Yet again welfare groups are unhappy with proposed changes.
I bow with pride to those who won welfare in this country.
And for the younger ask they look at how bad things had been before it.
I remember ,even in my childhood far different ways, lessor ways hungry got a feed.
But what was the original plan?
Is it so wrong to say waste should not be part of the system.
If we stopped wast we could give more to the true needy, but the I pay my tax's so I want welfare group still exists.
And welfare groups focus not on true needy but not debating.
Surely we need a new look at Social Welfare?

I hope we can talk about the subject without taking sides.
I am talking about need not greed, and back totally the idea of welfare.
I wounder how many know the current move to get some movement in disability pensions is not aimed at sending the blind or crippled to work.
From the 1970,s it is clear some on unemployment want to be there until they get a promotion, to disability pension.
Not all, not most but some.
Some got there, no need to look for work no need to report.
Some Doctors have always been willing to help, to achieve a few more regular clients.
We could talk of alternatives to long term unemployment , question what jobs can be put aside for such, and for those on disability support who can and want to work.
We should not use emotional thoughts about starvation and such to avoid a real look at all welfare.

Strange coincidence this subject arising today. Only on sunday I spoke with an australian woman who lived in Bali for 20 years, about single australian mothers living there rather comfortably on australian welfare.
That's just wrong. Also wrong is that an australian pensioner can not access his/her pension after three months out of the country when it would afford them a dignified existence in their later years. I'd prefer living as a pensioner in Australia to be affordable so people would not need to seek a living in cheaper countries.

Under international agreements other country's pay pensions to their nationals who live here too.
And I see no wrong in that, some would love to live in Bali.
I do want better outcomes from welfare for every one.
Long ago this country tried to put funds away to pay welfare, it failed in part.
Superannuation offers a chance to get on top of future retirement costs.
I needed my first payout to buy my first home.
We should not stop that.
But with pay outs in some cases being over a million dollars, and ability to put away for another generation funds while receiving pensions we are not being fair dinkum..

Welfare essential...abuse of the system threatens it's future.

The Disability Pension abuse, is a joke and will lead to general disaffection if not overhauled.

Cheers,

Ralph

Ralph all too true, as an ALP activist and unionist you may expect me to not agree.
However we must get better from welfare.
Here just maybe, is a chance to replace public servants with some thing better.
I think, on evidence of my own eyes, no person trying to convert from long term dole to disability fails to do so.
Not targeting folk, no intention to stop welfare, but to stop waste.
I know of 35 year olds who never held a job.
I saw a local get his first at age 26, and leave within a month, said it interferes with his life style.
A work before welfare for every fit person would if not killed by public servants stop a lot, not current scheme.
A job put aside for every disability person who wants it would be welcomed by most of them.
I target the smarty, the never want to work types who hide in disability areas.

There is one simple first step that must be taken when addressing welfare, STOP PAYING CASH!

You see the paying of cash is where many problems arise.

It can be gambled, smoked, drank, or all of the above. Meanwhile, the 'kids', which by the way is where welfare is deemed to be required, often go without because the welfare they rely on is wasted.

Address this issues and we will be off to a good start.

Then, each and every tax payer should have their own 'rewards style' card, which, when you pay tax, you earn points. You can then use these points in your retirement.

But no, we would rather say, bugger off, you're to well off, so you receive nothing. Even though you may have contrinuted more in taxes than many other have earned.

Let's face it, if one knows there will be a pot of gold there upon retirement, then one is more likely to pay their taxes, ligitimately.

Last but not least, welfare should be a 'hand up' not a 'hand out'.

Don't think the thread is going to work.
I would have thought some good ideas, out there ideas for real change might come.
And suspected I may be targeted for my views it is time for reform.
And for the view government has every right to review as it plans to, disability pensions.
Rechtub I can not agree with your simplistic views.
Welfare has many heads, Child welfare, unemployment disability and old age, list could be three posts long.
I do not say a majority are wrongly on welfare,
My view is we most probably waste more on the efforts of the public servants who run the show.
Impending tax cuts to small business as a result of carbon tax is welfare, for the well of.
One day we must confront fraud in welfare, now should be that time.
But to blacken every one, to want to pay other than by cash is insulting.

Dear Belly,

I've worked all of my life and have never been on welfare. I consider myself extremely lucky. I still remember however, witnessing an
elderly pensioner ahead of me in the checkout at the Supermarket weighing up whether he was going to buy the fruit or the vegs. He couldn't afford both. Needless to say, I told the girl, to put his vegs. on my tab - and he got to take them home. I don't know enough about the supposed rorts of "welfare" recipients.

I do know that many poor people work full time at unskilled jobs that will never pay much. Many live in areas of chronic unemployment, such as depressed rural regions or decaying urban neighbourhoods where industries are in decline. Many have only recently become poor, and most don't stay poor for very long. Each year, about a third of the country's poor families manage to climb out of poverty. Some of course are trapped in long-term poverty.

