The social welfare scorecard: how the parties stack up

In fact, on current indications a Coalition victory may make it worse and the ALP just maintain the status quo. After a careful assessment of what was on offer, and scoring the various policies, the results are quite scary. Of the 90-odd social policy areas of need identified, at least 50 are yet to rate any mentions, 15 are negative divisive proposals and only about 30 of the actual policies on offer are possible contributors to social well being.

The list below has been scored in a summary fashion to offer an overview of the net gains and losses of social, rather than individual wellbeing. The low levels of items to be included in major party scores are a general indictment of the lack of social policy relevance in current election agendas. The sum of positive and negative scores indicates the problem: the ALP scored +4.5 in total out of a possible +80 plus; the Coalition didn’t even make it into positive figures with a total score of -10.5.

The selected items do not include those areas that are strictly economic — they are many and much is said on them elsewhere. They covers those initiatives that can undermine or feed into social wellbeing, resilience and social cohesion. In these areas, little is happening and the long list of omissions below is not comprehensive.

The basic scoring criterion was fairness in the standard Australian sense of a fair go for all, which means looking after those who do not share in the good fortune of most others. We looked closely at gender, and indigenous needs, but recognise many missing items from other areas and groups who also miss out on their fair share of public resources: like the creative arts, cultural diversity and other social needs.

There will be many arguments about defining fairness but most would agree that overly large unfair gaps between haves and have nots need good social policy remedies. Research shows unfair inequalities can be toxic to the wellbeing of all and damage social cohesion.

The score has three categories of promises/policies on the fairness of their social impact:

Divisive scare tactics; populist, scapegoating policy announcements or statements
The missing possible social measures that would make Australia fairer to all that are not mentioned by the major parties
The current policy promises that could be seen to have some social fairness impact.

I have omitted to score the Greens — while they’ll certainly have influence, the comparisons would not have worked. The Greens have fairness/equity built into every policy; no scapegoats except maybe the odd polluters. Their influence will also be limited to those areas where the major parties disagree and the policies below suggest this is not going to occur often.

The first group includes 15 dog whistle scare items — ‘yes’ scored as -1; a split yes/no was scored at 0.5 if there were mitigating factors. The second covers 10 social policy categories: for example, indigenous issues have had no mentions, with multiple sub items in each which obviously showed no scores as yet. There are 40 or so items, but hopefully more may yet emerge to give the lists more balance.

Group 3 includes the actual policy announcements in areas deemed to be potentially socially positive. These were scored as follows:

Undermines equity/fairness = -1
Maintain current inequities (no difference) = 0
Some positive indication = 0.5
Makes it fairer/redistributes = +1
Too hard to assess = ?

1. ISSUES OF PUBLIC CONCERN    ALP    Coalition
Too much debt        yes
Law-and-order gangs        yes
Knives and weapons    yes    yes
Security        yes
Border protection        yes
Boat people/people smugglers/Nauru    yes    yes
Big taxes    yes    yes
Decrease population        yes
“Sustainable” population    maybe   
Tighten dole        yes
Greater pressure to take jobs    yes    yes
Income management 2011        yes
Income management 2012 pilot NT    yes   
Boat people queue jumpers    yes    yes
Total    6.5    13
2. MISSING IN ACTION    ALP    Coalition
Return sole parents to PPS       
Raise Newstart to adequacy       
Revoke welfare to work sanctions       
Stop tighter disability eligibility       
Participation support for disabled       
Address poor indigenous education       
Indigenous knowledge not taught       
Gender VET in school choices       
TAFE and VET equity       
Return equity to core aims       
Stop major competitive tendering       
Extra funding for indigenous programs       
Re-introduce equity programs       
Reduce controls over skills determination       
Tertiary funding       
Recognise social value of courses       
Encourage post grad for excluded       
Fund representative groups       
Fund academic research, not just IP based       
Equal pay       
Support ASU case FW tribunal       
Services to cover rises in community services       
Ensures states offer extra funding to services       
Extra flexibility others carers       
Retirement income adequacy       
Supplement no super pensioners       
Remove rich super tax bias       
Women’s health services       
Accept program and funding       
Midwifery choosing homebirths       
Appoint women to new structures       
Indigenous respect and rights       
Bottom up engagement       
Local control over housing       
Increased targeted VET places       
More funding for indigenous training       
Accredited training on cultures       
Local employment funding       
More funding Indigenous services       
Increase PS employment       
More input to national curriculum       
Cultural training all service areas       
3. POSSIBLE FAIRNESS POLICIES    ALP    Coalition
Education       
Education cost refund    maybe    minus
Disability school fees        plus
Early disability intervention    plus   
50,000 extra trade training    plus   
Indigenous retention low/no sport    minus   
Fix extra pay rich schools    minus    minus
Family friendly       
PPL 6 mth 2012        plus
PPL 18 wks 2011    plus   
EOWA – support/fund changes    plus   
Indigenous constitutional referendum    plus    plus
Child Care       
Extra $6 CCTR       
Money for occasional care        plus
Retirement income       
Super to 12%       
Reduce super tax on low income        plus
Subsidiser older benficiaries’ work        .5
Earn more/keep more    .5   
Health       
Midwives/home births    maybe   
Defence services health       
Aged services home based    ?    ?
Aged residential services        plus
Disability support services    plus   
Dr nurse emergency training    plus   
Super clinics    plus    minus
Mental health suicide    plus   
Mental health big spend        plus
Reorganise admin       
Extra beds instead of services        maybe
Family payments       
FTBA till 18    maybe   
Bring forward FTA    neutral    neutral
Lump BBonus    plus   
Equal pay support    plus    minus
40% women on government boards    plus   
40% women on ASX boards    maybe   
Use regulation to fix entitlements        minus