The Four Major Stages of the Australian Welfare State - Essay Example

Australian Welfare State Name: Institution: The Four Major Stages of the Australian Welfare State 1945 – 1971 – The Liberal, Conservative and Very Whiteman Years This is basically the post second world war period, during which the successive non-labor and labor governments initiated a number of transformative policies to mark the origin of the Australian Welfare. In terms of history, Australia has uniquely evolved its welfare system since the said origin through to the late yeas of the 20th century (Gray, 2011). The evolution of this welfare system can be related to the stamps of the welfare, which are also found in the development policies in the United Kingdom and United States of America, the two western worlds with which Australia most identifies with. This period of the welfare state was majorly about in the interpretations of the achievements of the labour government and the social characterization of the welfare state legislation. The Australian society was very watchful of the government and quite sensitive with racial issues, something that lead to the description of this period as the conservative years that were very liberal and very white-man. It is quite difficult to trace racial profiling historically per se but one can argue that the mind-set at this stage of the Australian welfare can hold as the origin and even cause of racial profiling that characterized the Australian society. At some point, the issue of race was evident even in the social policies so much that that its concept has surged through in recent years and it seems to be driving government policies at deferral levels. Much of the subject has been heavily experience in the United States of America. Thompson and Bobo (2011) postulate that the underlying and defining factor in it all is that the police have developed the mentality that individuals originating from poor African countries are more likely to present illnesses. From historical times, there are groups that had been considered to be inferior because of their race and skin colour. Just as an example, the famous Victoria Police Case only proves that racial profiling is not mythical but a real social issue occurring in the practices of contemporary law enforcement agencies including the police. Stereotyping does not become an issue until it is practiced by a government law enforcement authority in which case it now affects another person, then now stereotyping becomes a problems and social concern (Carmen, 2009). Typically yet also arguably, the idea of the Australian Welfare State arose out of political and economic, as well as social interests considerations as observed by the labour government in this period. This perspective goes on to postulate that the above mentioned welfare measures began with and entailed the National Insurance legislation of 1938 (Watts, 1983). The measure also considered including the Child Endowment in 1941 as well as the National Welfare proposals of 1943 (Watts, 1983), which were evident and planned implications of the strategies designed to resolve political and fiscal problems as much as they were concerned to introduce progressive social reforms (Watts, 1983). The first stage of the Australian welfare state can be summarized into the idea that the government explicitly emphasized on the ideology of making the welfare policy subordinate to the higher economic demands. As such, insertion of labour government initiatives into the welfare system was indicative of a liberal ideology. 1972-1975 – Universal Approaches and Reforms for the Economy In this period, the welfare became a central floorboard with an all-inclusive idea for the Australian society. The welfare adopted universalistic approaches in its system with advocacy for major economic and macro-economic reforms. There was also focus on a number of policies by the government, which included employment schemes, education and healthcare, among others. Education policy in the Australian context shaped the country’s education sector within the overlap of national and international contexts, with more interest on the life and stay of international students in Australia. The thought of educational policy is dependent on the ideological or philosophical point of reference of an individual. This detail necessitates the adoption of specific appropriate criterion for analysis and evaluation of a particular educational policy. This can be established by analysis of Australian policies of education as they relate to experience for international students in Australia. Application of a theoretical framework reveals much of the very radical, but often changing Australian education system (Kellner, 2003). The Australian government sort to define respective policies with an aim of improving the situation as it was, as well as setting a fair ground for all stakeholders of the industry. On the other hand, employment scheme in the country took a turn to focus more on the issue of work-life balance, since this as a welfare policy in the interest of the Australian people and society. It is a postulate that this period saw the coining of the diversity policy that Manfred and Holliday (2004) discuss in relation to work-life balance. A percentage of factors that lead to job losses are due to the inability to balance between the requirements of work and attention to personal life. The government took interest in the essence of work-life balance for productivity and performance of the citizens. Since high-level productivity and trustworthy credibility constitute the main aims and goals of a company. It is also the health care policies in this period that saw the concentration of the government on the major health issues that affected the Australian people. Consequential to these healthcare policies, the Australian government identified particular issues to prioritize in improving the health of Australian people, and on top of the list was the issue of skin cancer. In the Australian case, two out of three Australians are at the risk of being diagnosed with skin cancer by the time they hit 70 years of age (Staples et al. 2004). This suggests that skin cancer is more common in older Australians than it is amongst the youthful citizens. Age is therefore a risk factor of skin cancer in Australia. It affects the person’s probability of getting the disease. However it is nothing more than just a general factor to be taken into consideration when diagnosing for cancer. 