Radical change or more of the same under neoliberalism? The ‘life course’ of public attitudes towards social citizenship in New Zealand
Louise Humpage
Auckland University
Contact Email:   l.humpageauckland.ac.nz

This paper focuses on one component of a larger project evaluating theoretical assumptions that conditions placed on the receipt of welfare assistance under neoliberalism have affected the way citizens conceive social citizenship. The paper begins to develop a ‘social citizenship timeline’, by mapping changing attitudes to the social rights of citizenship (and more broadly the welfare state) as documented in the limited, existing New Zealand public opinion data. This first ‘cut’ at tracking social attitudes suggests that making comparisons with the past is difficult because New Zealanders have always been somewhat ambivalent and contradictory about the welfare state, although certain social rights and assistance for certain social groups have been strongly supported. Although New Zealanders do appear to have become more socially conservative, there is little evidence that neoliberal reform has significantly transformed attitudes towards social rights. This rather ambiguous data does not deal directly with issues of conditionality, making planned focus groups and interviews with New Zealand citizens all the more important, particularly for determining whether conditions placed on welfare assistance have impacted upon social belonging and cohesion. The paper briefly sets these preliminary findings against the experience of Australia and other countries before considering their policy implications.

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