This income quarantining is a vicious assault on the dignity and freedom of the weakest and poorest people in society. That it is being perpetrated by a labor government makes me sick. What the hell are they thinking?
First off the blame goes to that racist throwback to the 1950s johnny coward who started this scheme supposedly to help little children but we all know it was just one more of his many dog whistles blown as a last, spiteful and shameful act in a desperate, and futile, attempt to hold onto his seat and the prime ministership. But a pox on labor for continuing with it despite numerous studies and groups calling for it to end. Despite it going against everything the labor party supposedly stands for.

The whole premise of the scheme is full of #%$@. I have yet to see a single scrap of evidence that says there is widespread misuse of benefit payments. The premise that children are suffering is not born out by the fat little porkers I see walking around. Introduce school breakfasts/lunches if you really care if kids get fed. A few more fruit shops and community gardens and a few less KFCs and McDonalds might be a good start. More money for active sports and parks and less on spying on their parents would make more sense.

What about working parents? Or is it only poor people who can waste their money and neglect their children? Is this the thin end of the wedge? First it is those on benefits but what makes you so sure you wont be next in their sights? Why wont they go after everyone else next? The precedent has been set. Remember the saying. "They came to take the Communists, but I said nothing, because I was not a Communist. They came to take the Catholics, but I said nothing, because I was a Protestant. And finally, They came to take me, but I said nothing, for I was guilty ... "

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This scheme will humiliate and degrade people. Force them into certain shops and certain checkout lines. Brand them as no hopers who cant think for themselves and cant be trusted. Patronise and shame people who have no way to fight back. Where are all you right wing scum who bleat on about the "nanny state" now?

Why not go back to the old days and have soup kitchens? Rationbooks. The poorhouse. Work gangs. Shanty towns. Make people tramp the highways and byways looking for work. Bring back the swagman lifestyle. Rabbits are good food. Plenty of road bridges you can sleep under. Are we that barbaric and uncivilised? What's the difference?

Labor better rethink this vile and unfair scheme forthwith or they risk further stigmatising and marginalising people who neither deserve such punishment nor will cope with the restrictions and intrusion into their lives. Expect a rise in homelessness, crime and suicide if this scheme ever goes ahead. It was a bad policy to begin with, designed in malice and shamefully executed, and this new expansion will only build and worsen this evil and unnecessarily harmful attempt at social control.

You can rest easier, Tired & Weary, the income quarantining/management will not apply to either aged or disabled pensioners, no matter where they live.

It will apply to people on most other forms of welfare, but arrangements can be made to pay rent automatically direct from the quarantined amount to landlords if that is what the welfare recipient prefers

Ginxy... just out of curiosity..you slam labor and you seem to be not exactly waving the banner for the Coalition.. who 'do' you wave the banner for ? (any particular party?)

I loathe them all. That is not too strongly put,-I loathe them and see no difference between any of them.

It astonishes me that you folks continue to extol the virtues of one particular Party. The continual definition of Left/Right is ludicrous-as is the perception of any Left influence/damage.

Any halfwit can work out that global politics;-at least in the First World, has shifted to the Right.
Society has shifted to the Right! If there is even a snifter of support for worker rights by a specific group/s---(they are called Unions-some good-some bad-most all now on the Right),---there is a meltdown of a loony Left takeover! Some CRETINS have even referred to Socialists!!,- now the big boogie-man. Remember when it was Communists??

That philosophy of denigrating Socialists is a straight out shift to the Right.

I have the utmost respect for former politician Ted Mack, who could not stomach what was happening. And also for the late Peter Andren.

You've asked BOZO;-I've answered. I won't debate it with you or anyone else.

I have read the exposure draft of the "decision-making principles" which will determine what Centrelink social workers (CSWs) will have to take into account in deciding whether a person should be subject to income management. Dan F. is quite correct.

Further, the CSWs will have to consider both whether person is meeting their priority needs and those of their dependents, and whether income management will assist them in doing so.

Before income management is applied, a person will have to be suffering domestic or family violence, or be subject to undue pressure, harassment, abuse, deception or exploitation for resources, of to be failing to undertake reasonable self care, or be homeless or at risk of being homeless, or be experiencing such financial hardship that they cannot meet the priority needs of themselves or of their dependents.

That said, I am not a supporter of compulsory income management. It is highly paternalistic, and so inappropriate except in defence of children. (Perhaps it could be available on a voluntary basis for adults.) The list of priority needs is very wide. Though Centrelink has learned from the publicised cases where management has had absurd and harmful consequences, there is the likelihood of it doing more harm than good.

I ask, however, how else we are to deal with children who are not being properly cared for because money is extorted from their carers? Take the children away? Jail drunken or abusive relatives?