This paper will examine the response of pro-welfare-state actors to the dole bludger discursive frame that emerged in the 1970s. It will argue two things. First, that the depletion of pro-welfare-state influence within the institutions of media and parliament enabled the construction of a New Right frame within which the debate about the welfare state took place. This resulted in a New Right colonisation of Keynesian and left-wing discourses about the suffering of the poor, thereby disabling them as left-wing pro-welfare discourses. Second, it will draw on Barbara Hobson's work on collective identities in political claim-making^[1] to argue that while pro-welfare advocates lacked the institutional resources dominated by the New Right, the erection of collective identities which drew the unemployed into larger 'mainstream' cognitive frames offered the possibility for effective resistance. The major example of this is a socialist discourse that framed the unemployed as part of a larger 'worker' constituency. This discourse threatened to undermine the New Right frame by creating its own 'mainstream' constituency committed to 'workers rights' and the 'right to work' which cut across and undermined the New Right's 'taxpayer' constituency and shifted the debate outside of taxpayer versus dole bludger dichotomy. An examination of this discourse will offer insight into the possibilities for Left-wing mobilisation around the issue of unemployment.

Liberal rights and empowerment for the poor: 'Whitlam era' discourses and policies

In the late 1960s and early 70s a 'rediscovery of poverty' occurred in Australia. Early attempts at this rediscovery occurred in the early-to-mid 60s, the first of which appears to have been economic historian Reg Brown's 'Poverty in Australia' published in the Australian Quarterly in 1963. Following this, other studies of Australia's 'hidden' poverty began to emerge. Economic historian Reg Appleyard spoke in 1965 of 'pockets of poverty' evidenced by his own study published in Social Service July-August issue. Other surveys were launched in Queensland and in Melbourne in 1965 and 1966, and a book written by journalist John Stubbs and titled The Hidden People: Poverty in Australia provided further evidence for 'pockets of poverty'. The publication of Ronald Henderson's interim report of the Melbourne poverty survey represented the major breakthrough for anti-poverty campaigners. It provided a percentage that was soon publicised and debated in the press. Larger estimates followed, most notably from Peter Hollingworth, Associate Director of the Melbourne-based welfare lobby group the Brotherhood of St Laurence, in his 1972 book The Powerless Poor.^[2] Outside of the politically powerful percentage estimates delivered by these studies, an equally powerful discourse emerged that acknowledged and articulated the suffering of the poor. Readers and policy makers were faced with 'hidden' distress in the midst of plenty and implored to look beyond traditional nationalist sentiments that characterised Australia as the 'lucky country'. These 'forgotten people', unlike those 'discovered' by Prime Minister Robert Menzies in the 1950s, were not middle-class shop keepers and small farmers desirous of government attention, they were: the elderly, migrants, widows, single parents, the sick and disabled and homeless. Stories of their day-to-day struggle with poverty became a key element of left-wing advocacy.

     The 'rediscovery of poverty' by academics and the press increased the political power of the Left as key voices in academia and media began demanding policy change. Both the Gorton and McMahon Governments extended social welfare, concentrating on subsidies for voluntary agencies and services rather than cash benefits.^[3] The pressure that McMahon, in particular, felt is evidenced by his attempt to quash the national debate through the suppression of the Doyle Report on poverty in Victoria in 1972, the year of the Whitlam/McMahon election. Pressure applied by social welfare experts in collaboration with the press led McMahon to establish a National Inquiry into Poverty, to be headed by Ronald Henderson, in the lead up to the 1972 election.^[4] The election of the Whitlam Government ensured further development of social welfare policy and pride of place for anti-poverty experts on government committees such as the newly established Social Welfare Commission.^[5] From this vantage, new ambitious goals including welfare rights and empowerment for the poor looked achievable.

