What a timely article.I have a grandson with acquired brain injury due to a recurring brain tumour.For 6 and a half years my daughter has asked for help from the govt.Eventually she located a respite centre that would take him and sent the bills to the minister.After nearly a year the government came to the party and paid the bills.Now because of the violence factor she has had to give custody of him to the state.Because the only criteria to do so is neglect or abuse,the welfare are trying to brand her a bad parent.She has found a sympathetic solicitor who is going to fight her cause for her.If the govt had helped when she first started requesting same,it may not have gotten to this stage.Drug addicts,criminals,alcoholics and many more are helped by the powers that be but genuine cases are relegated to the dust heap and conveniently forgotten.Now the govt want to put the lad in a facility that has no medical supervision and his life depends
on a cocktail of drugs.Amazing how a 12 year old girl can be given $4,ooo to have a baby and hard working lower income families get no support.

not amazing at all, haygirl. why should it be otherwise?

oz is basically a sheep staion. the politician-graziers try to keep the flock productive, but individual sheep aren't worth much effort.

ozzies kid themselves about their status, many are so profoundly ignorant of political reality that 'sheep' is too kind.

if the 'history' that oz provided you in school described the conditions of the british people under the medieval kings, you should have some insight into why things are similar today: then and now, the lower classes had no power. having no power, they had no money.

the political party is united in it's basic goals and methods, whatever the factions may say in jockeying for ascendancy. there will be no real change till ozzies make themselves into citizens. i see no sign of this happening.

Unconscionable and at Odds. Banking and Trade Cartels need scrupulous scrutiny. UNCALCULATED DEBT is a NATIONAL HEALTH ISSUE.

As is the activites of administrive departments where the liberty of those employed is protected by their having unfair resource advantage(s).

"POLITICS AS USUAL" has become the "GAME WE PLAY", regardless of the COST(s).

UNDER THIS ECONOMY IS A SOCIETY becoming increasingly BURDENED by UNCONSCIONABLE forms of "fix-it" practice's, villifications and unscrupulous misconduct.

This is being further promoted as formal language, bully-cultures and a re-productive streamlining of REDTAPE.

Neglected HUMAN CAPACITY debunks our sovereigns strength and efficacy: Australian's don't want handouts. They want to solve problems, at community levels, but do not have the right INFRASTRUCTURE to COPE.

Exchange through reciprocal interchange is labor set at an actual value where the currencies ought to be fair through the exchange. STRIP THE INFLATED EXPLIOTATIONS!

Tap out Risk Transferences - work to balance the unconscionable profiting over risk in economic's.

Through Sustainable Community Development, Sharing Service Provisions, be it through transport and communications or through Administrive Service Reforms has to be Nationally Addressed.

It is TIME to get Real about Sustainable Economic Development in Australia.

It is TIME WE DO for ourselves what we "evangelize" onto the Developing ECONOMIES.

See my 2005 United Nations Message to Sevice Providers.

http://esaconf.un.org/WB/default.asp?action=9&boardid=39&read=2427&fid=424

The point is we have the knowledge, the right policies - but need the administitrive reciprocal action within the SERVICING SECTORS.

This is COSTING THE MILLIONS and causing SOCIAL BURN_OUT. (Crime - Mental Health - HOUSE HOLD DISTURBANCE + DEBT)

IT is SHRINKING COMMUNITY!

Look at the meaning of SEOUL. At the idea of " Reinventing Government
Towards Participatory and Transparent Governance".

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:KFJSS0vcSSsJ:unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/UN/UNPAN020949.pdf%2BUN%2BSeoul%2BDeclaration&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&ie=UTF-8

Analysis of Best practices in government means implementing the policy, regardless of the inconvenient demands for it's truth.

Innovations - Governance and public administration issues and challenges, in keeping up with the New Inventory in governance and Public Administration.

We make mockery of our own citizenship as we place the BURDEN of BLAME, and fail to re-dress a DISABLING mentality, creating distractive adversities rather than a focus of NATION BUILDING.

http://www.miacat.com
.

A Canadian economist said something like this....

The poor complain; they always do.
And that's not idle chatter.
Our system brings rewards to all;
At least to those who matter !

It's Work Choice's birthday soon, isn't it ?
Filip

I agree absolutely with the concern of the authors.

But they are, putting it not so politely, "peeing into the wind" - though that is probably a male only kind of metaphor.

I am trying to think through this kind of socio-political issue, and I have been for 50 years, and still things remain pretty much the same.

Between the lines I think the authors are appealing to a moral sense, to charity, to a sense of fairness. I accept their appeal, but it doesn't seem to work all that well.

What we need is a careful analysis of how our self interest will be served if we reduce poverty and disadvantage. I think an appeal to self interest will be more effective than an appeal to fairness.

How will the majority benefit if poverty is reduced and the disadvantaged are provided with better opportunities? That is where the votes are.

not amazing at all, haygirl. why should it be otherwise?
Yeah, Demos. I've been raving on & on about useless bureaucrats & how they stuff up society. We must find a solution to this problem & find it fast ! Whenever a government changes the bureaucrats don't change with it & so the crap continues & decent folk suffer. We can't rely on the law, we've seen plenty of evidence there. I have written to the Law Reform Commission & the reply was that anything they look at has to come from the Governor general's office first. It only takes three people to present a petition to the Governor General which then HAS to be presented to paliament. Would you believe that it's impossible to get three people with enough conviction to have the nerve to sign their name to a partition. It's pathetic ! Yes the average citizen is a sheep & turns into a sheepish coward when it comes to do something for the betterment of society.

