Doing Something About Nothing: A Note on the Australian Government's Response to Dole Fraud1

Pemberton, Alec

doi:10.1177/144078338001600308

Cited by 1 publication

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“…Whilst there are tensions within this alliance, both neoliberals and neoconservatives reject Universalist approaches to welfare provision and share a belief in individual responsibility for unemployment. Unsurprisingly then, 'pruning' the wasteful elements of the welfare state became a core policy of the Fraser Government (Pemberton 1980).…”

Section: The Rise Of Risk In Australian Social Security Compliancementioning

confidence: 99%

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Policing Welfare: Risk, Gender and Criminality

Wilcock

2016

Int J for Crime, Justice & Social Democracy

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Over the last three decades, welfare states across the West have embraced a host of new technologies and initiatives in the name of fighting welfare abuse and fraud (see Cook 1989Cook , 2006Wacquant 2001Wacquant , 2009). Increasingly, these practices of 'welfare policing' are graduated according to risk; particular welfare populations considered at greater risk of welfare fraud are subject to more intense scrutiny. Drawing on interview research with compliance staff from the Australian Department of Human Services, this paper critically explores how the rationality of risk figures in the process of welfare surveillance in Australia. It pays particular attention to the ways in which risk formulations are embedded in gender and class politics, and how this has led to the characterisation of single mothers and unemployed recipients as more 'risky' than the general welfare population, a point that is often overlooked in the literature. But, far from being immutable, this paper also considers how the politics of risk are open to reformulation with often unexpected results. Keywords

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Section: The Rise Of Risk In Australian Social Security Compliancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Perhaps ironically, attempts to reduce the costs of welfare coincided with a massive redeployment of state resources to scrutinise and monitor welfare recipients (Pemberton 1980). In 1977, specialist Benefit Control sections were established to investigate noncompliance and fraud.…”

Section: The Rise Of Risk In Australian Social Security Compliancementioning

confidence: 99%

Policing Welfare: Risk, Gender and Criminality

Wilcock

2016

Int J for Crime, Justice & Social Democracy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Doing Something About Nothing: A Note on the Australian Government's Response to Dole Fraud1

Cited by 1 publication

References 2 publications

Policing Welfare: Risk, Gender and Criminality

Policing Welfare: Risk, Gender and Criminality

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