Abstract
SummaryAn inter-war analysis of the British and Australian departments charged with compensating disabled First World War veterans and the British ex-service migrant in inter-war Australia illustrates how nation-states have failed to unify welfare and disability rehabilitation. Contemporary welfare states continue to codify and establish categories of prioritisation regarding communities with disabilities for public finance administered by national government departments. This binational case study identifies reoccurring type one and type two error problems: policy can deny legitimate claims for state assistance while also validating and financing potentially illegitimate claims. This underlines the factors that dictate which error type is ruled to be the least significant and the impact the resulting model has on individual claimants. This study reinforces the thesis of David Gerber who stresses the ahistorical centrality of ‘biopolitics’ or the relationship between societal and political perceptions of a conflict on state policy, in the treatment of veteran communities.
Highlights
An inter-war analysis of the British and Australian departments charged with compensating disabled First World War veterans and the British ex-service migrant in inter-war Australia illustrates how nation-states have failed to unify welfare and disability rehabilitation
Shemmens praised the Commission’s treatment of Australian veterans, which had been backed by successive federal governments, concluding: ‘the comparison between the two administrations may be reduced to this: the Repatriation Commission “cares” for its patients the British Ministry of Pensions does not’
Further national policy divergences arose between the British Ministry of Pensions and the Australian Repatriation Commission in the 1930s, which increased discontent amongst the British ex-service migrants residing in Australia
Summary
Shemmens praised the Commission’s treatment of Australian veterans, which had been backed by successive federal governments, concluding: ‘the comparison between the two administrations may be reduced to this: the Repatriation Commission “cares” for its patients the British Ministry of Pensions does not’.64 Such simplistic and moralistic conclusions are complicated, by considering the resulting impact that Australian welfare legislation had on national expenditure. The BESL protested against the Ministry’s 7-year time limit on British claims believing it to be prejudicial against its ex-servicemen in acquiring fair recompense for war-related disability.67 It was within this context that the Ministry’s first tour of Imperial Pensioners in Australia occurred.
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