The conservative Gillard government is apparently unembarrassed by re-inventing the welfare cheat myth. The right-wing Fraser government in the 1970s championed this nonsense.
This positioning of the ALP is perhaps not surprising, given the way Gillard was elevated to the throne. The major attack by BHP & Rio Tinto on Rudd, that preceded her ascendancy, has seemingly given confidence to big business to demand more subsidies and tax concessions. The mining tax debacle, and the unfolding drama around the so-called "carbon tax", illustrate the major power of big business in running this country. The carbon tax should be transformed into a tax on wealth, starting with Kloppers and his folk.

"a tax on wealth", will then deprive those with capitol the excess funds they use to invest, under risk.

Tax a business and they have to pass it on if they want to stay in business.

If they can't pass it on, they are no longer attractive to investors.

When they run out of money, then what? Tax another business area, till they run out of money as well?

There seems to be some belief in Australia that you can tax a company till it is unprofitable, and it will stay in business .. no, it will not! (what a dream world.

The author talks about business being the recipients of welfare .. but does not name how much, how they get it or what it is, just allusion to "someone is getting more than they deserve" or more to the point, "someone is getting more than me"

that seems closer to the truth of the matter.

Really this is about class war for the author isn't it, wanting something for nothing and maintaining the leftist delusion that the wealthy do not work.

People in all areas do things that are illegal or seem to be, every so often we have to clear them out, as the ALP is doing now.

To justify dole bludging by saying businesses get more, is no excuse for dole bludging.

Isn't it a nice world when we discover that two wrongs make a right. So Gillard proudly maintains in parliament that it's alright for her to lie because Howard did ("Bring on the debate", she cried), and now it's OK for people to rip off the system because corporates do. When will we reach the lowest common denominator?

Right on John.

I haven't noticed anyone mentioning the current ratio of job seekers to jobs. Anyone know what it is? Typically it's about 3 but can go much higher. This is not something the dole-bludger bashers often mention.

Then there's the $12 billion annual subsidies we pay to fossil fuel industries, even as we argue endlessly about a small carbon price: http://www.acfonline.org.au/articles/news.asp?news_id=3308
Or if you want to argue about how to count subsidies, look at a few of the other corporate ripoffs
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/43868.html

And on and on.

The lowest common denominator in federal parliament was reached a long time ago. Gillard and Abbott are both far less credible with the Australian public than Rudd and Turnbull if current opinion polls are accurately gauging public opinion.

And the latter two also had many serious faults, making them unpopular when they were our leaders. So where does the fault lie? Is Australia bereft of talent?

Our current parliamentary system is awful for a modern nation - producing on most sitting days a rough schoolyard behaviour brought on by our unpopular leaders with their skittish policy prescriptions on the run that aim for short term solutions that are too often targetted at fears, greed and populist appeal to the basest motives.

What we need is a major overhaul of our democratic system so that the real power to choose our leaders is placed directly in the hands of the Australian voters. In such a contest, these sorry excuses for political leaders would be weaned out very early in the election cycle. Some truely visionary and capable individuals would emerge that would inspire us and bringing the nation together around integrated long term strategic policy making.

geoff is there any source to this claim that industry and particularly the fossil fuel industry gets handouts, other than the usual anti-progress eco industry bashing sites?

Both your links are to unsubstantiated claims by greenpeace or ACF .. who can hardly be regarded as reliable objective research sources.

So how about something reliable and not just the usual on and on and on rumormongery and doom speak?

"Then there's the $12 billion annual subsidies we pay to fossil fuel industries"

Is that a budget line item, can you link it to anything?

another geoff beat up, throw ambit claims out, unsubstantiated then blame industry .. what about the dole bludgers mate? (are you on the dole geoff? do you get centrelink payments?)

Australia has currently the highest rate of workforce participation and the lowest unemployment for many years. It is an odd time to raise the issue of welfare bludgers and seems a knee-jerk response to Abbott's new welfare policy.

Are our politicians ever going to serve up something more creative or is it forever going to be a race to the bottom and wedge politics to distract from the real issues of fraud and corruption at the top of the social and economic hierarchy.

