Shifting narratives about poverty in Australia
This is the final post of a 3-part series by Sharon Bessell and Cadhla O’Sullivan from the Children’s Policy Centre at ANU. Today’s post covers welfare policy narratives of individual blame and how they don’t reflect the reality of children’s lives. Read parts 1 and 2 here.
The way we talk about social issues matters in shaping attitudes and influencing policy responses. Policy narratives craft evidence of various kinds into stories that not only explain a social issue but lead to particular conclusions about how it should be addressed. Narratives are essential in the battle for ideas; a good story can determine which issues are accorded political priority and how they are dealt with.
In this third piece on our More for Children research, we explore how narratives about poverty in Australia have been crafted to blame individuals and focus attention away from the structural causes. We also look at recent shifts in narratives – and explain why we need to shift the narrative further, if we are to end child poverty in this wealthy country.
Narratives of blame: the undeserving individual
Policy narratives have four core elements: (i) a setting that places them within a policy context; (ii) characters, including victims, villains and heroes; (iii) a plot; and (iv) a moral that points towards specific policy actions.
The narrative around poverty in Australia – and child poverty in particular – has changed over time. In the 1987 election campaign, Bob Hawke famously committed to addressing child poverty in Australia – initiating a story whereby government has responsibility for ensuring children and their families are supported. Yet this storyline was not fully consistent with greater compliance activities required of people receiving government benefits.
Under the Howard Government, narratives that blame individuals and avoid government responsibility became dominant. Central to this narrative was ‘mutual obligation’ and new language was introduced. Welfare dependency was cast as the villain and hard-working Australians (often described as ‘battlers’) were heroes. Labour force participation was valorised, and the moral of the story was that people in need of working age government benefits must comply with often punitive conditions. Sole-parent, usually sole-mother, families were singled out for criticism. Children, when they appeared in narratives of blame at all, were cast as victims – most powerfully demonstrated by the Northern Territory Intervention.
Successive governments on both sides of politics continued narratives that placed responsibility for welfare on individuals, while presenting the role of the state as creating opportunity. The unequal nature of social and economic structures was written out of these narratives. Increasingly harsh conditionality failed to treat recipients of government benefits with dignity or respect. The 2014 federal budget deepened the blame narrative, through punitive policies and language of ‘lifters and leaners.’ Narratives of individual blame and moral tales of protecting tax-payers from ‘leaners’ enabled the policy decisions that resulted in Robodebt.
Within narratives of individual blame, there was no place for plotlines that illuminated the structural causes of poverty and the ways in which systems fail children and their families.
Children’s narratives of doing it tough
The aim of the More for Children research is to understand the causes of child poverty in order to bring about more effective, supportive, and child-centred policies and services. In asking children to share their experiences of life when it is good and when it is tough, we heard very different narratives, with characters recast in ways that centre care and love, as well as the everyday and longer-term impacts of poverty.
When asked what makes life good, children consistently described the importance of their families – and particularly parents and/or those who care for them. Children described life as tough when money is short, there is not enough food, housing is insecure or inadequate, and it is hard to get to the places they need to go. A twelve-year old boy described supporting his mum as she went from charity to charity to ask for food and other essentials; another said ‘I have such happy memories of when I had a home.’ A 10-year old girl explained that when her older sister left school and began working, her family had a little more money and were able to stay warm in winter. The heartbreaking stories of individual children go on and on – but the common theme is the ways in which systems are failing children and their families.
Narratives of individual blame, welfare conditionality, and mutual obligation, developed over decades, either rendered children as victims of their parents’ bad choices or rendered them entirely invisible. The policy decisions accompanying those narratives abandoned children and their families. One consequence that we heard from many children is a lack of hope. When asked what her message to adult decision-makers would be, an 11-year-old girl wrote ‘please give children with no opportunity some hope.’ A 10-year-old boy described his fears for the future as not having a job, not being able to earn enough money, being sacked, and losing his livelihood. These fears arose from his parents’ experiences of precarious work and low pay, and his family’s experiences of homelessness.
When we listen deeply to children’s experiences of poverty, the narrative is recast. The context is one of structural inequities and systems that fail to support children and their families. Parents and other adults who provide children with care and support are the heroes but there are few victims, as children describe their families as trying to do the best with what they have. The plot children describe is shaped by the joy of play and fun, love for parents, families, pets and friends – and also by deep worry about making ends meet now and in the future and a sense that they have no support beyond their families. The moral to be taken from this narrative is not that those who experience poverty and need support should be further punished. Rather, it is the question of what kind of society we want – and whether we are prepared to allow one in six children to live in income poverty, and many more to live close to poverty.
Reframing the narrative
The need for a new narrative becomes urgent when we think about the world from the standpoint of children. It is hard to listen to children’s experiences and maintain support for punitive responses to poverty or justify policies and services that fail to ensure all children have a decent standard of living. When we listen to children, the nature of inequality and the reality of poverty is brought into focus, and narratives of individual blame seem only to reflect a society that is failing its collective responsibility.
Recent shifts towards centring wellbeing suggest positive changes in storylines – but only, as we argued in the second of the three articles on the More for Children research – if reducing, and ultimately ending poverty is prioritised as essential to securing wellbeing for all. And only if policies and measurements of wellbeing are child-inclusive. Changes to single parent payments and the winding back of some especially punitive aspects of welfare conditionality also signal important shifts. Yet, we need far deeper commitment to children, particularly those in middle childhood who are often overlooked by policies and services beyond those focusing on school.
New narratives that place children at the centre, listen to their experiences, and commit to act in their best interests are essential to ending child poverty – and in the process, we may create a more caring, connected and compassionate society for all.
Content moderator: @DrSophieYates