Friday, February 26, 2010

Anglicans making sense

Good for the Anglicans. At last a religious organisation prepared to break with the usual advocacy stance of the Social Service and Catholic councils. In Australia the Brotherhood of St Lawrence are backing the government plans to extend income management beyond Aboriginal communities. Income management means a beneficiary receives their income part cash/ part credit, which can only be used for specified purposes. There is less potential for cash to be misused or stolen and greater potential for children to get fed and clothed.

Typically,

The Australian Council of Social Service has said the changes would make income support recipients' lives harder and less dignified, and Catholic Social Services Australia has said they are unjust and may undermine social inclusion.


These groups have their counterparts in NZ. Invariably the Salvation Army, the NZ Council of Christian Social Services and National Council of Women oppose any suggestion of tightening welfare.

But the Brotherhood of St Lawrence have taken a different tack, the common-sense approach.

''If taxpayers are making an investment in social services, it's reasonable to expect people to change their behaviour,'' executive director Tony Nicholson told The Age. ''Our view would be that quarantining is a legitimate part of the welfare system - but it also ought to be easy for people to demonstrate they are meeting their obligations.''


Hardly radical.

Generally I reject paternalism but if people can't manage their own lives, and as a result are damaging the lives and prospects of their children, then something has to give. If a dysfunctional beneficiary doesn't want their income managed there is a solution. Get a job.

4 comments:

Oswald Bastable said...

"Generally I reject paternalism but if people can't manage their own lives, and as a result are damaging the lives and prospects of their children, then something has to give."

yes- the rules change when one refuses to take responsibility for oneself!

Adolf Fiinkensein said...

The churches are heavily infested with weepy eyed liberals and socialists. Mostly school teachers.

Believe me, I know. I trip over them every day.

The churches and the unions between them did more damage to Australian Abos in the last century than all the cattle barons and mining moguls combined

Anonymous said...

If a dysfunctional beneficiary doesn't want their income managed there is a solution

no more benefits - job or no job

Richard McGrath said...

The current welfare state is not only destructive, it is unsustainable.

The able bodied people on benefits should be set free to find work, with the truly disabled paid an annuity from the interest on funds raised from the sales of such state "assets' as the Beehive, NZ Rail, Molesworth Station, etc.