Paul Starick: The human tragedy of poverty and welfare dependence in Adelaide’s once-thriving industrial areas

The devastating human cost of poverty and multi-generational welfare is biting deep in parts of Adelaide, and it needs much more than the usual Band-Aid fixes, Paul Starick writes.

The devastating human cost of poverty and multi-generational welfare dependency is becoming shockingly apparent in parts of Adelaide.

The tragic deaths of two northern suburbs children, Makai and Charlie, yet again cast into focus the devastation wrought by the long-term unemployment that has plagued Adelaide’s once-thriving industrial areas.

A police investigation will determine the circumstances of their premature passing. The care of five other children, aged between seven and 16 years, also is being examined as part of the investigation. Former police commissioner Mal Hyde has been appointed by Premier Peter Malinauskas to conduct a review of government agencies and their interaction with the families of both children.

These are serious and important investigations that should not be prejudged. Policy decisions triggered by these cases should be based on evidence.

But, as Mr Malinauskas said on Tuesday, it is important not to “discount the possibility that most of these people (frontline government agency workers) did their jobs and did them well, but really there was a lot of human tragedy at play here”.

Premier Peter Malinauskas on August 1 announces an inquiry into the deaths of two children that will run in conjunction with a police investigation. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Brenton Edwards

Beyond the circumstances of these awful cases, there is an ongoing tragedy of long-term socio-economic disadvantage that has gripped swathes of Adelaide for decades.

This is not an attempt to stereotype or stigmatise suburbs, or explain away the horrific deaths of young children. Rather, it should be a challenge to policymakers and commentators to consider the cumulative social consequences of long-term joblessness.

Rather than reflexively demanding more government staff or funding as a simplistic solution to child protection crises, perhaps sustained and intensive effort can be applied to job creation to reduce government dependency and help people enjoy the dignity of work.

This is a long-term issue. The catastrophic impact of a manufacturing downturn that started in the 1970s is described in A History of South Australia, by Adelaide University associate professors Paul Sendziuk and Robert Foster.

They write: “When consumer credit and foreign capital dried up in the 1970s, and especially at the turn of the century when car manufacturers began to replace their Adelaide plants with those where labour costs were cheaper, Adelaide’s northern and western industrial suburbs were hardest hit. The very success of the Housing Trust in situating workers close to industrial areas in the 1950s and 1960s came to constitute a grave problem. These suburbs became characterised by endemic unemployment and associated social problems, while housing and rental prices fell and residents who had the means – often those with the most talent and potential to become community leaders – left.”

The unemployment rate in Adelaide’s north is 5.1 per cent, according to the latest June figure, compared to 2.8 per cent in Adelaide central and hills region and 4.3 per cent in Adelaide’s south. Thankfully, Holden’s 2017 closure has not been an unmitigated economic disaster.

The last car rolled off the Elizabeth production line of Australian car maker Holden on October 20, 2017, marking the final demise of a national industry unable to stand up to global competition. AFP PHOTO / HOLDEN

But the north has one of the nation’s highest proportion of recipients of JobSeeker payments. The federal electorate of Spence, which includes Salisbury, Elizabeth, Munno Para and Gawler, has the second-highest number of JobSeeker payment recipients of any seat, 12,046, according to latest Social Security Department figures, from March.

There is a potential solution, of sorts, illustrated by studies by Harvard economist Raj Chetty and a team of almost two dozen other scholars. They analysed data from more than 70m United States Facebook users with 81bn friends to unearth detail about social relationships.

As reported by NPR’s Planet Money, they found places with more connections between low-income and high-income people had greater rates of upward mobility – low-income people were much more likely to climb the economic ladder. An inner-city Boston gym is presented as a case study. The gym recruits disadvantaged people, often fresh out of jail, and offers them pathways to become personal trainers. The gym, InnerCity Weightlifting, then pairs these new trainers with affluent clients to forge networks and opportunity.

Gyms might not be the silver bullet to Adelaide’s socio-economic ills. It might be education, as per the Malinauskas government’s plan. But it is an example of a creative and aspirational policy solution to attack ingrained social disadvantage, like that in major parts of Adelaide.

The task is complicated by a worsening economic downturn that is drying up resources. But we cannot afford to keep applying Band-Aids to the debilitating wounds of poverty, joblessness, welfare dependency and social and economic isolation.