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The Forum > Article Comments > The fair go is fact, not political platitude > Comments

The fair go is fact, not political platitude : Comments

By Benjamin Herscovitch, published 16/5/2013

With the right combination of ambition and ability, success is open to Australians from any background, while Australia's dynamic meritocracy is one of the most socially mobile in the industrialised world.

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What is missing in this rose coloured, excuse making, justification of the status quo, essay, is equal opportunity, and an equal starting point.
That's the real fair go!
Yes sure, the cream nearly always rises to the top, except that which has been homogenised, by years and years of under-privilege and "officially sponsored" disadvantage?
Children who grow up in a house, where there is no wage earner, invariably become part of the phenomena, refereed to as generational poverty and or, post code poverty traps.
We are not by any measure, a third world country, nor a we short of, or shy on natural resources!
What we do have are the invariable apologists, who trot out their "statistics" and say, there look, some of us are doing comparatively well, therefore quite endemic disadvantage can be simply ignored?
This claimed in spite of the fact, if our common wealth were to be equitably distributed, every man woman and child would be millionaires.
We need to claw back our economic sovereignty, if would begin to start to address the all to often ignored or glossed over disadvantage; and areas of youth unemployment more than triple the current national average!
Moreover, record personal debt levels, does not equate to increased wealth! Rather just the opposite and often tenuous positions, just waiting for the inevitable rate rise, to visit bankruptcy.
Fair go used to mean not kicking a man when he was down, now it seems to mean turn your back and routinely ignore it; or, be very devious or patently partisan, and apply it to a selective success story sample and serendipity, rather than the great unwashed?
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Thursday, 16 May 2013 12:16:05 PM
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Great article Ben, don't pay any attention to Rhrosty & his communistic ideas. For god sake Rhrosty, when will you get the idea that effort & ability should be rewarded, & sloth should be penalized.

I told my kids as primary school students that they could be & do anything they wanted, provided they wanted it more, & were prepared to work harder for it, than the few other million people they were competing with.

I had to go guarantor for one when she bought her first house at 20, while still doing her BSc, & I just had to help one pay the Removalists bring her furniture back from Darwin. They are right now just where they deserve to be in relation to the effort they have put in.

Another couple of siblings in close family, one near owns his home, & drives around in an old Holden, the other has traveled the world, skied the best slopes, owns nothing, but drives a 4 week old up market SUV bought on minimum deposit. I guess Rhrosty will expect the public to supply this one with public housing in the future, as the poor dear doesn't have his own.

If I had wanted to be, I'm sure I could have been Prime Minister. Oz would be much better off if I had, but I was not prepared to do all the lying & cheating that is apparently necessary, or put in the effort.

If a horrible lying immigrant child, of the wrong sex, can get to be PM, surely anything is possible.
Posted by Hasbeen, Thursday, 16 May 2013 1:28:46 PM
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Dear Hasbeen,

I wish that I could agree with your and the author's
take on things.
However experience proves to tell a different story.
Polls have recently shown - that the same resume
can be sent to various companies and depending on the
name the applicant gives - job interviews are granted,
or not. Applicants with Anglo names get priority
over foreign sounding names. Don't even mention
Middle-Eastern or Asian names.

From my own experience - I've known people who were
talented, intelligent, hard workers, and yet were not
promoted whilst others who were less capable were, simply
because they were Anglos. Non-Anglos were told that they needed
certain qualifications to be promoted. However once they
did manage to get those qualifications the excuse given
for their non-promotion was, "Qualifications are only
one criteria we use..." These people couldn't win.
It was finally suggested to one of the applicants
that they should
change their surname (anglo-size it). To which an
appropriate reply was given and the person resigned,
went overseas, and ended up as a CEO for a large American
Corporation.

Some things apparently still
don't change that quickly in this country. As for our PM.
Well her name is Julia Gillard after all, and not
Benazir Bhutto or Megawati Sukarnoputri, or Roza Otunbayeva.
Posted by Lexi, Thursday, 16 May 2013 2:44:31 PM
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If a horrible lying immigrant child, of the wrong sex, can get to be PM, surely anything is possible.

