At the weekend the Prime Minister spoke about the JobSeeker allowance and the factors to be considered when reviewing its present doubled rate. He claimed anecdotal evidence that some employees were declining jobs because it was more attractive to accept JobSeeker, and that this needed to be weighed in any decision. This claim and the publicity given to it in the Murdoch press suggested that the air was being tested for a reduction of the rate after the Eden Monaro by-election, justified by the familiar representation of the unemployed as work-shy and socially degenerate.
It is worth reflecting more broadly on the responsibilities of Government entailed in the JobSeeker allowance, and to separate these from the rhetoric surrounding it.
The basic responsibility of government is to govern for the good of all citizens, and particularly the most vulnerable. This means promoting economic and legal settings that encourage people to work and guarantee the security and just recompense of their work. It also means enabling those who cannot work with the means to live and raise families decently. In both these tasks the actions of government must respect the human dignity of people who are often regarded as a burden on society.
Seen from this perspective the JobSeeker allowance is deceptively named. It conflates two distinct though related responsibilities of government: to promote participation in the workforce by matching jobs available to people seeking them, and to provide for those who cannot work, either because there is no work available or because their mental or physical health does not allow them to work. (The latter are catered for through disability payments.) The payments that discharge the responsibility to promote participation can correctly be called JobSeeker. The payments that discharge the responsibility to people who are unable to work through no fault of their own are better called social service payments.
The rhetoric that accompanies JobSeeker implies that the value of persons lies in the contribution through work that they make to society; that it is the responsibility of individual persons to support themselves; and that work is available for anyone who seeks it. On these presuppositions the government has no moral obligation to make payments to people who cannot find work. Such payments are a donation, made reluctantly, to which onerous and humiliating conditions can be attached.
Because the government does not accept responsibility for ensuring that all its citizens can live decently, it has no