The National Network of Incarcerated & Formerly Incarcerated Women & Girls stands with anti-poverty, legal and social justice organisations opposing the Albanese Government’s plans to restart punitive welfare penalties under the Targeted Compliance Framework.
‘We flat out refuse the idea that taking away a person’s only means of survival can ever be called “employment support”,’ said Tabitha Lean.
‘We know punishment when we see it. Many of us have spent our lives moving through systems that respond to poverty, homelessness, violence, disability, racism and criminalisation with surveillance, compliance and punishment. We know exactly what happens when governments make the basic necessities of life conditional on a person proving, over and over again, that they are compliant enough to deserve them,’ said Tabitha Lean.
The Targeted Compliance Framework operates according to that same logic.
From 26 October, the Government intends to progressively restart payment cancellations and suspensions for people who do not meet compulsory requirements. This is despite serious findings about unlawful administration of the system, including the Commonwealth Ombudsman finding that 964 people had their payments unlawfully cancelled between April 2022 and July 2024. Independent analysis by Economic Justice Australia has estimated that approximately 310,000 people may have been affected by unlawful cancellations.
And yet the Government’s response is to turn the punishment machine back on.
National Network founder Debbie Kilroy said the Government should be dismantling the framework, not resurrecting it:
‘We flat out refuse to accept a system that deliberately takes food, rent and the basic means of survival away from people and then calls that support.’
‘Cutting off someone’s income does not create a job. It does not create housing. It does not put food in the fridge, petrol in the car or make an employer hire someone. It simply makes a person poorer and more vulnerable.’
‘For women leaving prison, this is particularly dangerous. Women are released with almost nothing. They may be trying to secure housing, reconnect with children, comply with parole, attend appointments, manage debts, replace identification and survive the enormous disruption created by imprisonment. Taking away their income at that point is not an administrative penalty. It can derail their entire release.’
The National Network is particularly concerned about the interaction between welfare conditionality and criminalisation.
‘Women leaving prison are routinely told they must successfully “reintegrate” into the community while facing enormous structural barriers to housing, employment and financial security. Centrelink payments are often the only income available while they try to rebuild their lives,’ said Tabitha Lean.
‘Removing that income can mean missed rent, homelessness, hunger, inability to afford transport, inability to attend appointments and increased reliance on unsafe relationships or survival economies. Then, when poverty produces crisis, the criminal legal system is waiting. This is how systems feed one another,’ said Tabitha Lean.
The National Network said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women would again carry a profoundly disproportionate burden.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people reportedly represented 46 per cent of people whose welfare payments were unlawfully cancelled between April 2022 and July 2024.
That figure should have stopped this Government in its tracks.
Instead, a system already demonstrated to disproportionately punish Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is being switched back on.
‘Governments cannot keep talking about Closing the Gap while designing and maintaining systems that deepen poverty and surveillance in Aboriginal communities,’ Debbie Kilroy said.
‘Aboriginal women are already mass represented in prisons, child removal systems, homelessness and poverty. Welfare penalties do not sit separately from those systems. They compound them,’ said Debbie Kilroy.
‘If you take away a woman’s income and she loses her housing, cannot feed her children, cannot afford transport or cannot meet another state-imposed obligation, the consequences can cascade through every part of her life,’ said Debbie Kilroy.
The National Network also rejects the underlying assumption that people experiencing poverty need the threat of destitution to force them into employment.
‘People do not need to be punished into wanting secure housing, enough money to live, meaningful work and a decent future,’ said Tabitha Lean.
‘What they need are actual opportunities, adequate income support, accessible services, secure housing, childcare, transport, education, culturally safe support and employment that pays enough to live.
The Government has an opportunity to build an employment services system based on dignity and material support rather than coercion. Restarting payment suspensions and cancellations takes us in precisely the opposite direction,’ said Tabitha Lean.
The National Network joins calls for the Government to:
- abolish the Targeted Compliance Framework, including payment suspensions and financial penalties;
- provide full back-pay and appropriate compensation to people affected by unlawful decisions;
- end compulsory activities backed by the threat of losing the income people need to survive;
- ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, disabled people, criminalised people and people directly affected by welfare conditionality have genuine decision-making power in the design of any replacement system; and
- invest in housing, adequate income support and voluntary, properly resourced pathways to employment rather than punishment.
‘We have built prisons around poverty for generations,’ Debbie Kilroy said.
‘We criminalise people for surviving, imprison them, release them into poverty, impose endless conditions on them and then punish them again when they cannot navigate systems designed to trip them up. Enough.’
‘A social safety net should catch people. It should not become another arm of the punishment system.’
For further comment, please contact Debbie Kilroy on 0419 762 474 or Tabitha Lean on 0499 780 226.
