Spotlight on Economic Abuse: a Literature and Policy Review

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In addition to family violence policies and programs most states have also developed policies to address elder abuse and have provided funding for dedicated services including, for example, the Elder Abuse Prevention Unit in Queensland and the Older Persons’ Rights Service in Western Australia. In Victoria, Seniors Rights receives funding and operates as a specialist community legal centre; this service was part of a broader Victorian Government Elder Abuse Prevention Strategy implemented in 2005. Social security and crisis support Key government income support policies and practices relating to economic abuse and women’s economic security are those dealing with income support, family assistance payments, child support and income management. Other relevant income policies which are discussed elsewhere are superannuation, and employment and wages policies. Income support, crisis payments and other assistance Relevant income support and other payments provided by the Australian Government through Centrelink include the following: Parenting Payment provides income support to the main carer of a child or children, who is single and has at least one child aged less than eight or who has a partner and at least one child aged less than six. Newstart provides income support to people while they are looking for work. The Family Tax Benefit offers financial assistance to couples or individuals with children. Part A provides assistance for dependent children under 21 years or fulltime students aged between 21 and 24 years. Part B provides assistance to sole parent families and to families with one main income, where one parent stays home or works only part-time in order to care for children. Jobs, Education and Training Child Care Fee Assistance provides financial assistance with the cost of child care to parents undertaking activities such as job search, work, study, or training. The Carer Allowance is a supplementary payment to parents or carers who provide daily care for a person aged sixteen years or over with a disability, medical condition or who is elderly. The Disability Support Pension provides income support to adults who have a physical, intellectual, or psychiatric condition that prevents them from working for 15 hours or more per week. Sickness Allowance is a short-term payment for people who are employed or selfemployed, but who temporarily cannot work or study because of a medical condition. Special Benefit is a payment for people experiencing severe financial hardship for reasons outside their control who cannot receive any other social security pension or benefit. Healthcare Cards are available to people who receive other payments or allowances. (see DHS http://www.humanservices.gov.au/>) Government income support payments may be relied on as the only or main source of income on leaving a violent relationship and, for some women, they may be a significant source of income over a longer period. Low levels of income provided through the income support system to women (including those eligible for parenting payments) who leave violent relationships and for whom these payments may be a necessity—even if only in the short term—can be a barrier to women’s financial stability (Branigan 2007). Payments may be 28
insufficient to meet costs for women who have to re-establish a home and who may have legal, medical and other costs as well as debts arising from economic abuse and other domestic violence (Braaf & Barrett Meyering 2011). In recent years welfare reforms in Australia have been aimed at reducing ‘welfare dependency’ through increased conditionality of payments and increased requirements on people—including women with young children—to look for and engage in paid work as a condition of eligibility for payments. While women who have experienced domestic violence can apply for a temporary exemption from job search and other activity requirements (DHS 2011) the experiences of the women in Braaf and Barrett Meyering’s (2011) study indicate that this exemption may not be secured by many women. They report that none of the women in their study raised the exemption although the women were worried about their ability to comply with ‘welfare to work’ requirements due to lack of childcare, health issues, trauma and ongoing time commitments dealing with legal, medical and other matters. Some service workers in the study reported that the exemption is extremely difficult to gain. Other researchers and policy analysts have expressed concerns that ‘welfare to work’ initiatives are likely to increase marginalisation of women who have experienced domestic and family violence (Murray & Powell 2008). These are concerns which echo those expressed by researchers in the United States where there has been a longer experience of welfare reform characterised by temporary assistance and a focus on workforce participation (Tolman 2011). In that country there remain concerns that women may become more dependent on abusive partners because of reduced options for leaving relationships and also that the impacts of violence might limit women’s ability to comply with the welfare system’s work requirements (Tolman 2011). In Australia the interaction of the income support system and employment does not always support women’s long-term financial security as there can be few incentives to gain employment, including because increasing part-time work hours can result in a loss of overall income and in loss of access to benefits such as a Healthcare Card (ADFVC 2010). Further, recent changes restricting eligibility for parenting payment to parents with younger children are still to take full effect and this will see increasing numbers of sole parents with young children reliant on the lower levels of income support provided through Newstart payments made to job-seekers. Thus, while income support should be a positive secondary or tertiary intervention for families by providing protection against poverty, low levels of payments and conditionality may leave women ill-equipped to become economically secure at a time when they may also face multiple barriers to gaining security through employment participation. A recent initiative has extended the provisions for people receiving Centrelink payments to opt for payments to be made on a weekly rather than fortnightly basis (DHS 2012, accessed 7 July 2012 at ). This kind of flexibility has been seen as important for women experiencing family violence who may be managing a range of financial demands—as has the option for advance payments—and and there have been calls for these to be made more widely available (Good Shepherd Youth & Family Service, McAuley Community Services for Women & Kildonan UnitingCare 2011). There is an identified gap in regard to income support for women exiting domestic or family violence who may be ineligible for income support payments, including for Special Benefit which is provided to people in severe hardship but which is means and asset-tested. It has been argued that domestic and family violence should be included among the eligibility criteria for this payment (Good Shepherd Youth & Family Service 2011). In addition, women who are migrants and have arrived in Australia on a spouse visa may be ineligible to access income support payments on separating from a partner following domestic violence and they may also not be permitted to work. While a woman may be able to claim the Special Benefit, 29
Page 1 and 2: Spotlight on econo
Page 3 and 4: This literature review is written a
Page 5 and 6: List of Abbreviations Australian Bu
Page 7 and 8: Influences, impacts and points of i
Page 9 and 10: Currently, there are a number of ga
Page 11 and 12: Introduction This literature review
Page 13 and 14: Economic Abuse This section is conc
Page 15 and 16: elationships; sibling relationships
Page 17 and 18: A.2 Preventing acquisition of econo
Page 19 and 20: Diagram 1: Power and Control Wheel
Page 21 and 22: Economic abuse and elder abuse Econ
Page 23 and 24: studies, which concern different gr
Page 25 and 26: Figure 1: An ecological model of ec
Page 27 and 28: also parents and children and paid
Page 29 and 30: A recent qualitative study by the A
Page 31 and 32: 3) suggests the impacts of economic
Page 33 and 34: The connections between policies, f
Page 35 and 36: The establishment of a National Cou
Page 37: the Victorian Government commenced
Page 41 and 42: welfare payment and to encourage so
Page 43 and 44: The ALRC recommended a host of chan
Page 45 and 46: exclusion. In addition to increasin
Page 47 and 48: Conclusion: public policies and eco
Page 49 and 50: Legal and Regulatory Frameworks Aus
Page 51 and 52: a. DEEWR and Job Services Australia
Page 53 and 54: provide guidance materials for supe
Page 55 and 56: laws and a variety of other ‘soft
Page 57 and 58: for hardship, although as with the
Page 59 and 60: Employment Frameworks, Policies and
Page 61 and 62: Other initiatives that rely on enga
Page 63 and 64: Australian context where a strong f
Page 65 and 66: Financial education and asset build
Page 67 and 68: List of References Aboriginal Affai
Page 69 and 70: Banks, M 2011, Caught short: explor
Page 71 and 72: Dimopoulos, M 2010, Implementing le
Page 73 and 74: McCrystal, S & Smith, B 2011, 'Indu
Page 75 and 76: Sanders, CK & Schnabel, M 2007, 'Or
Page 77 and 78: Appendices APPENDIX A: Key policy d
Page 79: APPENDIX B: Economic abuse in the V

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