If you have had dealings with Centrelink over pension or welfare support, you know how daunting it can be. It is made difficult.
If you telephone them, you may wait for hours.
If you visit the office, you will queue for ages.
Despite this, many members of staff in Centrelink were concerned about the effect of Robodebt on their clients, many regularly harassed by debt collectors.
One member of Centrelink staff, Colleen Taylor, gave evidence to the Royal Commission.
She addressed her concerns to the head of the Department of Human Services in 2017 but was brushed aside.
She resigned and gave evidence to the Royal Commission, stating that it was a lie “that people did not commit suicide due to robodebt.” [The Guardian, 6 July 2023 ]
Roughly 443,000 Australians received Robodebt notices. [ABC News, 8 July 2023]
More than 2030 people died after receiving a Centrelink debt notice according to Department of Human Services data released in 2019. Of those, 429 – roughly one-fifth – were aged under 35. [ABC Triple J, 18 February 2019]
Attitudes to Welfare Support
There is a long established attitude amongst conservatives that poverty is the individual’s fault.
Commissioner Holmes in the Robodebt Report exposed this type of thinking.
“There are different mindsets one can adopt in relation to social welfare policy,” she says.
“One is to recognise that many citizens will at different times in their lives need income support on a temporary basis…” This is given with respect for the individual.
“An alternative approach is to regard those in receipt of social security benefits as a drag on the national economy, an entry on the debit side of the budget to be reduced by any means available: … by minimising the availability of assistance from departmental staff, by clawing back benefits whether justly or not, and by generally making the condition of the social security recipient unpleasant and undesirable. The Robodebt scheme exemplifies the latter.” [ABC News, 8 July 2023]
We can see in this attitude an echo of the attitude to the ‘undeserving poor’ which was dominant in Victorian England and an echo of the fringe doctrine of the prosperity gospel.
Although the prosperity gospel, the health and wealth gospel, is popular with many desperately poor, it is also popular with the elite.
Its attraction for the rich, according to the Harvard University Divinity School, is that its messages affirm “….the religious and spiritual legitimacy of wealth accumulation and reinforce a worldview in which financial success is an indicator of moral soundness.”
The dark side of this doctrine is that if wealth and financial success are marks of ‘moral soundness,’ then poverty is a mark of the opposite.
Islam and Welfare Support
While Islam clearly recommends faith plus self-reliance, rather than reliance upon external support, help for the needy was made mandatory from the beginning.
“Seek out the vulnerable for me, for you are only given provision and divine support due to your care for the vulnerable.” [Hadith: Sunan Abī Dāwūd 2594]
The claim that adequate welfare support for the needy is too expensive for our society to bear is a lie.
Anglicare commissioned a study which found that “..major tax concessions totalling $135 billion per year were costing the budget more than the four main welfare payments — the aged pension, family assistance payments, disability benefits and Newstart — combined. “
It also found that around half the tax concessions flow to the wealthiest 20 per cent, while only $6.1 billion went to the bottom 20 per cent. [ABC News, 26 June 2018]
To accord with Islam we must respect the intrinsic dignity of all human beings for the Quran [17:70] specifies that we have been honoured above a greater part of Creation.
And we must oppose injustice and corruption even if we are hated for it.
“O you who believe! Stand out firmly for Allah as witnesses to fair dealing and let not the hatred of others for you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just: that is next to piety: and fear Allah for Allah is well-acquainted with all that you do.” [Quran: 5:9]
The report can be found online. <https://robodebt.royalcommission.gov.au/publications/report>
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