A significant feature of the organisation of public affairs in the 1990s in liberal welfare states has been a rebirth of contractualism. In Australia, the provision of social security and employment assistance to unemployed people has been characterised by an incremental shift away from...

Social security support for unemployed people in Australia in the last decade has become increasingly conditional on their demonstrating ever greater job search effort. Yet we know relatively little about whether this shift accords with public opinion. This paper draws on a study of community...

Those elements of activity testing described as ‘mutual obligation’ are becoming increasingly important in social security policy towards unemployed people. In order to provide more information about public attitudes to this policy, the SPRC included a set of questions in its survey on...