The Careless State (Mark Considine, MUP)

The Careless State is a timely and forensic examination of the failures of the Australian government’s provision of social services. The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed—particularly through the publicised failures in aged care and employment services—the shortcomings in the way these services have been managed by successive governments. Following an introduction that grounds today’s social services models in their historical context—primarily in reform programs begun in the 1980s—author Mark Considine methodically outlines how employment services, vocational education and training, aged care and childcare have evolved over the past 40-odd years and their failure to look after often the most vulnerable people in our society. In most cases, the programs are both expensive and bad at doing what they set out to do. The root cause, Considine convincingly demonstrates, is the overemphasis on personal choice as the rationale for opening up services to private agencies. The subsequent scale of rorting by private companies and their dereliction of the provision of basic levels of care are staggering. The final three chapters, as well as the conclusion, are more optimistic: Considine highlights the success of Australia’s worker health and safety and maternal and child health programs, teasing out the reasons they contrast so starkly with other services, and suggesting how they can work as models going forward. Appropriately for his role as a political science professor, Considine avoids rhetoric in place of data and evidence, and the scope of his research is impressive. Unfortunately, this means the book is a little dry and a bit of a slog for casual readers. The book won’t have a universal audience but it is interesting for anyone curious about the failures of market interventions in the Australian public sector and a useful resource for advocates for humane social services.

Brad Jefferies is the digital editor of Books+Publishing.

Category: Reviews