Century Conference

The broad scale changes to the Australian income support policy by Neo-liberals, such as Peter Saunders (Centre for Independent Studies), has led to arguments centering on generating savings and the prevention of so-called “welfare dependency”. Where once young people and unemployed people were targeted, the focus has now been extended to include people with a disability. The current Howard Government’s proposed changes to income support for people with a disability come into effect in July 2006. Underpinning these arguments are notions that selective income support for people with a disability is the most appropriate approach. This raises issues of adequacy, relevance, economic prospects and social well-being of people with a disability. Historically, the Australian system of income support has been dominated by selective approaches. Increasingly, attention has been drawn on the international level to the argument for an alternative and ideologically contrasting approach, that it, a universal Basic Income. This paper investigates the initial explorations into the adequacy of the current Australian selective approach to income support for people with a disability and the relevance of Basic income as an alternative. Determining the adequacy of each approach (selective and universal) provides a basis for extending the existing knowledge of social policy to incorporate disability