Who Cares? Life on welfare in Australia (Eve Vincent, MUP)

What is it like to live on welfare in Australia today? In Who Cares? researcher Eve Vincent endeavours to answer this question, with a special focus on the experiences of Indigenous communities. The book is divided into two parts. Firstly, a brief yet bracing history of welfare in Australia, followed by candid interviews with welfare recipients, conducted by the author. (One woman who was offered advice on budgeting by her case officer replied, ‘Honey, single mothers are the most budget extreme people you can come across. Like, we know how to budget!’) Vincent concentrates on two welfare programs, the cashless debit card and ParentsNext, designed to prepare parents—mostly single mothers—to re-enter the labour market. In reality, it’s a program of questionable utility, with punitive strings attached for non-compliance. Compelled participants can find themselves committed to activities of dubious value. What Who Cares? highlights is the inability of contemporary welfare programs to pick up the nuances of what recipients actually do with their time. They work as parents, caregivers, community volunteers—all of it unpaid and unrecognised. Vincent also eloquently examines the shame and humiliation tied to welfare dependency. Overall, the author finds that welfare has become more ‘stingy, conditional and quick-to-penalise’ over the past 50 years. Who Cares? is a valuable take on the welfare state, mixing accessible academic writing with pithy dispatches from the front line.

Chris Saliba is the co-owner of North Melbourne Books. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Reviews