Ignorance is bliss to both the preacher and the flock.
Blame is now the aussie game and all we need is a name.
And a final question, Are we the only ones to slack to get a revolution
that goes further than a shredded petition? Oh that's right we are !

Poverty is primarily a product of low intelligence.

You want to know about poverty? Take my own family.

My cousin gains a sizeable inheritance (enough to buy half a house in the small country town she lives in). She sells her Housing Commission home (which her and her husband own) to her daughter.

She then buys a Mercedes Benz, and since she is now convinced that her ship has come in, she and her husband proceed to put the rest of the money down the pokies.

Kerchunk, kerchunk, kerchunk.

When the bad times come, they don't have the money to make repayments for the loan on hubbies backhoe, which is vital to hubbys profitable earthmoving business, so they lose everything. Now I pay their bills.

Smart huh?

Their daughter marries a part time labourer, and true to the maxim that "dumb people breed,while smart people don't", have no less than four kids to add to their poverty.

Hubby disapears with the girl next door (who is half his age), while his wife sets up house with her husbands son from a different liason. (getting complicated now, huh?) She loses the house, and while living in emergency accomodation provided by the taxpayer, she has two more kids to her husbands son. The husbands son is a heroin addict/car thief and bashes her, and he is now back in jail because he was caught driving again when he was damned near banned from driving for life. The taxpayer is now totally funding this woman and her six fatherless kids.

One can only assume that the authors of this article which blames uncaring Australian society on poverty, have never left the cloistered world of middle class acedemia to have a look around the real world. Even they can't blame Howard for my families woes.

One begins to see why poor old redneck's such a bitter and twisted individual.

However, given the crap he's written lately elsewhere, one has to make the point - if 'intelligence' is inherited, as he's claimed, and these dropkicks are his relatives, whence does our redneck's superior intelligence derive? Is he a spontaneous mutation that has allowed him to rise above the pond life from which he was spawned?

Also, one assumes that redneck and his impoverished cousins are 'white'. What hope then for those of darker hue, who according to redneck's novel ideas about 'race' and intelligence, are even dumber than him and his relatives?

Redneck,why on earth are you paying their bills?Just because you are poor does not mean you have an inferior intelligence.Haven't you heard the stories of people from impoverished backgrounds becoming millionaires through hard work and perseverance.What about all the kids from poor families who get scholarships.My family has always been poor and my daughter earned on OP score of one and is now doing biomedicine at uni.My granddaughter is at uni also.I have family members very similar to what you described and it's not lack of intelligence in those cases.Buggered if i can understand why people put their money through pokies but my sister and her hubby went through 350k that way and are now in govt housing.Stupidity does not mean lack of intelligence and while others enable their behaviour by paying the bills,they will never learn.

It is extremely naive to think that the rich, who have pursued their wealth deliberately, have sought to do so without meaning to increase their RELATIVE wealth over others, but to arbitrarily decide at some point that they are rich without reference to the wealth of others.

The thing to do then is to draw a distinction between the relatively poor, and the absolutely poor.

As long as there exists at least one person in society who has at least one dollar less in his bank account than all others, the relatively poor shall exist. That is poor reason to implement a transfer of wealth through the tax system.

As long as there exists at least one person who cannot put food in his mouth and who does not at the same time spend his money on cigarettes or any other dubious commodity, and who at the same time tries his very best to improve his position, the absolutely poor shall exist.
When you find such a fellow, let me know.

Blimey Redneck, that's a good story. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

I have a sister who works in disabilities. Many of her intellectually disabled clients have what she describes as "poor impulse control". They know that certain behaviours will get them in trouble, but they won't (or can't) resist their impulses. Allied to impulse control is delayed gratification. You don't have to be all that smart to know that saving for something you want will cost less (and be more satisfying) than buying on credit. But buying on credit or taking drugs, playing the pokies, binge drinking, promiscuous sex, stealing etc etc are instantly gratifying (if you don't think about tomorrow's hangover/consequences).

A few years ago a friend moved from Sydney's west to the northern beaches. He moved to a flash house with a pool in a good suburb, drove a Ford LTD, had the kids in private schools and had a high-paying sales job. He told me he felt like he'd "made it". But the house was rented and everything else was on hire-purchase. His marriage failed, he stacked the LTD and he discovered that his net worth was about $0. He's rebuilding his life, but he no longer sneers at the falling-down dump I live in (and own).

Have you approached the Civil Libertarians? Surely they stand for more than criminals, foreigners ----don't they?
Or are they completely disinterested in genuine cases of Australian hardships?

CJ Morgan: stay on track, man. If you want to comment on Redneck’s alleged hypocrisy, then go back and do it on the original article. When you are here, how about trying to address his arguments as specific to this issue?

Ann and Cath: Unless you’re two teenage girls who’ve been taking in all the dogma in the sheltered halls of Ladies Presbyterian College, I can’t accept you truly believe all this antiquated socialist bilge.

