ABSTRACT
A national system of unemployment benefit came into operation in 1945. Any unemployed person between the ages of 16 and 65 might register with the Commonwealth Employment Service and, as long as that person satisfied a means test on income and was capable of working and willing to accept ‘suitable work’, he or she was eligible to receive a cash benefit. The primary objective was ‘a high and stable level of employment’. Domestically, full employment would safeguard living standards, stimulate production and allow for national development. The retreat from full employment occurred in lockstep with the advance of inflation. During the Keynesian heyday, unemployment and inflation had been the Scylla and Charybdis of the industrial economy. The effect on unemployment was all too decisive. The obstacles to achieving an adequate system of social welfare such as that proposed by Henderson in 1975, a universal system ensuring that everyone is entitled to a sufficiency, are all too apparent.
