I am one of the few people i know that have gone from a life of scarcity to a life of abundance.

My mother has been welfare dependant all my life and thanks to centrelink i had food in my stomack for most days per fortnight as a kid.

We are a nation dependant on welfare, and many Australians are in the cycle of poverty that they cannot get out of. My mother was welfare dependant, and now so are all my siblings.

Centrelink takes away your self esteem, no matter who tells you otherwise. And the job networks that run off centrelink is nothing more than an inefficient profit orientated enterprise where they want to place as many people to jobs as they can, and the rest of the people fall through the cracks.

Roughly 50% of the population owns property. Those that do enjoy the benefits of equity and the rising property market. This is the basis of wealth for almost every Australian, yet due to property prices, interest rates and the like it has become nothing more than a pipedream for the other half.

In 2007, without parents to help, or without some kind of windfall the next generation is finding it very tough to purchase property and to cross over into the 'haves' from the 'have nots'. Those that are centrelink dependant or that have high expenses may never get an opprtunity.

It is interesting that the suburbs with the highest centrelink dependance also have the highest gambling rates per capita. Gambling is the core revenue for a club, they put on a $6 dollar meal to attract their desired calss of clientele, and knwo they will get another $50 in the pokies shortly after.

We need to fix the way centrelink works, we need to get rid of the gambling prevalence and we need to convert as many people to home ownership as possible or the 2 tier society will only get worse, and this will effect Australian society in general.

"Those that do enjoy the benefits of equity and the rising property market. This is the basis of wealth for almost every Australian, yet due to property prices, interest rates and the like it has become nothing more than a pipedream for the other half."

Thank you realist (our backgrounds are not dissimilar) for pointing out a key cause of our nations relative impoverishment; we tax (punish) people for the production they engage in, rather than deriving income from the resources they use.

If we shifted the tax burden from those who work to those who collect land rents we'd all be better off. Even the current landlords who would surely benefit by redirecting their investments into something that provides employment, goods and services.

And I may as well go into some detail for this:

http://www.taxreform.com.au

Interesting that the IPA author, who probably all this, chooses to attack the poor rather than the cause of poverty. I could post a lot of rude words about that, but 100% of the posters here have already made their feelings known on the matter...

thankyou Lev for your coments, however this from you gets me sctratching my head:

"If we shifted the tax burden from those who work to those who collect land rents we'd all be better off. Even the current landlords who would surely benefit by redirecting their investments into something that provides employment, goods and services."

Land Rents? are you saying investors should foot the bill for a greater tax burdon?

That is robbing Peter to pay Paul. We would create a massive burden of the onus of providing public housing back on the state and combine that with the inability for baby boomers (who will emerge by 2026 as a massive welfare problem) to derive wealth for retirement through property if tax burdens made it unnattractive, that would be shooting ourselves in the foot.

Who would invest in property if you were so heavily taxed for doing so? Are you asking mums and dads to buy businesses or ostrich eggs rather than property? So rather than most doing well from investing (which property is a proven performer) they will play russian roulette with their lives? This would not be a viable option.

We need to:

A) Stop Gambling anywhere apart from casinos and some clubs.
B) Provide housing loans to those on the cusp with realistic repayments
C) Scrap everyone having to join a Job Network and scrap the current fortnightly form situation
D) Index welfare payments in line with cost of living, moreso than trying to catch up with it.
E) Free public transport for jobseekers
F) Free internet usage
G) Self esteem and self worth should be the most important things driven home to those on welfare. this is half the hurdle and the reason why there are long term unemployed or underemployed.

The author should try paying for rent/board, telephone and internet bills, electricity, water, transport/petrol costs, food - while on a pension - maybe it would give him a clearer idea what poverty really is. This is without considering whether or not there's anything left over for 'quality of life' matters: eating out occasionally, renting a DVD...

The cost of living is spiralling out of control. In Victoria there's the prospect of a private desalination plant sending the price of water through the roof... Then there's the effect of increased petrol costs flowing through to everyday consumables such as food.

And when a emissions trading system is implemented, who's going to pay for the increased cost of power? This is at the same time as an ageing population is going to send health and aged care expenses through the roof.

I invite the author to try and survive on $14,000/year or less - and find out what poverty really is.

Tristan

How can anyone contest the author's main point? The present support provisions are plenty enough to provide for the basic needs of most folk in unfortunate circumstances. Any kind of statistical formula, such as a half the average pay, is bound to throw up lots of people in poverty. Even if the average pay were a million a week, the percentage of those in poverty would remain the same.

The crucial question though is whether the support levels are adequate to maintain folk in some kind of adequate life and dignity.

We need to know and do more about how to provide help without also inducing a sense of dependence, obligation, and loss of worth.

We need to recognise that only a wealthy society can be generous to those who unfortunately have needs that can be met only from community support. There is no magic pudding.

Affluence, success, and prosperity seem to depend on several factors: ability, application, and luck. Luck includes stuff like not being born with a disability, not falling ill, not being made responsible for someone with a serious disability, inheriting a bit of property after price inflation, getting a mark of 51 instead of 49, and so on. A viable society has to protect or insure people against such vagaries of fortune. I think we should be exceedingly generous to those who cop these burdens. Ability too verges on the brink of luck. But let's face it, we are not all equal when it comes down to interpersonal skills or sheer intelligence. Some are brighter and more able than others. And we are not all equal in our willingness to work hard and delay gratification in pursuit of later advantages.

If we are to have a wealthy commonwealth we have to reward ability and effort, and lavishly, so that there is plenty to compensate those how have lost out in the lotteries of ability or circumstance.

"It finds that only 3 per cent of the population comes out as poor at any one time on this measure, and just 1 per cent remains poor over two successive years." Saunders uses an old ploy implying he is doing this on behalf of all the workers paying their taxes. He has nothing to say about the media barons paying taxes or paying no taxes. This is a right wing enemy of workers and is a mouthpiece for the press barons; a layer that have profited enormously (in the billions)over the last two decades. Courtesy of the Labor and Liberal governments. They certainly never earnt it. The right wing uses the big lie 1per cent remaining poor. But heres the rub we are told 700,000 on disability support, 600,000 on welfare, nearly half a million unemployed and two million aged pensioners, not to mention more than three million families claiming Family Tax Benefit. According to the 'big lie' all these people are not poor but well off. In reality, most workers today are called 'the working poor,' many with casual jobs, and not being able to live and plan their lives properly.
Workers should draw a sharp warning from this that the destruction of pensions and doles are in these peoples sights: in order, to carry through further attacks on wages and living standards. This is the layer that is presently putting the boot into the disabled to drive them downwards into substandard work and very cheap labour.