The Australian Welfare State: History And Critical Discussion

The Australian welfare state is dead. Critically discuss the merits of this statement with reference to the history of the development of the provision of income support, including the seventeenth century Poor Laws,

.The establishment of the major benefits in Australia in the 1940s, and

.The impact of the changes made in Australia in the last decade of the twentieth century and in the twenty first century (including the ‘welfare to work’ reforms)

The History of Income Support in Australia

Australians ha implanted in the early history about the idea to be in a fair way, albeit omitting the several original inhabitants. Towards the end of the 19th century, this have gave rise to the new nation, which offered the possibilities of the opportunities for all, not only the privileged. The welfare of the of the state stands a firm feet in the in the consciousness of the that became a symbol of common sense, practical forms of economics and the consensus politics. Therefore, the below essay critically discuses the death of the Australian welfare regarding the history of the development of the support of income in Australia.

The qualities of the public education, the shorter form of working hours, national health services and the diversities in the good society were devised by the post war welfare to ensure the phenomenon until the 1980s when the policies of the society was overlaid by the economic goals.

The Act of the Poor Law Amendment in 1834 has been widely known as the new poor Law, which was essentially the Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (Hay 2016). It has completely replaced the earlier legislations that are based on the poor law of the 1601 that was attempted to change the poverty relief systems in the nation.

After 1834, the poor law aimed to transfer the unemployment among the rural workers for the urban developed areas where there was work along and was the protection of the urban ratepayers from paying a huge amount (Hay 2016). The implementations of the several acts have proved that impossible in some industrial areas of north that suffered from the cyclical forms of unemployment. The rates of the implementation of the several Settlement Laws in the operations from the 17th century were also costly and thus these were not to be implemented fully.  It has often proved to be costly for enforcing the removal of the paupers. The Commission could be issue directives and in some of the cases, it can be ignored in order to save on expenses 

The poor law amendment was implemented differently in across the England. One of the criticisms of the 1601 poor laws was its implementation that was discrete. The law was also interpreted in a different manner in forms of different parishes as each of the parish have the different levels of the poverty and some of the parishes have developed more than the others, that may lead to the uneven systems (Bracke  2016). The local boards of the Guardians have also interpreted the law the suits the interests of their own parishes that may result is an better degree of the local variation. The poor working classes include the agricultural laborers and the workers of the factory have opposed the new law of poor act because the diets in the workhouses are inadequate for sustaining the health and nutrition of the workers (Bracke 2016).

The people who arrived in huge numbers in Australia after the First World War was massively influenced by the Australia to become a modern form of the society (Bracke 2016). This phenomenon has brought back the skills of the population, the education and values of the cultures and the commitment towards their own family. The Australians created new experiences by trying new ways of eating in the cafes and the milk bars, the versatile public buildings, the new concepts of the design of the architecture, new approaches to leisure activities and the new advent of jazz music.

The Poor Laws of the Seventeenth Century

However, between the First and the Second World War there was a time when they faced the emergence of several diversities in the cultures of the Australian society that has effectively expanded the forms of migration of the people those who were especially men from the southern part of the Europe, the Adriatic and the areas of the Mediterranean. The exceptions included the Japanese, Malay, and the Filipino pearl drivers who have continued their occupations under the exemptions of the Immigration Restriction Acts in 1901 (Swain 2014).

During the phase of 1920 and 1930, there were major phases were people saw bad times with the challenges that caused a major downfall through unemployment, hardship and poverty (Swain 2014). These factors have led to the migrants that have become the classic forms of targets for xenophobia that became a common factor raising intense fear or the dislikes of their cultures and the customs. The involvements of the European Allied forces in the war that was put forward against the Nazi Germany had created a lot of compassion for the persons who were displaced in Europe. At the end of the war, the Australians were able to accept the conditions with a lot of confidence the arrivals of the large amounts of the immigrants those were the part of the vision of the new Australian identity based on the diversity and the cultures that are interactive in nature (Henry 2016).

