Mutual Obligation

By Bettina Cass and Deborah Brennan (editors)

An issue of the Australian Journal of Social Issues focussing on mutual obligation. The papers were originally presented at a Workshop on Mutual Obligation and Welfare States in Transition held at the University of Sydney in February 2001.

Alison McClelland in "Mutual Obligation and Welfare Responsibilities of Government" looks at mutual obligations falling on government, not on individuals. She focuses on how capacity building roles of government - the extent to which they help families, communities to function effectively -are reduced by current approaches, which give priority to individualistic "solutions".

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Valerie Braithwaite, Moira Gatens and Deborah Mitchell (in "If Mutual Obligation is the Answer, What is the Question?") aim to bring clarity to the redesign of the welfare system and to challenge the favourite son of the conservatives, Lawrence Mead who was wheeled out last year to push the government's point of view on mutual obligation. Equity and effectiveness is their approach to welfare reform.

Deborah Brennan and Bettina Cass look at "Communities of Support or Communities of Surveillance and Enforcement in Welfare Reform Debates" and examine the word that is used all over the place - community. How might the idea of community be more fruitfully adapted to welfare reform?

Tim Rowse provides one answer in "McClure's 'Mutual Obligation' and Pearson's 'Reciprocity' - can they be reconciled?" He studies the interaction of current welfare arrangements and their implementation in Aboriginal communities. He argues that new and innovative Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community planned, monitored and controlled systems including education, training and employment programs must be the necessary focus of effective welfare reform in Indigenous communities.

Other papers look at the issues involved in the policy and administration of employment services (Terry Carney and Gaby Ramia); the effect of competition on non-profit employment services (Tony Eardley. Also the question of welfare dependency is taken on by Paul Henman and Julia Perry. They mount a strong argument against the unquestioned acceptance of the idea of increasing dependence on welfare across Australian society since the 1960s.

(Australian Journal of Social Issues; vol. 37, no. 3, August 2002)