ABSTRACT
In Chapter 2, I identified the Whitlam Labor Government as representing the apex of welfare state egalitarianism in Australia. The government differed significantly from both preceding and succeeding governments in utilizing the welfare state as a key means of advancing greater social equity, and promoting significant community and welfare user participation in welfare planning and policy processes. However, the government’s aspirations were frustrated at least in part by broader economic and ideological developments beyond its control such as the 1974/75 international recession, the collapse of full employment, the loss of faith in Keynesian methods of government intervention, the associated revival of classical liberal ideas, and the increasingly popular view that welfare states were in crisis and unsustainable.
