Katherine Curchin

Internationally the payment of welfare benefits is increasingly being made conditional on recipients’ behaviour. Behavioural conditions and the payments to which they apply are diversifying. This article aims to contribute to the debate among scholars and policymakers over the ethics of welfare conditionality. While other assessments of the ethics of welfare conditionality have focused on the potential harm caused to vulnerable welfare recipients, this paper develops the argument that welfare conditionality is illiberal. Drawing on findings from behavioural science, it argues that relying on extrinsic motivation in the form of financial incentives is a less desirable approach to behavioural change than bolstering intrinsic motivation. The argument is illustrated with the case of the Australian ‘No Jab, No Pay’ policy, under which family payments and childcare subsidies are denied to parents whose children are not fully immunised. As behavioural conditions and the payments to which they are applied diversify, the cumulative effects of these conditions pose an underappreciated threat to citizens’ autonomy.

While hegemonic development discourse continues to privilege industrial capitalism, Jon Altman has called for an open exploration of creative alternatives that better suit the values and aspirations of ‘kin-based societies’. Building on empirical evidence from decades of research with Indigenous peoples in northern Australia, he has proposed an innovative way to conceptualise regional economies that seeks to re-establish the potential importance to livelihoods of customary production. The actually existing hybrid economies of northern Australia, which draw on Indigenous strengths, are a palpable demonstration that there is an alternative to the ecologically unsustainable status quo. The hybrid economy approach to development does not envisage the sudden elimination of either the market or the state, but rather makes space for other governing logics, thereby enabling Indigenous people to fashion livelihoods that enable them to live on or close to their ancestral lands. Economic hybridity is viewed as here to stay, rather than a transitory arrangement on the road to industrial capitalism. While numerous geographic, demographic and cultural features make remote Indigenous Australia highly distinctive, there are many lessons that might be drawn from the Australian experience in thinking about postdevelopment possibilities elsewhere.

This chapter examines attempts by policy makers to incorporate insights from behavioural economics, behavioural finance and cognitive psychology into policy aimed at alleviating poverty. This chapter proceeds by presenting some of the behavioural insights which have been identified as making poverty more difficult to escape. The chapter then describes the development in United Kingdom and United States of the discipline of behavioural economics, and the movement to use these insights from behavioural economics and other behavioural sciences to inform government interventions, and its rapid spread internationally. Special attention is paid to the concept of 'nudge' and the idea of developing programs through randomised controlled trials. The chapter then describes the research into the psychological effects of poverty. Though this field is still in its infancy, a range of ways this research might be applied to policy and programs are canvassed, including interventions aimed at influencing household saving and borrowing, productivity and investment in human capital through responsive parenting and post-compulsory schooling. Behavioural insights also have implications for the design of labour regulations and welfare state transfers. Attention then turns to critiques directed at behavioural public policy, including concerns about paternalism and what critics see as a misguided focus on individual level causes of poverty at the expense of structural causes.

Insights from experimental research in the behavioural sciences offer a powerful impetus to reject the new paternalist approach to social policy. The findings from psychology, behavioural economics and behavioural finance concerning decision making by people experiencing poverty point to the importance of alleviating material hardship by improving the social safety net, rather than trying to remedy the character of individuals through welfare conditionality. Thus far, the behavioural sciences' usefulness as an intellectual weapon against punitive welfare reform has been underappreciated. This is partly due to underappreciation of the considerable contrast between the libertarian paternalism advocated by some behavioural scientists, which provides a rationale for governments to nudge citizens, and Lawrence Mead's new paternalism, which emphasises the personal responsibility of the poor for their circumstances. More importantly the disproportionate attention given to nudge has inhibited recognition that the behavioural research on poverty can be used to argue for more ambitious policy approaches which seek to transform behaviour in more ethical ways.

The political philosopher Michael Sandel (2012) has recently argued compellingly for more attention to the moral limits of markets, arguing that market values can crowd out other values we should care about. Meanwhile, conservative advocates for welfare reform, such as the Australian Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson, have raised concerns about the impact
of long-term welfare receipt on community values. Pearson’s argument about welfare can be articulated in similar terms to Sandel’s argument about markets. Pearson maintains that
in heavily disadvantaged communities – such as the Aboriginal communities of Cape York Peninsula – the state’s provision of non-contributory welfare can crowd out important values
such as trust, respect, care for the weak and mutual help as well as self-reliance and hard work. Though Sandel’s and Pearson’s arguments find receptive audiences on different ends of the political spectrum, the parallels between their arguments are striking. The article seeks to promote greater scholarly engagement with Pearson’s moral critique of welfare while expressing scepticism about one of the key correctives he proposes.