The concepts of the social investment states that there is a deep resonance with the social policy of Australia have strongly characterized by the productivity values and giving the people a fair chance (Swain 2014). This productivity revival helped to break the austerity constraints on Australian social policy created in the neoliberal period. The Australian has proper particular challenge for the reviving of the dimension of the productivity for the social policy in a proper way, which is detrimental to be protective for the compensatory functions. It is that some of the outcomes that are long term and the returns on investments in areas such as early childhood development, mental health, education and social mobility, for example, cannot be accommodated. The ‘Social investment’ has arguably represented the latest justifications for the policies of the society to guide the developments of the economy and society in the twenty-first century. Since the late 1990s, new ideas and strategies concerning the role of social policy for societal development have been formulated, and, internationally, policy agendas now point towards a similar policy logic based around notions of ‘social investment’. The notion of ‘social investment’ refers to the policies that aim to help disadvantaged citizens to succeed in education and the labor market.

The policy contexts that are established in Australia are very different from that are to be found in Europe. In the twentieth century are the social investments played the major objective in the economy of the nation with the help of the extensive government investments in the capital infrastructures, utilities and the enterprises of Australia (Groenewegen and McFarlane 2014). The industrial regulations are provided in the formative social investments in the pathway and the major orientation of the welfare of the society (Henry 2016). The minimum amount of the wage laws were introduced by South Australia majorly in the year 1894 and then in the year 1904. The Harvester Judgments gave the courts of Australia the position to analyze the working conditions of the family that included the minimum wages of the families. Therefore, the social economies with a fair amount of wages were the order of the day. The inclusive forms of strategies for the growth have been always there at the core of the Australian way (Groenewegen and McFarlane 2014). The labor politicians have distanced themselves from the ideologies that are neoliberal, by arguing for the social democratic values and the principles of the social investments and their inclusions will help to make Australia a fair society. In this era the government that supported the labor laws had firm believe in the social inclusions through the process of the paid work. The policy makers have agreed to one condition that all the working aged adults who are working should be fully engaged in forces of labor by increasing the centrality of the paid works to the several forms of securing and the rates of production of the well-being of the family in Australia (Henry 2016).

The several social democrats of Australia had to face the particular challenges that were under the political institutions that facilitated the pursuit of the private ends, rather than the defined forms of the political goals that included the ‘social investment’ for a more than just a society.

References

Bäckström, A. and Pettersson, P., 2016. Welfare and religion in 21st century Europe: Volume 1: Configuring the connections. Routledge.

Bracke, M.A., 2016. Melissa Bellanta is a senior lecturer in history at the Australian Catholic University, having previously held Australian Research Council and University of Queensland Postdoctoral Fellowships. Her most recent research on the history of the emotions and sentimentality in Western popular culture has appeared in journals such as the Journal of Victorian Culture, the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, Outskirts. Gender & History, 28(2), pp.553-557.

Derricott, R., 2014. Citizenship for the 21st century: An international perspective on education. Routledge.

Groenewegen, P. and McFarlane, B., 2014. A History of Australian Economic Thought (Routledge Revivals). Routledge.

Hay, J.R., 2016. Origins of the Liberal Welfare Reforms, 1906-14. Springer.

Henry, K., 2016. Australia in the Asian century. Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies, 3(2), pp.132-139.

Kerr, L., 2017. Australian social policy and the human services. Cambridge University Press.

Mays, J., 2015. Australia's disabling income support system: tracing the history of the disability pension from 1908 to today. Australian Journal of Social Issues, 50(3), pp.253-276.

Servalli, S., 2013. The interface of power and charity in the government of poor: A case from the Italian context in the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 26(8), pp.1306-1341.

Swain, S., 2014. Florence and Rosamond Davenport Hill and the Development of Boarding Out in England and Australia: a study in cultural transmission. Women's History Review, 23(5), pp.744-759.

Turgeon, L. and Simeon, R., 2015. Ideology, Political Economy and Federalism: The Welfare State and the Evolution of the Australian and Canadian Federations. Understanding Federalism and Federation, p.125.

Whiteford, P., 2014. chapter 3 AUSTRALIA: INEQUALITY AND PROSPERITY AND THEIR IMPACTS IN A RADICAL WELFARE STATE. Changing Inequalities and Societal Impacts in Rich Countries: Thirty Countries' Experiences, p.48.