1975-1983 Fraser- Liberal– Middle of the road liberal In this period, the Australian welfare gets concerned about the per capita income of the Australian nation. The income level of the families is so low that even running of the government becomes a challenge, hence the need to cut down on public spending. The realization come in the late years of the second stage and early years of this third stage, hence the essence of the transformative employment policies in the second stage of the welfare state. As such, the employment scheme policy in the second stage is carried forward to this stage with new ideas. First off, there is evidence of appreciation and need for universality in the welfare system and abolishment of the previously very conservative policies, hence the getting rid of Medibank. From the trends that the labour government observes in the Australian society, it gets convinced that the families and individuals are better of employed and working regardless of the low pays, rather than joblessness with continued claim for social security funds, to which they lest often contribute. The mentioned strategy to get a larger population of Australia was brought about by the Malcom Fraser government. It was not only meant to develop the nation’s economy but also to put an end to various economic frauds. To achieve this, the Fraser government put into action a number of regulations and strict rules in relation to social security funds, welfare state success and statistics of unemployment. These objectives were characterised by modernisation of systems in the labour government and the welfare system as well. Much of any transformations, developments or policies by the then government were with the aim of improving mechanisms related to the national economy and funding, so that only genuine cases within the society were eligible for any national benefits. Relative to this, Green (2008) mentions that the government concentrated more on eligibility of welfare recipients, as well as close monitoring of any public funds. The government’s interest was geared towards economic empowerment of families and individuals to increase level of financial independence. One may argue that this stage of the Australian welfare awakened the labour government and the Australian people, in general, to the idea that in the realm of post modernity, every individual desires to acquire a profession or at least possess some kind of paid work. Work, herein, refers to the service that an individual provides to another for purposes of generating income for themselves. On the other hand, a profession describes a group of disciplined individuals whose operations respect some standards of ethics. However, it is evident that the government prioritized less the difference between mere work and profession, and was focussed on getting more Australians, regardless of nativity, in employment to improve the economy. One could also argue that with the supposed modernization of systems in the labour government and the welfare state generally, the Australian nation recognized that money plays a vital role as the most valuable modern currency of exchange in trades. Two things; it was evident that healthy trade would positively impact individual, family and national economies, and the said trade strategies would succeed with a universal mind, all-inclusiveness and abolition of racially discriminative ideologies. Fraser’s idea of scrutinizing to distinguish the deserving from the undeserving recipients of benefits differentiates him form Whitlam who was in the first stages of the Australian welfare state where policies were very biased in favour of the native Australians. 1983-1996 – Howard This last stage of the welfare state development is considered to have been the most successful period in the history of the country, under the leadership of Howard. It is argued as so because the government that was in this period is credited with helping Australia to surge forward into becoming one of the world’s leading economies. The economic policies in the third phase might have set the stage for this focus but the transformative and more informed policies in the Howard government somehow rebuilt the prosperity of Australia regardless of previous mismanagement of the national economy by Hawke, which caused a bad recession. All of the known prominent economies of the world have had their governments implementing policies that monitor the economy during development, growth as well as during the fall downs. The necessity of the government’s involvement is employed to develop an approach of studying the status of the economy. According to Booner’s (2012) view, any society that relies on self-correction is basically pessimistic and has no definite countermeasures to economical breakdowns. America poses as a perfect study on matters of economy. Ideally, this stage of the Australian welfare state greatly influenced its own economic rationalism, which is the same factor that aroused new ideas around citizenship and welfare entitlement perspectives. Murphy (2006) describes this period as one in which Australia was transforming from, what he calls a social laboratory into a welfare laggard. The argument is that the welfare reforms were of a different style as they took to reconfigure certain appreciable arrangements to included areas that were not part of the welfare in the state of an employed wage earner. Such areas included unemployment and other work-related family benefits. Even more, is this period that so the establishment of The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Act of 1987 to help govern the welfare issues. Worth mentioning is that this act outlined the core areas of welfare provision depending on collected data, and the major areas of interest included care for the aged, child care and housing. This becomes interesting because it leaves out issues of education, economic empowerment of families and unemployment benefits, which were the core areas of interest in the previous stages of the welfare state. The welfare state was politically instigated initially but it was about betterment of the Australian society, which gives it a social element, hence the need for more socially sensitive policies. References Booner, B. (2012). This Is Why America Is Broke, Magazine Week 19 December 2012. Carmen, A. (2009). Profiling, Racial: Historical and contemporary perspectives. Encyclopaedia. of race and crime. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publication. Gray, M. (2011). The changing face of social welfare and social work in Australia. ERIS Web Journal, 2. Green, K. (2008). Child Poverty and Welfare Reform. Melbourne: Brotherhood of St. Laurence. Kellner, D. (2003). Towards a critical theory of education. Democracy & Nature, 9(1). Manfred, S. and Holliday, M. (2004). Work-Life Balance. Oxford: The Centre for Diversity Policy Research. Staples, M. Elwood, M. Burton, R. Williams, J. Marks. R. Giles, G. (2006). Non-melanoma skin cancer in Australia: the 2002 national survey and trends since 1985. Medical Journal of Australia, 6(10). Thompson, V. and Bobo, L. (2011). Race, Racial Attitudes and Stratification Beliefs: Evolving directions for Research and Policy, thinking about crime race and lay accounts of law breaking behaviour. 634 Annals, 16. Watts, R. W. (1983). The light on the hill: the origins of the Australian welfare state, 1935-1945. Parkville, Australia: The University of Melbourne. Read More