The new governance of Australian welfare: street-level contingencies
The new governance of Australian welfare: street-level contingencies
This chapter serves as a report on the findings of an ethnographic study about the street-level experiences of welfare reform in Centrelink, which is a national benefits agency in Australia. These findings show that there is more incoherence and contradiction within welfare reform than is being suggested by the linear neo-liberal accounts of the process. The discussion focuses on three important aspects of Australian welfare reform, namely: policy concerning sanctions, the delivery of a personalised ‘One-to-One Service’, and the changing role of ‘risk management’ techniques. The chapter concludes with a review of the implications of the findings for the theories of welfare governance.
Keywords: ethnography, sanctions, Centrelink, risk management, Australian welfare reform, welfare governance
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