How about we cut the dole from 'unlimited' too say, 1 year of lifetime eligibility and funnel those funds into helping out the farming community and the elderly. Currently the suicide rate in rural communities is getting out of hand as is the quality of life for elderly.

New-start is a benefit for individuals who are able to be in the workforce but currently not working. Should the lifetime eligibility be 1 year, or whatever to free up funds for people in need?. If you are able bodied but not employed for extended periods then you may be in need of further psychological assistance or reclassifying into a disabled benefit.

There are definitely areas where unemployment is disproportionate to the whole country and quite obviously situations like that need to be taken into consideration, but on the whole, Australia is a place where you can anything you want to be, shouldn't that be encouraged and a positive spinoff from that would be more funds for the needy..

Dear StG,

Your suggestions are great.

However,I would also like to link the dole, especially
for young people, by encouraging them to learn some sort of a
trade. Thereby increasing their chances of finding a job.
I'm not sure what sort of programs currently exist - but
it wouldn't hurt to ensure that young dole applicants understood
that eligibility for the dole entailed learning a skill while
they were getting Government support.

Anyway, just a thought.

StG I think this meat is a little under done. A lot more thought is needed especial the intention is a debate or a rave.
e.g. As it stands now you would need to explain why as it could be argued that the sole purpose of “dole’” is for those in need.

Your comment seems to imply that all on the dole are bludgers (people not seeking work) which I would dismiss as being ill-informed and nonsense.

FACT the biggest call on our social security $ are the aging and retirees. Who until relatively recently were raised and worked in an environment where Super was for bosses and the pension was for when you retired. Jobs were for life and if you had more than 3 jobs you were considered unstable. Likewise in the 60/70 a person could leave one job today and get three offers by tomorrow.

There are many reasons why a person may not be able to find work. Age, skills, location, intellect, physical, psychological…..etc.

Children are most often reflections of their environment/parentage. The days of copious unskilled factory jobs are long gone. But there are still areas whole estates or suburbs where the parents’ educational standard is low end high school. This is often followed by children who fail to complete high school who expect executive jobs.
To deny them sustenance would only create the climate for illegality experienced in ex iron curtain countries where there are no appropriate jobs and rampant crime. Please refine the topic.

Cut the dole anywhere in a society that has become dependent on the dole and the escalating crime rate will bring that society down.
Cops barely manage as it is.
State governments are also notorious for not hirng new cops.
End of society!

"Currently the suicide rate in rural communities is getting out of hand as is the quality of life for elderly".
"How about we cut the dole from 'unlimited".
"1 year of lifetime eligibility"

StG
Do you think is right to take the money from people in disparate need and give them to other people who probably are in better conditions than unemployment people?
Do you think is right to take the money from people in need instead to try to find any other solution?

"Australia is a place where you can anything you want to be"
It is seemed that I live in an other planet or you know little for the other Australia! It seemed you know little for sole parents problems, especially for sole mother's problems, for unemployment's problems, for migrant's problems, for Muslim's problems, for disable 's problems, FOR RURAL COMMUNITIES PROBLEMS, (as you wrote).
It is better to make the system fairer, increasing the taxes on big corporations and multinational companies, wasting less money for support to bushinesses, putting an order in the public sector, limiting the number and salaries of the top managers and their assists, etc.
THERE AREMANY WAYS TO SUPPORT THE RURAL COMMUNITIES WITHOUT TO INCREASE UNEMPLOYMENT PEOPLE'S PROBLEMS. ALREADY THEY HAVE HUGE PROBLEMS. PEOPLE IN DOLE NEED OUR SUPPORT AND UNDERSTANDING AND ENCOURAGE TO FIND THEIR WAY.

"1 year of lifetime eligibility"?
In our days, people lose their job often and change profession many time in their life ( of cause the new technologies, in Denmark change employer three times per year! )
Even the worst extremist of neo conservatives could not suggest eligibility for dole 1 year for lifetime.
NO! StG,
You are very hard with unemployments, VERY HARD!

Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaid

What's the point of taking the dole from the unemployed (after a total of 1 year of payments are made over any amount of time) and giving it to farmers? That's merely swapping the dole from one section of the community to another. A failing "farmer" is NO MORE DESERVING of handouts than the genuinely unemployed. Farming is a business, NOT a charity..........just like ALL businesses. Business people need to manage "RISK" if their business is to survive. One risk factor for farmers is drought. If a farmer can't effectively manage that risk, then the farmer should not be in business.

The same applies to the elderly. These days most elderly people are not products of the Great Depression.......most of them have lived through the boom economic periods of the post war good times. They've all had the chance to work towards a relatively comfortable retirement. They should have managed "their" risk, by planning for their retirement and adjusting their lifestyles towards the inevitable lower incomes they'll be receiving when they finally retire. If they have refused to manage their risk during their working lives, then they must expect to exist solely on the pension, with all the lower living standards that implies. It's "their" choice regarding "their" risk management. Giving old people handouts, taken from other peoples' dole payments, does nothing for the economy; it merely redistributes money and rewards pensioners for not planning effectively for retirement.