Proponents of the Gillard government’s welfare cuts justified the changes to the single parent pension by placing the onus for poverty onto single parents, pathologising them as irresponsible and a burden. Their comments ignored the challenges of sole parenthood and the obstacles to employment that these challenges entail. Rather than acknowledging these realities, many comments promoted the ‘values’ of the ‘active society’ and highlighted the ills of welfare dependency. These comments form part of a new political rhetoric around welfare which includes slogans like ‘age of entitlement’, ‘earn or learn’, ‘hand up, not hand out’ and ‘lifters, not leaners’ – all of which emphasise individual responsibility and stereotype welfare recipients.