What John hasn’t been able to quote in the statistics included in his article are the really damning figures.

If there are twenty working days in a month, for mathematical purposes, then the practice of deluding the public, and manipulating the figures starts with the classification of a person who works for ONE day in that month being removed from the statistics as ‘unemployed’ to being ‘fully employed’.

It can be seen clearly that the unemployed statistics, so proudly trumpeted by Labor’s George Orwell look-likes queuing up for a burst of smiling spin on the ABC’s Labor propaganda vehicle, Q & A to convince the unsuspecting public that all is well in the world of employment and that the gnomes occupying the kindergarten-on-the-hill are making inroads into the need to ‘increase employment, look at the figures’, ‘increase tax revenues as a result’, the biggest lie of all ‘creating happy families due to increased employment, across the board’ while all the time, grossly using the statistical accounting procedures to make it appear as if it is true.

They even believe it themselves

Sleep comes easily to such people. Politicians have been deluding the public for years, all colours, all creeds. But the real world is getting closer and that is when the truth comes out on the monies given to supporters and friends on the BER, (remember that one?), the hundreds of millions wasted on the insulation fiasco, the travel wastage such as of Rudd and his permanent overseas holiday status, staff numbers, spin doctors and the like and the unresolved ‘boat people’ mismanagement, an open sore, and on it goes.

1984 is alive and well in 2011.

Lies, spin, misinterpretations and red herrings, the best example of which are the six investigations into Defence to distract the public from the real world of compromise by Gillard and her cronies , the rightwing / left wing circus, a never-ending performance and while this is all acting out, the unemployment figures are being massaged to suit the climate.

So John was kind with his quoted statistics. The reality is far worse

Quick -

Try Replacing the ALP: http://www.replacingthealp.org/

And the discussion of it on my blog: http://betternature.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/replacing-the-alp/

Amicus-
It must make life a lot simpler to have a reliable filter that excludes what you don't want to hear. Does it also provide the garnish of gratuitous abuse?
Heaven forbid that I was a burden on you (or dependent on you). I live off my hard-earned super, provided by your beloved capitalist system.

Must be a slow news day down at OLO HQ for this to get a look in. No-one can deny it is grubby politics to kick the unemployed, especially when there is scant evidence of the "problem" that is apparently driving the issue - I mean 5% unemployment, how low do people really think it can go before it reaches its structural low point? 0%? Only if people in desperate need stop applying for Government support, can't say I like the sound of that one bit. But all that aside, the author's slant on the issue is what makes this such a waste of bandwidth. Like Amicus points out, you tax a business until it is unprofitable then everyone loses. Labour needs capital, the more the latter thrives the better off the former will tend to be. Not perfect but there you go, we seem to muddle through with it. Resorting to tired old platitudes about class war just makes the author look a bit silly. Stick to the point - kicking the unemployed for political mileage is disgraceful. Full stop. Don't make it more than it is. Bringing your jaundiced slant to the story just distracts people from the real issue.

geoff, I expected that response .. if you want to make accusations that industry is bludging, then back them up. I accuse the author of the same thing, unsubstantiated claims.

Referring to rumor mongery from sites dedicated to such for their membership drives and to thrill their followers is hardly valid.

If industry is bludging then I'm very interested to see how we can stop it - but to just knee jerk to the usual doom sites is hardly substantial.

It must be great having a filter on reality where you get all your information from sites that all think the same way, anti progress, anti business, anti investment and pro doom alarmist.

What was the abuse geoff .. are you so sensitive to see "another geoff beat up" as if it's not true?

You always refer to hysterical claims from anti progress doom sites, what's the problem with pointing that out?

Thank goodness the capitalistic system provides eh?

Whoa, rexw! Now there's some hyperbole!
I know what might help - it should be legislated that failed lawyers are NOT permitted to run for any public office.

An awful lot of unsubstantiated claims in this article. I was excited to find a link that might shed some light - and maybe offer some cold, hard facts - but the link simply led to another of John's articles with a number of unsubstantiated claims.

