Here's a brief but pertinent article:

http://thepunch.com.au/articles/middle-class-welfare-will-test-australias-means/

"So what was the Oppositions response?

It continues to support generous family payments rejecting the term "middle-class.welfare"...Better still, how does the Opposition explain away its extremely generous paid parental leave scheme which would see bankers paid at their full salaries up to $150,000 per year for six months absence from work..."

divine_msm - nice little hand-up and hand-out for the poor blighters, don't you agree? When I hear you ranting against this type of pork-barrel, I'll listen a little more attentively.

(Dropkicks - paranoia - chip off your shoulder....Wow! I'm glad you're not my doctor : )

A fundamentally sound article, presenting a reasonable question:
Under what conditions should welfare support be reviewed or revised?

Perhaps age 8 is too young an age to induce an automatic review of child-care entitlement, but surely a reasonable principle to be applied across the board would be to endeavour by reasonable means to avert and even to reverse the evolution of lifelong welfare dependency. It is not setting much of an example for a capable single parent with one child to continue to rely totally on childcare after the child has attained say 10 years of age, steadfastly rejecting any inducement to seek meaningful employment. An even worse example if this situation continues through the child's early teen years.

Why should it be unreasonable for support to be varied to unemployment benefit where suitable employment is available and the dependent child is of suitable age and mental/physical condition, and where satisfactory conditions apply for care of the child during the parent's absence at work? Ok, all sorts of complications - how many children and at what ages, suitable local work and childcare availability, flexible working hours availability, working or unemployed partner, special needs and mitigating factors. But, the principle is surely reasonable - that where conditions permit, work should be taken, so long as this would not cause undue and unreasonable hardship on the family - the principle that all mature individuals should contribute when and where conditions permit.

As for 'middle class welfare' - that is a separate issue, and I am of the opinion that all welfare and family allowances should be subject to income and assets scaling, including regarding employer and/or government subsidisation during and after pregnancy. Welfare, allowances and tax breaks should Not be based on being 'even handed', but rather be 'targeting' support to where it is needed most and can be of the greatest benefit to families and households to get on their feet and to lead meaningful and responsible lives.

Though a bit moot given the current employment situation, reasonable principles should not be deserted because of populist, political or temporary inconvenience.

Whether single parents with children older than 8 who have been claiming Parenting Payment for many years SHOULD be told to look for work is a leading question. It reinforces the unthinking assumption that paid employment is the only appropriate way to meet "mutual obligations" ... mutual obligations being a concept basically defined within Centrelink on the requirements for taxpayer support implying the highest moral values. Starting with such an assumption is very prejudicial to honest discussion.

It is reasonable to re-consider without prejudice not just what the law currently says about the legality of this notion (ACOSS sees "Mutual obligation as human rights abuse" according to the law), but more fundamentally to question what is morally right or wrong about our understanding of “mutual obligations”.

Moral, not legal questioning, has also been at the heart of comments made by others and morality is probably also at the heart of ACOSS objections too.

The author, like Centrelink, both sides of politics, most taxpayers, and most of the commentators here, pre-supposes that taxpayer support SHOULD (a moral judgement) depend on particular “moral obligations” about paid work. Even ACOSS would probably say that their objection is not about the obligation to find paid work but about the age of the child when taxpayer support should end and the “mutual obligation” to take paid work should start.

Before the reactionaries (knee jerks) immediately make another bunch of assumptions, start closing their minds and start formulating their prejudices and preconceptions into new “comments” about where I might be heading, I believe we do have obligations to each other and to society, and that these necessarily require action and mutually beneficial equitable returns. However I do question the assumption that paid employment is the only appropriate way to meet our obligations, and I do believe that it is unjust to require paid employment outcomes.

My reasoning is contained in a short paper at http://on.fb.me/P9HrH2

Regards
@landrights4all

The link I provided in my earlier comment is to a paper that deals with the moral question about the current understanding of “mutual obligations” and suggests one way some people might choose to fulfill their obligations the advantage of all. However a less “utopian” reform which I think ACOSS and others could endorse is about the reform of Centrelink’s mutual obligation definition as suggested at http://on.fb.me/Azrz9F

@landrights4all

"divine_msm - nice little hand-up and hand-out for the poor blighters, don't you agree? When I hear you ranting against this type of pork-barrel, I'll listen a little more attentively.

(Dropkicks - paranoia - chip off your shoulder....Wow! I'm glad you're not my doctor : )"

Another poster who does not read well?

Poirot -I described the majority of welfare recipients I had dealings with as being in genuine need of a "hand out and a hand up". How in heavens name has this simple statement been misconstrued? Sorry but to me that is what WELFARE is! I wasn't referring to "middle-class welfare" with which I'm not familiar. Bankers and their ilk are generally private health clients.

But guess what? As I wrote in that same sentence, "...I consider welfare a human right - for those in genuine need" Key words - GENUINE NEED. My RANT as you put it is against unnecessary and wasteful use of welfare dollars including by that unwieldy bureaucracy called CENTRELINK.

Now "Dropkicks" - you deal with some of the folk I've had to and come up with a better term. Unfortunately they do exist and in Public Hospitals you'll meet more than your fair share. Tis a great pity, for example, that forced sterilisation is not an option for people on welfare who churn out multiple kids AND spend much of the payment on booze, cigarettes, drugs, pokies while children are malnourished dirty and neglected. Mother of seven by seven different fathers for instance, well known to hospital, police and social services busted for wanting her 13yr old to have paid sex with Mum's latest BF. Distraught girl brought in by police having escaped rape attempt. Mother annoyed at fuss. My point - WELFARE enables the lifestyles of such 'dropkicks'! The more kids she had the more money she got. They are not typical welfare recipients but nor are they that rare.
As for the sarcasm - disrespect for disrespect. Stooping no doubt ... My bad. G'night

Yeah, well divine_msn....it's a strange old world in a social democracy and people like that do exist, although thankfully in the minority.

Unfortunately that is the standard that's oft quoted - examples of "dropkicks" and the like. I would like to think that most lone parents really do have the best interests of their children at heart, and flinging them onto the stretcher of casual employment and school holiday juggling when the government is padding the middle-class seems a tad obscene when all is said and done.

However, I take your point and appreciate that you see things the rest of us don't. I apologise if I hit below the belt.

My bad.