A universal basic income will never work,

When I was in high school, my economics teacher explained what would happen if we applied UBI to school grades

Any student who got a d or F would be promoted to a C, any student who got a C would stay the same, and any student that got a B or A would be demoted to a C (via taxation)

In 12 months time the D and F students still did no studying and they knew they didn't have to work as they were guaranteed a C (UBI), The C students protested as they did some work but got no reward, so gave up and started handing in subgrade word, The A and B students thought this was totally unfair , the did all the work, yet were penalised for working hard, so some of them started handing in substandard homework or none at all.

So we saw a dumbing down of all the students (there are always exceptions)Instead of 5% of the population on government welfare, we now have 80% paid via increase in taxes and no incentive to work harder.

The UBI idea has been around for years (I was in high school in the 1980's) It is becoming popular now as the havenots want what the haves have immediately and don't want to work for it.

WTF not again. You seem to grasp what's necessary for a future where machines roll day and night making all we require right here!

Aiden's problem is, I believe, his vested interest in the current convoluted system? Or he simply is an ideologue incapable of thinking outside the box?

For such a system as you envisage it would need to be entirely predicated on cooperative capitalism and a generous universal wage!

And rather than use pointless emigration to grow the economy, we'd grow it faster by simply attacking and removing poverty in all its guises and hidee holes! And as we do that, quite massively grow the discretionary spend> the domestic economy!

So, nobody is left behind or genuinely disadvantaged!

If we also tackle long overdue nation-building projects like very rapid rail there will be enough economic stimulus adding to the revenue circulating inside a cooperative capitalistic paradigm to row the domestic economy at warp speed!

After that, we need to rationalise and downsize government and all unnecessary vote-buying expenditure! Entirely redundant state legislatures cost the nation more than 70 billion P.A! Money which could build, better spent, never-ending nation-building projects and complete manufacturing self-sufficiency!

And remove all the juveniles from all the governments! And make all those workplaces alcohol free institutions for very obvious reasons! One of which, there'd be fewer decisions made while a large cohort was permanently pissed?
Alan B.

Without having read any posts I'd say it goes without saying that future flood-gate opening by Labor would indeed result in a troubled future !
I can only hope that a Coalition Govt will continue to work on repairing Australia by only admitting competent immigrants with no ideological baggage !
Refugees should be required to pull their weight in society asap & work towards re-establishing peace in their homelands & return there.
If that's not possible, become citizens here with no option of dual citizenship for anyone.
Either pull your weight here or exploit someone else ! 20+ years on welfare at work-able age is unacceptable !
Govt too needs to reward effort visibly more than is presently the case ! No National Service is no longer an option !

Kirby483,
I think that your High School teacher's 1980s understanding of UBI was not particularly comprehensive.

Let me elaborate using your teacher's example.
With a UBI all students from E up to A would receive the UBI.
Your identified E and some D students would probably get most of this via the dole anyway.
Not to be unfair to the others, D.C B and A students would receive the same.
All students E to A can then pursue other income from any other means as they wish.

With a guaranteed UBI I imagine many would pursue very creative solutions and avenues that could benefit all of society greatly.
There are a number of billionaires who once started an enterprise with a small amount of seed money working from their parents' garage.
A debit tax could completely remove all Income Tax giving a huge boost to the discretionary spending of millions.

WTF, I think you missed the point,
as I said with the exception of the few, most people would do as little work as possible, imagine someone who works shift work, why would they bother doing overtime or Sunday work, if they are going to get the UBI anyway. How would restaurants survive without putting up there prices to pay huge wages just to encourage people to work past 5 pm? Inflation would sky rocket.

Would people prefer to spend more time with their family and get the UBI or work harder, the majority of humans are lazy and will take the UBI.

The smaller percentage of people that want to get on and make a success of themselves will still do that and the "ENVY" brigade will shoot them down even more saying its not fair the UBI is only "X" and Ms Billionaire is earning more.

Governments will be forced to keep increasing the UBI to keep up with inflation (which will fuel more inflation)The only way to pay for this is more tax, whether its income tax, company tax, GST or any other tax, they will all increase, which will discourage more people from working hard.

Look what happened in China with the great leap forward, the workers (farmers) were killed. imprisoned for not getting there quota paid to the government (that is tax)to pay for the non-workers (government employees or in other words the UBI)

Alan B.,
I don't have a vested interest in the current convoluted system - indeed over the past few years I would have been better off with a UBI than under the status quo. However unlike you I don't have a problem either thinking outside the box or inside it. I see that a UBI is very expensive, and the money could be put to better use. There are plenty of other, cheaper, ways of achieving its objectives. Most importantly, I think the problem of a lack of opportunities to work should be solved, not merely compensated for.

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kirby483,
>Would people prefer to spend more time with their family and get the UBI or work harder

You missed a bit there, which makes me think you may not understand UBI. The question should be:
Would people prefer to spend more time with their family and get the UBI or work harder and get their wages as well as UBI?

People want nice stuff and that costs money. Do you really think everyone's doing as little work as possible at the moment? UBI is not the huge disincentive that some of its detractors assume it to be.