Deep Blue welcome and well said.
But as a trade unionist and Labor voter lets look deeper.
I set out my needs before in my view it will work.
NOTHING like work for the dole, no public servants involved.
Full pay for full work,basic wages so it is not considered by most as safe haven forever, once proved put the wages up.
All work to be of benefit to the country, mow lawns for disabled build tourist camp areas around the country free for a couple of nights only.
Clean trees out of rivers and creeks.
By natural attrition transfer government projects to this group.
Get a rule in place to get results from EVERY one,some will not work.
Good will good planning can make such a system work.
Do not ever forget, generations now have never held a job, not a lot but too many we must stop that.

Clean trees out of rivers and creeks.
By natural attrition transfer government projects to this group.
Belly,
Same meaning, different words. National Service !

Oh dear, the stench of noblesse oblige wafts through the air, as always when the undeserving poor are having their lives reshaped for them by 'those who know better'.

In such a wealthy community as ours, it hardly is credible to have long term, able bodied and minded, people out of work for long periods of time.

There must be a few structural reasons beyond them 'all being bludgers'.

"Just a fair amount of work for what they receive". Dear oh dear. What about a 'fair amount' for being unemployed in a society that cringes from planning and raises the 'free market' to exalted places?

High profits and low taxes are the return for 'dole bludgers'. Most of the nation loves that formula, and really only want to punish those who do not 'find a job'.

The church poor box lives still, through the monsters who dish out 'solutions', like Jenny Macklin in her increased invasion planning, and all those church people who enjoy running soup kitchens rather than educating the disempowered as to the root causes for their situation.

Building bike paths- with what, pray tell? "Start Monday and bring your own concrete"?

Assisting the SES- how? SES people are volunteers, who work during the day/night and train in their own time- who is to be there during the day to oversee these people?

Besides, was it Belly shading his government from the truth with claims of 'full employment'? There are many more people un- and under-employed who do not show up in the scam figures Gillard and Swan spruik.

As for 'national service', go to Hell with that idea please.

The neo-liberal ideology the ALP gifted us with during the Hawke era, rid us of a raft of jobs in return for increased profits and reduced costs for the benefit only of 'shareholders'.

The 'return' to the nation has yet to arrive.

Get off that high horse blue cross, before you fall off, & hurt yourself. You certainly don’t have much fact to hold you on up there.

If ever you get out from behind that wall of ideology, & look at the facts, you will see the public have got it mostly right. There is a very high number of work shy bludgers in our community.

I live in a near city country area, & perhaps we gathered a larger than average number of bludgers, when house prices were low, & rents were cheaper. I certainly hope so, as we have heaps of them, which I hope is not the norm elsewhere.

We have quite a large number of small, one or two man business who would love to expand a little, if they could find staff. They just can’t. They can get plenty who will do one day a week, for $150 cash in hand, but very few who will do a second day, & none who will come off the dole, & work full time.

At least a few times a month I find myself helping out one of these people, when they have a job that requires someone on the other side of something, for an hour or three. If they can’t get help it’s a matter of waiting for their wives to get home from a real job, only to start again. I’m happy to help, but it doesn’t say much for the local lay-abouts, collecting their sit down money, & sponging off these very people.

It works both ways. After my last heart attack, it was these blokes who were there, getting my pump up from the river, picking up my car from the hospital, & making sure my stock & pets had food & water. Of course you wouldn’t expect anything else from people who believe in earning their own living, & paying their own way

The only thing I saw 'demonized' was the aboriginal gangs feeding themselves on porn and booze, raping young girls, and fighting opposing gangs.

*THAT* is what was demonized.

The solution attempted by Howard was a neccessary 'intervention'.. you cannot fix such situations by "nudge" policy.

But one the basic law and order/moral issue has been at least been controlled.. MIKK's solution might ....'might'...work to a degree.

I doubt it though, because such tragically distorted and dehumanized people (involved in such activities) have probably no interest in doing any kind of 'work' as MIKK suggests.

The only real solution is personal renewal at the spiritual, social and moral levels.
ie... Salvation in Christ. I've seen it work in real life. The runs are on the board.

If you look at the post from TBC, it explains much.
From his lofty spot on the back of that long legged horse he declares there are no welfare bludgers, at all.
No family's third generation unemployed no free loaders just victims.
Doubt it mate.
I offered jobs, better pay than their fathers got in timber mills, to many who would rather surf.
Welfare reform, it just must happen.
I could go on a spending spree with my super, but am going to pay my way by using it as pension.
Middle class welfare is being paid to some on $150.000 a year, how do you regard that TBC?
I fight still for workers and the poor but hiding the truth helps no one.