Families Minister and Member for Jagajaga channels Mal Brough and throws compassion out the window

ABC1 AM:
TONY EASTLEY: The Federal Government will quarantine the $5,000 Baby Bonus from parents who neglect or abuse their children. Families Minister Jenny Macklin says parents will instead receive the bonus in the form of vouchers to buy items like prams and nappies.

Leaving aside the fact that Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs is merely parroting the former Howard Government and the previous ministerial incumbent; the Welfare Rights Centre pointed out in 2006 that such a move was not going to solve the problem of bad parenting and would be unlikely to stop individual abuse of welfare payments by recipients with an established alcohol, drug or gambling addiction.

Since then Ms. Macklin has moved from endorsing a straight voucher system to talking of implementing a debit card or store cards which would be useable at approved stores and for approved purchases.

The aim still appears to be to progress that old neo-con agenda. Starting with the Baby Bonus and other family payments as a trial of the electorate's gullibility, before moving onto the unemployed, disabled and finally introducing universal income management for all pension, benefit and allowance recipients from groups which are not seen as politically powerful.

Such income management would eventually stop 50% of the fortnightly welfare payment from going directly into a recipient's own personal bank or building society account, and 100% of all advance or lump sum payments would also no longer be given as cash payments into accounts.

Now here's the rub for any rural or regional parent receiving one of these debit/store cards (who even lives within commutable distance of one of the government-favoured big three, Coles, Woolworths and K-Mart) covering the Baby Bonus or other family allowance. These future guinea pigs who are already being identified as 'bad' by both the media and the Minister.

Rural and regional towns and villages are by definition reasonably small - if you don't actually socialise with the person standing next to you, you frequently know a friend of theirs or their children go to school or weekend sports with yours.

Store clerks and cashiers have no training and often no tact when it comes to welfare recipients as it is. They sometimes have no compunction in identifying store gift vouchers, being presented for payment of purchases, as having come from a non-government welfare agency.
In one instance I witnessed a cashier confiscating a packet of sweets from a very average pile of groceries a developmentally challenged adult (whom she only knew as a regular store customer) wanted to purchase with his gift voucher, on the stated grounds that lollies are not good for you.

When under any income management scheme almost inevitably one of these cashiers loudly and publicly tells a parent accompanied by a child that an item the parent wishes to purchase is not on the Centrelink/Community Services/Government list, everyone within earshot will be able to identify that family as 'dysfunctional' and the child as possibly considered to be neglected or abused.

Just how long do you think that child's privacy will last and his/her dignity remain intact when the local rumour mill will have that checkout incident across town and in the schoolyard within days?

One of the saddest aspects of Labor's rush to create its own form of Big Brother has been the sight of Ms. Macklin rising to her feet in Parliament last week and relying on a caller to the Alan Jones radio show for evidence of a need for Baby Bonus income management. A show notorious for setting up straw men to further its namesake's own biased arguments.

Ms. Macklin and the rest of the Rudd Government need to slow down here and develop a little political humility and compassion.
They are displaying nothing less than an arrogant paternalism. At the same time ignoring the fact that the Baby Bonus is currently not being handed out as a lump sum to identified dysfunctional families, but rather is being successfully and discretely delivered in instalments - without placing any child's right to privacy at risk or exposing a family to malicious gossip.