For a start, correct me if I am wrong, but the poverty line is defined as a percentage of the average income whatever. So 11% in poverty is a totally meaningless statement. You will always have 11% in poverty no matter how poor or rich the country is. If the national average income tripled tomorrow, there would still be 11% living in poverty.

Even Tony Abbot said it recently, before being shot down for daring to be politically correct by telling the truth, you will always have poverty (in an absolute rather than relative sense) because of the inherent nature of some people. Although these would only be a minority of those trapped in the poverty cycle of today.

My unprofessional opinion is that poverty perpetuates itself when modern ‘caring’ governments maintain this culture of dependency. Keep dishing out the ‘entitlements’ (I can never get over this new term for the more honest ‘dole’. Talk about politicising the English language.) to anyone who might cause a polly to develop pangs of guilt, with the proviso that if they get a job they will lose all of some of it, and keep reminding them that it is not their fault and that they have a right to it, and what happens?
What motivation is there to get back on your feet and become productive members of society?

It is very hard not to agree with the slogan "from each according to their ability, and to each according to their need" I would just love this to be a human possibility.
Sadly it is not.
And so we need incentives for the able to produce to their maximum, and incentives for the less able to do their best, and we need insurance for those who are stricken by unfortunate circumstances.

Some kind of system that rewards effort is absolutely essential given the nature of "man".

Fencepost

i can only hope this child is not suffered into any physical abuse where ever they place her and i only hope the grandmother can rare the child, ,to all you out their i say hello to the forgotten australians , and those who are still to let it out and keep holding in as thier are many of us victims of sexual physical emotional sychcological, all forms and types of abuse caused upon us and them by the serverents that were employed by the goverment of australia in chuches,australian run institutions, state run institutions, orphanages,girls homes,boys homes, remand centres,foster homes,out of home care, in home care regards micheal,

Mr Carson, I already demonstrated that it is perfectly possible to have exactly no-one earning less than half the *average* income.

Poverty and dole-dependence need not be the same thing: if the dole is generous enough (e.g. - half the average income!), then, assuming the country as a whole remains prosperous, then no-one need live in poverty at all. Whether this is a desireable (or even possible) way to solve poverty is questionable, but if your sole purpose was to eliminate poverty, making the welfare net as large as the economy can reasonably afford is one way of achieving it.

To Haygirl.

I pay their bills because they are family, and they would collapse in a heap if I didn’t.

I am not saying that all poor people are stupid, but most of them are. Some people (like my mother) became poor due to circumstances beyond their control. But most smart poor people are upwardly mobile, while dumb people are downwardly mobile. (My mother went from a waitress, usherette, and sheep station cook, to an executive of a TV station.)

As Johnj pointed out, many people on welfare have poor self control and are prone to addictions like gambling, drug abuse, nicotine smoking, and alcohol abuse. As a kid from a Housing Commision project, I shake my head in pitying wonder at the articles in newspapers by well meaning Socialists who seek to blame society for poverty. As a matter of fact, as a former member of the Australian Labor Party, my disillusionment with that party came about when one of its prominent members made a public statement denouncing a prominent Liberal Party member who made a reference to “dole bludgers.”

The Labor Party official said in the press that “dole bludgers” did not exist, and then went into paryoxisms of self righteous indignation blaming Australian society for the fact that so many people lived in poverty. If dole bludgers didn’t exist, that was news to me, because I was surrounded by them.

When Whitlam came to power, all you had to do to get the dole was to turn up at a CES and if they could not find you a job that day, you automatically got the dole. People were turning up claiming they were “actors” and “lion tamers”. My own mates tossed in their apprenticeships, went surfing every day, and thought I was mad for staying in a job.

Blaming society for poverty is something I won’t buy, and I can only presume that the authors of this article have never been closer to the poor western areas of Sydney that the Gladesville Bridge.

Hi Redneck,I know or know of a lot of dole bludgers.My son ,who has a job,used to tell me about his mates who filled in a section on the dole form straight from the yellow pages.This section asked where you had applied for a job in the previous fortnight.It is far to easy for them to band together, pay a pittance each in rent,get food from charities and spend the rest on drugs,nicotine and alcohol.How do we weed out the legitimatately unemployed from those sort of people.I do know of numerous legitimate cases as i live in a lower class area where their is a lot of govt housing.I must admit that most of the people near me are unemployed because they want to be.Some of the wives have a baby every year and i imagine they live quite well with seven or eight kiddies.The family allowance for that many kids could feed a small nation.Most of these people drive nice cars and own plasma tvs.I must admit their houses are a disgrace.I feel sorry for the aged and infirm because they are the legitimate ones doing it hard.How do we address this problem?

I am afraid, Redneck, that you're miquoting me. I wrote specifically "poor impulse control" not "poor self control". This was partly because I find it an amusing form of words, but mainly because the "self" consists of a lot more than "impulses". I think that "impulse control" is a more useful formulation as it actually describes the issue I was interested in.

As for your spray on "dole bludgers", well, I hope getting that off your chest makes you feel better. For what it's worth, I was a counter officer in the old Department of Social Security in the late-1980s, when the Socialist Government brought in the "Mobile Review Teams" (known by us counter staff derisively as the "Hit Squads") to root out welfare cheats. The teams worked hard, but their miserably poor haul of fraudsters hardly justified the effort (or expense) of the exercise. We used to laugh at the hit squad when the best they could do was find some pensioner who hadn't declared a few days work. Still the whole debacle went down a treat in voter-land, even if you don't remember it.

