Reciprocity:

Unfortunately, the sense of appreciation by welfare recipients; (and that includes well-off recipients of old age pensions too, (pensions are welfare)), take the gift as being deserving of it.

Probably safe to say, most recipients of welfare are begrudging of it’s inadequacy, which is a sad indictment on our materialistic and ungrateful society.
However there are ways in which welfare payments can be better targeted.

The complexity between the giver and receiver:

It is pretty well an established fact that the targeting of welfare is close to perfect from a political perspective as could be expected. After all, it is the Politicians given the task of satisfying a broad section of society in their electorates, or run the risk of rejection at the next election.

The money given for welfare payments through obligatory taxation, is a gift from the taxpayer; so it is the taxpayer with the need to be satisfied his contribution is not wasted.
It is the Politician given the administrative role to dispense the funds according to parliamentary decree.
It is obvious which party of the two, with a need for reciprocation.

Since means testing recipients falls into the too-hard basket, a fair system of distribution would be the introduction of death taxes, with a view of recouping unjustified Welfare payments, is a simple solution.

The modern day data collecting facilitates the collection of information that would be applicable to welfare payments through a life time.
These could be recalled at death, from a recipients assets which were visible for say five years before the event, to prevent secreting of those assets, since nobody can be sure exactly when they will die.

Education as an unnecessary expense to the taxpayer:

Privatisation of all Public education, will ameliorate towards welfare payments.
This stroke of genius, will leave a larger degree than at present, in the uneducated bracket mostly reliant on welfare, but the savings will be immense, which more than compensate, and allow a greater distribution of benefits better directed towards the needy.

Dan

I compare the system to a broken 3-legged barstool.
- Although in my comparison, the barstool was never broken, the barstool was never manufactured correctly in the first place.
(And that's why the system doesn't work)

Think of our society, it's a mixture of socialism and capitalism.
Right now 'Education' and 'Healthcare' are 2 legs of that barstool.
- And the missing leg on that barstool is 'Employment'

Let me explain.

We have a socialist system of education - PUBLIC SCHOOLS
(So that everyone receives a base-level standard of education)
And we also have a capitalist system of education - PRIVATE SCHOOLS
(A better system of education for those who are willing to pay for it)

Likewise we have a socialist system of healthcare - PUBLIC HOSPITALS
(So that everyone receives a base-level standard of healthcare)
And we also have a capitalist system of healthcare - PRIVATE HOSPITALS
(A better system of healthcare for those who are willing to pay for it)

Those are 2 legs of the barstool we currently have.
Now here's the point.

How do you have a system that provides a base-level standard of education and healthcare, if there does not exist a third system that works EXACTLY THE SAME FOR EMPLOYMENT?

The current system is unsustainable, it's built wrong.
The best system is one that helps people help themselves.

So how do we fix the system?
What you need is to incorporate that third leg of the broken barstool.
You need to compliment our capitalist system of employment, with a base-level standard of socialist employment.
Think of this as 'The job you have when you don't have a real job'
Do this, then you've created a sustainable system that can PAY FOR these other base-level standards in education and healthcare.
Now your barstool is well-grounded.
[Cont.]

Let's turn to welfare.

Why would you want to pay welfare recipients $600 a FORTNIGHT, AND GET NOTHING BACK
When you can pay them $600 a WEEK and get a FULL-TIME WORKER INSTEAD?

DOUBLE DOLE FOR FULL-TIME WORK,
DOING THINGS THAT WILL HELP THE GOVERNMENT SAVE MONEY

THE JOB YOU HAVE WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE A REAL JOB.

So now we have built a correct system, but we need jobs to implement it.

Currently work for the dole involves low-level unskilled menial work.
- Like mowing and whipper-snipping nursing homes

These are jobs that probably belong in the Capitalist system.
Scrap those low-level dis-empowering menial tasks and create REAL JOBS
EMPOWER THE UNEMPLOYED TO DO BETTER FOR THEMSELVES

I envisioned creating a BIG NATIONAL PROJECT
- Like HIGH SPEED RAIL (direct route) connecting all capital cities from Darwin, (to Townsville), to Brisbane, to Sydney, to Canberra, to Melbourne, To Adelaide, and onto to Perth with a separate INLAND ROUTE that brings the country to the city, and another connecting Adelaide to Darwin. This wouldn't just be for transport, but would also carry water, electricity, internet.

