From the Henderson Poverty Inquiry to the Cashless Debit Card: Alternatives to the Reframing of Poverty as Welfare Dependency in Australia

Abstract

The recent announcement of a Senate inquiry into the ‘extent and nature of poverty in Australia’ reminds us that poverty policy in Australia has long been a contested concept in terms of identification of causes and potential solutions. The 1972–1975 Henderson Commission of Inquiry into Poverty led by Ronald Henderson arguably represented the high point of Australian poverty research and policy discourse. That inquiry established a framework for measuring poverty based on a link to the minimum wage, and incorporating housing costs which has informed all subsequent research.