One would need to be completely unprincipled to get to the top in the ALP, & I suspect, any major party. Just to get to the pre-selection stage requires an individual to prostitute any principles they once might have had for the good of the party. Undoubtedly thats how we have so many total deadbeats in the political circus, most people with a plurality of functional grey cells and even the slightest hint of decency would run a mile rather than join the most corrupt game in town. I keep hoping Big Clive will get up and prove me wrong about bloodsucking parasites, after all he's cut from a different cloth than the present crop.
Posted by praxidice, Thursday, 16 May 2013 3:18:33 PM
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Hasbeen: >I had to go guarantor for one who bought her first house aged just 20, while doing her BSC<
Well,that says it all doesn't it!?
This is not an average example, but one supported by rare privilege, a stable family environment and well heeled parents!?
And for your information.
As a former business owner and operator, I am anything but a communist.
And if you were a little more intelligent, and less of an Ideologue, you would see in my many contributions, anything but communistic Ideas!
I earned my first day's pay aged just seven, and adult wages, aged nine!
I picked up the traces aged just 17, and paid the mortgage on the family home, and general running costs for several years, when my father was incapacitated!
I had to do a seventy hour week and a dawn to dark gut-bust, just to earn enough money.
I had to burn the midnight oil until I turned thirty, to gain my tertiary qualifications.
So, don't you dare lecture me on the value of hard work!
I served my nation, and many of my colleagues and compatriots, would tell you, if you didn't have a tin ear, I worked as hard or harder than any man, and lead from the front, by example.
I take extreme umbrage at your extremely offensive ignorant remarks, and were you anything remotely close to a "Gentleman", you would have the good grace to withdraw and apologise unreservedly.
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Thursday, 16 May 2013 3:44:56 PM
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I also think this feel good article does not address the ongoing important need to ensure that all people have an equal starting point to enable opportunity to progress.

As someone who was a ward of the state, a manual worker, and a bit of a smart ass (in my 20s), i was sure glad the system allowed me the opportunity to progress in life.

Would i have done it sooner in a much tougher dog eat dog world, maybe, but i doubt it.

Lets hope Australia remains a fair country that always recongises the problem of disadvantage.

Let's also hope that those who succeed do not forget the advantages they received.

A minimum starting point on the basis of providing all with adequate opportunity is a hallmark of an advanced liberal democracy, albeit the need to be smart and efficient with our use of resources to ensure the right balance between production and consumption.

This latter point should be the new aim of the CIS and IPA, not bs about the role of individual.

We all need to lift our game, not specialise in propoganda.
Posted by Chris Lewis, Thursday, 16 May 2013 4:33:02 PM
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Apart from the offensive snobbery embedded in the article, i.e. that blue-collar work is inferior to white collar work and that low-paid work is less valuable to society than high-paid work, the upward social mobility model is rendered meaningless as more and more people move from low to high class-wealth-status.

The article also promotes the equally offensive cliche that those who occupy a lower class-wealth-status position are there because they chose to be, or because they lack the ability or motivation to lift themselves out of it. Conversely, those with high class-wealth-status must deserve to be there because of merit, i.e. innate superiority combined with the right work ethic.

I suspect that this was not the original concept of the ‘fair go’, which was more about the minimisation of class, wealth and status as the measure of a person's worth – or, better still, doing away with them altogether
Posted by Killarney, Thursday, 16 May 2013 6:49:55 PM
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Killarney, you stated "Apart from the offensive snobbery embedded in the article, i.e. that blue-collar work is inferior to white collar work and that low-paid work is less valuable to society than high-paid work, the upward social mobility model is rendered meaningless as more and more people move from low to high class-wealth-status."

I am a little confused, Australians, if that is whom you are referring to, are not moving from low to high class-wealth status in any sense of the word.

Private debt in Australia now exceeds GDP (not always a good measure I must state but one that is oft quoted) and as such, I would suggest that since the early 1980's this so called high-wealth status is an illusion, one that is vanishing at an ever increasing pace as each day passes.

You can't have a country where everyone is equal, it just does not work that way, unfortunately.

