According to this approach, governments are seen as having an active role to play in the re-shaping of citizens’ behaviour-and, in particular, those citizens who are income support recipients and who are especially disadvantaged. This latter development reflects a paternalist turn in the welfare policies of many western democracies over the past two decades, known as the ‘new paternalism’.
In Australia, this has led to an increased policy focus on areas such as preventive health, gambling regulation and behaviourally based welfare reform. This is particularly the case as more becomes known about the cost to individuals and society of certain forms of personal behaviour, such as gambling, consumption of unhealthy food, alcohol abuse and smoking of tobacco. Governments are increasingly called upon to introduce policies designed to change the behaviour of individuals. The authors would like to thank Dr Simon Barraclough and Dr Sarah Miskin and colleagues, Brenton Holmes, Dr Mark Rodrigues and Michael Klapdor for their insightful comments and assistance in the preparation of this paper. This paper suggests that the principles of discrimination, proportionality, accountability and efficacy provide a framework with which to consider the appropriateness or otherwise of various forms of paternalist intervention. Relatively little scholarly attention has been devoted to the questions of what particular forms of paternalism may be deemed to be appropriate.It is further argued that if paternalist interventions are able to be justified in terms of people’s own values and preferences, then this adds weight to their acceptability given that they do not undermine people’s autonomy.