Accounting and accountability for disability benefits in Australia, 1909–1961

Abstract

Public welfare programs have played a central role in providing support for the disabled in Australia since the early twentieth century. This study examines the role that discursive regimes of accounting and accountability played in such programs between 1909 and 1961, focusing on the Means Tests employed. The study reveals the array of implications of the accounting techniques that governed the identification of the disabled and often overrode a duty and ethic of care. Applying a Foucauldian perspective, the study explores how accounting practices associated with the disability support program were instrumental in identifying desired targets for austerity and the refusal of care. The findings review how accountability assisted the government to construct identities that facilitate the ability of the State to subject the disabled to continuous monitoring and observation. Further, the article reveals how techniques of accounting functioned as a “technology of the self” and facilitated the process of transforming individuals into subjugated citizens.

Railway systems and the ‘Universal Good of the State’: Technologies of government in the nineteenth-century Papal State

“…The work of Michel Foucault, most especially his interrelated concepts of disciplinary power and governmentality (Sargiacomo, 2008), has been a major influence in research into the history of accounting (Napier, 2006). Foucault-based studies have investigated the way in which power is exercised in apparently neutral, unseen ways in different sites, including States (Sargiacomo, 2008(Sargiacomo, , 2009Lai et al, 2012;Yayla, 2011;Funnell et al, 2016;Nikidehaghani and Hui, 2017), churches (Bigoni and Funnell, 2015), charitable institutions (Servalli, 2013), factories (Carmona et al, 1997(Carmona et al, , 2002Fúnez, 2005), military academies (Hoskin andMacve, 1986, 1988), mental asylums , clinics (Preston, 1992), schools (Walker, 2010) and universities Papi et al, 2018). Foucault's (1982Foucault's ( , 1991Foucault's ( , 2007 notion of rational government, or 'governmentality', consists of a complex of institutions, procedures, technologies and tactics in the service of a form of power that is exercised on a population, is based on knowledge and requires apparatuses of security (Foucault, 1991: 102).…”

“…The work of Michel Foucault, most especially his interrelated concepts of disciplinary power and governmentality (Sargiacomo, 2008), has been a major influence in research into the history of accounting (Napier, 2006). Foucault-based studies have investigated the way in which power is exercised in apparently neutral, unseen ways in different sites, including States (Funnell et al, 2016; Lai et al, 2012; Nikidehaghani and Hui, 2017; Sargiacomo, 2008, 2009; Yayla, 2011), churches (Bigoni and Funnell, 2015), charitable institutions (Servalli, 2013), factories (Carmona et al, 1997, 2002; Fúnez, 2005), military academies (Hoskin and Macve, 1986, 1988), mental asylums (Funnell et al, 2017, 2018), clinics (Preston, 1992), schools (Walker, 2010) and universities (Bigoni et al, 2018; Papi et al, 2018).…”

Accounting history in diverse settings - an introduction

“…Although two articles (Bowrey et al, 2017; Nikidehaghani and Hui, 2017) deal with the public sector, the individual setting of the articles are nevertheless ‘diverse’. The introduction of public welfare programmes that have played a central role in providing support for the disabled in Australia since the early twentieth century are the subject of, and form the setting for, the article by Nikidehaghani and Hui (2017). The article examines a new institution in a changing period.…”

“…The article examines a new institution in a changing period. During the nineteenth century, the only sources of charitable relief for people unable to support themselves were benevolent societies and voluntary organisations (Nikidehaghani and Hui, 2017). By the end of the nineteenth century, consideration started to be given to how relief provided to disabled individuals could be better organised and managed.…”

“…In their paper, Nikidehaghani and Hui (2017) focus on the discursive regimes of accounting and accountability played by the Means Tests programmes employed in Australia between 1909 and 1961. They illustrate how accounting techniques were central in creating strategies and welfare programmes for disabled citizens.…”