Realists, like myself, recognised a long-time ago we are slowly but surely losing our individual net worth at an ever increasing pace, based mainly on resource constraints (e.g. cheap energy-oil) and a fractional reserve banking finacial system that has become a ponzi scheme and is in the early stages of decay and rot.

I am happy to be where I am, with what I have, I want my children to have every opportunity they can muster, but I don't expect the government or anyone else to serve them a future on a silver platter either.

It's all a matter of risk and reward, one just needs to open one's eyes to the reality to know where all this is really going

Cheers

Geof
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Thursday, 16 May 2013 7:34:34 PM
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Sloth is it's own reward hasBeen.

I never understand this right wing obsession with people paying their way, or wanting everyone to be aspirational. And mow their lawn every week.

This Protestant work ethic is so passe.

I have no qualms with my tax dollars going to degenerates who cant be assed working. I really couldn't care less. I'm doing fine, I pity someone without even the desire to do something constructive and is happy to live off the pathetic welfare entitlements. They're probably depressed, or even if they aren't I don't begrudge them their life choices.

I don't understand what they want done with these people. That poster Individual? keeps going on about national service or something. Why? They're not even on my radar unless they steal my VCR, even then it's covered by insurance.

It's really irrational this obsession with work and identity and status
Posted by Houellebecq, Thursday, 16 May 2013 7:51:25 PM
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In the news this morning, was Australia's richest woman, a toffee nosed, plump Gina Reinhardt, claiming Australia is using mining as an ATM.
Well, it does seem that mining has contributed far less tax dollars, in spite of rising profits, since the Introduction of the super profits tax!
So much for the ATM!
This coming from the same woman reportedly depriving her own children of their lawful, mining wealth inheritance.
No ATM for them either, it seems?
She also went on to say, some Africans were earning just $2.00 a day.
Apparently, she thinks that's okay, given she indicated, she'd like to import some African workers, given their, better work ethic?
One would imagine, she is typical of the privileged class, and one who basically inherited all her wealth, privilege and power.
Unlike Clive Palmer, a self made man, who was born in the log cabin, he built with his own two hands.
One can be absolutely sure, she would never ever accept South African slave wages and working conditions, and a tin shanty hovel, for herself or her children.
I mean therefore, her own work ethic is questionable?
I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if she lasted less than five exhausting minutes on the hand held handle of a Mexican banjo, shovelling coal.
Let alone, match the ten tons an hour, bagged and stacked, I managed as a callow youth.
People like her, generally think others can do double or triple what they could manage, at their youngest and fittest.
The problem for the Gina Reinhardts of this world, they simply don't possess the relevant work experience, to know and understand, the time and work effort, required to accomplish any task.
Everything was handed out on a silver platter, meaning, every work related subject, is conceptional and or conjecture?
Nor are they, it seems, willing or intelligent enough, to lay out the capital investment required to increase production?
They'd rather, it would seem, employ cheaper slave wage labour?
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Friday, 17 May 2013 12:09:54 PM
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Houellebecq Like you, I'm OK mate. I had enough sense to go & get a bit of paper, even when we had to pay the full cost ourselves, which set me up. However for me that is not enough. You see not everyone is OK mate, although they have put in very hard.

When I see my neighbors, & some relatives, struggling like hell just to hang on to what they have worked for & earned, it is then I get really snaky at the bludgers ripping them off. When I look at them, I see my couple of kids still to get started, & dislike bludgers.

When another neighbor is really worried that he will be caught paying cash in hand for a day's work, to the slobs who will not take a proper job when offered, I get grumpy.

When I first made it to average weekly earnings, I was paying 7.25% tax, & 3.5% interest on my home loan. I had it easy. Many younger ones have not had it so easy. When I see them shopping for clothes in the charity shop, I want to knock the bludgers off their backs.

So sorry mate, but the "I'm all right" doesn't do it for me.
Posted by Hasbeen, Friday, 17 May 2013 12:36:11 PM
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Hasbeen,

I think most people who are unemployed are likley to try hard.

Why do i say this? Well because most welfare recipients also supported work-for-the-dole in the early years of the Howard govt.