If all else fails, just blame the Socialists, eh?

Great social reform agenda and discussion here...

http://www.bangthetable.com/topic/focus-attention-on-the-poorest-in-society

worth a look.

Hi Johnj.

I am astonished that you could imply that as a counter officer with the CES, that you consider rampant welfare abuse to be an insignificant problem. I remember that during the 1980’s, an officer of the CES created a stink in the newspapers when he published a book recounting the blatant welfare fraud he saw in his office every day. I remember that he wrote about people routinely charging into the office submitting their dole forms while a truck loaded with ladders and tools sat double parked outside the office with the driver gunning the motor like a getaway car.

But the biggest problem with your story is that there is hardly an Australian anywhere who can not recount a personal experience with people bludging off welfare, and the primary reason why so many dole bludgers get caught is because of the information provided by outraged taxpayers. I see that “Haygirl” provided us with just such a personnel account, which I can relate to because I saw exactly the same behaviour myself.

I even worked as a contractor in a CES office, and I listened in on an interview between a CES officer and a chador clad Muslim girl (with face entirely covered) who claimed she wanted to be a receptionist, but was having no luck. Naturally, the culture sensitive CES officer pretended that her chador was not an issue.

If your “Mobile Review Teams” had little success in finding dole bludgers, I can only conclude that they were not looking very hard, and that they were a product of typical government bureaucratic ineptitude.

As for “blaming Socialists”, you bet I do, and why not? Today’s post Marxist blames all of the ills of the world on white people, and I just happen to be one of those. So I see nothing wrong with returning the compliment. What I see in this article by two female journalists is another attempt by Gucci Socialists to attack white Western society by blaming it for creating poverty while studiously avoiding the real issue (stupidity) of why some poverty is endemic.

Ok, redneck, just for argument's sake, let's say you're right and virtually all endemic poverty is due to "stupidity".
Surely then the *only* solution is effectively "socialism": if these people are not capable of competing against the "non-stupid" for jobs and making an honest living, then what choice do we have but to support them as "dole bludgers"?

I also have to ask exactly what percentage of people do you think are so inherent 'stupid' that no amount of education and support is capable of making them genuinely self-supporting, productive citizens?

Redneck, I hate to be a pedant (well, truthfully I actually enjoy it) but my post said I worked for Department of Social Security (DSS) not the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES). It undermines my faith in your thinking processes if you can't even get something that simple straight.

Funnily enough, I find stupid people are not very successful at fraud. When I worked in the Original and Dupicate Cheque Overpayment section of the DSS Debt Recovery Unit (no, I'm not making this up) in the 80's, the biggest frauds were well-organised scams run by intelligent people. One gang in Sydney's east used to follow the postman around on pension payday and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars woth of cheques out of letterboxes. They also dealt drugs and produced amateur porn videos. They were sleazy lowlife scum, but they weren't stupid, though they did end up in gaol.

When I worked at a regional office we used to get regular "dob-ins". Most of them gave so little information that they were useless. Or the person who was dobbed in was already declaring their part-time income, or that they weren't shacked up (or whatever), or the dob-in was just a lie to stir up trouble. I used to enjoy it when we got something we could actually use. But it didn't happen very often.

Anyway, feel free to revel in your ill-humour. You obviously enjoy it.

To Dnicholson/wizofaust.

I did not say that all poverty is caused by stupidity, but from my former front row seat in the disadvantaged class, it sure looked like most of it was. Some people (like my mother) may become poor because of circumstances beyond her control, but such people can overcome adversity and can climb out of it. Welfare should be a helping hand to get people back on their feet, and I did see that process work with many people.

But what you and Johnj fail to understand, is that within a large section of the disadvantaged class there does exist a culture that considers it “smart” to not work. The two authors of this article we are commenting upon would never address that issue because they are too busy attacking white western society which they apparently despise, but choose to live under.

Another very good reason why poverty is increasing in prosperous Australia is because people like yourself have decided that we do not have enough poverty, so we must import more of it. Around 30,000 “refugees” flood into this country every year looting our social security systems which none of them have paid a penny towards its upkeep.

If you wish to reduce poverty in Australia, you don’t need Socialism, just stop importing welfare dependent and crime prone people. Next, remove social security support from criminal repeat offenders. The concept of paying drug addicts, car thieves, housebreakers, and armed robbers to steal from the public while they reside in public housing, is obviously idiotic. I know you will claim that they will steal to survive, but they do that anyway even though they now getting supported by the public they prey upon. All of these people are capable of working for a living, they just choose not to do so.

Here in Sydney, every cashier working in petrol stations is a Pakistani “guest worker” on contract. Do you seriously believe that with 500,000 “Australians” out of work, that we need to import cashiers from Pakistan?

redneck, then how *do* you propose to keep the "stupid" out of poverty?

I understand perfectly that there is a class of individuals that consider it "smart not to work". But as I've said before, for every person in that category, there are two others who genuinely do need welfare to give them a platform from which to become genuinely productive citizens. The former is a very small price to pay, given the benefits of welfare. Further, even if we could accurately identify true serial dole-bludgers and cancel their welfare payments, in all likelihood their aversion to work is ingrained enough that they'd rather turn to begging or stealing, which would make us no better off.