Jon Altman has argued that an ideological commitment to the market has blinded many policy makers to the viable alternatives to market-based development in Australia’s north. This seminar examines the distinctive approach to economic development he advocates – the hybrid economy approach. This approach emphasises the importance of the customary sector of regional economies and the way the customary sector is linked to the state and market sectors. It is motivated both by scepticism that the market economy will ever deliver an adequate income for most Indigenous people in remote regions of Australia, and by fears that the transition from a kin-based to a market-based economy demands a profound transformation of Indigenous people’s values, desires and relationships. I argue that the concept of partial commodification is useful for grasping the appeal of the interaction between the customary, market and state sectors of regional economies, and thus appreciating the hybrid economy approach. The partial commodification of goods and services deriving from the Indigenous customary domain promises to create income-generating opportunities while supporting the continuation of distinctively Indigenous forms of personhood and sociality.

Noel Pearson and Jon Altman are two of the central intellectual figures in the contemporary debate on how to address the poverty and disadvantage of Indigenous Australians living in remote regions. This article compares their visions for Indigenous economic development. Pearson advocates greater integration of Indigenous people into what he calls the ‘real economy’, but Altman has produced an alternative approach to Indigenous development – the ‘hybrid economy’ approach – which he suggests is more in keeping with the aspirations of many Aboriginal people to maintain a degree of autonomy from non-Indigenous Australians and to continue living close to ancestral lands. This article argues that both men should be understood as advocates for Indigenous self-determination, but different ways of conceptualising Indigenous autonomy and cultural survival has led them to contrasting policy positions.

In the contemporary debate about remote Indigenous economic development, Jon Altman’s hybrid economy approach is the major alternative to the dominant neo‑liberal perspective. Altman’s approach emphasises the continuing customary economic activity of remote‑living Indigenous Australians and their legitimate aspirations to live and work
on their ancestral lands. Based on a close reading of Altman’s writings, this paper analyses the hybrid economy model – which is grounded in Altman’s observations of outstation life in Arnhem Land – and the approach to economic development Altman derives from it. It makes explicit the numerous assumptions underpinning the hybrid economy approach to
Indigenous development. Some of these assumptions are more controversial than others. It is argued that while Altman’s approach celebrates the unique skills and contributions of culturally‑connected Indigenous people, it is predicated on a pessimistic assessment of the likelihood of mainstream
education and employment ‘closing the gap’.

Noel Pearson and Jon Altman are two of the central intellectual figures in the contemporary debate on how to address the poverty and disadvantage of Indigenous Australians living in remote regions. This article compares their visions for Indigenous economic development. While Pearson advocates greater integration of Indigenous people into what he calls the ‘real economy’, Altman has produced an alternative approach to Indigenous development – the hybrid economy approach – which he suggests is more in keeping with the aspirations of many Aboriginal people to maintain a degree of autonomy from non-Indigenous Australians and to continue living close to ancestral lands. This paper argues that though both men should be understood as advocates for Indigenous self-determination, different ways of conceptualising Indigenous autonomy and cultural survival has led them to contrasting policy positions.

Feminists have fiercely debated whether it is wrong for outsiders to criticise gendered customs and practices identified with cultural minorities. This article explores the ethics of criticising other cultures by analysing the reaction to public criticism of Māori ceremonial protocol by two Pākehā women. It argues that the response to outsiders' criticism does not depend in a simple and direct way on whether insiders have resisted the criticised practice. There is a history of Māori women formulating critiques of the gender roles in Māori ceremonies, but the public response from Māori women to the Pākehā women's criticism was overwhelmingly negative. The outsiders' criticism was understood as an attack on the incorporation of Māori cultural expression into the public sector, rather than as a gesture of support or solidarity.

Noel Pearson is one of Australia’s most prominent and influential Aboriginal intellectuals. This article examines a major idea in his writing: the ‘quest for a radical centre’. Through the concept of the radical centre Pearson articulates both his desire to transcend existing policy paradigms and an ethics of partisanship which emphasizes the importance of listening to and negotiating with one’s political adversaries. Pearson’s development of this concept is explored in light of the role Pearson has played as leading advocate for Indigenous welfare reform, and especially his pivotal contribution to the public debate over the introduction of the Northern Territory Emergency Response Intervention by the Howard Government in 2007.

Noel Pearson is one of Australia's most prominent and influential Indigenous intellectuals. This article examines a major idea in Pearson's writing, the ‘quest for a radical centre’. It examines this idea from the perspective of both its usefulness in understanding the deficiencies in public conversation about Indigenous affairs, and its persuasiveness in legitimating the role that Pearson has played nationally as a champion of the Indigenous responsibility discourse. The article argues that conceptualising public debate as a quest for a radical centre resonates strongly with the theory of deliberative democracy. Similar to Dryzek and Niemeyer's work on ‘discursive representation’, the idea of the radical centre reveals the legitimacy possessed by unelected champions of discourses.