Social Security and Safety: Social Participation and Poverty

1
Social Security and Safety Social Participation
and Poverty

• By Dr Elspeth McInnes AM
• SACOSS 2006

2
Social Security Safety

• 2 points to argue
• Gaining and maintaining income support is
  critical for the social participation of
  vulnerable individuals, but increasingly
  difficult under current work-first federal
  policy approach.
• Safety is critical to social participation
  strategies. Violence in relationships, families
  and streets is a driver of poverty - reducing
  capacity and increasing costs.Violence reduction
  is fundamental to building social participation
  and reducing poverty.

3
Gaining Income Support

• Claimants increasingly required to identify
  correct payment for their circumstances.
• 8 week waiting period if claimant has voluntarily
  left a job or been dismissed for misconduct or
  refused a reasonable job offer.
• Liquid Assets Waiting Period applies if more than
  2500 cash adverse impact on people receiving
  lump sums including child support arrears,
  property settlements, compensation payments,
  Family Tax Benefit payments.

4
Harder to Qualify

• Single parents and people with disabilities have
  more restricted access to Parenting Payment and
  Disability Support Payment.
• PPS age of qualifying child reduced from 16 to 8
  from July 1 2006 with increased activity testing
  once child is 6.
• DSP claimants assessed prospectively whether
  likely to work 15 hours in 2 years time.
  Assessors may have no expertise in the claimants
  specific disability area.
• Newstart Allowance has lower rate, activity
  requirements, higher clawback on earnings and
  limited recognition of parenting demands.
• Where both parents share care and claim income
  support, only one can be recognised as the
  Principal Carer and the other has no
  protections for parenting demands.

5
Harder to Maintain

• Payments can be suspended for non-compliance with
  activity requirements.
• 3 strikes in 12 months 8 weeks no payment.
• Claimants have to present a reasonable excuse
  for non-compliance discretionary assessment.
• Claimants have to actively seek exemptions from
  activity testing if they are unable to cope with
  requirements due to illness, domestic violence,
  or special circumstances.
• Cancer sufferers, homeless mums fleeing DV,
  people with mental illness having to effectively
  self-advocate at a point of crisis.

6
Welfare to Workfare

• Lower payments retained earnings
• Increased requirements
• Increased opportunities to reduce or stop
  payments
• Reduced support for education and training
• Fewer legislated protections more discretion
• Limited exemptions, short-term, poorly defined
• Reduced privacy for claimants information
  sharing between Centrelink Job Network
• DEWR appealing all SSAT decisions supporting
  claimants

7
Vulnerable Entrepreneurs

• Social security system was developed to support
  vulnerable citizens in times of need due to loss
  of work, loss of health or caring demands.
• Poor health, family violence, family breakdown,
  injury, disability etc mean people need to seek
  support, but have to be literate, informed,
  active, and entrepreneurial in their relationship
  to the income support system.
• That is, the very characteristics or
  circumstances which create vulnerability and
  need, now increasingly make it harder for the
  person to gain and maintain income support.
• The ideal welfare subject has been transformed
  from a person needing assessment and assistance,
  to one who is informed and recognises and
  self-advocates for their income support (eg
  educated, healthy, literate).

8
The Significance of Safety

• Experiences of violence or abuse are drivers of
  poverty at an individual, family and community
  level (McInnes 2001).
• Adult individuals experience physical and
  psychological injury. Repeated events and/or
  prolonged exposure to violence increases the risk
  of chronic injury or condition.
• In addition to the above, children have
  heightened risks of developmental learning
  disorders.
• Anxiety, depression and addictive behaviour
  disorders increase with exposures to violence
  (Chilcoat Breslau 1998).
• Vichealth study (2004) finds partner violence
  against women to be the single biggest cause of
  illness, injury and death for women aged 15-45.

9
Poverty Outcomes of Violence

• Increased short long term physical mental
  health problems.
• Increased health costs.
• Reduced capacity to learn and/or earn.
• Higher care needs of children.
• Property damage or loss.
• Relocation costs loss of support networks.
• Legal costs.
• Compounding poverty effects.

10
Prevalence of Violence

• 11 men, 6 women experienced physical or sexual
  violence in the previous 12 months.
• 4 of males physically assaulted in the last 12
  months were assaulted by a current or previous
  female partner in the most recent incident, and
  74 by a male stranger.
• 31 of females physically assaulted in the last
  12 months were assaulted by a current or previous
  male partner and 15 by a male stranger.
• Men perpetrated violence three times more often
  than women.
• 50 men and 40 women experienced violence since
  15.
• 36 of women who were pregnant while in a
  relationship with a violent previous partner
  reported violence during the pregnancy.
• 61 of those reporting previous partner violence
  had children in their care and 36 said these
  children had witnessed the violence.
• 10 of women and 9.4 of men reported physical
  abuse before 15.
• 12 of women and 4.5 of men reported sexual
  abuse before 15. (ABS 2006).

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Distribution of Violence

• Accumulation in low-income areas due to
• Poverty impacts of violence
• Consequent higher reliance on income support
• Availability of affordable housing
• Inter-generational exposure
• Fewer resources to increase safety
• High density traumatised population experience
  violence, witness violence, perpetrate violence
  survival.

12
Violence Reduction and Social Participation

• Violence reduction reduced trauma, injury,
  death, physical and mental illness, child abuse,
  substance and gambling addictions, property
  damage, crime.BUT
• 50 of SAAP clients are women and children
  fleeing DV. Half are turned away due to lack of
  service capacity.
• Child protection services are rationed with a
  minority of reports actively investigated and a
  shortage of services for children needing
  out-of-home care.

13
Strategies for Positive Change

• Increased shelter services
• Increased focus on perpetrator removal and
  remediation
• Increased access to therapeutic services for
  adult and child victims and perpetrators of
  violence
• Increased parenting support services
• Skilling human services professionals in
  recognising and responding to effects of violence
  on adults and children
• Prioritisation of safety first in family violence
  responses
• Legal reform to improve family law and criminal
  justice system responses to family violence
• Community development initiatives which promote
  family engagement and networks

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References

• Australian Bureau of Statistics, (2006) Personal
  Safety Survey, Catalogue Number 4906.0, Canberra,
  AGPS.
• Chilcoat, H. and Breslau, N., (1998)
  Investigations of Causal Pathways between PTSD
  and Drug Use Disorders, Addictive Behaviours,
  23 (6) 827-840.
• Heenan, M., Astbury, J. Vos, T., Magnus, A. and
  Piers, L. (2004), The Health Costs of Violence
  Measuring the Burden of disease caused by
  Intimate Partner Violence, VicHealth, Victoria
  Department of Human Services, Melbourne.
• McInnes, E., (2001a) Single Mothers, Social
  Policy and Gendered Violence, paper presented at
  Seeking Solutions, Domestic Violence and Sexual
  Assault Conference, Gold Coast, September 6-7.
• Taft, A. (2003) Promoting Womens Mental Health
  The Challenges of Intimate/Domestic Violence
  Against Women, Issues Paper No. 8, Australian
  Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse,
  Sydney, UNSW.