Very close to being an excellent idea. Rather than be set to a little higher than the pension and funded by income tax, the basic income should be a citizen's share of heavy taxes levied on natural resources, with land being the obvious prime example.
The basic income the citizen receives represents his fair share of natural resources and does not come out of the labour of any other citizen. i.e. it is a fair share of natural occuring wealth, not wealth that someone else made that was redistributed by govt.
What this would mean, if we use land, fish and oil as three typical natural resources, is that every citizen would be paid enough basic income to buy a fair share of land, fish and oil. (Ignore the labour component in extracting the oil and catching the fish).

This way an average citizen would still have plenty of incentive to work. He would have a fair share of naturally occuring land, but no man-made house, a fair share of naturally occuring oil, but no man-made car to use it in, etc. Any normal citizen would still work and live a life similar to what we do today, only they would be better off. Land-hogging elites would be the one's worse off.
It would be possible for a lazy or sick person to move into substandard land, and use less than a fair share of natural resources and hence pocket the difference, buy food and live without working. This avenue would be there for sick, disabled, disadvantaged people and would replace all targetted welfare payments.

A problem with this scheme would be the heavy tax levied on land that people have already "paid" for. A person who has paid a King's ransom for Sydney land would be quite upset if the govt then taxed it so heavily that it's sale value fell close to zero. There is no easy way around this. For this reason such a scheme could be phased in over a very long period.

As a member of that large hidden class of adult Australians who are unemployed, single and unable to receive social security I thank the author for sharing his ideas in this forum.

Our welfare system gives to the "deserving" poor and I have watched an ex-barmaid working cash jobs stoke the sympathy of social security to collect a carers pension while her mousy, suffering from nervous breakdown sister ended up breached and homeless. Neither sister was the carer.

The welfare regime that will be implemented in July promises to brutish and mean and will adversely affect many voiceless Australians. Most of my aquaintances have university degrees, technical work experience and are competing for jobs that simply don't exist for mature workers.

Many people find that work provides a focus or reason to get up in the morning, valuable social interaction as well as money to eat, provide shelter and entertain oneself. Most people would prefer to have a job [and self esteem] rather than debase oneself to the small minded bureaucrats in social security.

Not just a bad idea , but a bloody dreadful idea. One of the major problems of many areas of high unemployment, & some aboriginal settlements, is boredom. People, young & not so young, with enough income to get by, & nothing that they "have to do", tend to get into trouble.
At first it may be minor, but after a couple of problems with the law, a resentment builds up, in some, & we have the makings of another criminal. I have seen this happen to more than a few kids in our area.
We live in a rural residential area, 20 Km from anywhere.
There is plenty of work, within a 25 Km radius, but we have no public transport. For the kids, no car means no job, & no job means no car.
Give them sit down money? no way. Pay for transport to & from work for 3 months? now your talking. If you want to spend "PUBLIC" money, use it to start a work ethic.
It costs my neighbors 1St year apprentice son, his total net income to run his car 55Km each way to & from work, & pay the fixed cost of ownership. Subsidising this cost would be a better use of public money.

It is difficult to define our system of government and financial management.

Our Federal government provides welfare subsidies for people on incomes exceeding $100,000 but does it's absolute best to take those benefits away from those at the bottom of the income ladder. In doing this they essentially admit it costs way more than the minimum wage to survive. If the current welfare payments stopped our economy would collapse and so would our social structure.

On one hand Howard has created welfare recipients of people well above the average income. Yet he puts the unemployed and people with disabilities to the test every day as they struggle to get through another day.

To me Howard, and I must add all current State governments too regardless of the difference in party lines, use only politics. They care not about our future, rather what even happens in 3 years. All their decisions are based on getting themselves reelected rather than provide or upgrade basic services. They are selling everything the public owns to private enterprise, bit by bit, on the basis of providing "competition" It does for a time until the winner of the competition crushes the opposition providers leaving us with a monopoly that can charge what it likes.

To expect any sanity or foresight from these governments is a major mistake so expecting Costelloe to take a long view when he can see the throne ahead is like hoping it'll snbow in Darwin.

These governments seek to divide, not unite so we are seeing the well off naturally wanting to protect their position and those at the lower ends become more desperate as their funds no longer meet their needs. There can be only one result if this continues into the future. Instead of people finding governments and their decisions revolting they will revolt themselves.

What we need is not a new way of taxing or dividing up the tax take, we need governments that encourage us to work together and share, just like mum does with her little kids.

Naughty Johnny, give that back to Peter, or else!

I fail to see how all how all Howard voters are selfish when under his rule with the GST,middle Australia is paying more tax than ever,most of which goes towards social security.While I think that the Multi-Nationals and higher income groups should share the burden more,the total tax grab as a percentage of GDP should not be increased.

The more handouts we give,the more dependant beings we create who cry out for more.Kill the engine room of private productivity and we will all starve.That is the reality.

RobbyH: Personally, I don't think it's the lower class that gets shafted, it's the middle class and the upper class. I know it's not fashionable to stick up for the upper class (even though they pay way more tax and get less back), but there must be a lot of sympathy for the middle class out there. What happened to the lucky country? What happened to the Australian dream? Why do both parents have to run faster and faster on the treadmill? Okay, some of that is to do with personal mismanagement of finances (eg. credit cards), but a lot is something else entirely. The world I grew up with as a kid (in the 80s) and the world I will grow old in will be leagues apart. The middle class will be anything but comfortable.

What upsets me, more than any political stance, is the fact that politicians feather their own nests no matter who else is getting hit for it. That's the bottom line. The so-called left are just as hypocritical as the Libs. They all have their snouts in the trough, and when they retire, they'll still have their snouts in the trough. I can't buy the line that the political left are the good guys when they're getting travel junkets and big pay cheques now and they'll be getting big, fat parliamentary pensions well into the future regardless of whether Australia is doing well or has become a third world country.

There's no accountability. By the time the current crop of politicians (at any level or in any party) actually have to bear responsibility for the long term effects of their plans, they will, of course, not be responsible.

Then again, people get the governments they deserve. If Australians get irresponsible, self-serving ego-maniacs ruling them, then maybe that's just a deeper reflection of Australian culture.