Welfare plan beyond understanding

Thank you, Eva Cox, for your comprehensive insight into what is alleged to pass for welfare by this government (“Welfare crack of the whip”, August 26-September 1). I, too, watched that televised interview with Christian Porter, in disgust. A wiser government with an eye to social harmony would defend the basic human right to dignity and fairness of those who are in need of welfare payments. But not Alan Tudge and Porter, who demonstrate their utter contempt for anyone on welfare payments with every breath they take. Which part of the decreasing number of available jobs do they not understand? Unless of course you are a retiring MP with a lobbying job lined up. The “cashless welfare card” is the toxic icing on their policy cake, along with the robo-debt scheme. They are both designed to shame welfare recipients at every turn, as part of a two-tiered society. It requires a wilfully thick skull or a mindset of utter denial not to understand that money would be more wisely spent on assisting those in need of support or rehabilitation, rather than punishing and demonising them further – that is, if a flourishing, healthy society is of any priority to those in power. In this situation, to speak of “the politics of envy” is breathtakingly offensive. This agenda appears to be the government’s defence of its Dickensian attitude to those less fortunate than themselves, to their enduring shame. These are not “Australian values” and never had been until the neoliberal era attempted to foist them upon us.

– Elizabeth Chandler, Napoleon Reef, NSW