Top-down paternalism versus bottom-up community development: A case study of compulsory income management programs in Australia

The compulsory income management (IM) or welfare quarantining programs introduced by Australian governments over the past 11 years have provoked major public contention. One key source of conflict has been around whether these programs have been introduced via co-design processes enabling the consent of local communities, or alternatively whether they are merely top-down programs imposed with minimum consultation on specific geographical sites. This paper argues that most consultation processes have been limited and tokenistic, and rarely included actual IM participants. An alternative bottom-up community development process is proposed based on principles such as social inclusion, participation and empowerment.