The ideology of the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS): from the charity model to welfarism to social justice.

• Jurisdiction: Australia
• Date: 01 January 1999
• Author: Mendes, Philip

Historical literature on Australian social policy has explored a number of differing perspectives.

Much analysis has focused on the Australian Labor Party/Liberal Party Left/Right ideological split as the key to understanding the policy debate (1), whilst more recently some analysts have moved towards a new economic rationalist/non economic rationalist dichotomy (2). Some literature has also concentrated on particular social policy themes or topic areas (3).

Other authors have extended this analysis to include consideration of the influence of class politics and the laborism of the trade union movement on welfare policy outcomes (4). In addition, attention has been drawn to the impact of gender, race and ethnicity, and the existence of fiscal and occupational benefits for the wealthy (5).

Yet, relatively little attention has been paid to the role played by non-government welfare organisations and lobby groups such as the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) or the State Councils of Social Service or the Brotherhood of St Laurence in Australian welfare history and debates. To be sure, authors such as Dickey, Roe, Garton, Mendelsohn and Pixley have referred in passing to the role played by such groups in raising public concerns about poverty and social injustice (6). And more recently, a number of authors have made reference to ACOSS within broader studies of Australian lobby groups and their strategies (7). However, none of these studies have focused centrally on the contribution of welfare lobby groups to Australian social policy outcomes. Nor has any serious consideration been given to the values and ideologies espoused by such groups. This essay redresses this gap by exploring the ideological development of ACOSS, Australia's foremost welfare lobby group, from its formation in 1956 to the present day.

Three distinct ideological models have arguably been dominant during different periods of ACOSS's history. These models have previously been utilised in a larger historical study of ACOSS (8), and reflect different strategies for assisting the poor in terms of their judgement of the causes of poverty, and the breadth of their focus for subsequent action.

The utilisation of these models is not intended to suggest that ACOSS has always spoken with a single policy voice. Throughout its history, ACOSS has represented a broad constituency including traditional religious and secular service providers, welfare consumers, self-help collectives, and professional associations who arguably represent different, and even potentially conflicting interests. What is perhaps most remarkable about ACOSS is that it has succeeded to a considerable degree in moulding together these heterogeneous groups and concerns into a single and relatively unified organisation (9).

In its formative years from 1956 till approximately 1965, ACOSS favoured the charity or residual model; that is, the provision of material benefits to the poor individual for reasons of compassion and altruism. This paradigm was rarely accompanied by any analysis or criticism of the broader social conditions and structures that cause poverty, inequality and injustice (10).

On occasions, this charitable model was challenged by social policy activists who argued that ACOSS should attack the structural causes of poverty. There was also limited lobbying of government to improve social security benefits for particular disadvantaged groups such as widows with dependent children. Nevertheless, overall, ACOSS emphasised support for the work of voluntary welfare agencies providing charitable or benevolent assistance (11).

From the mid-sixties till the election of the Hawke ALP Government in 1983, ACOSS policies primarily reflected a welfarist or poverty alleviation model which sought to improve the relative conditions of the poor via increases in social security benefits. In general, welfarism is restricted to incremental increases in income, and does not challenge the socio-economic structures that create poverty, or concern itself with broader income distribution devices such as the taxation system, education, housing, and health.

To be sure, there was some social democratic influence particularly during the Whitlam years when ACOSS responded to government structural initiatives in health, housing, urban development, and education by endorsing an explicitly universalist approach to welfare. Nevertheless, overall ACOSS policies favoured the elimination of poverty, rather than a broader attack on market-based inequality (12).

Since 1983, ACOSS has adhered to a social justice or structural model which aims to improve the conditions of the poor via addressing the broader structural causes of poverty and inequality. Instead of seeking incremental increases in particular social security benefits within a stable or shrinking social security budget, structuralists seek a broader redistribution of income from the rich to the poor via reforms in taxation, superannuation, and public infrastructure, in order to increase the total amount of money available to be spent on the poor. Structuralists concern themselves with the macro-economy as a whole, rather than focusing solely on the micro-issue of social security (13).

ACOSS's movement towards a social justice model reflected the election of a long-term federal Labor government committed (at least in principle) to social justice concerns, and the inclusion of ACOSS within corporatist frameworks and forums such as the Economic Planning Advisory Council (14).

Part One: Prologue to ACOSS

Councils of Social Service based on the model of the British Council of National Service (15) were established in most Australian States in the 1940s and 50s. Their establishment reflected the rapid growth of the government welfare sector, and the corresponding concern of the leading non-government welfare agencies to maintain their influence on government policy.

The founders of the state councils comprised a broad range of personalities and ideas. On the one hand, many of the leading activists were members of the `charity elite', establishment figures with an interest in charity matters. In Adelaide, for example, a combination of knights, ladies, reverends and doctors participated in the South Australian Council of Social Service together with the Lord Mayor of Adelaide, the minister and director of education, the commissioner of police and other local notables (16).

Similarly, representatives of the Psychiatrists' Association, the judiciary and "other learned professions" were prominent in the establishment of the Queensland Council of Social Service (17). Other Council activists, including particularly the representatives of the Australian Association of Social Workers, explicitly rejected the charity model of welfare, and strongly endorsed the expanded welfare state policies implemented by the Chifley Labor Government (18). This position, which appears to have exerted strong influence at least in the New South Wales and Victorian Councils of Social Service, emphasised the responsibility of the Councils to identify "social problems" and anomalies in welfare legislation, and undertake "community action" to provoke appropriate reforms (19).

Part Two: The Formative Years 1956-1965

ACOSS was formed in 1956 in response to an initiative by the Commonwealth Department of Social Services to create a National Social Welfare Committee which would act as an adviser to the Minister of Social Services, and seek affiliation with the International Conference of Social Welfare (20).

The 23 inaugural affiliates of ACOSS included all the major non-government welfare agencies such as the national service bodies of the three principal religious nominations, Protestant, Catholic And Jewish, the national bodies of the civilian widows and war widows, the British Medical Association, the YMCA and YWCA, the National Marriage Guidance Council of Australia, the Royal Australian Nursing Federation, International Social Service, the Australian Advisory Council for Physically Handicapped, the Australian Association of Social Workers, and the four existing State Councils of Social Service (21).

Other subsequently acquired members included the Red Cross, the General Conference of the Methodist Church of Australasia, the Australian Psychological Society, the Association of Apex Clubs, the Australian Association for the Mentally Retarded, and the Smith Family (22).

Noticeably, none of these organizations (except for the civilian widows and the war widows) represented consumers of welfare services. Whilst some professional associations were represented, ACOSS was primarily created as a welfare coordinating body concerned with representing the interests of the large charities. Those who saw a potential role for ACOSS as a lobby group representing the interests of the poor and disadvantaged had only minimal influence.

The initial objectives adopted by ACOSS clearly reflected this preference for charitable welfare (23). The constitution adopted in May 1959 defined ACOSS's objectives as being to "provide and undertake or assist in promoting and undertaking benevolent assistance for persons in needy circumstances", to "promote and assist the development of all aspects of Social Welfare in Australia by assisting the work of Statutory Authorities and voluntary organizations engaged in relieving poverty, distress, sickness or helplessness, and in providing relief amongst needy people in Australia or in pursuing any objects which are benevolent", and to "promote, assist or carry out public social charitable health services for those in need ..." (24).

To be sure, ACOSS also committed itself to "carrying out special projects of research to advance the work of statutory authorities and voluntary bodies in alleviating poverty and distress in Australia" (25). Again in 1961 and 1962, ACOSS reaffirmed its responsibility to engage in social research that would address social...