To me, this suggests that most people want to get ahead and work for a living, but sometimes there is little opportunity. Gone are the days when you could leave one job and start another on the same day.
Posted by Chris Lewis, Friday, 17 May 2013 8:12:41 PM
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Geoff of Perth

I'm not sure what you are confused by in my post. Looking at my comment and yours, we appear to agree. I'm not saying that we can achieve a totally equal society - unless some cataclysm wiped out nine-tenths of humanity and we reverted to living in small nomadic tribes. However, political policies that keep vigilant to this ideal create much healthier economies and societies than ones that don't.

Houllebecq

Thoroughly agree and well said. I too have never understood this right-wing obsession with working one's butt off all one's life towards some aspirational 'good' that always seems to end up being for the 'good' of the rich and powerful. There is no universal or natural law that says humans were put on this earth for such a purpose.
Posted by Killarney, Friday, 17 May 2013 9:50:27 PM
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And Killarney, There is no universal or natural law that says humans were put on this earth to keep the bludgers either.

Chris Lewis, around here most of the dole bludgers are long term, & have no intension of getting a job.

My wife would have been a good mate for Lexi. Always had some excuse for the unemployed, & the bludger.

Since becoming the welfare counselor in a job network charity, dealing with the long term unemployed, she no longer believes the sob stories. She has found she can not help 70% of them, because the very last thing they want is a job.

It will be excessively generous welfare, & the bleeding hearts that destroy democracy.
Posted by Hasbeen, Friday, 17 May 2013 11:09:16 PM
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hasbeen

'Killarney, There is no universal or natural law that says humans were put on this earth to keep the bludgers either.'

Well, rest assured that many billions of our taxpayer dollars are pumped into the Centrelink Stasi Security State every year just to protect the financial integrity of mean-spirited better-offs like yourself.
Posted by Killarney, Saturday, 18 May 2013 2:37:08 AM
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Hasbeen, i have no problem with a tough mutual obligation program. I dont think people should get assistance with no contribution.

What are we talking about? 15 hours a week work or other criteria such as courses. I am sure that 90% of them would feel much better having made some contribution, opportunuities that should also improve their confidence and self-esteeem.

I dont think Aust needs to ever move beyond the current system, as in the US which has time limits on their recipients.
Posted by Chris Lewis, Saturday, 18 May 2013 7:49:47 AM
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Chris I think you are genuine in that belief, but if so, you need to get out more mate. You obviously have not talked with those working with the long term dole bludgers.

Killarney not wanting to keep bludgers in comfort makes me mean spirited? Not wanting to makes ne sensible.

I came back to Oz in 76, after 6 years where there is not only no handout, but a head tax. I had $4000 total assets. If I am better off it is through work, & not wasting my money. I can see no reason why those struggling to pay their own way should have to watch these waste of space bludgers, living in cheep public housing, so they have more money to piss up against a wall.

The only ones who can agree that is fair must either be feeling guilty about how much they rip out of the public purse, or are bludgers themselves.
Posted by Hasbeen, Saturday, 18 May 2013 11:12:23 AM
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Hasbeen

I know several people who are long-term unemployed. None of them fit your description of bludger.

Firstly, ‘long-term unemployed’ is a misnomer. It’s rare for a person receiving unemployment benefits to never ever work. Almost all long-term dole recipients are engaged in intermittent casual labour, which is offset against their benefits.

Secondly, many long-term unemployed people are suffering from mild to serious personality disorders (e.g. borderline disorder and OCD) and neurological and emotional problems (e.g. Asperger syndrome, depression and chronic anxiety). Although they do not technically qualify as ‘disabled’, their ability to hold down a steady job is compromised.

Thirdly, many have little choice but to live in areas where unemployment is high, because they cannot afford the high rents and living costs in cities and large towns. Others may have no choice but to live in areas where there are no jobs to suit their skills or experience, e.g. single parents subject to Family Court rulings.

Fourthly, many are too old. If you find yourself over 50 and unemployed, it’s very difficult to find employment, even casual employment. If you are over 60 it is almost impossible. Now that the pension age has been increased from 60 to 62 under Howard, and from 62 to 67 under Rudd, many unemployed people over 60 are caught in a catastrophic limbo, in which they are too young to retire and too old to get a job.

