Australian social policy and
social work practice
Professor Lesley Chenoweth
Griffith University
Queensland, Australia
Overview
 Australian
social welfare
overview
 Social work in Australia
 Discussion & Questions
The Australian context
Australian post-war welfare state – British
origins
 Wage earners welfare state (Castles, 1983)
 Federated model – Commonwealth & State
responsibilities

Tiers of Government
Policy
aged care
income security
Federal
Programs
education health,
housing child
protection
States
Service delivery
NGOs
Local
govt
The Australian context

Macro changes over the past two decades
◦
◦
◦
◦
Economic globalisation
Rise of neo-classical economics
New public management
Downsizing the welfare state
Shift in distribution of income,
power & resources
The public sector
The private sector
The bottom 70 % wage
/salary earners
The top 10 % corporations
Small business
Big business
The ‘bush’
The city
Consumers
Producers
Households
The market
(Pusey 2003)
Welfare reform
Gradual dismantling of the welfare state over last 20
years
 Global economic forces – tariff removals,
reconfigured industry and domestic labour market
 Old reliance on full-time, life long employment now
redundant
 OECD recommendations – undoing of social
citizenship rights under income security policies

(McDonald & Chenoweth, 2006)
Welfare reform
 Reduction of welfare
 Initially target- long-term
unemployed
(1990s)
 Development of Workfare
 Focus on obligations rather than rights
 More recently since 2005
◦ people with disabilities
◦ single parents
Key features of current welfare
provisions
 Highly
targeted
 Funded by general revenue
 Low levels of payment
 People on benefits live with significant
financial stress
 Decreasing levels of public support for
some payments - eg unemployed (Ziguras,
2006)
Social issues – current
Child protection
 Ageing population
 Health
 Indigenous Australians
 Disability
 Homelessness
 Refugees and asylum seekers
 Regional and rural communities
 The social inclusion agenda

Australians enjoy one of the longest life expectancies
in the world
Life expectancy at birth in top 20 OECD countries: 2005
Japan
Switzerland
Iceland
Australia
Spain
Sweden
Italy
France
Canada2
Norway
New Zealand
Austria
Ireland
Netherlands
Greece
Luxembourg
Germany
United Kingdom
Finland
Belgium
Korea
82.1
81.3
81.2
80.9
80.7
80.6
80.4
80.3
80.2
80.1
79.6
79.5
79.4
79.4
79.3
79.3
79.0
79.0
78.9
78.7
78.5
0
2
76
78
80
However Indigenous
Australians have an
average life
expectancy of 59.4
for men and 64.8 for
women1
82
Life expectancy at birth (years)
For more on Indigenous health and
disadvantage, see The Future of
1. 2001 data 2. 2004 data
Note: Ireland, Italy and Luxembourg excluded from 2004 OECD life expectancy data
Indigenous Australia
Source: OECD, Health Data 2005; Productivity Commission, Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage (2007) "Strategic Areas For Action"
Social work in Australia

In 1939, the first degree level social work program at Uni of Sydney. In 2010, 26
degree programs across Australia

Social work –BSW degree MSW

Professional body – Australian Association of Social Workers AASW

AASW accredits programs including a 4-year BSocWk, 2-year graduate entry and
since 2008, a Masters ‘qualifying’ program (Healy & Lonne, 2010)

Social workers employed in:
◦
Federal government– eg Centrelink
◦ State governments – eg child protection , health , disability, mental health
◦ Community sector - large charities, faith based agencies, small to medium organisations
◦ Private practice - increasing
12
Social work in Australia



13
Social work is not a registered profession unlike in UK, USA
and New Zealand (Lonne & Duke 2008)
Participation rate of low income students in Higher Education
is lower than representation in the community, and static since
2002
Significant reforms since 1986 have led to greater co-operation
between higher education and Vocational Education sector (in
Healy & Lonne, 2010) and improved pathways from VET sector
into Higher Education
Trends in Social Work and Human
Services






Human services – 4th fastest industry sector
Demand for qualified practitioners is high
Rural and remote recruitment and retention
Some sectors employing 3 year trained graduates
– eg child protection, NGOs
Casualisation of workforce
More flexible modes of delivery
Trends in Social Work and Human
Services





Decreased professional autonomy
Management of risk (Healy& Meagher, 2004; Baines,2006)
Move to use of ICT technologies – call centres,
on line counselling
Use of computer technology for surveillance of
clients?
Fly in fly out service delivery to remote areas
Centrelink
•





Government agency administers eligibility, payments
and compliance
Employs large numbers of social workers (650+)
Sites of service delivery – offices and call centres
Highly technologised (ICT) service delivery
Coordinates Australia disaster social work responses
eg:



Asian tsunami
Victorian bushfires
Bali bombings
On a typical day, Centrelink IT supports
55,000 business function points in 14
million lines of code through 8000 functions
on 3200 screens to 31,000 desktops and
400 LAN servers in 1000 sites. This means
that 13,000 users concurrently generate 12
million online transactions each day on 14
million customer records
(Vardon, 2003)
Questions and Discussion
• Does Australia have too many levels of




government and service delivery?
What do you think are the main features of
social welfare in Australia?
How are they different/ similar to Norway?
What do you see as the roles for social workers
in Australia?
Should Australian social workers become
registered?