Amicus has a point, and I think it hits home when we consider John's arguments about underemployment. Apparently, we have many people in this country who can't work enough because their employers can't afford to pay them for many more hours. The solution to this, then, is apparently to tax those employers more.

I don't object to welfare in legitimate cases. When we bring up youth allowance, though, I think it is a shoddy program that needs an overhaul. When I was at uni, I worked 20 hours a week and grossed just shy of $300 in each of those weeks. As a result, I earned too much to qualify for any youth allowance at all. That was fine - I'd rather work for my money, and got by just fine because I could live off my parents' hard-earned income for another few years. I certainly couldn't have afforded to travel interstate or intercity to study, though, without working many more hours and letting my studies slip.

What bothered me, though, was the number of colleagues I had who limited their hours not to give them more study time, but because youth allowance could make up the difference for them. I worked twenty hours a week, a friend worked eight and we both took home the same pay packet. The difference is that my pay was money for labour, his was money for ... well ... for the sake of it. We both graduated with similar results, so it's not like the government's investment paid off with a better-qualified graduate.

Amicus,

You are right.

Everytime a Bank CEF carts home a barrow full of lovely Dollars, he is exactly diminishing the Capital of that bank, is he not?

After the carting tha bank has less money to lend. Its earnings diminish unless the interest rate is increased.

If one does not have a mortgage one cannot understand this kind of logic.

It is all a joke, is it not?

Even if there are generational dole bludgers, good on em. Who decided that the purpose of life was fifty years of meaningless drudgery and consumerism? Gillard makes me sick with her home-spun verities and her obsequious work ethic. I know one or two creatively unemployed people and they're no drain in the system (more's the pity), and their lives are infinitely richer than the wealthy drones who stack their excess income in life insurance--poor deluded bastards!
This is a wealthy country--far wealthier than it deserves--and it shouldn't be grumbling about the few crumbs that fall from its table and are gathered up as the barest subsistence by their "betters". In our consumerist heaven it stays in circulation anyway.
Anyone would think this miserable nation was maintaining its wastrels, its aged and its infirm in five star accommodation rather than on the poverty line!
The real parasites are indeed the moguls and their minions, and even the middle classes, raking in their millions, puffing themselves up and bending over backwards to minimise and evade their wonted contribution.
Gillard is of course merely chasing votes; she can't leave Abbott to court the vicious egos of the well-to-do supremacists--there's enough of em to win him the election. So as usual it's tough on crime time, protect our borders, and vilify the ne'er-do-wells. Our political campaigns offer a lovely snapshot of the Australian mentality!

gosh squeers, we should get the government to take everything over and dole out everything exactly equally.

The we could all be like your mates and be ever so grateful and happy, and lead such fuller lives, with just a pittance each.

No more insurance for old age, no cars, nothing .. we all might get a little plot of land to farm.

ah .. good times ahead eh.

Just one thing, hasn't that been tried already? Failed dismally?

Capitalism is here to stay, like or not if you suck at it, well, such is life. We have welfare as a catchall, not as a way of life. If no one pays taxes, then no one is better off.

My parents worked hard, so we could have a better life, not a worse one, why should I disappoint them?

As I've said before,the whole system is rigged against the worker.We have a $ 1.4 trillion economy ie GDP pa.We usually have 3% growth + 3% inflation.This means that $90,000 million of our wealth is added to our economy each year as debt.Who conjures this money out of nothing to equal this? The answer now is the private banking system.

So what should be tax credit is now debt( 90 billion must now be doubled) or over $180,000 million plus interest owed to the private banking system.Now under these present rules our banks cannot create it all,so they have to borrow from the Global Central Banks.This why we have such a poor balance of payments even though we are flogging off all our resources.Keating should never have sold off the Commonwealth.The GST was brought in to service Govt debt owed to private banks.

In our system,the more growth we have the more debt we endure since our growth is expressed as debt by the private banking system.We cannot win by being good honest workers.