Now we have a means for those jobs EVERYWHERE.

People could LOG-ON to My-Gov and get a job shift ANYTIME THAT SUITS THEM
Incorporate APP BASED Skills and training for these jobs;
Where you do most of the learning for the job via the app, and a limited amount for SKILLS TESTING.

Similar to working credits you give out training credits for participation, and you use these training credits to pay for your SKILLS TESTING.

Get rid of old Resume's where EVERYONE LIES.
You bring in Digital Resumes

Take Farming Simulator as an example
http://youtu.be/Wl1wvY7TVuc
Fast forward to 3min into the video for an in-vehicle view.

You can train people 90% of the what people the need to learn via the app, and use TRAINING CREDITS for ACTUAL SKILLS TESTING, which becomes a competency in their DIGITAL RESUME.

Now you have people that were once mowing and whipper snipping doing far more useful and productive things, empowered people.

I'll finish this by saying that you build onto this new HSR transport system (which includes power / water / internet), by adding in solar and wind farms, even nuclear to create a NATIONAL POWER GRID, and then you utilise this new tranport network by building huge big factories where LOW COST relocatable homes are assembled on a production line and taken where they are needed, and can be assembled in 48hrs.

Connect dams to other dams so that when one is full, water is moved to dams that arent full, and you generate power through the movement of water through those pipes.

Water pipe power generation this:
http://www.altenergymag.com/article/2016/04/what-is-hydropower-in-a-pipe/23404

Relocatable Houses like this: Boxabl Castita
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6Zf_AaiyC8

And finally, by creating 'The job you have when you don't have a job'
You remove the downward spiral that happens in peoples lives when they lose their jobs, can't pay mortgages, have relationship breakups, become estranged from kids, end up with mental problems, drug problems and all of that.

All that stuff, is gone, wiped out for a better more efficient and sustainable system.

COMPREHENDE?

Congratulations!!
I've just shown you how to fix the WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD

The biggest question I have right now, is whether people like you even give a crap about what people like us say and think?

And the proof in the pudding will be whether or not you engage with your readers.
Or whether you think you're too smart already that you're above all that?
Whether you think you already know all the answers and that you time is not worth engaging with people like us?
Whether you just post your article thinking your job is now done?
And whether or not I have to email you to get your attention?

In Australia, ".... there is little relationship between what citizens put in and what they take out of the welfare system. Unlike the Netherlands, Australia's primary unemployment benefit does not assign a more significant amount to those with a more extensive work history."

Most of us bludge off those who get nothing, but who provide for us: the "rich" whom Green Labor wants to saddle with more taxes. Socialism at its most stupid. As stupid as the bit about immigrants, who lower wages and put up prices; and the "universal basic income", which is really off the planet, and welfare on stilts.

The true measure of a nation is how well it looks after its most disadvantaged citizens. Doing well is not everyone's life story, e.g., those coming from broken homes may lose out in the education advantage! And some may be reduced to living on welfare for the rest of their lives through no fault of their own.

I was one of those kids and lost count of the schools I attended and the different curriculums that prevailed. And lost out on most foundational learning. And for the most part am self taught. Even so, hold tertiary qualifications in science, law and medicine. The latter of lifelong interest and learning.

As our economy automates as it must, most occupations will very soon become automated. And means in a wealthy nation like ours, folk will need to be paid to consume via a universal income everyone is paid. And should mean some things remain in public ownership water, energy and most cash cow civil amenities so as to generate that universal income!

After all, we are one of the wealthiest nations on the planet and our Australian resources are universally owned by the population! Not our representatives in government! Throwing taxpayers funds around like confetti! And selling off the peoples' property at fire sale prices!
Alan B.

A.C. Some good ideas there mate and worthy of consideration!
Alan B.