     On 21 December 1972, 19 days after the first Labor Government in 23 years had been elected to federal parliament, Bill Hayden, the new Minister for Social Security wrote to Clyde Cameron, the new Minister for Labour and Industry. The letter identified what Hayden saw as the wrongs of the past. It argued that the Department and employers in general held too much power over the claimant and should no longer dictate terms and conditions contrary to a 'free, tolerant, liberal society'. Under Hayden, welfare recipients would be allowed a greater degree of autonomy and freedom, especially when it came to personal appearance and job choice.^[6]                          

     The following month, a review of the work test began. The work test, used to measure a claimant's willingness to work, was altered dramatically to accord with the rights of the welfare recipient in a 'free, tolerant, and liberal society'. Media reports were mixed. A report in the Fairfax paper The Sun, titled 'New Deal for the Jobless— Hayden's Pledge', was largely sympathetic to Hayden's agenda, allowing his words to be printed with very little journalistic interruption. In this report Hayden indicated his new policy agenda and his welfare philosophy. 'The aim of the new Government will be to administer these benefits sympathetically without moralising or passing judgement on applicants. We must develop a new philosophy based on the belief that benefits are a right and not a charity', he said.^[7]

     Hayden's ideas were advanced through caucus very quickly. On 19 April a memorandum was sent from the Director-General of Social Security to State Directors containing the amended procedure manual items. Claimants were to be offered work of an 'equivalent kind' to the work usually performed and 'in which the persons training would be used'. Those who were new to the workforce were to be offered work in keeping with skill and personal preference. No claimant was to be work tested on their willingness to accept jobs that did not accord with these criteria. ^[8] The rights of welfare recipients to determine their own working lives were first and foremost in the new procedure manual. For Hayden, the right to welfare benefits existed in cases of economic need, and independent of personal character. The right to economic sustenance did not exist to the exclusion of other rights. Other rights, such as the right to autonomous decision-making, acted in conjunction, leaving the welfare recipient free to exist on benefits if they chose to do so.

     Within the welfare sector, workers began to be influenced by the ALP's attempts to shift social welfare ideology. The Brotherhood of St Laurence in particular revolutionised its approach to the poor in 1972. The organisation itself had always pursued the dual functions of charity and anti-poverty activism. During the early 1970s the Brotherhood believed that a change had indeed come about. In the years that followed the election of the Whitlam Government the Brotherhood began shifting the focus from activism on behalf of the poor to empowerment for the poor. The organisation now believed that its role was to facilitate the poor in their efforts to gain power through autonomy and political participation. This included the facilitation of alternative, anti-materialistic lifestyles where desired by the claimant together with a social work approach that focused on 'consciousness raising' and the structural nature of poverty. In praise of the Whitlam Government's initiatives, Associate Director of Social Issues and Research at the Brotherhood, Concetta Benn, announced that:

[a] new social ethic has been produced by the alienating effects of increased industrialisation and partly as a backlash to the inhibiting Protestant ethic which still prevails in our community. Its main characteristics are a demand for participation in the decisions which affect people's lives, a questioning of economic growth for its own sake, and an assessment of the materialist values of our society.^[9]

The shift to New Right frames

By 1974 the climate in which empowerment and rights for the poor had developed as policy goals was beginning to change. The media no longer viewed the rediscovery of poverty as news. Instead newspapers began to discover other things about poverty. In 1973 press articles began speaking of undeserving welfare recipients that had benefited from government policy. These undeserving types were identifiable by their hair and clothes and by their lifestyle choices. The stories were cast in the mould of crime and law and order exposés, intended to shock and disturb middle-class readers and boost sales, while simultaneously chastising the government for its lax approach to welfare administration.^[10]

     The real shift, however, occurred in 1974 when inflation and unemployment rose sharply and an economic crisis was declared. New Right ideas had been developing in Australian economic think tanks, in bureaucracy and in business organisations since around 1972. Their proponents helped to discover and articulate this crisis, announcing the end of Keynesianism and the end of the welfare state in its current form. The media and the Opposition latched on to this crisis and used it to support various agendas, chief among them the removal of the Whitlam Government.^[11] When the Whitlam Government itself began shaping its discourse and policy around the crisis, a major shift occurred which transferred power and public influence to the New Right. By 1975 anti-poverty activists were sidelined in favour of advice from the increasingly New Right Treasury, a section of the public service with whom the Whitlam Government had always had an acrimonious relationship. Welfare became a highly publicised area of policy through which the government could demonstrate its commitment to fiscal management.^[12]                                