But don’t fret about these complexities, Hasbeen. Just call them all bludgers
Posted by Killarney, Saturday, 18 May 2013 9:22:49 PM
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Killarney - Firstly, ‘long-term unemployed’ is a misnomer. It’s rare for a person receiving unemployment benefits to never ever work. Almost all long-term dole recipients are engaged in intermittent casual labour, which is offset against their benefits.

I couldn't imagine 'surviving' on less than $250 per week, especially if one has to pay anything in rent, mortgage or finance repayments.

Killarney - Secondly, many long-term unemployed people are suffering from mild to serious personality disorders (e.g. borderline disorder and OCD) and neurological and emotional problems (e.g. Asperger syndrome, depression and chronic anxiety). Although they do not technically qualify as ‘disabled’, their ability to hold down a steady job is compromised.

It would also be correct to say long term employment itself would inevitably result in all manner of psychiatric & physical disorders

Killarney - Thirdly, many have little choice but to live in areas where unemployment is high, because they cannot afford the high rents and living costs in cities and large towns. Others may have no choice but to live in areas where there are no jobs to suit their skills or experience, e.g. single parents subject to Family Court rulings.

Given the employment situation in the greater Brisbane and Gold Coast with a zillion ex-public servants on the streets thanks to General Disaster, it may actually be preferable to live elsewhere. The typical bogan level job advertized on Jobsearch draws up to 600 applications, consequently an awful lot of jobseekeers are wasting their time in the aforementioned location.

to be continued
Posted by praxidice, Saturday, 18 May 2013 9:58:13 PM
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continued

Killarney - Fourthly, many are too old. If you find yourself over 50 and unemployed, it’s very difficult to find employment, even casual employment. If you are over 60 it is almost impossible. Now that the pension age has been increased from 60 to 62 under Howard, and from 62 to 67 under Rudd, many unemployed people over 60 are caught in a catastrophic limbo, in which they are too young to retire and too old to get a job.

These days, 40 is generally regarded as over then hill, down the other side and one foot in the grave. I'm personally aware of heaps of very highly qualified over 40 Australians who have not had even one job interview in over 2000 applications. Its a fact of life in 2013 that few Australians in the 40plus set will EVER see another paypacket after leaving a job for whatever reason, the only exceptions being hopelessly menial occupations like driving a cab. On the other hand, there is always the gubmunt sponsored NEIS scheme even if, as the name implies, a modicum of 'enterprise' is necessary.
Posted by praxidice, Saturday, 18 May 2013 9:58:43 PM
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What world do you lot inhabit, It can't be the one I live in. I can understand, praxidice, that those ex bureaucrats might have a problem. Everyone knows that it only takes a few months in the "public service" to make people unemployable in the real world.

Ageing middle managers do have trouble I've heard, However for those who want to actually work, a few of case studies.

Neighbors kid 19, chucked in a mechanics apprenticeship at a car dealership to do the same thing in the army. He had 3 months to wait for sign up, so looked for some work. With in a few days he found 3 days a week laboring with a plasterer.

The kid's a worker. He was on full time after a week, being paid $1100, & the boss was begging him to stay, & do an apprenticeship. The 2 dole bludger kids few doors down has the road have been unemployed, [with a bit of cash in hand] for 2 years.

Two mates of mine had a 2 man truck body building business. It is heavy work, & with one 58 & one 61 they were finding it a bit hard. They wanted an apprentice to train, & take some of the load. They had trouble getting any takers.

The first 2 found the work too hard, & lasted less than a month each.
The 3Rd was a good kid, & doing well, but was coming from another town 60Km away. he was head hunted by a similar business, in his own town.

Continued
Posted by Hasbeen, Sunday, 19 May 2013 2:04:32 AM
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With the work too heavy they closed the business, & went looking for some work. The older one has no qualifications, but is one of those people who has knocked around, & can do anything very well. He found a couple of days a week with a welfare agency, doing work in pensioners homes, to help keep them out of nursing homes.

