It was greatly disappointing to see both the Government and Coalition support the expansion of income management measures in the biggest change to Australia’s system of social security since the Second World War.

Minister Jenny Macklin used an article in The Australian on Monday 21, June 2010 to defend the Government’s decision to push ahead with the expansion of this program. In the article she continued to focus on Aboriginal communities and people living in the Northern Territory and failed to mention the laws make no restriction on where the punitive measures can be applied across Australia.

The Minister continues to claims the laws are aimed at ‘breaking the vicious cycle of welfare dependency’, by ensuring ‘welfare should not be a destination or a way of life’.

However, a close look at the on-the-ground impacts of her policies on Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory shows that this is anything but the case.

It is misleading for the Government to claim that indiscriminate mandatory income management is ‘…all about human dignity’.

There is no dignity in having control of your day to day finances micromanaged by Centrelink, or in queuing separately to other people at the supermarket.

There is no dignity in queuing up at Centrelink to seek permission for any additional purchases you might want to make, or being forced to justify your decision to buy a fridge or a washing machine.

The Minister’s references to dignity continue when speaking about families, claiming the measures will increase parental responsibility and the aspirations of our children.

The reality of this law is that it doesn’t matter whether or not your children are going to school each day, or indeed whether you even have children at all.

People will now be indiscriminately penalised simply for being on a particular payment and living in the wrong area.

For parents subject to these measures, the onus is on them to prove they are good parents to be exempted from the quarantining, basically your on until you prove you should be off. Where is the dignity in that?

I cannot understand how seeing their parents humiliated and unable to exercise control over their own lives will encourage children to develop great aspirations.

The Minister talks of ‘the dignity of earning a pay cheque, of learning the skills to get a job’.

In reality, this has been the opposite for many people who used to hold what they considered to be ‘real’ jobs under the CDEP scheme.

The vast majority of these jobs have been lost or will be lost in the near future, as people are moved off CDEP wages onto income-managed welfare payments and sporadic work-for-the-dole schemes.

Meanwhile, many of the services in these communities, which relied on CDEP workers to support their woefully inadequate budgets, have shut down or are simply failing to cope with demand.

For many of the men in these communities who were proud of the work they used to do, this has been a tragic blow to their self-esteem. This is further reinforced by the large sign at the gates of their communities that tell the world they are child abusers and alcoholics.

The Minister claims that the passage of this legislation ends the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act and removes the ‘blight on Australia’s reputation as the land of the fair go’.

As the Parliament heard very clearly from the human rights experts and community organisations that provided evidence to the Senate Inquiry, this is not the case.

This legislation does not fully restore the RDA nor does it comply with our international human rights obligations.

It is misleading to imply the RDA in its entirety was suspended, a point that has confused and upset a number of Aboriginal communities.

In fact, the RDA continued to operate for all other acts of racial discrimination other than those contained in the Northern Territory Emergency Response laws.

The partial suspension protected the Government from legal actions against its actions under the intervention, such as income quarantining or the compulsory acquisition of land.

In reality, the successful passage of these new laws will not make any practical difference for those already affected.

The Government will be allowed to continue these discriminatory actions, and it is clear that these laws will inevitably lead to legal challenges and to further international censure of Australia’s human rights by the United Nations.

The passage of these laws extends the ability of the Government to remove the rights of those on income support payments in other disadvantaged communities around the nation.

What the Minister failed to mention in her editorial was that these are national laws that give her the ability to declare a disadvantaged community anywhere in Australia.

There is nothing in the legislation that limits these actions only to Aboriginal Communities or the Northern Territory, despite these being the clear target of her article. 

While the Minister has said that this will not be expanded for two years, all it takes is a change of heart or a change of government and these laws could be rolled out Australia-wide.

This passed through the Parliament with little public awareness and the only voice of opposition was the Greens. Now only time can tell how seriously this will impact on disadvantaged Australian families and how seriously it will erode that good-old Aussie 'fair go'…