An Unlikely Survival

An Unlikely Survival takes us through three-quarters of a century of welfare politics in Australia, delving into contests about political principles and what we perceive as the common good. As both economy and society underwent transformations, the necessity for government assistance, along with the expansion of civil society advocacy, became integral to political debates.

John Murphy traces the evolution of welfare, government by government, from Menzies to Morrison, spanning from the postwar era of full male employment to neoliberalism, deregulation, and globalism. He explores policy areas well beyond Centrelink payments: from wage fixing to work-for-the-dole, from childcare to middle-class tax benefits, from family payments to superannuation, from aged care to Indigenous welfare, and from Medicare to disability support.

How did the Hawke-Keating governments reconcile neoliberal economics with reforming social welfare? What did successive governments retain, modify, or dismantle? Who were the civil society actors who advocated for and against various initiatives? What accounts for the unlikely survival and refurbishment of our welfare system in a world characterised by more diverse families, globalisation, unemployment, and the entrenchment of the working poor?

An Unlikely Survival explores and attempts to answer profound questions about policy action and social justice in the past and in contemporary Australia. It asks whether we truly desire a fairer society—and if we are prepared to pay for it.