They then had him do 3 months while another fellow went on long service leave. They found out how good he was & quickly gave him full time, 2 days here & 3 on the Gold Coast. Not many would be as good as this bloke, but any competent home maintenance person could do the job.

The other one found a couple of days welding for a small fabrication business near by. In the same way, they soon had him on full time, doing things they previously did not do.

A middle management type lost his job when the branch closed. With in a week he was working full time for a hydroponics lettuce grower, who has been unable to find reliable workers for a year or more.

My youngest daughter has just come back from 2 years in Darwin. It took 4 phone calls for her to have 2 jobs to chose from.

A local farmer gave up the struggle & took a job with an asphalt laying company. With in 5 months they had added another full plant with him running it.

Some of these jobs may not be exactly great jobs, but they pay the bills, & keep people off welfare, if they want to work, so please no garbage about no jobs available.
Posted by Hasbeen, Sunday, 19 May 2013 2:04:41 AM
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Hasbeen, i am for a very tough attitude to long term unemployed, if they dont meet the criteria they should not get benefits.

All i am saying is that there is likley to be adverse social effects from just giving them nothing; we do not live in easy employment times so we need smart ways to develop mutual obligation that is both minimal in cost (bureacracy) and effective.

Again, i am sure that most of them would adhere if bar is raised, but i would never support no assistance at all
Posted by Chris Lewis, Sunday, 19 May 2013 9:28:10 AM
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Dear Hasbeen

Good arguments, however the cases identified involved people possessed of a hint of 'enterprise'. Certainly SOME can find their way through the unemployment jungle and a few even prosper. For what its worth, my story is essentially comparable, over qualified, over experienced, over aged, over the moronic system & consequently near unemployable. That said, with a number of income streams, none of which are individually 'exciting', collectively mean giving a rats is optional. Unfortunately there are far too many poor unfortunates in society who for one reason or another lack the necessaries to survive in this brave new world.

Question is how best to deal with the typical Woodridge / Logan bogan whose whole mission in life is low end factory drudgery five days a week & spending everything they earn on booze, cancer sticks & keeping a heap of crap Falcadore mobile ?? Once the factory employer decides its time to move their marginally profitable operation offshore as so many have done, what is the fate of said bogan employees ?? Clearly they are never going to start a business, and even if they did it would go belly-up within the first day. You are at least partly correct in suggesting younger people have at least a fighting chance. My biggest concern is with the rapidly growing ranks of wrinklies who really need to 'work' for another twenty odd years. I did some time in labour hire placement yonks ago and even then it was near impossible to convince a wet behind the ears HR type to even consider a very highly qualified 40y/o. These days its even worse with higher wages & cheap 457 visa labour.

Whilst I don't know how low level workers could get by on lower wages, my suspicion is that one of the key requirements to fixing the job market in Australia will be significant reduction in wages. Obviously dramatic slashing of gubmunt squandering & consequent axing of tax impositions would help, but gubmunts generally being the train wrecks they are, I can't imagine anything so enlightened in this lifetime.
Posted by praxidice, Sunday, 19 May 2013 9:40:47 AM
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The support structure for long term unemployed is a significant part of the problem. Centrelink is, and always has been, an unmitigated disgrace with precious few sentient staff, a plethora of the most moronic rules and regulations ever dreamed up by a bureaucrazy, a totally stuffed information system & a heavy-handed approach to any unfortunate who contravenes some esoteric provision that even the staff don't comprehend. Then there is the completely broken Job Placement Organization male bovine dropping, the third (or is it the fourth ??) in a series of futile attempts by DEEWR to create something remotely approaching workable. As if merely changing the labels on a totally dysfunctional rabble would ever result in meaningful improvement !!

I am aware from discussions with senior DEEWR personnel, that there is a dawning consiousness of the problem with unemployed & unemployable wrinklies, however as with bureaucrazies generally, several decades of running frantically in ever decreasing circles whilst chanting 'woe is me' is invariably entailed before the light of day appears. I can perceive only three viable options, firstly scrapping Centrelink & the JPO nonsense and starting with a completely clean slate with the rules written by a sentient being, secondly, privatizing the whole event, and thirdly (the most likely given the inepitude of gubmunts generally), doing stuff all.
Posted by praxidice, Sunday, 19 May 2013 9:59:00 AM
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Yes praxidice, I understand the overqualified problem, & it is a real one. I guess little people are afraid of employing someone more competent than themselves.

