Income management in New Zealand and Australia: Differently framed but similarly problematic for Indigenous peoples

Income management, which reduces the control that benefit recipients have over social security income by quarantining a percentage for approved expenses, was introduced in both Australia and New Zealand in the late 2000s. In Australia, income management explicitly targeted Indigenous communities, being initiated as part of the Northern Territory Emergency Response in 2007, then later extended to other benefit recipients. In New Zealand, all 16- and 17-year-old benefit recipients and 18-year-old parents on a benefit became subject to income management in 2012 as a means to inhibit future welfare dependency' amongst young people. Despite the absence of an explicitly racialised framing in New Zealand, this article contends that both income management programmes represent a form of institutional racism, disproportionately affecting Indigenous peoples and significantly limiting Indigenous opportunities for self-determination.