The demise of the old European empires and the rise of the modem nation state meant that masses of people were displaced by the new boundaries and new principles of the nation state. Mass migration, forced or voluntary-a consequence of the nationalist or ethnic makeup of many new states-created the modern refugee. Refugees are people who have been forced to leave their homelands because of a well-founded fear of persecution or a threat to their survival or that of their immediate families. International laws were developed to protect those not protected by their own governments or who came under threat because of the actions and policies of their own governments. The conviction that the international community has a duty to protect refugees was recognised by the League of Nations. When the United Nations replaced the League in 1945 it accepted the collective obligation of states to take responsibility for those fleeing persecution or danger. Accordingly, the UN General Assembly in 1946 adopted a resolution that laid the foundations for international refugee protection laws.

In November 2011, the Minister for Indigenous Affairs Jenny Macklin announced welfare changes for Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory.1 One of the measures announced was an extension of the 2009 Improving School Enrolment and Attendance through Welfare Reform Measures ('SEAM').2 In amending the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999, the Gillard government will link Aboriginal school attendance to welfare payments. For Aboriginal families in the NT, if your kids don't go to school, Centrelink can suspend income support and family parenting payments. For Frank Brennan, this is the 'nanny state on steroids.' He asks, 'who will be responsible for feeding the children whose parents have had their welfare payments suspended?'3 Intervention in the life of Indigenous people in the Territory is nothing new. In June 2007 the Howard government introduced the Northern Territory Emergency Response ('NTER') into 73 Aboriginal communities. This was the federal parliament's response to the findings of the NT Board of Inquiry into the sexual abuse of Aboriginal children.4 The 2007 NT Intervention granted the federal government direct control over selected Aboriginal communities for five years. The legal basis for the action was the territories powers contained within the Constitution. These powers allow the Commonwealth to legislate laws overriding territory sovereignty. Territory powers had been previously used by the Howard government to override the 1997 NT euthanasia laws and the 2006 ACT same-sex marriage laws.

This paper argues that 'human nature' is a key factor in understanding the underpinnings of collectivism and proposes that neoliberalism corrupts the innate human need to act socially, ethically, and morally for the benefit of the common good. The evolution of humanity has been grounded in our need to collectivise and act in concert with each other in ways that improve need satisfaction. Evolutionary biology suggests that any economic or philosophical system that fails to conceptualise human systems -communities, societies, collectives- is flawed and likely to fail in the long term. Adopting this position, this paper argues that neoliberalism, in its all-consuming demand for individualism, rejects the premise and evidence of evolutionary biology. As a result, neoliberalism corrupts human needs and human nature. The lynchpin to a more civilised society rests in economic and social systems that recognise the evolutionary reality that human needs are better satisfied when they act in concert with each other, through activities such as the building of social and economic capital in the welfare sector and through unionisation.

With the (then expected) decimation of the Gillard (later Rudd) Labor Government will come renewed pressure to cut back on public spending and 'reform' welfare and community sectors in Australia (see Sawer 2002). The mantra of fiscal responsibility that has underpinned the attacks on this government will pre-set the agenda for the next. This article examines social pressures against the 'welfare ideology' in the current Australian political climate, based on an analysis of the attacks on the 2010-13 Labor administration and the forces behind them. The discussion considers influences on public sentiments towards compassion for the needy and the necessity of sound social policy.