     In January 1974 the Minister for Labour and Industry, Clyde Cameron, began appearing more often than Hayden as the spokesperson for social security. While Cameron had never been a supporter of the Hayden initiatives, he had always maintained a low profile in relation to them, and his opinions were rarely sought. Suddenly, and almost certainly by direction of the party, Cameron stormed the stage, declaring Hayden's initiatives finished. In January the media began reporting Cameron's policy initiatives and heralding a new and 'ambitious' welfare era. The Murdoch press in particular gave precedence to Cameron's plans to de-register claimants who did not comply with new benefit rules.^[13] The autonomy that had been granted to the unemployed was returned to the administrators. Decisions as to what constituted reasonable dress, what constituted a reasonable job offer, and where an unemployed person should and should not move in order to take up a job, fell back into the hands of the Department of Social Security. To these ends, an expert working party was established. Unlike previous working parties on welfare, it contained no anti-poverty activists.                                                        The outcome of Cameron's expert working party was to reinstate the lifestyle, appearance and personality assessment previously removed by Hayden from the work test procedure manual. The right of the taxpayer to see his or her money directed only to 'genuine' and 'worthy' recipients became a cornerstone of both Cameron and Hayden's welfare rhetoric. In contrast to Hayden's earlier assertions that welfare recipients possessed a right to choose an alternative lifestyle, it was reported that the review would attempt to wipe out 'hippies' and 'commune dwellers' who 'collectively receive enough money through unemployment benefit to live'.^[14]

     Other ALP members, such as Mick Young and Tasmanian Senator Don Grimes, began to express their commitment to welfare by highlighting the suffering experienced by welfare recipients. Discourses of suffering did not speak to welfare recipients as discourses of rights and justice had done. Instead they spoke directly to those in power and to 'average Australians'. From 1974 onward, the dominant pro-welfare discourse both within and outside of parliament, attempted to counteract and to educate the proponents of anti-welfare discourse. While stories of suffering had formed a particularly powerful part of the rediscovery of poverty, the shift to New Right frames in media and parliament shifted the meaning and effect of this discourse.

Discourses of suffering and appeals to the right

In October 1975, one month before the LCP were instated as the new Federal Government, the Brotherhood of St Laurence produced the first in a series of studies it termed 'action research'. The studies were developed specifically to show politicians and the public how wrong they had been in branding the unemployed as 'bludgers' living in 'luxury'. It was hoped that the research, by proving otherwise, would end the campaign against the dole bludger. The first publication was titled Workers Without Jobs. Its author Graeme Brewer, a senior research officer with the Brotherhood, would become the organisation's primary author of action research.

     One of the key aims of the publication was to provide proof that the unemployed were not willing participants in their own unemployment. In order to prove this Brewer set about surveying 160 unemployed participants in order to gauge their level of work ethic. Among his findings Brewer wrote:

It is apparent from a considered analysis of the past work experiences of the unemployed and their current job seeking activities that their commitment to work is strong. They did not choose to become unemployed nor do they choose to remain out of work. The desire to return to work is strong throughout the sample.^[15]

In addition Brewer claimed that the fact that 57 percent of persons interviewed had never been unemployed before proved that these people at least held a strong commitment to the work ethic.^[16] He stated that only two participants in the study had expressed anti-work attitudes.^[17] The conversations that had led Brewer to conclude the possession of 'anti-work attitudes' were not analysed or included. While 'anti-materialist' lifestyles had been respected and even encouraged by pro-welfare groups during the early Whitlam era, they received less attention under the changed political circumstances. Now the focus was on challenging the images of the unemployed that had emerged in parliament and media discourse. Chief among these was the dole bludger. The immediate aim of action research was not to raise the social awareness of the unemployed themselves, it was to counteract New Right discourse.