And as far as criminal repeat offenders go, again, taking their welfare away is hardly likely to the make the situation any better.
I might be prepared to examine possible benefits of a scheme to replace cash payments with food/clothing stamps for such cases, but out of sheer self interest, I'm not prepared to live in a society where criminals are 100% dependent on theft just for the basics in life.

Regarding refugees - I agree that if we are not able to adequately provide a mechanism for refugees to avoid poverty once they are here, we shouldn't bring any more. However, I believe Australia *is* wealthy enough that it can afford to support these people at a level above internationally-accepted definitions of poverty until they are on their feet and making their own way in life.

And no, I've never believed we truly *need* imported labour. But one has to wonder why it is that those native unemployed aren't prepared to take up jobs like service station cashiers.

Wizofaust, how is it that you expect me to come up with the solutions to poverty in Australia, while you think that your role is to simply sit on the sidelines and criticise?

The article by Anne Turley and Cath Smith claimed that it was “unconscionable” for a wealthy country like Australia to have serious poverty, and they urged all governments to work towards eradicating it. They are asking why Australia has endemic poverty, and I am giving the reason why.

The first thing to understand about poverty is that most of it is caused by stupidity. Stupid people are usually poor people, and stupid poor people are prone to gambling addictions, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, welfare dependency, criminal behaviour, drive like idiots, don’t worry about their health, don’t brush their teeth, eat fatty and salty food, breed like flies, and have poor impulse/ self control.

In other words, my dear Wizofaust, poor dumb people are a pain in the arse. And they cost smart productive people a fantistic amount to keep them. You can toss all the money you want at stupid people and they will find a way to waste it. The Federal government is building thirty new houses in Wilcannia for the local aborigines because they trashed the last lot of free housing.

I don’t know of any peaceful way to “cure” stupidity, other than to pay dumb people not to breed, or invest in research into in vitro Eugenics. But one thing is for sure, we have to stop importing stupid people into out country who are members of ethnic groups notorious for their welfare dependence, criminal behaviour and terrorism.

Social security is this nation’s costliest budget that dwarfs Defence, Education, Health and Scientific Research, and to even suggest that taxpayers must keep pouring oceans of cash into this financial black hole, when the only result of the trillions of dollars of welfare spending in the last forty years have been to increase poverty from 1 million to 2 million, sounds idiotic to me.

What's your solution? More taxpayer money?

Redneck, I don't believe that there is a significant percentage of human beings that aren't capable of being productive, useful citizens. It makes no evolutionary sense that this would be the case. OTOH, there are many people whose talents are not particularly valued by modern society, or who never get the opportunity to develop them.
For the unfortunate few that genuinely suffer mental or physical retardation to the point that they realistically can do little to contribute towards their own well-being, then those of us who can pay our own way are doing ourselves a big favour by contributing a small amount of our incomes towards looking after the underprivileged: firstly, because it gives them the best chance of contributing where they can, and not being forced to result to behaviours that would be far more damaging to society, and secondly, because we are human beings, and everything single school of ethical thought in existence (especially Christianity) is quite clear that a fundamental part of one's humanity comes through one's efforts to care for the less fortunate. Thirdly of course, there is always the very real possibility that you yourself may end up in such a situation one day, at which point I would expect your current attitude might change very quickly.

I see no evidence at all that the cost of welfare is any sort of drain on the standard of living for the rest of the country.
Indeed, there is almost something of a reverse correlation internationally - countries like Norway and Sweden with very high welfare budgets are doing quite nicely, while many developing or struggling "third world" economies have very limited, if any welfare expenditure.
The only apparent "exception" to the rule is the USA, which has comparatively low welfare spending, and a high average salary. But that average salary is a very misleading figure, because it is artificially boosted by a small percentage of people who earn exceedingly large salaries, and if you instead compare the incomes of the middle 80%, the USA no longer fairs so well.

Well Wizofaust, if you “believe” that all human beings are capable of being productive, responsible citizens who will gladly contribute to the common good, then I can only conclude that you have lead a sheltered life and have no conception of what it is like to live in a Housing Commission area where dole bludging is a serious lifestyle choice.

As a person who spent my childhood down the wrong end of town, I have a more realistic and jaundiced view of human nature than you do. International news crews have routinely visited high welfare dependency areas like Nimbin NSW to make TV reports to wide eyed foreign TV audiences who have been treated to the spectacle that Australia is willing to allow tens of thousands of working age young people to go surfing every day, and bludge on the Aussie taxpayer with impunity. One British student even wrote a pamphlet for his fellow students entitled “How to holiday in Australia, courtesy of the Australian taxpayer.”

No wonder every welfare dependent minority is determined to barge uninvited into Australia.

Your “belief” that Australia can afford all this needs a bit of work also. Leaving aside the fact that our public hospitals are a disgrace for lack of funds, that people are being killed driving on sub standard roads, that our scientific researchers are leaving Australia in droves because research funds are practically non existent, emergency housing is at crisis point, and our ever shrinking army could not repel an invasion by New Zealand, the fact remains that two working age Australians are now struggling to keep one other person on welfare.

That we have managed to do this for so long is a testament to how productive some Australians are and how wealthy our country is in natural resources. But it is impossible to keep adding to the welfare queues forever without serious opposition from the very same productive people who are being treated like the Golden Goose by people like yourself, who think that the capacity of productive people to carry loafers is infinite.

