Ever since the news officially broke last week that Jenny Macklin and co are planning to broaden the reach of income management, I’ve been waiting for the usual suspects to start screaming “nanny state”!
By the usual suspects, I mean those who trot out this much abused and overused term whenever there is any attempt to take public health action, especially when it involves taking on powerful interests such as the tobacco, alcohol, and junk food industries.
But, surprise, surprise, nanny has been keeping an extremely low profile.
Yet income management — unlike efforts to create healthier environments for all people — is in fact the ultimate in nannyism as it means taking away some fundamental rights.
One type of policy action — restrictions on advertising of tobacco, alcohol, and junk food, for example — is about making healthier choices easier for everyone; the other is about bloating bureaucratic power and taking away the choices and freedoms of some individuals.
The public health policies that are so often derided by the nanny-pushing naysayers are usually based on sound evidence that they will improve the population’s health.
On the other hand, some of Australia’s leading health equity experts have warned that there is not strong evidence to support the health or social benefits of income management, and believe there is real potential for it to cause significant harms.
Some in the public health field, such as the University of Sydney’s Professor Stephen Leeder, see the nanny paradox as a reflection of ideological differences. He says: “Those who wish to be conservative in regard to their own freedom to buy what they want without government let or hindrance will also be conservative when it comes to the use of their taxes for income supplementation of others. That’s ideology.”
But perhaps it also comes to down to an “us” and “them” mentality. It’s OK for the state to intrude roughly into the lives of Aboriginal people and disadvantaged groups.
But the rest of “us” are quite able to manage our own lives, thank you very much, and don’t need any help with problems such as obesity, binge drinking etc (although the stats show that quite obviously we do). And, of course, it’s only those “others” who ever do dreadful things such as abuse their children.
Then there’s the issue of political power. It’s far easier for governments to impose tough sanctions on the powerless than on the powerful industries whose healthy bottom lines come at a cost to the community’s health.
Recently at Croakey, I wrote a plea for us to bury nanny in order to enable a smarter, more sophisticated public debate about health.
Please don’t think that I’m now arguing she should be revived. Rather than invoking nanny, let’s at least have an informed discussion about income management rooted in some sensible analysis of its potential benefits and costs, including the likely harms.
• For the views of leading public health experts on nanny and income management, see Croakey.
Whenever Income Management (IM) is discussed it is almost invariably glanced over that on “Prescribed” areas (such as the one I live in) IM is applied to ALL Centrelink recipients (or as they call them “clients”).
Here we have two Order of Australia medal recipient pensioners and two non-Indigenous retired nuns on IM.
IM is applied whether you are guilty of anything or not, whether you know how to look after your money or not, whether you have any children to support or not. The NTER (Northern Territory Emergency Response) has tarred us all with the same brush. A propaganda barrage from FaCSIAH and Minister Macklin claims it is working. The implication is that children and women on Yuendumu have been deprived of fruit and vegetables and healthy food for decades and that the NTER has come to the rescue. Nothing is further from the truth; the NTER is tearing at the social fabric of these communities which are thoroughly disempowered and demoralised. The patronisation and taking of control and the complete lack of real communication has to be witnessed to be believed.
“In Australia, our ways have mostly produced disaster for the Aboriginal people. I suspect that only when their right to be distinctive is accepted, will policy become creative”… Kim Beazley Sr.
This article seems to conflate two quite different situations. When governments intervene in the private lives of citizens and try to influence the way in which people spend income they’ve earned for themselves, through private means – this is rightly called nannying.
However, money taken from taxpayers and then given out in the form of welfare is a whole different kettle of fish. If you’re taking money from the government, you have to accept some “nannying”, because governments have a responsibility to make sure taxpayer-generated money isn’t being wasted. If you don’t want the hassle, don’t take the money.
Mark’s right, unfortunately. Racist, yes, if one racial group is treated different to another (or geographical areas selected by racial demographics). But it’s the welfare in the first place that is the nannying, not the manner in which it is given. All welfare one way or another requires the recipient to get down on his knees and humble himself before the all-powerful, all-gracious government.
Aboriginal living allowances should be re-configured as compensation. That’s what it really is. If a people have lost their way of feeding themselves, due to catastrophic disruption of their old economy and resources, then they deserve something to tide them over while they adjust. This should be seen as payment of damages, a bit like what you get from workers’ compensation when workplace injury takes away your livelihood.
So old age pensions are “welfare” taken from taxpayers?
“Nannying” fair enough. Imposing a highly innefficient bureaucracy on people that are forever being portrayed as “disadvantaged” social basket cases that only have themselves to blame for the “Gap” between them and our wonderful society because they are incapable and/or refuse to join the mainstream is another matter.
Income Management in practice is not “management” by any stretch of the imagination. It is demeaning and demoralising and does very little towards solving the “problems” that were used as an excuse to introduce it. The cost of administering IM, I believe exceeds the actual amount of money being “managed”.
In Yuendumu not a single house has been built under the SIHIP programme, but guess what? We’re getting a new Centrelink building! Money taken from taxpayers and then paid out to consultants and outside contractors. Money they will earn for themselves, through private means.
If FaCSIAH were a nanny she would have been replaced long ago.
The reasoning behind nannying would be seen for what it is if it was proposed that politicians’ and judges’ pensions were to be similarly treated.
I have had immense respect for Stephen Leeder’s work for several decades. He has been responsible for many improvements in healthcare delivery and has consistently placed wellness above sickness on his priorities – ie public health is the main game, rather than solely public medicine.
Sad to say, there never seems to be any good news from the NT bush. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”