Welfare, neo-liberalism, and the tough business of being a consumer

In this article we are primarily concerned with the disparity between the ‘mental health consumer’ label which carries implications of consumer power and consumer rights, and the reality underlying consumerist societies which presupposes a level of choice and spending power. The consumer label, while attempting to free the patient/client from an unequal relationship to her or his doctor or health care worker, has merely traded one inequity for another. For persons with a chronic mental illness who are either unemployed and/or welfare dependent, the consumer label has potentially negative consequences. Not only does it fail to address the sometimes involuntary nature of mental healthcare, but within the current political climate, the neo-liberalist user-pays philosophy is imposed onto a group whose spending power and freedom of choice is already heavily compromised. Introduction In the early 1970s, the Australian Consumer Council and the Australian Federation of Consumer Organisations were among the first groups to put the ‘health consumer’