JKJ RECHTUB no way not a chance I want to have a beer and a sausage sandwich with you butcher.
For a start my WASP dad and mum entrenched in me work for a living, an honest days pay for an honest days work.
I NEVER left a job, humping wheat spuds hand cutting cane driving trucks 16 hours a day construction steel fixing concrete and form work plant operating.
That did not see the boss asking me to stay.
20% of my income has always gone to help my family, as a child I left school and gave 90% to mum to feed us.
I pay cash owe no man a cent.
Would, ask anyone, give you the last cent I had.
But you two tell me poverty is self inflicted that all welfare is theft that yesterdays tax payers are todays bludgers?
Your dad rechtub will be rolling in his grave.
We should not support bludgers, but let no man live in the gutter to please such as you two.
rechtub I truly thought much better of you , are you sure you understand politics? social welfares intent? who your customers are.

Belly don't attack me just because I agree with much of what JKJ says.

Granted I should have read his post a bit better before supporting it as I don't agree with the elderly being left to rot, rather the reverse. But, how can you think a system is fair when one works all their life and receives ZERO! Not even a health care card.

As for welfare, no I don't think it is theft, but I do think the time has come to earn welfare. After all, they are being paid about 10hr per week for nothing. Now take 10 hrs from 38, this leaves 28 hrs, or, more than 5 hrs mon to fri to seek work.

The facts are that 'free rides' must end.

JKJ, you will cop a lot of flack from this site as it appears to be loaded with 'under achievers' who seem hell bent on supporting those who contribute the least. Although I must admit, your coment on single mothers 'flatbacking' for extra cash goes a bit far.

They defend the low skilled, yet, there has never been more support for these to better themselves than there is now. Traineeships, etc.

They also hate those of us who are succesfull. After working up to 80 hours per week at time, over the past 30 years, of course one should be in a reasonable position, but why they have to adopt the old 'tall poppy' sydrome is beyond me.

As I say, I think it's a case of 'underachivers' defending 'underachievers' and they don't like to have their feathers ruffled.

Then there's belly. Our die hard labor unionist who can't see anything wrong with the way Krudd is sending us broke in record time, but hey, my dad was like that and it's like talking to a brick wall.

But he's a likeable bloke and we often have fun although he got the last laugh when his beloved saints stole our coach.

I don't know if Hawkey had this foresight when compulsory super was introduced in 1986, but by 2030 all retirees will have had super for their entire working lives. A government could justify virtually eliminating aged pension.

BUT, then there's politics. A good long term plan gets lost in the short term goal of keeping dimwitted joe average voter on side. He just wants to have more money now so he can keep gambling, smoking and drinking. (seriously it's disgraceful how much money Aust spends on these three useless habits)

So some genius politician thinks he can just take a little bit of the accumulated super, not much in the big scheme of things, then this repeats, etc.

If it were up to me, contributions to super would be untaxed. If someone is smart enough to sacrifice now for their retirement, GREAT. Regardless of what they earn.

All you guys who whinge about "fatcats" answer me one question. Name one "fatcat" who hasn't worked his arse off to get where he is, or name one who doesn't work a million hours a week. I say good luck to them. They deserve the money they get.

My approach, pretend your super's not there. I reckon the concept of super (and all the money) will be gone by the time I retire.

I think people need to be doing a bit more taking responsibility for themselves and stop looking for handouts that you think you deserve.

Nobody's suggesting the old or poor should be left to rot - an absurd hysteria.

Belly is assuming that the welfare state produces better outcomes, overall, for poor people. It doesn't. It makes them worse off overall. It is the main cause of the poverty it is supposed to prevent and relieve, and nothing he has said has shown otherwise. His charitable impulse is fine, it's just totally misplaced into a belief in government.

If people can earn their living, they should. Australia is currently bringing in cooks and drivers and fruit-pickers. So why are we being forced to pay part of our income to Australians while employers can't get Australians to fill these positions? If the purpose of social security is to stop women from having to earn money by selling sexual services, then it's got nothing to do with poverty, and everything to do with sexual morality. We are in effect being forced to subsidise a dysfunctional version of the theory of romantic love.

The point is, government's attempts to manage the retirement income of the population result in planned chaos. More of it will only result in more planned chaos. Phasing it out does not mean people dying in the streets. It means most people must and will provide for themselves, almost all people must take out income insurance against misfortune and accident. We as a society must continue to provide for the small minority who are destitute, but that does not justify jumping to the conclusion that it must be done by government confiscating our income and pouring it down a bloated bureaucracy to hand out on the basis of political fashion. It is a complete furphy to identify the government with humane purposes. It's the other way around. The charitable impulse comes from us as a society, and is better adminstered by us as a society - voluntarily. It is completely misguided, dysfunctional, destructive and anti-social to assign this function to government.

Peter Hume you are an adult are you not?
Then in your rush to be seen in print do not forget to read the threads.
See the inflammatory words of JKJ indeed he is saying just that and more.
who said anything about fat cats? rechtub may have attempted to put words in my mouth but I never mentioned them.
rechtub, benefit of the doubt from me to you.
But you convict your self by re entering the debate on the side of a flamer, surely that b est describes this poster.
Get this right.
I am proudly a worker
A unionist
ALP member.
Know, without doubt, some welfare is wasted, think we need to pay it, but to the needy not greedy not slothful.
Have nothing against fairly earned wealth.
Know some bosses are true great people, some are not.
Know it was the union/ALP who had the foresight to give us super, and that it should be used to live not squandered.
as just a child who had not eaten for 3 days a rich bloke gave my dad and me, broken down on the outback road a loaf of bread, I became a giver that day.
Never ever would I leave anyone without a feed, never, good men share.
any one who would let another suffer in my view is no man/woman

Just a few thoughts.

Welfare is there to basicly help people when they are down, however, to many, it has become a way of life. In fact, if there were no payments made to parents and kids were fed three square meals a day and privided with ample cloths etc, then many parents would re-think their situation, as, unless you are in denial, billions gets wasted every year while kids suffer. Why, because looser parents simply can't help themselves when presented with money.

Super. A great idea however where the planners went wrong was to invite private funds in to invest on the contributors behalf.

By all means gamble with your own money, but not someone elses.

All super should be controlled 100% by the government. Perhaps all funds should be dismantled and the money put in to buy back some of our assetts. Telstra etc.

Private super fund managers are like any other agent. The more they make for the client, the larger their cut and so they take risks with our future.

After all, all they risk is their jobs!