I was head hunted to run a small manufacturing business when I was 48. I was surprised but could understand after finding the mess I had to sort out. It took 4 years to sort, but the major shareholder had a great 5 years, on a 50 footer cruising the Bahamas there after.

When he died, the kids wanted the capital, & the business was sold. I knew I was unlikely to find anything I wanted to do at 58, so started a little business, making sure I only ever employed the odd contractor for particular jobs.

For your bogans, how about working for the dole cleaning up national parks. Working in dry work camps, on a 3 week on 3 week off basis in a national service type operation. The discipline would be good for many, & 3 weeks off with the dole would give those who found the lifestyle unpleasant, plenty of time to find a real job.

The whole thing could be organized by all those overqualified middle management types, who are now unwanted. I think they, in particular, would prefer to be doing something. They should be able to handle all the logistics on the same 3 on 3 off basis.

The defense forces have a huge excess of officers, necessary to allow rapid expansion when conflict occurs. These trained leaders would benefit from having something useful to organize. The whole thing could perform a number of necessary tasks, including making living near a national park much safer.

Talk about win win.
Posted by Hasbeen, Sunday, 19 May 2013 6:07:33 PM
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Hasbeen

I’m delighted that you are surrounded by gung-ho, proactive go-getters, who sail into job after job after 5 minutes on the phone and make such a brilliant impression on all their bosses.

However, I notice that all the scenarios you describe are casual-temp jobs, which are for the most part fairly easy to obtain anyway. This underlines the first point of my last comment. Virtually all long-term unemployed dole recipients are actually on a casual-temp-Newstart treadmill.

Unlike the wildly successful people of your brilliant social circle, many people lack the advantage of location, availability, skills and experience, energy, contacts, self-confidence, youth, social skills and/or psychological resilience. In an increasingly highly competitive job market, full-time career-based employment is quite hard to come by and, even then, has little to no security.

The common cliché of the deadbeat dole bludger watching TV all day and blowing the fortnightly pension on cigarettes and booze is a right-wing fantasy. In one form or another, the fantasy has been around for as long as there have been rich people exploiting poor people.
Posted by Killarney, Monday, 20 May 2013 7:19:28 PM
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Praxidice

All good comments in regard to my previous post.

'Centrelink is, and always has been, an unmitigated disgrace with precious few sentient staff, a plethora of the most moronic rules and regulations ever dreamed up by a bureaucrazy...'

Absolutely, yes. However, I wouldn't agree with the 'always has been' part. The Dept of Social Security, as it was formerly known, only started to go down this road around 1980 - as the propaganda war on the fictitious 'dole bludger' gained ascendancy in the neoliberal era.

Before that, most of the DSS budget went on the benefits themselves - i.e. where it was needed. Although successive governments have kept the figures a closely guarded secret, the fact that the Centrelink budget has blown out of all proportion to the rise in unemployment over the last 30 years and that benefits have not kept pace with the cost of living are clear indications that much of its spending is going on administrative overservicing and policing (mostly by private subcontractors feathering their own nests).

This achieves nothing more than a sense of self-righteousness in people like Hasbeen, who want to go on believing that most unemployment is self-inflicted.
Posted by Killarney, Monday, 20 May 2013 7:21:50 PM
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Happy days Killarney .. 1980 was several lifetimes ago !! There still dinosaurs running around back then !! I vaguely recall there was a predecessor to Centrelink which did the job placement bit before some gubmunt bright spark decided the Job Network nonsense was the way to go. Obviously it didn't work as it was supposed to, as demonstrated by the multiple rehashes over the years, none of which covered itself in glory. Hardly surprising, failed lawyers & failed union heavies never did have much of a clue. I did have a bit of contact with a few of the Job Network organizations however none inspired me as being on the ball. My recollections are that they were merely going through the motions so they could rip a bit of money from the gubmunt of the day.
Posted by praxidice, Monday, 20 May 2013 7:52:02 PM
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