Cashless Welfare Card: a denizen of Mount Olympus pontificates on the ignorant masses below

This was Dr Jeremy Sammut (left) from the Centre for Independent Studies giving his views on the ignorant underclass, Friday, 8 September 2017:

It’s a libertarian fantasy that the problem of welfare dependence can be addressed without using the power of the state to compel responsible personal behaviour.

State compulsion, for example, is essential to enforce mutual obligation requirements and force the unemployed to actively seek a job, instead of continuing to loaf on the dole.

My research on the nation’s child protection crisis has sharply revealed the social damage wreaked by unrestricted welfare and parental bad behaviour among an underclass of dysfunctional families.

I therefore have no problem with the idea that welfare recipients could be compelled to take better care of children by being forced to spend their benefits on food and other essentials, rather than on drink, drugs, and gambling.

This is how we should view the debate about the federal government’s plan to expand the trial of the ‘cashless welfare card’ — as a means of addressing the intergenerational transfer of dysfunction and dependence within families.

In philosophical terms, the cashless welfare card is an example of ‘small government conservatism‘: a socially conservative approach to social policy which — contrary to the conventional political wisdom — utilises state intervention to reduce the size of government.

This position may be difficult to accept for economic liberals who place a premium on individual freedom and freedom from government control.

However, it is impossible to deal with the issue of welfare dependence by simply applying the first principle that government should always do less.

As former Labor Minister and social commentator Gary Johns has argued, it is crucial to continue to make the economic case for freedom from state intervention.

But as he has also rightly argued, this is insufficient to address the social problems that have driven growth in the size of government.

Addressing welfare dependence will require more, not less, state intervention through policies such as mutual obligation and cashless welfare.

Yes, according to Dr Sammut (blessed with an expensive private education and a PhD in  Australian political and social history) it’s all about the children and the chronically welfare dependent underclass.

Except the Turnbull Government intends to roll the cashless debit card out nationally for individuals without children, people with significant disabilities, full-time carers of elderly parents, even those who have been on unemployment benefits for less than less than a month, as well as individuals who have regular employment but receive Family Tax Benefit.

It is likely that sometime in the future the Turnbull Government will announce that this cashless welfare card will also be imposed on age pensioners.

It will come as no surprise that Sammut is also in favour of the Australian health system being shifted away from reliance on the taxpayer-funded Medicare system towards a self-funded Health Savings Account-based health financing system. 

In addition Dr Sammut espouses the theory that:

The real explanation for poverty is that different social outcomes reflect the different behaviours of different groups in society. Social disparities are explained by the fact that those on the higher rungs of society have internalised the set of social norms around education, work, and family life that are the building blocks of success and prosperity, as compared to many of those on the lowest rungs of society.

Yes, you are reading that sentence correctly. According to this man individuals and families have only themselves to blame for their poverty or disadvantage – end of story.

Jeremy Sammut is the type of commentator that the Liberal Party dreams about having on side.

On his Facebook page Sammut lists the following among his favourites:

Alan Tudge MP, Australian Institute for Progress, The Spectator, Scott Morrison MP - ScoMo, Adam Giles, Ramsay Health Care, Senator Dean Smith, The Centre for Independent Studies, Matthew Guy, Commonwealth Bank, Senator Scott Ryan, Menzies Research Centre, Dominic Perrottet MP, Andrew Southcott MP, Asher Judah - Liberal for Bentleigh and more

No prizes for spotting the preponderance of right-wing politicians.

Last year Sammut was telling the world it was an exciting time to be an Australian conservative – a category into which he obviously placed himself.

After reading a bit about the man and his attitude, all I can say is that if this attitude continues to hold sway at federal policy level I don’t think it going to be an exciting time to be an Australian who is receiving welfare benefits of any type, is in a low-skilled, low income job, a single parent raising a child or an indigenous family.

Because to people like Jeremy Sammut literally millions of Australian citizens are part of an undeserving, dysfunctional underclass that is to be barely tolerated.