I guess it is pretty easy for someone who has spent a large part of their life on an income of over half a million a year to suggest migrants are good for the country. They wouldn't miss the cost of picking 20% of the health care, housing, education & welfare of one or 2 of them.

It won't mean much to the 40% of people who pay no net tax either. But to the increasingly small percentage of middle class people who pick up most of these costs, plus our own increasing bludger mob, it is becoming too much to handle along with all other rapidly increasing housing & domestic costs they are experiencing.

Time to shut the immigration gates, especially on so called refugees.

Hasbeen

It’s the high immigration that is keeping the growth rate at 2.5% PA. It’s their stimulations magic wand.

Past that unimaginative theory, there is no vision.

Selling off everything not nailed down to foreign interests, is their GDP stimulator.

Both are catastrophic shortsighted lazy models of madness. Vision less!

Dan

Hey diver dan
- There's also another aspect to all this:
Institutional investors can borrow money at a much lower cost than retail investors or first home buyers, so they have an added ability to profit over and above the retail investor and also control supply.

They can afford to buy up properties and leave half of them empty, if by doing so it creates more demand for more loans to build more houses and scarcity increases the prices of them.

They build production lines for cars don't they?
- These days built mostly with robots?

Imagine if they put the kind of ingenuity into building a housing system straight off a production lines, where human labor requirements were minimalised?

Houses taking 24hrs to go through the production line.
All made completely perfect to spec, every single one.
Delivered to site within another 24hrs
Fully erected on site in another 24hrs
Connected to power, water, sewerage, internet and furnished, all from start to finish in under 7 days.

To make it more viable you not only use them as a social housing system, but you can also sell them directly to the public.

Don't have work for the dole people mowing and whipper-snipping
Let one sit there on an app all day and learn how to drive a dozer
Then put them in one and get them to clear some land, build small housing villages or something,
- like old school caravan parks only better, each home has it's own toilet and shower, (no dirty central amenity block).

Do a deal with Woolies or Coles to run small kiosks at these housing parks so people without cars have easy access to basic essentials.

Keep them for 5 -7 years max so they doesn't stagnate into unliveable communities, then move all the houses to a new location, give them a refresh / or resell them and sell the existing land at profit, to pay for the new land.

[Cont.]
Capitalism requires a pool of unemployed with which to prevent wage growth.
Put these people to use, 'The job you have when you don't have a job'

Airbnb figured out how to create 'the home you have when you don't have a home', how hard can it be?

Turn the liabilities into break-evens and everyone will get more bang for their buck.

You could take the worst of the worst kids and give them some purpose, direction and independence and skills half of them would choose another path, just for having the option to do so.

Create a system that prevents people from falling down and losing what they have in hard times, and you'll wipe out half of society's problems before they ever happen.

Imagine this:
Kids put all their energy into stupid kids apps on tablets which only cost their parents money, right?
- But the kids are sitting there sucked into 'achieving' mostly pointless things in the game,
If you spend money, you unlock new things and 'achieve' more things faster in the game.

Remember when we were all kids and they had scouts and guides?
What we all the kids doing? - answer 'achieving' merit badges
Learning, achieving, moving forward.

Why don't we use apps to tap into kids ability to learn things in a more productive way?
Use the app based game system of achievements and rewards to promote the learning of real life competencies.
Learn things and get certificates that can go on your digital resume, learn anything, at your own pace and in your own time.
(Even post out REAL certificates they can keep in a book of achievements)

Let's say your 7 year old son has an interest in rocks and geology
Or you're a fisherman and your daughter has an interest in marine ecosystems

Why let them waste 10 years waiting to finish Grade 12 to start doing university studies?
- If an app-based system of learning taught real life competencies
and gave them the ability to start learning about these interests when they're still aged 7?

They could be experts in a dozen different fields by time they finished Grade 12.

Use apps to teach real life competencies, which can be automatically added to a digital resume.
And drastically reduce the overall costs of all teaching / learning.

Go to McDonald's,
you'll find out the average 16 year old can't count real money
and they've never been taught how to make a sandwich properly.

What's the tech for if we don't use it to our benefit?
What are we doing? Use it to teach real life compencies