On the recent Opening of Parliament for this season; Mr Howard was at pains to strongly comment that people are better off financially now than ever before. He very aggressively pushed this view at the Labor Party.

However, it is interesting that on Southern Cross news last night there was a story about housing affordability; the comment being made that fewer people can now buy homes, in our State. Our State is meant to be booming at present.
Its' somewhat academic if people are earning more, when the cost of living has gone up beyond peoples' earnings.
Clearly the conservative view cannot be trusted as far as our State is concerned.

Why quote what howard says this ma-er politician is renown for his lying. So we help some who are bludging on the system, we can afford it.Yet at the same time we are helping really disavantaged people who out number the, so-called, bludgers. In a free and democratic nation these fellow citizens need and deserve our assitance. My wife and I are aged pensioners. In our tax paying working life we payed lots of tax. This tax was used to educate for FREE people like nelson, the federal education minister, FOR FREE! his education did not cost him a brass razoo! When I was in his position we could not afford to go to a university, only the rich could do so. As I said my wife and I are aged pensioners who exist on about $200 a week - could you really live on this amount?. Most of your younger readers would spend that much on a meal at some trendy restaurant. Yet we need to run a car, we get hungry and need wholesome food, we get cold and need clothing. We need all you younger people need and we think we deserve it. I began my life in poverty during the depression. Then along came WW2, no father, a serviceman o/seas, and further deprivation. Did not see a refrigerator, stereo system, vacuum cleaner, washing machine or motor vehicle until well after the end of the war. Now we are tossed $200 a week while our servants, the well fed overpaid grubby politicians, and the many similar obscenely paid CEOs live the life of Riley. This on the backs of our poverty and struggles. I know to some I will appear as a whinging so and so. All I ask is where is the fairness? To answer some NO there was no superannuation in my day. numbat

Well said Numbat. It is indeed interesting that the people currently running the place conveniently forget how they got there.

Just wondering, when the neo-lib champions of self reliance talk about "self-funded benefits and services" are they talking about the profits of burglary and theft? Surely if you go to all the trouble and personal risk of stealing something in the hope of profit you're entitled to the benefits and services you get as a result. Taking something from someone else is fairly normal in the neo-lib conception of a fair society. CEOs manage to reap enormous profits by taking employees means of survival and they do it all the time. Or should the poor turn to other means like prostitution or selling their spare organs on the black market? Would that count as self-funded?

I just find it interesting that there are some rules which apply differently to different categories of people.

The old catchphrase about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer again raises its ugly head. The truth is that todays 'poor' are much 'richer' than the poor of 50 years ago. Better food and medical system assure that. No-one need go hungry or without medical care in this country.

The most missed point about poverty is that it really is not so much about money than lack. Lack of everything from opportunities to good decision making to motivation. This is not to 'blame' anyone but the govt has to find away to keep the poor functional while rewarding effort and success in others.

Throwing money at the poor alleviates the poverty temporarily but not the lack, so these people often rapidly become poor again.

Numbat I fully concur with your post - my only request is that you use paragraphs in future as it makes your post easier to read.

I lost my job last week. I am still in a state of shock. I didn't see it coming. Of course hindsight has given me a number of clues - none of which are relevant to this thread.

You're right about surviving on $200 a week, Numbat, my mortgage repayments alone are more than that. However, I do have some savings, I do have marketable skills and I have a strategy to survive - this learnt from hard times in the past.

An attempt to measure poverty is a bit of a smokescreen - my version - not enough money to buy food, is not the same as another's - not able to buy Nikes.

Or perhaps poverty is being unable to participate in what Australia has to offer. Like education, going to the movies occasionally, eating out once in a while or sending the kids to their favourite sport/hobby.

There will always be bludgers - as a former worker in both Centrelink and Human Services I have encountered the bludgers, and can state quite categorically that they constitute the minority. The rest do everything they can to move on and they deserve every bit of help they can get.

Sounds like I'm arguing for my own dole. I don't anticipate being out of work long enough to require it. However, we do need this safety net and, more importantly, we need to enable people to get back to and find employment. Nothing is more demoralising than feeling you are unemployable. Nothing is more empowering than knowing you can stand on your own two feet and bring home a liveable wage.

To those who have never been unemployed - you are lucky. You can claim its all of your own making, but catastrophes can happen to anyone.

Survival of the fittest is for animals -just an excuse to do nothing to help each other.

Are we are intellectually above such a primitive mind set?

Atman "Throwing money at the poor alleviates the poverty temporarily but not the lack, so these people often rapidly become poor again."

Totally Agree - rather than repeat what I have expressed on another thread on this same topic, I will simply endorse Atman's statement.

The issue of "poverty" is derived from the absence underlying societal and other competencies needed to effectively manage ones own affairs and plan ones own destiny / outcomes.