Tax the fractional resevrve system of banking,it is the mechanism by which banks own our increases in GDP+ inflation and loan it back to us at interest.Welcome to the modern world of economic serfdom.

Who is worse ? The bloke who shirks work & collects the dole or the bloke who rose to a high position in the Public Service via the Peter principle & gets $120,00 per annum plus taxpayer funded Superannuation of $500,00.
There are quite a lot more of the latter than the former. How is our Madam PM going to sort that out ?

RPG...said..

"Capitalism is here to stay, like or not if you suck at it, well, such is life...............and with that! I rest my case:)

LEAP

The prison system as a comparison to the dole: (Life for the “crim”)

Prison is an enclosed economy where prisoners are totally subsidised by the state in all facets of daily life.
A forty hour week working in prison factories or employment in prison farm logging industries nets, free of tax, approximately $60.00 pw;
All tangible living expense such as accommodation, education (to a small degree), transport, power (except air conditioning), clothing, toiletries, food, medical, dental and optical care are contributed tax free by the state.

Unemployment as a comparison: (life for the “dole-bludger)

A single rate unemployment benefit of approximately $270.00pw must cover transport to and from prospective employers for interviews (If any). Accommodation at market price, food, medical, (including primary care at $60.00 per doctors visit), urgent dental at market price, any optical care at market price, all clothing, fuel, heating and electricity (and maybe for the real lucky ones, a phone), most of which can be subsidised by begging at the doors of St Vincent de Paul or Salvation Army et al.

Unemployment also brings with it an obligation to work for the dole, thirty hours voluntarily per fortnight, as a societal repayment scheme, aimed at equalising the monetary contribution of the tax payer.

mmmm…Julia and Tony…. I think there is still room to manoeuvre for savings in these austere times

[Deleted for abuse.]

Well what can I say JP, you got what you deserved, courtesy of the labor voters.

The GFC was only one contributing factor to under employment.

You see, madam PM was minister for employment at that time and, somehow, in all her wisdom she decided that during the GFC would be a great time to stick it to the employers with her ridiculous IR changes.

End result, bosses go elsewhere.

You see the jobs are still out there, it's only that the lunch rooms are now in the likes of China, India and the Philippines.

Now, from a long term employers position, I feel that if governments were to remove the hurdles that deter us from employing, then that would go a long way towards fixing the problem.

Unfortunately though, the damage caused by labors reckless IR policies (both in the 90's and now) are irreparable in my view as many of our larger employers have gone elsewhere and found that the grass is much greener over there.

I am afraid that in my view it is a case of GAME OVER!

Of cause, you like most other followers now look for the easier option and that is to tax the job creators.

Be carefull what you wish for mate, as they to may take their businesses elsewhere.

Now if that happens you will find the real meaning of under employment.

In the mean time, your best hope is for labor to keep screwing things up, for appart from mining, they are about the only ones creating jobs around here.

Squeers

You are spot on.

Wealth is not about dollars. But any hapless alien studying human behaviour would be forgiven for concluding all that matters is prestige, power and money.

Our world would be so much poorer without the artists, musicians and the truly visionary - even if they happen to be on the dole.

Comedian, David Hughes, freely admits to remaining on the dole until he achieved success. Australia can afford a few who will never fit the 9 - 5 grind - they are a tiny minority. No country can afford the wealthy reaping massive rewards whether they manage organisations successfully or not.

With so-called capitalism being bailed out by governments (from Howard's tool of a brother through to the GFC) who are the real bludgers?

Firstly it is not Gillard's problem, it's ours collectively. Although she only represents a minority of the population she is by default our proxy. Until we have real proportional representation and we support more independents rather than the corporate parties, this will be the case.

Money only has value on the back of production. Few parasite activities add anything to the national wealth yet they demand an ever-increasing proportion of the country's gross domestic product.

Yes a dole bludger is a parasite, they is they generally produce nothing. So then what is a corporate lawyer? This person also produces nothing, does not contribute to justice and costs our community a lot more than the dole bludger. Perhaps we need more dole bludgers that volunteer and have veggie gardens and less corporate lawyers?