     Even those within the ALP who had eschewed the work-ethic assessment as belonging to a past 'draconian' welfare era began to counter claims of dole bludging with stories of men and women desperate to work. These stories usually consisted of claims that the person 'just wanted a job' and would 'take anything' offered. He or she did not wish to be dependent. While this type of work ethic rhetoric did not dominate ALP welfare discourse, the fact that it appeared at all is evidence of a major shift in welfare discourse within the party.^[18]

     In other stories the unemployed were represented as suffering financially, physically, emotionally and psychologically. The advent of unemployment caused previously stable, healthy individuals to experience life changes and personal changes that could only elicit sympathy from their detractors. The defensive nature of this discourse is apparent. Anti-poverty activists who had previously forged ahead with radical strategies for empowerment were now forced to construct images of the poor for an audience influenced by the media and parliamentary shift to New Right discursive frames. This meant defending images of the poor that they had, themselves, attempted to dismantle.

     Some activists recognised the dangers in using these discourses in a media and political climate dominated by New Right welfare frames. In his role as head of the unemployed activist group, Coalition Against Poverty and Unemployment (CAPU) and as a researcher at Footscray's Urban and Social Research Centre, Harry Van Moorst was the first to coin the term 'dole pathology' to describe the effect of discourses of suffering within social research at this time. He reacted against work that focused upon psychological disorder, family violence and drug and alcohol abuse as the major issues surrounding the unemployed. His main objection was not that the unemployed did not suffer, or harbour drug and alcohol problems, or commit crime. Rather Van Moorst argued that by focusing upon these factors, activists failed to counter right-wing discourses that promoted 'personal change' rather than social or economic change.^[19]

     Discourses of suffering were indeed good intentions amidst bad politics as Van Moorst asserted, but they were more than that, they were representative of the New Right's newfound power to shape the terms of the debate. The role that suffering played in left-wing discourses had not necessarily changed, though it had intensified. What had changed was the frame within which these discourses were interpreted. The shift from Keynesian frames to New Right frames in media and politics ensured that the social, physical and psychological difficulties experienced by the unemployed could be transformed to strengthen New Right claims about dole bludging and the detrimental nature of welfare benefits.

Collective identities and welfare claims – Uniting workers and the unemployed

Alternatives to discourses of suffering existed in structurally focused cognitive frames that drew workers and the unemployed together into the same struggle. Ironically, CES and DSS staff used this frame with greatest effect. Front line 'bureaucrats' were despised by many unemployed activists, but in other instances they took on a different character and ceased to be part of the bureaucracy. Unionised DSS and CES workers became comrades of welfare advocates and the unemployed during the late 70s and early 80s. While the unemployed were most affected by the welfare policies of the Fraser Government and undoubtedly most affected by dole-bludger discourse, these workers suffered an undeniable strain. Workers at the CES, DSS and CYSS had suffered staffing cut backs commensurate with the Fraser Government's attack upon a 'bloated' public service. At the same time they had seen their workload increase rapidly throughout the mid-to-late 70s as the rate of unemployment had continued its climb. The government's campaign against dole bludgers pushed the workers to breaking point. Rules were tightened, work tests were applied more rigorously and more often, staff members were increasingly sent away from the office on targeted field-officer investigations, and workers became the first stop for frustrated and angry clients. The President of the union, Paul Munro, expressed fears for the safety of members claiming physical violence to be the inevitable result of the government's harsh policies.^[20] Every time a decision was made to hunt down the dole bludger, every time the minister implemented new and tighter policies, CES and DSS workers saw their workload spiral. In 1977 Senator Don Grimes reported that the CES and DSS were on a staffing level sufficient only to cope with 100 000 unemployed, and not the 340 000 registered.^[21] These workers could not be ignored. They belonged to a strong union, the Administrative and Clerical Officers Association (ACOA), and were responsible for the front-line implementation of the government's policies.

