Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Social policy
clashes between Indigenous self-determination and hard paternalism. Design and
governance of the trial has empowered some Indigenous groups and communities
in the policy-making process, while other voices have been marginalised. Nevertheless,
this case study presents a conundrum for libertarians: to what extent can or
should Indigenous ‘communities’ (however defined) be free to choose and design
social policy for themselves, even if these social policies are paternalistic?
Conclusions
Social policy is a way of describing the actions and configuration of governments,
the family, markets and civil society in meeting the wellbeing of citizens and
residents. The formal and informal rules and regulations governing access to goods
and services create forms of inclusion and sites of exclusion. Invariably, the design
and implementation of social policies reflects and embeds value judgements about
the good life and the good society. As discussed throughout this chapter, the means
and ends of social policy are often controversial and highly contested. Political
debates frequently revolve around the overall size of the welfare funding envelope,
the shape of the welfare system, the forms of delivery and the identities of
‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ beneficiaries. Although Australia has a long history
of welfare conditionality, there has been an intensification of this in recent decades.
This has coincided with changing discourses around the role and impacts of
welfare, including an increased focus on the perceived toxic impacts of long-term
‘welfare dependency’. Where welfare was once viewed as an acceptable safety net
or fallback measure for alleviating poverty, it is now regularly described as a core
contributing factor to moral decay and decline.
The framing and reframing of welfare in Australian society has had, and
continues to have, a direct influence on how social policies are constructed,
implemented and monitored. Social policies themselves both reflect and are active
in the construction of these dominant narratives. They can be used as tools to
unite, enable and empower, but also to divide, govern and coerce. The history
and case studies contained in this chapter provide examples of this variability.
Debatesaroundtheseaspectsofsocialpolicywilllikelycontinueintothefuture,
as Australia rapidly defines and redefines its national identity in both domestic
and international contexts. Being alert to the changing contexts within which
social policy is discussed, designed and implemented is an important first step in
being able to deconstruct and question social policy objectives – critical factors in
ensuring robust democratic debate among students and scholars of social policy,
but also among practitioners, beneficiaries and the wider public.
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