I do not see BHP or Rio Tinto as the real bludgers. They are both productive companies the issue is they are no longer owned and controlled to a large degree by Australians as a consequence the value of production largely goes offshore. I consider the real bludgers are the companies that run parasitic activities and produce nothing. The increase costs to every individual in this country. They would include the gambling industry, the legal industry that does not deal with real justice, the political industry that does not deliver democracy and organised religion that preys on the ignorant and weak. In my opinion the biggest bludger in our society is the advertising industry. Not only are they parasites in their own right, but are an incubator for other parasites such as professional sports people and celebrities.

Our pursuit of the holy dollar is making it more difficult for average Joe blow to get his share of the production pie. Is it any wonder that some in our society choose to secede from it! Perhaps they are the smart ones?

Beach bum was sitting on the beach watching the successful company executive building Beach mansion. The bum approached the executive and asked him "why have you wasted your life to do what I have done all my life”?

Our financial sytem is stuffed.We need a proper constitution and Govt banks that express increases in GDP debt free.

"Beach bum was sitting on the beach watching the successful company executive building Beach mansion. The bum approached the executive and asked him "why have you wasted your life to do what I have done all my life”?"

SCE, "oh I thought I'd just have a little place here for when the weather at my other beach houses isn't as good, or when I'm not at my place in Paris or Vienna. So what do you do when the surf here sucks and it's raining?"

response "Smoke dope, do nothing, try to pick up teenage ferals"

Not everyone wants to lead a life as empty of substance as this. I have mates who have never worked, have lived in beach communities surfing doing nothing much except grow some dope occasionally, when they can be bothered. They have a jaundiced view of travel and culture, because it is beyond them, so they deride it and sneer at it.

the same as happens here isn't it, the ones who don't have it, scorn it, the ones who do have it, realize the value of it and it's a reward for working hard and taking risks.

then there are those who say, so what if I've never improved myself, and p*ssed away everything I have earned on partying, cars, whatever and generally done bugger all with it - I deserve the same as everyone else, meaning he deserves the same as someone who has worked hard, improved themselves, taken risks and is now successful

no way, you are what you are and you are a product of your own life .. if you sucked at it(as rpg says), that's your problem.

you have no right to demand "everyone should be equal" and that I should willingly hand over to bludgers and ne'erdowells the fruits of my hard earned, and I'll fight to keep it that way.

Anyway, nothing will happen unless someone does it to get your votes, you've proved you're too bloody lazy and the best you can do is raise your hand for the next donation, courtesy of the taxpayers.

Thanks for your endorsement Ammonite.

Apropos of your comment, while capitalism is notoriously difficult to define, one authoritative voice who gave it a shot was Robert Heilbroner. He says "we can describe capitalism as a stratified society in which the accumulation of wealth fulfils two functions: the realization of prestige, with its freight of unconscious sexual and emotional needs, and the expression of power, with its own constellation of unconscious requirements and origins. When Marx calls capital "self-expanding value" he is underscoring the function of capital as an embodiment of power, for the essence of capital to Marx is its domination over labor; but when Veblen stresses the emulatery behaviour to which capital gives rise, he is explicitly stressing the resemblances between the symbolic properties of capital as wealth and the prestige objects of primitive societies. Both aspects of capital can be seen in the capitalist social formations, where the process of accumulating capital is pursued in part because it is the manner in which the dominant class expresses and renews its social control and in part because it is the typical means by which preeminence and distinction is achieved in the socioeconomic world" (The Nature and Logic of Capitalism 53).

Of course the puppets of the system think they are actuated by something sublime..

Squeers

>> Of course the puppets of the system think they are actuated by something sublime.. <<

If they thought otherwise, their usefulness to perpetual consumption would fail.

There is nothing wrong with someone choosing not to work. No problem!

The problem starts when that someone also expects to be supported in their chosen way of life.

If you are capable of working, then you should either work, or be cut off after you have failed to obtain work, despite the best efforts of the tax payer funded employment agencies.

Just remember, it is the 'dole bludger' who they are after, not the genuine unemployed.

