Dagget,get qualified or experienced in something.I pay sub-contractors who are skilled $42.00 per hr and they don't have to quote or chase money.Stop finding excuses for not doing things.It just takes determination and a long term plan.

(Dear administrators, the restrictions are insane. I don't see why it is worth my effort to contribute further.)

Arjay, instead of challenging my arguments you have chosen to attack me personally.

I have not had the good fortune to have a resume overflowing with qualifications and achievements. The resume I have would have been sufficiently good to get me work easily ten years ago, but in today's highly competitive globalised IT job market, the employment agencies won't take a second look.

My last job, which was a research programmer at a University. The job lasted for two years, and was meant to lead on to a PhD scholarship, however, only at the end, I learnt that I wasn't considered sufficiently good.

In that time I had worked very hard to solve very difficult problems largely on my own in a far from ideal work environment. For months on end I was at work every day of the week, often working late into the night. Almost as soon as one bug was solved, another was encountered. I never gave up and I persisted until all of the problems were fixed and the whole software package was documented and made available for release.

There were no suitable alternative jobs I could apply for, because of this Government's penny pinching, so all I had achieved in two years was experience in a specialised area of computer science, the value of which was not obvious to many prospective employers.

Just possibly I could have clawed my way back into the industry by now with more grit and determination, but unless you have been in the situation, where you have put your heart and soul into something, to the exclusion of almost everything else, for two years, and got nothing for it, and had this happen not once, but several times in your life, you might be in a position to judge.

In any case, why do you presume that I am not doing anything?

I think I deserve better and certainly a lot better than I would get if Peter Saunders had his way.

Only two years and you have given up.
I have had far more problems than what you talk about, and over many more years, and I am not asking for the govt (taxpayer) to subsidise my existence.

Move sideways, there a million opportunities out there.

Don’t blame other people for things not going right in your life, but then that is very much an Australian urban way as i see it.
my income comes from selling product to the factory workers in third world countries.

Dagget,it was meant as helpful advice.You complained about working for $13.00 per hour so I thought you should consider other options.
Good workers are highly sought after,and are paid above award wages.
With all your qualifications,have you considered the Public Service or even teaching?It pays a lot better than private enterprise could ever afford.

Arjay, my apologies that I misinterpreted you. I thank you for your concern.

The main point was not actually about myself. The people earning those rates of pay are rarely in a position to challenge those, such as Peter Saunders, who would reduce their already meagre earnings. I was in a postion to do so, so I have taken that opportunity. However ...

Others have also said what you have told me and will do so when I see the opportunities arise.

Still, I get profoundly depressed every time I try to write a job application and have to go through the selection criteria, trying to to shoehorn my work experience and qualifcations into the selection criteria. It was put to me by a senior public servant, recently, that the human resources sections have got out of control and that she doubted if she, herself, would be able to get a job these days if she had to apply from outside.

Still, I haven't given up, as another has alleged, but in the meantime I see no choice but to accept that kind of work.

Dunart, you wrote : "I have had far more problems than what you talk about ..."

... and did you have to live in a shoebox, a hundred and fifty of you in the middle of the road? Or did you live in a lake and have to rise at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, work twenty hour a day at the mill for tuppence a month?

Clearly, if you had your way there would be no social welfare budget as nobody would be deemed worthy by your standards.

I have been in the paid work force since 1978 and paid far more taxes than I have ever got back from the Government and, in general, I have given far more to others than I have ever got back. If I happen, at this moment, to be a welfare recipient, I make no apologies for it.

I have a challenge for the Federal ALP politicians and all others who think that they will benefit unreasonably from the tax cuts announced in the Federal Budget.

1/ Put on record what tax rates and thresholds you do support.
2/ Set up a trust fund and pay into that fund each time you pay tax the difference between the tax you are required to pay and the level you support as appropriate for your income.
3/ Do not claim the above as a tax deduction (by registering as a charity etc), or if you do pay the benefit from the deduction into the fund.
4/ Get an independant body to pay that money to individuals who would pay less tax under your proposal. Maybe a lottery to select them, the only selection criteria to be that under your proposal they would pay less tax. Ensure that you have no control over the allocation of this money other than the reciepients meeting the tax criteria. This is not for special hard luck cases but for a random selection of those who would pay less tax under your tax policy.
5/ Continue this arrangement until you are able to change the tax rates and thresholds as the government.
6/ Do not claim any tax deductions or use perks not generally available to the public. I pay tax on the money I use to buy my train ticket to go to work, if you get a commonwealth car provided then pay extra into the fund to make up for the perk.

Make the whole thing as close to paying tax as you can without making the funds available to things your policies don't support.

I'm sure you should have no problems getting this administered and audited for free.

You will not solve the problems of the poor in Australia, you might make a difference in some lives and you will have made a symbolic statement which holding up tax cuts for the rest of us could never come near.