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Should Love Conquer Evidence in Policy‐Making? Challenges in Implementing Random Drug‐Testing of Welfare Recipients in Australia
Author(s) -
Olney Sue
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
australian journal of public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.524
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-8500
pISSN - 0313-6647
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8500.12297
Subject(s) - allowance (engineering) , welfare , unemployment , enforcement , public economics , government (linguistics) , obligation , work (physics) , payment , welfare reform , economics , business , actuarial science , political science , finance , law , economic growth , mechanical engineering , linguistics , operations management , philosophy , engineering
The Australian Government announced in its 2017 budget that it would trial random drug‐testing of recipients of the Newstart Allowance and Youth Allowance in three locations from January 2018. The Prime Minister described it as a policy ‘based on love’, but that sentiment is hard to find in the policy rhetoric, which situates it in a suite of measures designed to ‘ensure taxpayers’ money is not being used to fund drug addictions which are creating significant barriers to employment'. The policy may make it harder for people to buy drugs with their welfare payments, through income management, but research suggests it will not help them overcome addiction and its costs will exceed any savings it generates in income support. Furthermore, the policy perpetuates ‘medicalisation’ of the problem of long‐term unemployment by suggesting it stems from deficiencies in individuals that can be ‘treated’, despite evidence to the contrary. Finally, the policy claims to close loopholes in enforcement of mutual obligation requirements without addressing structural weaknesses in the welfare‐to‐work model. Each of these issues will pose challenges for those charged with implementing the policy.