If you are unemployed and 'actively seeking work' then you have nothing to fear. Unless of cause you have been presented with endless opportunities but you are just to fussy.

Otokonoko, you mention that you worked for 20 hours while at uni, but your friends only worked for 8 hours, yet both of you took home the same pay packet. Did you study full time? How much did you actually learn during those years? For I myself studied full time and I have to tell you we were overloaded with studies. People who worked the number of hours you did actually struggled in their studies, kept copying the work of others and nagged them for help. Sure, they got their degrees, but what is the point of getting a piece of paper without the knowledge behind it?

A Centrelink officer told me some time ago that if you work ONE hour a week you are not classified as unemployed, so you don't count in the statistics. I would be interested to see what the unemployment rate would be if the employment figures were converted to full time work.

I have been out of work for a while now. I applied for hundreds of jobs, even Australia-wide, and even outside of my trade, yet have not been able to secure employment. Can anyone explain why I am to be classified as a dole bludger? There is age discrimination and race also comes into the picture. Then we have many skilled migrants entering the country taking up jobs we could easily fill, but they have better experience. Maybe the political parties should start looking after Australians who vote them in.

But all they do is a popularity contest.

pluther,
you're not classified as a dole bludger if you're looking for work.

pluther,
you're not classified as a dole bludger if you're looking for work.

Well said INDI

Now pluther, it is very hard to imagine how anyone can apply for 'hundreds' of jobs and not secure one.

A few things I look for in a job seeker.

Neat and tidy, looking like they actually want a job, rather than fulfilling their obligations for centrelink.

I have many who come up to the counter, dressed in their sunday best, you know, thongs, boardies and a singlet and ask "any work goin bloke".

Another turn off in my industry is huge amounts of 'tats'.

Now you say you have even tried outside your trade. Well you must have an unusual trade, cause most trades are screaming out for workers. In QLD we have the likes of 'all trades QLD'. May I suggest you try one of these types of agencies in your state.

Now if you are considered 'old' which I am by the way, then you should have very valuable knowledge as they simply don't teach skills like they used to in our days, so you may well be able to pursue a role within the tafe system. There are many courses available to assist here.

A final option is to volunteer your services in a disaster area.

You see, most of these projects are overseen by tradies and, if they spot someone who is a 'stand out', then that can often lead to a real job.

Good luck.

Pluther, I studied full-time - dual degree, so five subjects a semester instead of the usual four. I also either learnt a lot or already knew it, as my GPA was 6.8. The trade-off was a lack of sleep for those years.

spot someone who is a 'stand out', then that can often lead to a real job.
rehctub,
Yep ! Even better would be a civilian type of National Service. I fear though that for many it is asking too much to put in some effort for the life ahead. Much more moral to hang around & wait for assistance. Even easier is to get a BA in some backward Uni & expect that the people around you owe you a living because you're so intelligent with your degree.

There seems to be a common thread to all arguments against the legendary 'dole bludger'; that it is morally and ethically wrong for anyone to get something for nothing.
I have to admit, I have some sympathy for this viewpoint. I have long suggested anyone who wishes to claim unemployment benefits should be able to enrol in school of TAFE studies, and be paid an hourly rate, dependent on results.
But as for getting something for nothing, isn't that exactly what investors do? You get paid once, say for the work you do, then get paid again for putting that same money in a bank, building society or trust, etc.
Isn't this really a classic example of what accountants call 'double dipping'? (making 2 claims on the same item).
The argument against getting something for nothing is that it breaks the laws of physics. It has to come from somewhere. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out where interest takers get their money from.
It is, and has ever been the poor who subsidise the rich. Never the other way around.
As to a better system, we have tried Communism and Capitalism, and both have failed. Make no mistake, the USA will join the Soviet Union in economic extinction within the next few years.
The most promising -if not only- synthesis must be “cooperativism”, if I may use that term. The Mondragon experiment seems largely successful, and has certainly achieved about the only 'narrowing of the gap' (between rich and poor) of any system anywhere in the world -apart from other cooperatives.