Some of the people who frequent here seem to be full-on social darwinists whose vision of society is a brutal struggle for survival where the poor, the marginal and the vulnerable are to be cast by the wayside like human refuse. And then demonised and dehumanised lest those responsible for this state of affairs suffer pangs of conscience. It's hard to tell what's worse: ordinary people who accept this brutal, callous logic, or the right-wing politicians that use resentment against the vulnerable as a wedge against their rivals to distract from the fact they are governing for the rich, and against the interests of the ordianary man and woman in any case. Don't condemn the vulernable until you've walked a mile in their shoes...

rehctub wrote: "Now, the real problem with hiring a disabled person is the way that they are paid. I have been there and done that. The employer is provided with a subsidy for up to 26 weeks, after which the employee has to then be paid at full rates."

Obviously it's both cheaper and more productive to pay employers to hire disabled people than to pay disabled people to do nothing. The more so if the arrangement is permanent.

rehctub continued: "I have complained about this very issue. I suggested that the employer be given a continual subsidy dependant on the degree of disability. But they won't listen."

Then MAKE them listen. If you're disabled, sue the Commonwealth for reducing your job opportunities by requiring employers to collect GST and PAYE tax at their own expense, in contravention of s.82 of the Constitution, which states that tax collection costs are the responsibility of the Commonwealth (http://is.gd/grp_s82). Hold out for vindication by refusing to settle the constitutional claim out of court without a public admission that present arrangements are indeed unconstitutional. But indicate that you are willing to discontinue the case for the time being (i.e. without settling it) if subsidies for employing disabled people are made permanent.

If it's good enough for the big mining companies to force the legislators to modify the mining tax, then it's good enough for disabled people to force the legislators to modify subsidies for hiring.

Tony , if he had any brains, would, if he gets into being main part of the government, put the top tax back up to the 66% or 70% just as the prime ministers and treasurers did in the 30 years before 1970, because they found that that was the way to get rid of the recession, and created lower costs for the workers and they were able to pay the mortgage, keep their homes and properly feed and clothe their family. The people in the parties since haven't had the intelligence or the integrity to bring sanity into parliament. It really needs that high top tax as you can see it will stop obscene incomes which causes high prices and a shortage of cash where it is needed in the workplace and hospitals etc, and other places which are so short of money over the last thirty or forty years. However with that high top tax, it also needs no tax on the first $30,000 or so to keep the income to the 30% which has been needed for running government. The lawyers we have had as prime ministers and treasurers over the last forty years, are almost totally devoid of intelligence. Look up on the internet,"history of tax in Australia", "History of tax in the US", and also "Taxes around the world". You know that there was a depresson in the US in the 1930's, and one in Australia as well, for the same reason, so get some intelligence from that, the political parties haven't got enough, and I doubt that any members of political parties do either, they just rave about something they just don't know about because the leader of their party says so.

Tristan Ewins.....I,d love to add another 3 to 4000 words to that, but thank-you. Dear Tony. Do you think the Australian public are that stupid not to see through your angle? The capitalist system you/we love so much, has by-products attached to it, and you know it! The right wing know just too well there's winners and looses with-in any democracy, so why the bullsh!t?

Naomi Anderson....the truth I find is much easer to print/type:)

Well done and Thankyou for bring this to light.

LEAP

Jack from Bicton is right on the money.

For example, back in the early 70's Telstra (then the PMG/Telecom) would take on up to 800 Trainees and Apprentices each year. They were trained at various dedicated training academies and TAFE and achieved formal industrial accreditation. There was a high attrition rate and most were "bled off" into private enterprise where they were greatly valued for the training they received.

In other words, the taxpayer was subsiding private industry with something they weren't prepare to do for themselves and thereby maintaining the economy.

Now that entire generation is on the verge of retirement and parts of the economy has been living off those skills for a very long time. There has been nothing undertaken remotely like those years for decades and typically replacements are now recruited from overseas.

Blaming, generalising and demonising the unemployed and using short-term political solutions (like the proposed "Dole-choices") are no solution at all.

Everybody gains from a proper system and so everybody should contribute.

When Malcolm Fraser was Prime Minister, he said we were creating a society of people who will never work, and this has happened, but the reason is controversial, but most likely the combination of the reciprocal imports from the mining exports and the low top tax. Joh Bjelke Petersen was encouraging the export of coal back in the 1950's, and Bob Menzies gave Lang Hancock the opening to export the iron ore about the same time, so the excessive amounts of these exports and others, have introduced the opening for the excessive amount of those imports that the companies are buying and selling cheap and destroying the manufacture of our Australian products. After the depression of the 1930's, John Curtin, Ben Chifley and Harold Holt all worked on the reason why there was a recession, and found that the top tax had to be higher, and it was increased to 66.6%. Unfortunately they did not realise that a reduction of the total tax take was needed to keep within the requirements of what was needed to handle the expenses of running the country, but then, neither did any other prime minister or treasurer since then, not Peter Costello or Wayne Swan either. You can look at the pickle the US is in now, their top personal tax of 35% has allowed high salaries to those who can organise it, with salaries around $100 million for some CEO's, $ 5 or $10 million for many actors and actresses, and the country is now in deep trouble financially, that is being really clever, isn't it. If we ever get a group of politicians with intelligence, they will increase the top personal tax to 65% or 70% and no tax for the first $30,000 or so, and increase the tax and decrease the amount of export of our non renewable resources, and give priority to Australian manufacturing industries.