An excellent overview and partial analysis of the problem Bernadette.

However lots of 'coulds', 'shoulds', 'musts' and maybes have changed nothing to date: they never have and never will.

Reality is that it is not in the politico-ECONOMIC interests of either Ms Plibersek and her LABOR Party comrades ...oops, sorry, 'colleagues', the well-rewarded 'executive' policy wonks in Can'tberra OR the profit-driven, private sector 'service providers' to share the limited and shrinking number of 'jobs' (let alone professions)and other, allegedly 'scarce', resources with ordinary (Working Class) Australians - with or without a disability!

Thinking Australians realised immediately that the only person he was trying to convince was himself, when the now-discredited 'leader' of the Liberals (Howard) and our seriously divided nation breathlessly opined one Australia Day how wonderful it was that "Australia is a classless society".

Yeah, right!

With considerable ongoing assistance and encouragement from self-serving and indifferent senior bureaucrats, academics and churchmen (sic), our 'rich country' has been cynically 're-formed' and 're-structured' into two incompatable socio-ECONOMIC classes - the haves and the have nots.

The rich and uber-rich minority who own and 'manage' (control) AUSTRALIA'S wealth are not about to share it without a fight.

The lengthy economic Depression about to descend upon the global Capitalist system (including Australia) may well provide an opportunity for the burgeoning number of 'have nots' in our Lucky Country to secure their rightful share of our common-wealth ... the fruits of their labour. But it most certainly will NOT happen without a collective, organised struggle to turn back the anti-social, anti-democratic 'reforms' imposed upon them over recent decades..

I have a better idea love.

A nice simple law, requiring any organisation,public service, publicly funded, or with any level of public subsidy, to hire the very best person they can find for a job.

Further they should be required to have a 6 month & 12 month assessment, & dismiss any person who has not proved to be the best available.

We might then gain some efficiency, sufficient to allow us to meet the welfare for all those who are not capable of earning their keep in a competitive world.

...I agree with the core complaint of the article, being the official abandonment to the wolves, of the unemployed and the disabled. It becomes obvious here in the pages of OLO, the most anti-Australian comments rise from the confines of those ensconced behind a barbwire fence in a remote paddock, and obviously divorced from the pain and frustration of disability and unemployment. But discounting the comment of the disconnected, there is good reason for major concern in the lack of Political interest in the welfare of the disabled and unemployed.

...Here is a group in our communities simply asking for a “fair go” from the Country that appears to consider the welfare of overseas migrants to be the dominant imperative. It is “galling” to this group, to note statistics like the following; in 2007, of 338k jobs created, 51% went to overseas born people, of which 46% were filled through our immigration programs. In the last four years, of 761k jobs created, 54% were filled locally, while 46% were filled through the immigration program. Last year, 81k immigrants took work in Australia, while 34k locals lost theirs across all states.
These figures expose the biggest cover-up Australians have witnessed in decades. The figures highlight the appalling state of an education system that ignores imperatives of employment: A cover-up of ineptitude and equally appalling lack of concern for the welfare of Australians, by Politicians of all shades.

...To lack the foresight and motivation to align a response to the issue of skills training to be anything other than to deal with this issue, by the simplicity and convenience of an immigration policy, is culpable Governance

An excellent article. I have long wondered why the government itself with all it's government sector jobs has never led the way in giving people who can't get jobs because of their age, disabilities or lack of good looks, a job.

Why couldn't they even have a quota of say 20 or 30% of jobs in the public service that have to be given to people with disabilities, or over a certain age etc who can't get jobs in the private sector.

Then there is the issue of apprenticeships, why not have policies like they had in the past where businesses who employed over a hundred workers had to train so many apprentices. Maybe we could employ the unemployed and turn them into skilled tradesmen instead of bringing in these skilled workers on visas. I believe that in twenty years time we will have all these people in the country who kept on getting there visas renewed by their bosses and then will claim citizenship because they will say they have been in the country for 20years. Bringing already trained workers here is just another way of saving money on training when all the workers on unemployment could be trained instead.

Also a lot of workers on visas send a lot of money back home to their families in poor countries so they are not spending as much in Austalia as our own trained workers would do.

It is always thus that the old sick and weak are abandoned by every species in nature and although this is being done under the guise of caring it is just abandonment like we see in the animal world.

It seems to me that Australian governments care more about the disadvantaged and sick in foreign countries than they do about people who are not included in society here.

“I have long wondered why the government ... has never led the way in giving people who can't get jobs because of their age, disabilities or lack of good looks, a job.” says CHERFUL.

To govern is to rule or control with authority, to carry out the policy and affairs of a nation by influencing people and determining courses of action or to restrain or control.

A primary & vital role of government, then, is to ensure the protection & preservation of society ...oops, sorry, The Economy: protection from both external AND internal enemies, and preservation of the system thru the provision of a multitude of financial ‘incentives’ (corporate welfare) and other PUBLICLY PAID FOR economic ‘goods’(such as a suitably educated and trained labour force, reliable road, rail and port facilities & communication networks, and government legislation and regulations designed to facilitate the accumulation of private Capital wealth and economic ‘Growth’

“Maybe we could employ the unemployed and turn them into skilled tradesmen instead of bringing in these skilled workers on visas”. “Bringing already trained workers here is just another way of saving money on training when all the workers on unemployment could be trained instead”.

This raises the question “Saving money for WHO?” ... the answer being both governments and private sector employers..

“It seems to me that Australian governments care more about the disadvantaged and sick in foreign countries than they do about people who are not included in society here.”

The reality behind visas is that our Cabinet Ministers and ‘executive’ bureaucrats allow Australian and foreign company executives to import ‘cheap labour’ into our ‘rich country’ in order to drive down the wages and conditions of Australian workers ... more profits for themselves ALLROUND.

Secondly, not a lot of Australian ‘foreign aid’ actually gets to those most in need: it tends to be siphoned into the pockets of government appointed ‘consultants’ and ‘advisors’, for ‘administrative expenses’!

Such is the ‘ethic’ of Capitalism ... that most anti-social, anti-democratic mode of SOCIAL Production, Distribution and Exchange of the goods and services we ALL need and produce in our common-wealth.