Redneck, might it occur to you that your experience growing up has given you an unrealistic impression of just how many "unproductive" members of society there really are? Sure there may be tens of thousands, but out of a population of 21 million, it's not exactly a massive percentage. Further, I was talking about inherent ability to be productive. If you genuinely believe most dole-bludgers are too "stupid" to be productive, then given that I assure you no-one is going to support any sort of eugenic or forced sterilisation program, you need to provide a realistic solution. If, OTOH, you believe that most of them are *capable* of being productive, but choose not to be, because welfare is too easy to obtain, you need to demonstrate that reducing their welfare is realistically likely to inspire them to go out and get themselves a job.
As far as insufficient funding for hospitals etc. goes, well I agree entirely. The reality is that Australia's taxes are among the lowest in the world, and if we want decent services, and a safety net that is effective enough to prevent the type of entrenched poverty that exists in countries without one, then forgoing endless tax cuts would be a good start (polls seem to indicate most of us are willing to). Of course, there's also a lot of taxpayer money that disappears into bureaucratic blackholes, or gets spent poorly on questionable corporate handouts, which if rationalised would also make a good deal more money available for more essential servies. Further, our healthcare spending could be significantly reduced by looking at preventative measures: encouraging better diets and lifestyles, keeping people out of cars and off the roads as much as possible (road trauma costs about $6 billion a year, not much less than half than what is spent on welfare), and, as I mentioned in another thread, the fact that many terminally ill patients are being kept alive against their wishes doesn't help either.

Wizofaust, my membership of the disadvantaged class gave me a realistic impression of the culture of that class. The reason why I oppose your humanistic attitudes is because they are contradicted by the evidence of my own eyes and ears.

I do not know what proportion of “Australians” are professional welfare recipients, but my opinion is that almost all long term unemployed are pretenders, and an significant proportion of the 600,000 people on Permanent Disability Pensions are frauds.

Obtaining a permanent Disability Pension is the Holy Grail of dole bludgers because it excuses them of any need to seek work, and governments like it as well because such people do not them embarrass the government by adding to unemployment statistics.

When well meaning people such as you claim that welfare fraud is only a minor matter, it is as credible to me as claiming that HAMAS really wants peace with Israel. I just know that you and your friends do not have a clue about what you are talking about. Didn’t you see that notorious 60 Minutes show with the Paxton kids?

I understand the Paxton's mentality because I had friends just like them. But you don’t, because you appear to have some sort of Christian/humanitarian belief that just about everybody is good at heart. What you don't understand is that people with low intelligence my not be lazy, what this is all about is self image.

Get it through your head that self image is a powerful human emotional need, and most people with low intelligence are hyper sensitive about their self image. Such people consider welfare fraud to be “smart” and infinitely preferable to working in low status jobs for low money.

Your correct observation that governments are already gearing welfare payments to direct purchases of rent, food and clothing simply confirms what I said all along about poverty being primarily a product of low intelligence.

I never said welfare fraud was a "minor problem", but I don't believe it's the most critical problem we face.
As I've said before, if a certain percentage of my taxes go towards ensuring people that either can't or won't work have food on the table and a roof over their heads, that's infinitely preferable to the alternative of them being homeless and/or turning to begging or stealing. If there is good evidence that reducing welfare (or making it conditional and/or better directed) can help inspire otherwise unproductive citizens to get out there and do something with their lives, I'm all for it...but I've yet to see such evidence.

Indeed, I'd like to see evidence for virtually every one of your generalisations.

I actually have a good friend who is on a disability pension (he has a mild but genuine psychological disorder). Personally, I (and others that know him) believe he is perfectly capable of getting a job, and it would be the best thing for him. The fact that he can obtain his pension without any responsibility of having to demonstrate a genuine attempt to find work or training does, on the surface, seem indicative of a problem in a system. However his problem is not that he enjoys bludging off welfare and thinks it would be silly to work when he doesn't have to - he knows he doesn't want to spent the rest of his life in his current condition, but mainly lacks the self-confidence and the motivation to find himself a job that he would find genuinely fulfilling. Perhaps making the payments conditional would jolt him out of this state of mind, but it could just as easily cause him, given his condition, to turn suicidal or become so mentally unstable that he would simply move from being a welfare cost to a healthcare cost (he's already been in and out of psychiatric hospitals many times). So if disability pension payments are made conditional, then you need someone with genuine expertise to make a reasoned assessment about each individual case – which costs money, naturally.

In Australia's attempt to ensure that only the deserving poor receive government assistance we waste a lot more money policing a punitive, mean welfare system rather than getting on with funding adequate low income housing, schools and adequate accessible medical / health care.

Wizofaust, you claimed that dole bludgers were only “tens of thousands” out of a population of 21 million, which implied that you considered dole bludging to be only a minor matter. If you now say that it is not a minor matter, do you now admit that it is a serious matter?

The biggest problem for your humanitarian view is that within the disadvantaged class there are people who do the right thing and who do work in lousy jobs with low pay, because they consider it the right thing to do. Such people are the biggest critics of your silly attitudes, because you are sanctioning the behaviour of the people who live among them and who openly laugh at them for working. Any society which permits large numbers of people to blatantly commit fraud against the state can hardly be surprised if the example set then begins to spread until the whole thing becomes an economic black hole.

