Basic Income - Perm

Klein, and Fouksman, 2021 (Elise, Senior lecturer @Australian National University, Elizaveta, Lecturer at King’s College London, Reparations as a Rightful Share: From Universalism to Redress in Distributive Justice, Development and Change, Volume 53(1): 31-57)

Any granting of compensation in Australia is often framed by the state and judiciary as an exceptional event and not linked to redressing the settler colonial process that underpins the compensation award. This is at odds with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ calls for reparations as a means through which the process of settler colonialism can be recognized, unsettled and destabilized (Newfong, 1972/2014). Equally, as demonstrated by the case of the East Kimberley, Aboriginal sovereignty is constantly in danger of being undermined by the settler state, often through punitive, workfarist social security policies. This danger can be partially avoided with more unconditional redistribution and welfare, but can only be fully eschewed via a recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sovereignty along with the dismantling of settler colonial structures such as the contemporary social security system. This means that a more just distribution and access to a rightful share of national wealth (for instance, via a UBI for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples) would need to be one part of a broader reparations framework that also includes land rights, treaties, self-determination and the truth-telling of past and ongoing contemporary violence. Grants for collective community-led projects are also a way to make up for lost assets and associated inequality (Altman and Klein, 2017). These aspects together could begin to destabilize the structures of settler colonialism while honouring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sovereignty. A UBI, perhaps in the form of something similar to the U+BI proposed by the Movement for Black Lives, could be a mechanism for just distribution as long as it also provides scope for recognition and the unravelling of ongoing settler colonial structures of repression and dispossession. It would be a way to replace punitive conditionalities on payments such as those attached to the Cashless Debit Card and CDP. But payments to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples need also to be controlled by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples themselves. In paying for the plus in the U+BI formulation, the Australian state would also need to acknowledge not just the past but also the contemporary violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, such as what has been done in the name of ‘welfare’.