Child abuse, mental health, and addiction is a cop out?. *shakes head*

Thank God you guys aren't child workers.

Ok, individual, I'll bite.

>>We have 35 years of evidence that the absence of National Service has a negative effect on society<<

I'd be interested to understand the nature of this evidence.

Any chance of a reference?

King Hassa:
I have to disagree with you regarding National Service.

Like all military organizations it has the ability to bring the person with a superior standard down to a median level and conversely bring up a person with a lower standard to that same median level.
The person with the superior standard can further his or her future by taking advantage of the higher skill level occupations offered internally by the Service.

It has the ability to instill the self-discipline and self-worthiness in a person lacking in these particular attributes, which itself appears to be a problem relatively commonplace in today`s society.

In its early phase, it teaches young people to accept directions by a superior and the penalties for disobedience. It teaches pride in appearance, punctuality in attendance, the ability to work together as a group, accepting and sharing responsibilty for the outcome of a given task, as well as the group penalty for failure!

National Service serves to educate the uneducated by teaching or re-inforcing the basic education skills. A member can also learn the basics of Trade Skills which can be used in the civilian field or to access further advancement within the permanent Defence Forces.

It creates a pool of personnel, trained in military expertise that can be called upon in the event of any military threat against our country, and most importantly it solves a substantial part of the unemployment situation, by employing these persons who would otherwise be unemployed, and a non-productive section of Australian society

It sounds good in theory Crackup but there is a considerable margin of error to prevent it from carrying out in practice.

Putting aside of course the fact that the vast majority of people seem to have little difficulty actually performing all of the feats national service is meant to do, and would simply be taken away from whatever discourses they had actually intended to do for a long period of time.

So really the only appropriate course of action to test this theory is a voluntary 'national-service-for-the-dole' program- where participants must agree to national service to get dole payments (assuming they won't just go for the other, much more attractive variants, which they aught have right to).

And another question that needs to be asked- WHAT services?
Military? Undergoing a training program? Domestic stationing? Overseas deployment?
Apprenticeship? Volunteer work? Paid employment? UN-paid employment? Forcefully assigned a job or career path that nobody wants to do and thus has a higher demand for workers?

You can clearly see a substantial violation of people's rights and liberties- solely to address a very presumptuous social assumption which would have a hard time being proven.

Finally...someone with courage to raise National Service.

I fully agree with you Individual regarding National Service. I was talking to family about National Service years ago, wondering why the government had not acted upon it or few others.

Too late for my daughter now as she is 19yrs and son 16yrs. He's done hard physical work for 5 yrs now and trained up in so many areas, although he would thrive as a participant of national service.

I would be over the moon to become involved in getting National Service up and running, Individual, particularly for teenage girls to be compulsory participants. I deal with them regularly of all ages and backgrounds. The positives outweighing any negatives if organised methodically.

I am happy to do a great deal of ground work and assist if you wish to introduce and push this concept Individual.

Or obtain funding for some more boot camps in other states a great plus!

Crackup: you gave the full explanations of my thoughts regarding National Service.

'self discipline', 'ownership issues', responsibility for one's own self and actions, self-esteem raised to enjoy self worth, nothing but positives for Aussie teens.

The parents of a few 15yr old girls am dealing with at present would be only too quick despatching their daughters [some sons] away to participate in National Service or boot camps regularly or during the school holidays. Friends of friends going through nightmares with their 15-17 yr old kids. 3 x business couples together not separated [loving parents] enduring disrespect, totally over the top selfish behaviour displayed by their kids, knowing only too well their 'rights' and overstepping boundaries for their own safety and well being. Damage to their parents property not getting their way, running away from home with an older boyfriend, the lists always endless.

Love exhibited by these parents assisted with the boundaries UNTIL puberty sets in, along with peer pressure significantly affecting many of these kids.

Yes to National Service!! on behalf of many parents I constantly communicate with regarding their 15-17 yr olds.