I love your demand that I must prove my generalisations, the inference being that you need not do the same. I see this quite a lot from people with your viewpoint. Your position then becomes that unless I can prove that you are wrong, then this proves that you are right. Sorry mate, if you demand that I provide positive proof for everything I say, then the onus is upon you to do exactly the same thing. Where is your proof that there are only “tens of thousands” of dole bludgers?

And thank you for submitting that you also know a person who chooses to feast at the public table while complaining about the service, thereby proving me correct when I stated earlier that the scale of the problem can be gauged by the fact that there is hardly an Australian who can not personally recount an example of blatant dole bludging which they have personally witnessed.

I am not used to my opponents providing me with examples supporting my position, so I appreciate your help.

If there are only 10,000 genuine dole-bludgers in the whole of Australia, and the number is not increasing, then there is probably little reason to worry about it. OTOH, if there are 90,000, and the number has been increasing by several 1000 every year, then it is definitely worthy of attention. But to honest, nobody really knows how many genuine dole-bludgers there are, because there's no objective way of measuring it.

I am most certainly not sanctioning the behaviour of anyone who laughs at others that work, much as I do not sanction the behaviour of people who smoke - despite the fact that I believe it would highly counter-productive to outlaw smoking. If it can be shown that a particular change in welfare payment legislation has succeeded in reducing dole-bludging (and had no significant downsides), I'm fully supportive of it. You, on the other hand, are *assuming* that reducing welfare payments is the "correct" response, that will necessarily cause a net benefit for the population who are reliant on such payments.

Please tell...what generalisations have I made that you feel need proving?

As far as my friend goes, the purpose of relating his case was to demonstrate that simply cutting welfare isn't necessarily a productive response. Yes, he may be a "dole bludger" of sorts, but if his payments were cut tomorrow, he might well end up spending the rest of his life in a psychiatric ward, costing far more in taxpayer dollars than if he was simply allowed the time to finally build up his own self-esteem to the point he was ready to find himself a job. This isn’t a “humanitarian” position by the way – it’s one based purely on economic grounds.

OTOH, your implication that paying out large amounts of unconditional welfare to a significant percentage of the population is damaging to our overall economic prosperity is one that you have to prove, as if anything, the nations with the highest welfare spending are some of the most prosperous and successful economies in the world.

The objective way which I measure the degree of dole bludging Wizofaust, is with the evidence of my own eyes and ears. Quite simply, I lived within a Housing Commission area where dole bludging among young people was common, and I had friends (including a former girlfriend) who joined the legions of professional social welfare recipients on the sunny North Coast of NSW. As late as 15 years ago, I visited these friends and was appalled at the scale of the problem. It was obvious to me that some young people were deliberately immigrating to Australia just to become “hippies” and live an indolent lifestyle, courtesy of the Australian taxpayer.

That governments realise the scale of the problem is indicated by the fact that the Howard government has considerably tightened up the eligibility criteria for welfare, one being the prevention of the popular tactic of moving to desirable beachside areas with very high unemployment rates. This was probably caused by the objective statistical analysis of figures citing that the Queensland town of Airlie Beach had more people registered on unemployment benefits and disability pensions than existed as the total population of the town, according to the previous census. It was also objectively noted that shopkeepers in the town had trouble finding staff.

Your friend could not end up in a psychiatric hospital because we no longer have the money to pay for such services because there are too many dole bludgers stealing from our welfare budget. Today we chuck psychiatric patients out on the street. This fact contradicts your previous claim that dole bludging is no big deal.

The fact that wealthy countries pay out enormous amounts in welfare hardly supports the idea that it is not damaging to our economy. You ask me what generalisations you have made; well there is a big one, right there. Once again we see that you demand that I must prove my premise that too liberal welfare is very damaging to the economy, while you see no need to prove your premise that it is not.

Measuring something with one's own eyes and ears, and nothing else, is decidedly *not* objective. A minimal understanding of statistics, human psychology and the scientific method should be more than enough to dismiss such a claim.
But to be honest, I'm not even sure what point you're trying to make any more. Are you admitting that now that we're not adequately looking after those with genuine psychiatric needs? And if so, how can we better distinguish between such cases and those collecting disability pensions purely as a form of work avoidance?
And again, I apologise if I implied that dole bludging was no big deal, but the fact that there is a shortage in mental health funding could just as well be treated as a symptom of an insufficient revenue base (i.e., too many tax cuts), or other government money being poorly spent.

If wealthy countries are the ones paying out the most in welfare, then how is this *not* evidence that welfare itself is not necessarily economically damaging? I'm happy to provide evidence for this generalisation, although you can easily find it yourself by looking up the statistics for Scandinavian economies in particular.
Norway is the poster child here - with the higher per capita GDP in the world bar the US, one of the lowest unemployment rates anywhere (<3%), it makes generous and unconditional welfare available to all citizens. Now, there are lots of things that make Norway different to Australia, but if we genuinely wanted and universally agreed to do so, I see little reason why Australia could not maintain a similar system. Accepted, realistically most voters here don't seem to be in favour of such a state of affairs, especially considering the high levels of personal income tax it implies.

