Mutual obligation should be extended to all goverment programs where it can be successfully applied. The first that comes to mind is heath care - those who don't meet the mutual obligation requirements (i.e. look after themselves: those who aren't obese and don't smoke etc.) should be deprioritised in favour of those who do.

There are clear benefits to the whole of society where people actively look to improve things for themselves. I see nothing wrong with a bit of "stick", especially when the "carrot" doesn't encourage them.

Good post johncee 1945.

Ah mutual obligation. I love this. Let's see. The tax system gives $60bn a year through what are called tax expenditures (deviations from the Haig-Simons tax benchmark) and is there any talk of mutual obligation there? No, because the recipients of this largesse (ie disguised grants) are usually (not always, but usually) really well off people or businesses.

Apologists for the system always find ways to stigmatise those who are its victims. This provides a cover for continuing the essentially exploitative nature of the system and the privileged position the few have at the expense of the many. It is part of the wider relentless propaganda campaign to try and convince Australians that the problem is the individual, not the system. And it helps tie wage slaves to the system.

Perhaps we should extend mutual obligation to all fields - something like "he who does not work shall not eat". Let's apply that to the dividend bludgers.

Ugh... cut and paste error... let's try this again:

Mutual obligation should be extended to all goverment programs where it can be successfully applied. The first that comes to mind is heath care - those who don't meet the mutual obligation requirements (i.e. who don't look after themselves: those who are obese and smoke etc.) should be deprioritised in favour of those who don't.

There are clear benefits to the whole of society where people actively look to improve things for themselves. I see nothing wrong with a bit of "stick", especially when the "carrot" doesn't encourage them.

Johncee1945,

Clearly no one told Johncee about the repeated failures of the command economies. Your “marxist’ analysis is simplistic, fear mongering and absolutely typical of the rubbish that you see in socialist papers and pamphlets. You don’t actually use any of the primary source to show where it is you believe you have uncovered the jargon or cover to get at your ‘truth’.

It should be obvious to even the most short sighted that you are better off being poor in a country like Australia than being a worker or a professional in any of the third world or socialist countries. Many in the third world live on less than a dollar a day. Our poor are nowhere near this level. I know I’ve been on gov’t benefits during my four years at Uni and I received less than 75% of what most unemployed people receive.

Futhermore the level of unemployment is almost an historical low. The mining boom has been very good to Australia. Young people, often unskilled are able to earn more than $100,000 a year in boom related industries. This has spread over into other areas, increasing wages across the board.

So ‘Enhancing productivity’ means driving up the rate of exploitation of workers’ labour power does it? What absolute dribble. Unreconstucted Marx.

“Welfare is a right, and it should be paid unconditionally to people who are in need of it." Utter rot. The loony left has for too long maintained this focus on the rights of citizens whilst ignoring their responsibilities. This has led to the untenable situation in which people view their gov’t handouts as a right as part of their chosen lifestyle. It is not the communities responsibility to provide lifetime support for those who don’t like to work.

ISbdtipomf

If I went to a job interview for a serious position dressed as a monkey I woudn’t get a job either. It’s your right to dress as you see fit and I’ll defend that right for you. Surely it’s an employers right to employ those they see fit as well

Paul.L says "that you are better off being poor in a country like Australia than being a worker or a professional in any of the third world or socialist countries." "Many in the third world live on less than a dollar a day."
Well what does that say about capitalism? And the rightwing politicians worldwide who are responsible for the reactionary debased conditions you mention. By the way workers wages are being driven downwards worldwide with no end in sight. According to Paul's rationale workers are better off here being poor and should be grateful. Who precisely should we be grateful for?
The politicians who are plundering the public treasury and selling off everything they can get their hands on? Such as handing over to their cronies the public water supply and electricity infrastructure? or the disgraceful state of the hospitals? The worst of the hospital reports to come to light back in 2004 concerns the deaths of 19 patients in four years due to inadequate care at Camden and Campbelltown hospitals. According to nurse Nola Fraser, the 19 deaths represent merely the tip of an iceberg. “In reality, we’re talking about hundreds of deaths and thousands of cases of people who’ve received gross negligence and gross mismanagement in their cases and who are just lucky to be alive today.” Recent reports have widened the hospital scandal, with claims of further deaths due to inadequate care at other metropolitan hospitals, including the Prince of Wales hospital, one of Sydney’s largest.
The growing death toll is only the latest symptom of a public hospital system that is collapsing under the weight of a two-decade assault by Liberal and Labor state and federal governments. Starved of funds, public hospitals have been shut, emergency wards and beds closed, hospital waiting lists lengthened and jobs cut. Record numbers of nurses have quit. The deaths have then be used as a justification for handing over the hospitals to the finance predators.

Uh huh.

You mean centrelink payments are actually to benefit those who aren't fortunate enough to obtain a job? If I weigh up the benefits and costs of the welfare system it is society who comes out in front, and way out in front, not the unemployed people of which a few mightn't actually want to work.

And mutual obligation is very flexible. That's why the rules claim "payments MAY be stopped for a certain period." It's just every now and again someone will be used as an example of what can happen if you don't do what you're told, when you're told, and how you're told! In other words the individual can't win against society, or dissent is much less likely.

See now one reason why Australia has a fairly lenient welfare system (compared to the U.S. for example) is because well, there's no way the bloody convicts will ever overrun this place and so far away from home. Can you imagine? It can't happen!