The Dehumanising Violence of Racism – The Role of Law

The dehumanising violence of racism: the role of la

Administrative burden and the Cashless Debit Card: Stripping time, autonomy, and dignity from social security recipients

Although Western nations have long placed conditions on access to social security payments, many of the more recent conditions utilising technological tools have intensified surveillance and control of the poor and imposed weighty administrative burdens on social security recipients as they attempt to navigate these systems. The Cashless Debit Card (CDC) imposes additional administrative burdens – learning costs, compliance costs, and psychological costs – on people in receipt of social security as part of an overall welfare conditionality project that structures in disincentives to claim government income support. Cardholders experience heavy administrative burdens in securing essentials and managing their social security income via the CDC, seeking a reduction of their restricted payment portion, and seeking a well-being exemption or a financial responsibility exit to regain their budgetary autonomy. Evidence suggests that numerous people in need of social security who have been forced on to the CDC could do with a reduction in burdensome processes – which would be facilitated by designing systems that are autonomy enhancing, respectful of the human dignity of claimants, and fairly easy to navigate

Government mythology on income management, alcohol, addiction and Indigenous communities

Many governments have intensified conditions on social security payments, implementing new paternalist and neoliberal policy ideals that individualise responsibility for overcoming poverty. This article explores how such policy ideals can operate with a racialised impact in the context of income management, a type of welfare conditionality in Australia that delivers cashless welfare transfers. Income management originally applied only to Indigenous welfare recipients, but has since been expanded. The government’s rationale for the scheme is to limit access to alcohol and other drugs, and promote ‘socially responsible behaviour’. However, empirical evidence indicates that income management in the Northern Territory has not been successful in achieving the government’s policy objectives. Income management is built upon a policy narrative of addiction – those subject to it are portrayed as addicted to welfare payments and to alcohol. This article critiques these depictions and outlines a range of pragmatic, political and ethical concerns about income management

Compulsory Income Management – Exploring Counter Narratives amidst Colonial Constructions of Vulnerability

This article explores counter narratives to the dominant colonial narrative aboutIndigenous welfare recipients classified as ‘vulnerable’ under the compulsoryincome management laws. The compulsory income management laws andpolicies were implemented initially in 2007 as part of the Northern TerritoryIntervention, and were modified to some degree in 2010 in what theGovernment alleges to be a non-racially discriminatory manner. These lawswere further entrenched and extended in June 2012 as part of the StrongerFutures legislative package. The laws have a particularly significant impactupon Indigenous welfare recipients in the Northern Territory and, increasingly,across some other Indigenous communities outside that jurisdiction. Thegovernment narrative about income management maintains that it is beneficialfor those subject to it. However, there are other marginalised narratives thatshed light upon the compulsory income management discourse. These suggestthat law constructs, rather than merely describes, the vulnerability that theGovernment claims to seek to redress via these laws

The culture of consent and traditional punishments under customary law

Traditional punishments are still common amongst traditional indigenous communities in Australia - administration of traditional punishments raises the issues of whether those involved in the process should be charged under Anglo-Australian law - it is recommended that the criminal law of assault should be developed to accommodate traditional punishments carried out under Aboriginal customary law

The \u27intervention\u27 legislation - \u27just\u27 terms or \u27reasonable\u27 injustice - Wurridjal v The Commonwealth of Australia

The case of Wurridjal v The Commonwealth of Australia is discussed to arrive at a better understanding of how structural racism systematically disadvantaged indigenous people in the contemporary politico-legal environment. The basic message being conveyed through the Intervention is that it is perfectly acceptable to discriminate against Indigenous Australians and also enact legislation to this effect

Cashless welfare cards: controlling spending patterns to what end?

Delivering social security payments by means of cashless welfare cards has had a protracted trial in Australia, with various income management schemes in operation, the latest of which is the Forrest Review inspired Cashless Debit Card (CDC) issued by Indue Ltd. The government emphasises that the CDC has been co-designed with Indigenous leaders in trial areas via a consultation process, however the nature of what was agreed and the extent to which there was co-design of the CDC has been contested. Some Indigenous elders and community members indicate that the broadly applied mandatory CDC was not the targeted scheme they had supported in consultations, and assert that they do not want the card in their community because it fosters shame and causes suffering. Numerous welfare recipients subject to the scheme report that it has created additional difficulties for them in meeting their everyday needs. Despite this, advocates of cashless welfare are keen to declare income management a success, rationalising further expansion and possibly smoothing the path to increased privatisation of social security payments in the process. When assessed against the objectives for which income management was introduced compulsory cashless welfare cards look suspiciously like a boondoggle that society can ill afford. It is crucial to ask who benefits most from the CDC regime. Cashless welfare cards will increase the wealth of entities like Indue and the overall cost of social security provision in Australia, but without providing advantages for numerous people subject to these measures and delivering detrimental outcomes to many. The dominant political rhetoric has presented cash payments to welfare recipients as a high-risk activity due to their presumed preference for poor purchases. Such stigmatising supposition makes for poor policy and income management legislation is an area ripe for reform�not for intensification via an 80 per cent CDC restriction�but abandoning altogether the coercion coupled with surveillance upon which this system is based

