Monday 18 April 2011

The only 'welfare' narrative mainstream media will entertain


Welfare cheats rack up $9 million debt screams The Australian online ‘Top Story’ headline last Sunday above an article concerning a Centrelink review of 500 cash transfer recipients and, that cry was echoed throughout the mainstream media. With at least one publication, The Daily Telegraph, attempting to link this debt to money laundering on behalf of organised crime in its Cheats and criminals hit jackpot article.

It is obvious that this mini-frenzy over ‘high-flying’ gamblers was triggered by a recent media release, as the wording across diverse media outlets is almost identical in many instances. None of the online articles mentioned the very real possibility that some of these Centrelink review decisions might go before the Administrative Decisions Tribunal of Australia.

One has to wonder if this media release came from a Gillard Government minister ploughing the ground ahead of the May 2011 budget’s implementation of more ‘welfare reform’.

In comparison the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s March 2011 report Centrelink: The Right Of Review – Having Choices, Making Choices, highlighting problems with Centrelink review processes, created barely a ripple. As did those instances where both Centrelink and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions erred by pursuing Centrelink clients who had not committed fraud and, other instances where Centrelink sought to have its own previous decisions overturned in order to unsuccessfully pursue the mirage of financial gain inferred by a client’s gambling losses.

The vast majority of those receiving pensions, allowances, benefits, family payments or disaster relief are neither cheats, criminals or out-of-control gamblers and I suspect that many who live on the NSW North Coast are becoming rather tired of the media's almost unrelenting focus on a negative view of welfare recipients.

Centrelink: Right to review–having choices, making choices—0411 (195.46KB) PDF download

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