Criminalising the unemployed

by K Brennan, M Baker and M Leahy

"Breaching" is what the Federal Government (with Labor Party support) has 
introduced to keep the unemployed under control. The slightest mistake, 
like not getting a letter from Centrelink, or worse, missing one of the 
meaningless interviews, incurs a fine of $840. Such a mistake reduces the 
meagre payments of unemployed people by 18 per cent over a period of six 
months. A second mistake reduces payments by 24 per cent and a third 
mistake within a period of two years results in payments being stopped for 
eight weeks — a fine of about $1,400.

These penalties are harsher than those imposed for many crimes and forces 
people into poverty. It often leads to them losing their homes and building 
up massive debts for electricity, water and other services.

And when people are reduced to abject poverty, their self-esteem and self-
worth are lowered, they feel that they are not respected in society, 
disillusionment and depression sets in, making it more likely that they 
will become ill, not eat properly, not have decent clothes or decent living 
conditions. It is less likely that they will become educated or gain 
meaningful work.

In the past an unemployed person could volunteer for two days per week and 
maintain their search for employment. They could find some meaningful and 
satisfying way of contributing to society.

Conscripts

But, under the new rules, unemployed people have to perform compulsory 
community work and are no longer regarded as volunteers. They have become 
conscripts.

The Australian National Organisation of the Unemployed (ANOU) and the 
Un(der)employed People's Movement against Poverty Inc.(UPM) in Adelaide are 
critical of the Commonwealth Government's program "Australians Working 
Together". It effectively criminalises job seekers who have committed no 
crime and are doing nothing more than what the Government is telling them 
to do.

ANOU spokesperson, Kevin Brennan told The Guardian:

"What we have here is hundreds of millions of dollars of public money being 
spent on an alleged 'Self-Help' program containing requirements that any 
reasonable person would describe as mandatory sentencing, community service 
orders and parole-like surveillance."

Mr Brennan issued a challenge to the Australian community to thoroughly 
examine the Fact Sheet called "Attachment to 11" in the Government's kit.

"This sheet is a table of requirements, some of which are provisions that 
are significantly heavier than the penalties applied to people found guilty 
in a court of law.

"If this new program goes ahead, job seekers of all ages, from 18 to 50+, 
will be regarded by the public system as worse than offenders", said Mr 
Brennan.

"If one is found guilty by a court and the sentence is a community service 
order of 240 hours one's debt to society is regarded as having been paid 
when the community service hours are completed. Not so for job seekers. 
Their 240-hour community service order is recurrent. They have to do it at 
least once a year, yet they have committed no crime nor have they done 
anything wrong."

"What is equally offensive", said Mr Brennan "is that much of the work 
these conscripts will do is work that, until the Coalition came to office 
in 1996, was paid community work. The Government cut funding to community 
organisations and then turned the work into work-for-the-dole projects."

Monika Baker, Secretary of the UPM added:

"The previous 'mutual obligation' of volunteering created a two-class 
volunteer system. Now we have a two-class community work system, only this 
time, the unemployed are the second-class community workers behind proven 
guilty offenders. This is clearly the criminalisation of poverty in 
Australia and is built on the American example of welfare reform."

Employment Minister Tony Abbott once referred to the unemployed as 'job-
snobs.' Former Community Services Minister Jocelyn Newman remarked that 
there was a need for strict policies in relation to the unemployed in order 
to stop them 'sitting around all day watching soap operas.' Prime Minister 
Howard referred to the Social Security system as being overly generous and 
a cause of so-called welfare dependency.

These comments are symptomatic of an ideology that seeks to demonise and 
criminalise the unemployed. It is easier to blame the victims of 
unemployment for their own awful predicament than to tackle the causes of 
unemployment.

Causes of unemployment

This ideology says: "Forget downsizing, multiskilling, shifting workforces 
offshore, the use of cheap overseas labour, (even slave labour), within the 
new global economy. None of these cause unemployment. People are unemployed 
because they are lazy and lack initiative and don't want to work."

These attitudes allow the Government to impose punitive and draconian 
policies in relation to the unemployed by:

* tightening qualification criteria to make it harder for people to receive 
benefits;

* narrowing policies relating to young people, forcing people up to the age 
of 25 to be dependent on their parents;

* increasing the powers of Centrelink to recover monies it has incorrectly 
paid to people, regardless of the hardship this causes;

* tightening up disability tests to make it harder for genuinely disabled 
people to obtain a pension;

* increasing Centrelink's powers of investigation and surveillance, etc.

All Centrelink benefit payments are, at best, 50 per cent of what was 
considered the cost of living in February 1997. This effectively means 
that, in any given fortnight, unemployed people live on their allowance for 
one week and then go into some sort of 'suspended animation' for the second 
week.

The Newstart Allowance is sufficient only for a place to live and food, but 
nothing else — no out-of-pocket job-search costs, no electricity, no 
Council rates, no phone, no transport, no education, no insurances, no 
dentist, etc.

All of these policies place more and more pressure on people already 
subsisting at below poverty-line levels.

People suffering major disabilities are forced into job programs, sole 
parents incur huge debts because of changes to shared care arrangements for 
family payments, young people in relationships are not considered as de 
factos when it would benefit them, yet are deemed to be de facto when it is 
to their detriment.

Unemployed persons are required to take on more and more and are required 
to navigate a complex legal and administrative system in which many of them 
are deprived of benefits because of simple administrative infringements.

Single mothers

Many new prison inmates are single mothers who have been accused of living 
in a de-facto relationship, dobbed in by envious ex-girlfriends or 
neighbours. They cannot repay their debts or fines.

Many young people who have been "breached" and left without income have 
turned to the drug trade to get them through, sometimes with devastating 
consequences.

Others have been close to suicide after having received a second non-
payment period in six months.

The ANOU and the UPM call on all fair-minded Australians to look beyond the 
smarmy rhetoric of the welfare reform package and in particular the 
'Australians Working Together' program and demand that punitive measures 
and the increasing criminalisation of people on low income or in receipt of 
government benefits be stopped.

* * *

For interview, contact:

Kevin Brennan 0414 263 514 / Kebar@bigpond.com

or Monika Baker 08 8352 4950 / mobak@ozemail.com.au