Indigenous peoples, neoliberalism and the state: A retreat from rights to ‘responsibilisation’ via the cashless welfare card

Reflecting on the focus of this edited collection—indigenous rights, recognition, neoliberalism and the state—this chapter will address the reduction of Indigenous peoples’ rights in the context of cashless welfare transfers. It contributes to the arguments made in this collection by exploring how neoliberal interventions can adversely affect Indigenous peoples, diminishing their consumer choices and other rights, whilst simultaneously creating benefits for entrepreneurial interests via privatisation of social security payments. It questions the purpose of the government’s recognition of the lower socio-economic status of Indigenous peoples and explores who benefits from such recognition. The chapter analyses how cashless welfare transfers operate along racialised contours and implement a neoliberal approach to governance of Indigenous peoples, fostering regulation by market principles that reward entrepreneurialism and self-reliance. Like the work of Deirdre Howard-Wagner, Patrick Sullivan, Cathy Eatock and Alexander Page in this collection, this chapter highlights the increasingly precarious experience of Indigenous communities caused by insecure marketised funding arrangements with competitive processes. It progresses these themes by recommending the development of an alternative form of resource redistribution through an integrity tax based on reparation for colonial atrocities. The chapter contends that this approach is preferable to that of intensifying welfare conditionality via cashless welfare transfers.Arts, Education & Law Group, Griffith Law SchoolNo Full Tex

The good white nation once more made good? apology for atrocities to the Stolen Generations

This article explores the issue of apology to the Stolen Generations by the federal government in light of the mythology of Australia as the \u27good white nation\u27. Drawing upon elements of critical legal theory and critical whiteness studies I argue that the mythology of the good white nation, which has always been central to Australia\u27s national identity, remains ingrained in the recent federal government apology. I contend that the perception of Australia as the good white nation continues in the apology - despite the acknowledgement of some of the grave injustices suffered by Indigenous Australians at the hands of colonial forces. It does this by suggesting that whatever the nation once was in terms of regularly engaging in colonial atrocities - the \u27stain\u27 on the national soul has now been removed through the apology - thus the nation has been made good once more, \u27unstained\u27 as it were by its troublesome colonial history

The Dehumanising Violence of Racism: the Role of Law

My thesis explores numerous issues ranging from justice, ethics, law, truth telling and responsibility. These issues are significant in light of the llegitimate foundations of the Australian nation and the subsequent genocide perpetrated against Indigenous peoples. The colonial quest for white supremacy, racial purity and accumulation of property has been facilitated by oppressive exercises of parliamentary power. This thesis analyses several legislative examples of this type, highlighting the trauma that has arisen from past oppressive exercises of parliamentary power and continues due to contemporary legislation. I also critique a selection of cases which have challenged this contemporary legislation, examining the manner in which legal positivism and formalist methodology ensure that white privilege continues to be maintained at the expense of Indigenous Australians. These cases demonstrate the inherent racism of law and the lack of effective checks on oppressive exercises of parliamentary power. Where governments engage in abuses of power the courts are often looked to in the hope that justice will flow from on high. Yet courts are also part of the structure of government and consequently have been instrumental in upholding and justifying the colonial status quo. Along with the parliament and the executive the courts have been instrumental in carrying on the tradition of Australia’s racist colonial legacy. This has resulted in ongoing injustice and trauma for Indigenous Australians. The legacy of white sovereignty in Australia has brought colonialism, parliamentary sovereignty, Social Darwinism, white supremacy, capitalism, legal positivism and the propaganda needed to reinforce this dominant discourse. The consequences of this legacy disadvantage Indigenous Australians to this day, and maintain the status quo of oppressive colonial power relations that first began with the planting of the British flag, and the myth of terra nullius, the fiction that the land belonged to no-one. My thesis explores the racist laws and policies detrimentally affecting Jews under Nazi Germany and Aborigines in Queensland, highlighting parallels between them and the way they reveal an intersection between law and trauma. I investigate the role that law plays in facilitating violence to groups who are targeted as undesirable by government on the basis of race, and the manner in which the past continues to permeate the present. The racist foundations of the Australian nation remain in place, ensuring that Aboriginality sovereignty is ignored by colonial governments and that self-determination for Aboriginal peoples remains elusive. Indigenous perspectives require the development of a different legacy, one that acknowledges Indigenous sovereignty, their right to self-determination and their right to freedom from oppressive exercises of parliamentary power