     In July 1979, the Minister for Social Security, Ian Viner, unveiled a ten-point plan to tighten the work test. Included within his statement was a plan to 'help young people maintain their employable skills' by directing them into 'volunteer' work at which dole rates would be paid, plus an extra $6 a week to cover out-of-pocket expenses. The scheme was to be administered by the CES and DSS. In its article 'Work test is key to dole blitz' the Daily Telegraph outlined the main features of the ten-point plan, which they claimed as 'an attack on those who have used the Social Security System as a "bankroll" to opt out of work and join "the alternative society"'. From now on people would have to accept casual, short-term, part-time and temporary work. Unemployment benefit recipients were to provide details of employers they had approached in an effort to find work. Unskilled workers, and after six weeks, skilled workers, would have to accept any job considered within their capacity. Anyone refusing a job involving considerable travel to and from the place of employment would have to prove that the travel cost more than 10 per cent of wages earned or lose the dole. Anyone who 'voluntarily' left a job or who did not meet the requirements would lose benefits for between six and twelve weeks. In addition, the CES were ordered to recall all beneficiaries regularly for fresh work test 'interviews'.^[22]

     Talk of the new requirements in the months before their announcement had strengthened the ACOA's resolve against them. In advance of Viner's announcement the union issued a discussion paper outlining its dissatisfaction with government policy and urging its members to act contrary to it.^[23] Within a month of Viner's announcement the union began surveying staff to gauge the level of support for a work-test ban. Opinions were mixed, but of the 431 Victorian branch CES respondents, 353 supported a ban if industrial objectives were not met, while 350 also supported a ban on 'humanitarian grounds'.^[24]

     In addition, ACOA members were asked to consider, as trade unionists, the effects of the policy on fellow workers. The union saw a link between unemployment benefit policy and the oppression of all workers. Tighter benefit policies were seen to impede the effectiveness of all trade unions by punishing those who refuse unsafe, ill-paid or unsatisfactory work. 'There can be no clearer example of perversion of social security arrangements for political ends—in this case divisions within unions are fostered, and a check upon industrial action is attempted.'^[25] In August a representative of the union, Paul Munro, met with Ian Viner to discuss ACOA action. Viner was informed of the union's plans to implement a work-test ban. An unproductive discussion led to the bans being implemented almost immediately.

     Three months later the ACOA began a public campaign as CES, DSS and CYSS members joined forces with the radical UWU to form an Anti-Work-Test Committee. On the 17^th, the Committee led 100 protesters in a rally staged at a Melbourne swimming pool being opened by the Minister for Health, Ralph Hunt, who had become notorious for his 'dole-bludger bashing'. One speaker threatened the minister claiming that ACOA members were 'willing to put their jobs on the line' if it meant that they would no longer be 'compelled to do the hatchet work for a government more concerned with neat statistics than the needs of human beings.'^[26]

     By April the following year the campaign had strengthened. The ACOA had become more involved with the UWU and together they began distributing pamphlets urging the unemployed to 'take action'. One pamphlet stated that changes to the work test had been intended 'to bring about short-term political gain and to greatly benefit big business interests'.^[27] The ACOA also assured the unemployed that its members would interpret the dole rules as liberally as possible and that they believed that 'if you are unemployed you have the right to receive benefits, and at least at poverty line rates.'^[28] The work-test ban was lifted in 1980 in response to government concessions to employ more front-line workers in its CES and DSS offices. However, the politicisation of the ACOA workers in regard to their role as public servants, the rights of welfare recipients, and the impact of welfare policy on industrial relations remained. Many workers continued to apply the ban covertly well beyond 1980.^[29]

     The impact of the government's welfare policy on industrial relations did not escape the ALP. Members such as Keith Johnson, Senator James Cavanagh and Deputy Opposition Leader Tom Uren made passionate speeches about the work test and its potential as a weapon for employers. In response to the work test introduced to parliament on 30 March 1976, Johnson argued:

It is a blatant attempt to cow those who are in employment and to discourage the taking of any action which may be regarded as being an assault on the established way of doing things or more likely a threat to the holy cow of profit. The new 'guidelines' as I think they are referred to place an enormous and terrible power in the hands of employers and can place an intolerable burden upon those who are employed or who seek employment…Very few if any people like being unemployed and most will go to extraordinary lengths to retain their employment. If there is no prospect of alternative employment or the receipt of unemployment benefit the employee is completely at the mercy of the employer.^[30]