The point I am making is the same one I started with, that is, I take exception to the attitude (as exemplified in the article written by Anne Turley & Cath Smith) that attacks Australian society because of the existence of poor people. Their attitude seems to be, that this indicates that something is fundamentally wrong with our society, and with our economy, if significant poverty is present in a wealthy society.

This is the typical attitude of trendy lefties who need to believe that all people are equal, and who’s only explanation for the differences in wealth within societies (or between societies) is that rich people are oppressors, and poor people are victims. This is a view popular among guilt ridden bourgeois Artz grad siblings who have been indoctrinated to think this way by post Marxist academics, who are still sore at the fact that communism failed and capitalism triumphed.

My view of poverty was formulated by being a poor person myself,who saw at first hand what the problem is, and it has nothing to do with being oppressed. It is hardly an indictment on Australian society if we keep importing 30,000 poverty stricken people into this country every year to add to our poverty statistics. It is however, an indictment of your own mindset if you agree with this and want it to continue.

Nor is it an indictment of Australian society that welfare payments are so generous that a significant number of dumb people choose not to work. But it is an indictment of your mindset if you refuse to believe that fact and pretend that it is not a serious problem.

Nor is it an indictment of Australian society that rich people are smart, invest their money, and have self control, while generationally poor people are dumb, and spend everything they have satisfying immediate gratifications because they have poor self control. But it is an indictment of your mindset if you wish to believe in the “oppressor/ victim” Answer For Everything approach instead of understanding reality.

Well, I can't speak for the original authors, but I certainly do not support the "suppressor/victim" mentality, nor am I an Arts grad student, and I am very much a believer in capitalism as a means of wealth-creation.
I fully accept that wealth differences occur because people differ in wealth-creation abilities, either innately, or circumstantially. Indeed, I don't know anyone that genuinely believes all people are equal in their ability to make money.
The issue is whether it makes social and/or economical sense to redistribute some of the wealth created by those born with the ability and into the circumstances that enable it to those who are not so fortunate. As I've already noted, the only truly successful economy with minimal wealth-distribution is the U.S., and I think most Australians with a minimal understanding of the levels of poverty that exist there would much rather we don't head in that direction. Further, there is good reason to believe that this policy will ultimately bankrupt the U.S., if it doesn't lead to another French or Russian-style revolution first.
Hopefully, voters ultimately demand that the US reinstates a decent welfare system at the ballot box, and avert such a crisis.

It does indeed make a lot of sense to redistribute the common wealth to ensure social stability, the problem is, to what degree?

Remembering that social welfare is fantastically expensive, it is simply idiotic to import tens of thousands of poverty stricken people into this country who immediately access a wide range of social aid programs which they have never paid a penny towards it’s upkeep. It is odd that you can claim the ultimate bankruptcy of the US, but are unable to fathom the same thing happening in this country when our welfare bills are already exceeding the capacity to be covered by government revenues.

In my exchanges with you, you have advocated the continued importation of poverty stricken, crime prone and welfare prone ethnic groups, (“until they get on their feet”) and you refuse to acknowledge the harm that this is doing to this country, both economically and politically. It is as if you think that money grows on trees, or that Australia as a “rich” country must aid the people from “poor’ countries who want to barge in here and swear their undying allegiance to Australia’s social security system.

You also refuse to acknowledge that very significant numbers of people in this country prefer to live on welfare rather than go to work. It is just something you do not wish to focus upon because it would not conform to your need to believe that nearly everybody wishes to be “productive, useful citizens.” So you adopt a three monkey approach to widespread and blatant welfare fraud.

You also refuse to acknowledge that the fantastic cost of welfare does not harm our economy. You apparently think that a “rich” countries ability to pay up is limitless, and the capacity for fleecing “rich” people through taxation is the same.

Did you ever read the story of The Golden Goose?

And you are full of ideas about what I apparently think, very few of which are close to the truth.

Give me one iota of evidence that welfare is damaging our economy.

(I can give you an example of restrictive welfare damaging our economy: the Mental Health Council of Australia has reported that ~71% of Australians with mental illnesses are currently out of work largely because of poor and/or excessively restrictive welfare arrangements: http://www.mhca.org.au/documents/Employmentstrategiesfailmentallyill.pdf)

THIS IS FOR EVERYONE IN THE NATIONAL FORUM TO READ hi to all the forgotten australians yes im still here fighting for justice for us victims of the rapes and abuse that we endured at the hands of the goverment employees who worked for the australian goverment run institutions through out every state of australia as they were run by .D,O,C,S,and they are responable for what we suffered, and still are suffering today with , this is a national cry of help where both goverment parties are to blame as it has happend while diffrent goverments were in control of our country , we are supose to be protected by the australian welfare departments and their agencies yet we were not we were victims of the most horriffic crimes against children and neither goverment gives a --uck, as to what happend to us and those that are being subject to the abuse as we read these stories admitt the truth as to what we suffered and stop the cover up and sweeping us under the carpet and throwing our cases out of the court system we are real we are still here and fight not only forour selves but that of those who have past away ,due to being victims as we are,the forgotten australians will no longer be forgotten kind regards micheal

Once again your attitude is that I must prove my premise while you need not bother to prove your own.

Nup, sorry mate. I am too experienced to fall for that old todge.

Dream on Wizofaust. I will see you again on another topic.