"Well, you’ve cared for him too much": the current cohabitation rule as an obstacle to caring relationships
Lyndal Sleep
Griffith University
Contact Email:   Lyndal.sleepstudent.griffith.edu.au

This paper argues that the current cohabitation rule (Marriage-like Relationship (MLR) criteria) is experienced by Centrelink clients as an obstacle to care relationships. Diverse care relationships are scrutinised through the criteria. These relationships are then pressured.

John Gilliom (2001) argued that ‘welfare mothers’ experience intense social security surveillance as an obstacle to caring for their dependents. However, for those targeted by the current cohabitation rule, caring relationships are not confined to single mothers. DSP (Disability Support Pension) recipients, DSP recipient’s carers, aged pensioners, those caring for the elderly, and single fathers are also targeted - and their relationships scrutinised. Indeed, Fiona Williams points out that caring is not a 'gender binary' (Williams, 2001, p. 476), instead 'care as a practice invokes different experiences, different meanings, different contexts and multiple relations of power' (Williams, 2001, p. 468). This paper uses semi-structured interviews with 18 Centrelink clients who have contested a MLR decision to extend Gilliom’s thesis to show that the current cohabitation rule is experienced as an obstacle to diverse caring relationships.

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