At one public rally, held at Trades Hall in Sydney in 1976, Tom Uren urged workers to see the 'dole bludger' as a tool used by employers and the Fraser Government to divide workers.^[31] These words had the potential to speak directly to the workers who were told that the Liberal Government were vanquishing their economic enemies through the use of harsh new welfare policies. The potential existed for workers to see themselves as the victims of welfare policy and to see the benefits to the working class, and particularly the unskilled working class, in the introduction of a more relaxed welfare policy. Although concerns to this effect were at times expressed in parliament, they did not make their way into the papers and never really became a part of public welfare discourse. The most public use of this discourse was within the newsletter publications of the UWU and the UWM. The socialist influence within the UWU and the UWM led to the promotion of unity between the working class and the unemployed. It was claimed that their interests were the same, that they were of the same class and that they shared the same enemy: capitalism. The names of both organisations suggest not just a feeling of unity with workers but an identification of the unemployed as workers.

     This type of discourse and action, which draws the unemployed and workers together into the one cognitive frame, is reminiscent of the struggles of the 1890s and 1930s. As Charlie Fox has pointed out, organisations of the unemployed in the 1930s were generally founded by, and closely tied to, reformist labour unions or to the Communist Party. Both reformers and radicals fostered solidarity between the employed and unemployed organisations under their direction. The Communist Party, for example, feared that fascism would become an attractive option for the Australian working class and saw unity between the employed and unemployed as an antidote, urging that workers join the unemployed in their struggles and vice versa.^[32] In addition, the ACTU and Trades Hall Council became principal organisers of unemployed activism. While communists drew on a discourse that pitted the unemployed and workers against capitalists, reformers saw 'the money power' as the enemy of the unemployed and workers. It was they who had created unemployment in an attempt to smash the working class.^[33]

     Despite the discursive solidarity displayed by the UWU during the 1970s and 80s, organisational solidarity between labour unions and the unemployed is difficult to find. Up to this point the UWU in particular had attempted to forge links with more powerful labour unions. For a brief period following its formation in 1977, the UWU was keen to establish an infrastructure upon which unemployed activists could rely for support. While unemployed activists had very little in the way of financial and power resources, it was agreed that if they could manage to establish themselves as part of a broader labour movement network, these all-important mobilising tools may become accessible. To these ends it courted Trades Hall and attempted to gain the support of the ACTU, and there is some evidence of success, with the ACTU releasing in 1980 a circular calling on local Trades Halls to organise protests against unemployment.^[34] Aside from isolated instances however, labour organisations were largely unwilling to connect themselves with unemployed politics.

Discourses that sought to frame the 'worker' to include the unemployed were largely unsuccessful in the public arena. This was partly because they competed with more successful New Right cognitive frames that mobilised institutional and financial resources to establish the worker as 'taxpayer'. Although alliances between workers and the unemployed received some attention in the press during the ACOA work-test ban, they were never really framed within the media as anything more than opportunist radicalism on the part of the unemployed. More attention was given to the claims of overworked CES and DSS staff. Other distinctly anti-capitalist discourses that framed the unemployed and workers as allies in their fight against capital were virtually ignored by the media. These discourses were mainly relegated to activist pamphlets. Their potential as counter discourses was never fully realised within the public domain.

Conclusion

The shift to New Right frames in media and parliament depleted the institutional power resources of the Left and led to a colonisation of left-wing pro-welfare discourses by the New Right. The shift to New Right discursive frames therefore transformed the meaning of these discourses in such a way that they supported broader New Right agendas. Within these dominant frames discourses of suffering reinforced claims that the provision of welfare is bad for the poor and that bureaucracy fosters welfare dependence. This reveals the extent to which resistance can be contained by dominant discourses.

            It also reveals the potential within left-wing discourses to erect alternative cognitive frames that challenge the taxpayer/dole bludger dichotomy. As Barbara Hobson has argued, the 'process of identity formation itself is crucial for understanding the ability of collectivities to articulate claims and exercise power in welfare states.'^[35] But when these collective identities are denied access to the power resources that exist in media and parliament they are destined to remain peripheral. The New Right were able to combine a process of agenda-supportive cognitive framing with financial and institutional resources unmatched by the Left. It is this combination that has led to the domination of New Right welfare agendas in Australia.