published in Green Left as "Literacy, History and Blaming the Victim"; 10 March 1999, pp.9,12

Prime Minister Howard's Federation Address on 28 January in Brisbane left many human service workers wondering whether his concept of "mutual responsibility" knew any bounds. Howard foreshadowed decreasing young people's unemployment payments if they "continued to remain illiterate and innumerate". Had he bothered to ask, any educator could have told him that no young person wilfully and deliberately sets out to fail to learn how to read and count. But observers should not be surprise by the Prime Minister's utterances on young unemployed people- they are part of the fine tradition of the Australian welfare system.

There has been an essentially conservative thread running through the provision of income support provided by the Australian welfare state since Federation. This is so despite Australian welfare provisions being described, in the early part of this century by European welfare experts, as a socialist experiment. The first income support payments made by the Federal Government in 1909 were age and disability pensions and until 1927 they were paid by Treasury.

Asian Australians (until the 1940s) and Aborigines (until the late 1960s) were not entitled to payment of these pensions. At the turn of the century, the age of entitlement of 65 for men closely approximated the average age of death . In order to qualify for either the age or disability pension one needed to establish oneself as being of "good moral character". Such requirements remained part of the Social Security system until Bill Hayden became Minister for Social Services in the Whitlam Government.

In relation to unemployment payments, the need for applicants to establish their essentially worthy nature has been more stark. During the 1930s Depression, in order to qualify for the Susso, men had to undertake make work schemes designed by local authorities. In many places they were also required to move from town to town each fortnight to get their rations. In the 1970s Nugget Coombs and others re-established such make work for the dole schemes on Aboriginal communities, where they continue to this day as the Community Development Employment Program (CDEP.)

Concerned by the prospect of fully trained soldiers returning home to unemployment after fighting for King and Country, Chifley set out to ensure there would be work for nearly everyone and unemployment benefits for those for whom no work could be found. The 1947 Social Security legislation brought together in one bill many payments such as child endowment, widows, sickness and unemployment which had gradually been added to the age, and disability payments Even though this legislation for its time was regarded as progressive and comprehensive, each applicant for payment needed to establish an individual eligibility which depended not only on their fitting the main criteria but also meeting other social requirements.

The unemployed had to, apart from being of good moral character, meet the work test which required them to be fit, able and ready for work. Most of the time, from the end of the Second World War until 1974 the level of unemployment remained around 1% and the unemployed did not figure largely in the scheme of things. But when unemployment, and particularly youth unemployment began to climb in the last year of the Whitlam Government Clive Cameron and Bill Hayden started trotting out cliches about "dole bludgers" and "work shy lion tamers".

Fraser continued in this fine tradition of blaming the unemployed for the failure of the state and industry to find a use for their labour or to educate them for the work that was available. The mutterings of Hayden and Cameron about unemployed became a tirade against "dole bludgers" waged by Fraser and his ministers.

Whilst the attacks on the unemployed and particularly the young unemployed were becoming shriller, there were continuing efforts to improve the comprehensiveness and generosity of other income support provisions. Given these and the Arbitration Commission coverage, Australia could, as Professor Frank Castles suggested, reasonably be described as "a Worker's Welfare State".

In the early years of the Hawk Government, driven by Don Grimes, there was continued expansion in both income support and disability services. Brian Howe's taking over of Social Security coincided with the start of the cutbacks in human service provision and particularly income support. It was no coincidence that unemployment was rising. The Depart of Social Security in it 1986 Annual Report boasted " thought there will be more unemployed in 1987 there will be fewer people paid unemployment benefit" as a result of increased targeting.

The rate of the youth unemployment benefit did not rise during Fraser's 7 years in office. Hawk initially increased unemployment payments to young people but was soon to loose interest in restoring the real value of the benefit level they had experienced under Whitlam. The Labor Government increased targeting (tightened eligibility) and collapsed several payments into one in a way which ensured the lowest amount was paid. Usually it was the young who missed out. Howard replicated this technique with his, oh so, Common Youth Allowance and his merging of the Aboriginal Study Scheme into Austudy in 1998. Also in that year Howard abolished unemployment payments to 16-18 year olds.

During the late 1980s, as the rate of unemployment rose there emerged signs that the voters were taking the threat of unemployment seriously. Labor leaders stepped up the vitriol in their attacks on the unemployed and started talking about "reciprocal responsibility". In the wake of the Green Paper, Working Nation, under Labor this meant that in return for income support those who were unemployed were required to do more than pass the work test: they had to undertake training or some other approved activity and the unemployed would in return be offered work, after 18 months of unemployment.

Labor had considered but rejected a general return to the 1930s Susso type work for the dole schemes. In1998, Howard, influenced by the New Zealand conservatives' introduction of a Work for the Dole scheme began to implement his thesis on "mutual obligation". His actions have replicated the cutbacks the New Zealand conservatives have made to their arbitration and welfare systems. Governments on both sides of the Tasman have been influenced by the American "Workfare rather than welfare" rhetoric and by the fear of "dutiless rights" articulated by the British Conservative David Green.

Howard's latest attack on social welfare provision by decreasing the amount of benefit paid to illiterate and innumerate young applicants for unemployment payments derives out of that deep conservative distrust of the poor. Whether it is expressed in terms of "dutiless right", "reciprocal obligation", "mutual obligation", "getting something for nothing" or in the Australian vernacular "bludging on the system" it amounts to the same thing.

It is not surprising that Howard specifically singled out the young illiterate people - he did that with his Work for the Dole scheme before preparing to extend it to older Australians. Howard knows that political attacks on the young go down a treat with many older Australians.

There is a different order in the Howard Government's decision to specifically target young people with reading and learning difficulties. The people who will suffer from this policy initiative are the least skilled, least schooled, least powerful, migrant, indigenous, marginalised, intellectually disabled and poorest members of this society.

They are the group least likely to vote Liberal if they vote at all. What ever happens to them they are the group least likely to benefit from the educational and technical revolutions of the next millennium.

The policy is interesting in another regard and that is the class based interpretation of work. In Australia since the 1940's applicants for unemployment benefit have had to show a willingness to work- any form of work. This new policy ignores the fact that many jobs, still needing to be done, do not require them to be done by people who are able to read, write or count. The demand for worker to do those jobs may have decreased but such jobs still exist in considerable numbers. This policy down grades the dignity of all labour done by people without reading skills.