that shaped the welfare state as a crisis. It also details the rise of neoliberalism as the primary framework for the strong anti-welfare backlash promoted by a coalition of free market think tanks, conservative media, and big business seeking to “shore up” the governmental direction of minimal state intervention. As Mendes has detailed very well, this is the period of anti-dependency, safety-net rhetoric that was highly successful in marginalising key social welfare bodies advocating for the poor and disenfranchised. The notion of undeserving poor was highly promoted by the dominant conservative media, ensuring the ongoing demonisation of people reliant on Newstart Allowance and the Parenting Payment. Mendes’ deep knowledge of the community sector provides insight into how welfare in Australia became polarised by attacks by conservative think tanks and media seeking to diminish the role of key welfare advocacy organisations.
Part 3 of the book covers the period of the disappearance of social justice from the welfare policy agenda and the dominance of the Liberal–National Party Coalition in government and how it made welfare conditional. This was a fervent campaign of self-reliance and anti-dependency sentiments that entrenched the idea of welfare as a drain on tax-payers. Mendes’ nuanced account of this period recognises the clear shift to a dominance of right-wing Liberals as he notes the then dissent from some Liberals about the harsh retrenchment of welfare and its highly punitive nature. This is also a period of the end of pluralist governance, as the Howard government excluded the voice of organisations like ACOSS from welfare policy dialogue, turning to compliant, faith-based organisations that became key deliverers of human services through the tendering out or privatisation of welfare. Part 3 also covers the failure of the Labor government to reform the conditionality of welfare, its uncritical acceptance of economic citizenship, and its policy shift to social inclusion over social justice.
Part 4 “Rejecting the Neoliberal Consensus” offers alternatives to the dominant residual Australian welfare state. Mendes presents case studies of ACOSS and the Australian Greens party, detailing their arguments against the “logic” behind dramatic changes to income support. Both cases present alternative ways of understanding poverty and how to respond to it in ways that address social problems rather than creating them. The Greens are the only party that have maintained a rights-based view of welfare in their policies. They have promoted a social justice agenda that seeks to address inequality and have been highly critical of welfare conditionality. In his concluding chapter Mendes puts forward his argument for a participatory welfare model. It relies on core social work values and community development strategies: real community consultation seeking to understand the needs of local communities, recognition of social citizenship as equal to economic participation and decentralisation through community-based responses to social needs. Mendes’ new welfare state requires significant changes to government, services delivery, and local community functioning; a refreshing ending for such a turbulent narrative of the Australia welfare state.
This is an important book as it articulates a detailed story of the impact of neoliberalism on Australia's welfare system, as well as documenting its developments since 1972. It would be a useful book for all social work students to read but given its highly sophisticated analysis and attention to detail it is more suited as a valuable resource for educators, practitioners, and postgraduate research students.