Our welfare outrage is aimed at the wrong people |
As a nation, we have been trained by our political leaders and capitalist elites to direct our outrage downwards.
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The recent budget announcement proved this earlier this month when once again the nation balked at the cost of welfare payments as the largest piece of the federal budget pie.
We grumble about "taxpayer dollars" being spent to keep our most vulnerable Australians alive, sheltered, and marginally afloat. We have been conditioned to believe that the problem with our social safety net is the people who need it.
But the real scandal - the one hiding in plain sight - is not the money spent on welfare. It is the power we have handed to private companies to administer it.
For decades, successive governments have outsourced the management, monitoring, and policing of unemployed Australians to private providers. These companies are not elected. They are not accountable to the public. They are not bound by the same transparency obligations as government agencies. Yet they wield extraordinary authority over the lives and incomes of people who rely on social security to survive.
And let's be clear: the only institution that should ever be responsible for administering public funds is the government itself. Not because government is perfect, but because it is at least structurally accountable to the people whose money it spends.
Placing compliance oversight, that is the power to suspend payments, impose penalties, and determine whether someone has met their obligations, in the hands of private enterprises is a recipe for corruption, perverse incentives, and undue political influence. We have already seen what happens when profit and poverty are allowed to mix.
Look at the Indue cashless debit card, a system that funnelled public money into a private company with deep political connections. Look at the Liberal Party president who sat on the board. Look at the way the card was trialled on communities........