An unnamed backbencher, quoted in an article about the Turnbull government’s now-abandoned musings on scrapping work for the dole, argued the program should be retained because it was “red meat for the base”.

The prejudices of the Coalition’s conservative “base” are, it seems, a more important consideration than other factors, like a government-commissioned review that found work for the dole increased the chances of an unemployed person getting a job by just 2%, or the fact that charities working in the sector consider the program a “demonstrable failure”.

And perhaps just to make sure the “base” is fully satiated, we were this week flung – via the ever-reliable the Daily Telegraph – another story about a new budget “crackdown” to “strip” welfare “slackers” and “bludgers” of their ill-deserved payments.

The story was heavier on adjectives than actual new facts but appeared to suggest that the government will resurrect measures similar to those in the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Further Strengthening Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2015.

And that bill wasn’t really a highly contentious “crackdown”. It simplified, and in some cases increased, penalties for job seekers who didn’t attend meetings with their service providers or declined to accept “suitable” jobs. Labor supported much of it but had problems with some measures. The Greens were opposed. It lapsed because it wasn’t debated in the Senate before the 2016 election. It hasn’t been re-presented.

And while the Tele thundered about 380,000 jobseekers who skipped interviews without a reasonable excuse, the minister for human services, when pressed, was clear the number considered by the government to be a problem was far smaller and was far more measured in his rhetoric.

“When you look at all the people who are on JobSearch, who are on unemployment benefits who are seeking work, the vast majority do the right thing; they turn up to every single appointment, they never miss one,” Alan Tudge told Radio National’s Patricia Karvelas.

“You have got about 100,000 people who consistently miss appointments, who consistently don’t do the right thing. We think that there is a subset of that group who have actually got a lot of issues going on in their life and we want to be able to identify those people and be able to assist them.

“But we know for a fact there is a group of people – maybe 40,000 or 50,000 – who have no vulnerability indicators next to them but who are deliberately skirting the system and not facing penalties.”

The minister seems to understand that the real world of unemployment is – for the vast majority of jobless – far removed from the bludgers’ paradise imagined by the consumers of ideological red meat. It involves subsisting on Newstart payments that are well below the poverty line, complying with job search rules that are complex, confusing, onerous and inflexible. And – most importantly – it’s a world where there are four job seekers for every available job.

The already broad powers to strip welfare payments and impose penalties for those who fail to meet their obligations are sometimes waived for people who re-engage with the system for a good reason – imposing them on people in these circumstances can often make it far harder to get work.

And, in any event, the number of penalties being applied under existing legislation is already increasing, even before any crackdown – something most people would probably support for the tiny minority of truly recalcitrant job seekers.

As for the remainder of those living on $268 a week while searching for jobs that often aren’t there, it seems they just have to live with being demonised as “bludgers” and “shirkers” by those who see some kind of political or other advantage in stoking resentment.

But the real problem for the “red meat” benchmark for policy-making is that voters are apparently not buying it anymore.

A Newspoll this week found 61% oppose cuts to welfare in the May budget, including almost half of those who identify as Coalition voters. Of course this doesn’t dive into which types of “welfare” the respondents are thinking about but it left the editorial writers at the Oz in a tizz. “How do they imagine the budget is to be repaired?,” they asked, rhetorically, having already declared this task to be impossible without “welfare reform”.

A Daily Tele columnist was even more disturbed and confused, before lighting upon the creative answer that welfare payments are obviously exactly like heroin. “Soon, you’re hooked. One payment isn’t enough. You develop a reliance and you’re begging for more … Australians are addicted to welfare. Though it would be politically unpopular, someone has to show the fortitude to wean us off.”

Alternatively, we could rely on the evidence and the experts to design policy to best help people find work, rather than the assumption that most voters are hungry to see the jobless vilified.