It turns out the government's trick to turning the poverty statistics around is to simply hand out cash and hope.

It was revealed this week no one receiving a benefit has ever been sanctioned around their social responsibility obligations. There is a contract between state and recipient and things like sending your kid to school, enrolling them with a doctor, in other words being a proper parent, are required.  

The statistics would show us that doesn’t happen all the time because if it did, we wouldn’t have the intergenerational issues we do. And the Prime Minister wouldn't have made such a fuss about making it her personal goal to change the landscape.

The social obligations came into effect under the previous government. But this government has decided they're all a bit hard. Administratively, it's all a bit difficult and complex. So that’s that then.

So, the only chance the Prime Minister has of adjusting the poverty levers in this country is cash and hope. That’s their policy, cash and hope. The assumption is that by handing out yet more money, that money goes into something productive.

As I've said this week, the entire conversation is skewed the wrong way. The amount of money isn't the issue, the attitude is. It's that welfare isn't a stop gap, it’s a living. The increase in payment doesn’t make the gap more palatable between jobs; it's a pay rise for doing nothing.

The danger comes from both sides of the equation. A government that argues all this is economically good given the money goes into the economy. That is true, but the government doesn’t appear to care whether it's productive spending or wasteful.

And the recipients don't see their circumstances improving by effort, but rather by simply asking for more.

In Australia, or parts of it, welfare is tied to a card. It's limited in what it can be spent on. Surely, we are years behind the curve in terms of tracking obligations through technology. For example, the card is loaded when the child has a school record, and a doctor.

But once again, that’s attitude. If the Ministry of Social Development can't even be bothered asking a few questions, they're hardly chasing down technological solutions, are they?

This Government's entire redistribution argument is based around levelling the field. What happens when the field is levelled with people who have more money, but still won't play their part?

What's a kid's future, when mum or dad are hopeless, and the state's role is nothing more than a bank?

How long before those working to fund that bank either give up and join in, or pack their bags?