My first interaction with our country’s welfare system was a decade ago. After experiencing bullying and repeated cuts to hours, I had been forced out of my job and was unable to afford rent. I moved back home and made an attempt to return to study. However, bruised by my previous experience at work, I struggled with the confidence needed to put myself back out into the world, and after a few weeks I dropped out of university and ended up on the “dole”.
At first I was granted an exemption from mutual obligations for mental health but I was quickly pressured into finding work – not only from my job service provider but also from my family and the narrative I had internalised about unemployed people being lazy and “bludgers”. I had been given the proverbial “kick up the bum” by my mother, who thought that the added pressure of paying for rent would be an incentive to make my own way. But it was too much.
