Safety Net: The Future of Welfare in Australia

The welfare state is one of the crowning achievements of the twentieth century, giving citizens access to healthcare, pensions, disability and unemployment benefits. This unprecedented expansion of the state was a product of the postwar period of the late 1940s, when governments ramped up investment in this grand safety net. By the 1970s, half of all government spending went towards social-welfare programs, but today the welfare state stands at a crossroads, beset both by political oppositi...