This thesis uses discourse analysis to examine the form and nature of Third Sector organisations counter-discourses to proposed neoliberal welfare policy reform. The research question is: how effectively do Third Sector organisations establish counter discourses to neoliberal rhetoric in times of proposed welfare reform?Recent threats to social welfare emerge from a particular neoliberal framing of social policy landscapes that emphasise responsibilities over rights, self-sufficiency over social program entitlement, and market mechanisms over government supports. This research examines the framing of welfare recipients, and particularly the complex and contested ways that they are discussed by nonprofits as these organisations engage in welfare reform advocacy. The findings here suggest that while Third Sector organisations opposed the introduction of welfare reforms such as workfare, that they also used discourses which constituted the subjects of welfare reform using the dominant neoliberal discourse which frames the poor as dependent, deviant, passive and disengaged.