What I can't understand is why can't the money currently spent on federal poverty programs be given directly to the poor, instead of to federal and state bureaucracies? It would raise the incomes of all the poor above the proverty line, and possibly still leave a surplus.
Is it because the reasons lie in the peculiar belief that the poor are in poverty because they are idle and prefer to live on "handouts?"

This view seems to be fervently held by some people, even those who don't know poor people, have never tried to raise a family on welfare payments and haven't the vaguest idea what poverty is really like.

There are few complaints however, about how the country pays out far more in "handouts" for the nonpoor than to the poor in forms ranging from all sorts of supports and benefits and tax cuts. This fact generally escapes attention because these benefits take the indirect form of hidden subsidies or tax deductions. It seems that different categories of the population do have different life chances.

This view seems to be fervently held by some people, even those who don't know poor people, have never tried to raise a family on welfare payments and haven't the vaguest idea what poverty is really like.

Another excellent post Lexi.

Forty hour famine x years on most occasions for many non-public servants.

The Welfare Reform

A topic and serious disscussion, everyone has to reliise that their are many people out their that use this prgrame because their skills or ability is that their has never been a proper education level for all recipients who receive these benifits and many are not aware of it .

forgotten australians child migrants and stolen generation children , have never used this is a scam from any goverment, many of these persons have their own children and grand children in the work force, no matter what job it maybe, , im a forgotten australian, yet my, own ability diminissheshes me, i have done my best for my children , i worked and hope i made my children be in some succes in life ,

im the one who lived the live of nothing raped abused soddimised , starved made a slave , being gaoled , but i made sure my childeren didn't suffer what i did, to all forgotten australians child migrants and the stolen generation out their some of us are in and under diffrent cirumstances, i know this subject was not directed at forgotten australians but you must undersatand , not everybody is the same , evrey one's life is diffrent.to that of someone else many people have things in common,

from a real forgotten australian ,

R.I.P. Ray Flett, your never going to be forgotten, my respects to you and all your faimly and freinds , will always be their,

regards ( huffnpuff ) micheal brown

The last three posts both make me happy and bring concerns too.
Lexi what we are unique said WAU,our forgotten Australian thank you for caring.
No one who ever posted here or ever will can claim to have lived, once a poor persons life worse than my childhood.
It was my side of politics that fought so hard for welfare in days hungry people starved.
But both sides took up the challenge and while welfare got better policing it got slack.
I can not take rechtubs views, never will I claim slackness is the reason pensioners are on welfare or all unemployed.
HOWEVER conservatives in power act far more harshly than the ALP in this area.
I ask for reform, every cent saved in waste,in paying fraudulent payments, in getting real jobs put aside ,leaves extra payments for the needy.
Total defense of existing welfare may be supporting theft directly from the true needy.

I have supposed 'poor people' come to my shop with a 'food voucher' from a local charity.

They use this to buy their meat and sometimes you will note they have a 'slab' sitting in their trolley.

Now come on, are you trying to tell me that one is poor but can afford a slab. Poor money manager perhaps, but certainly not poor.

I say again, STOP THE CASH handouts and you will limit the amount of starving kids.

Are you also aware that many kids today exist on '2 min noodles'.

That's right, that's their staple diet and for special treats they get take out pizza.

We should also be redirecting a portion of welfare into providing decent meals at school tuck shops 'for every kid'.

You see, our governments know that by handing out 'cash', a certain percentage will come back to them via taxes. Grog, cigs, gambling.

Just imagine if you went shopping, spent your $200 then received a cheque in the mail which represents part of your spend.

This is what governments get and they are reliant on these cheques (taxes)

Under international agreements other country's pay pensions to their nationals who live here too,
Belly,
When I made enquiries I was told the pension would be paid for three months unless you came back to Australia to present yourself & then another three months & so on.
Not what I would call Australian pensioners getting a good deal from their own Government.

Sorry individual I do not think that is the case, stand to be proven wrong but thousands of past tax payers live in Greece and Italy for a start.
And any blame placed on government belongs to every one we have had in the last 25 years.
Rechtub, we are drifting apart, no intention to dog whistle against all on welfare.
May I say while my views belong beside the three posts I credited earlier we all should consider this.
This subject is now prisoner to emotions.
On both sides, in the middle some interesting points exist.
Every dollar spent is tax payer funds.
Most of those poor are or have been tax payers.
I will never believe most or even close to it Australians do not want welfare.
I however support Labor in its efforts to get value and assurances it is spending the money wisely.
Let those who truly care, who understand hunger, and loss of life opportunity's be the first to say want not waste.
And for those who blacken all, know it could be you one day.
I remember rechtub a weeks work I did as kid, in todays money I got $1 it bought a small pack of ten Rothmans cigarettes for my hero, my dad, 6 loaves of bread and half a sugar bag of corned mutton flaps, the meat the very poor grew up on.
Still think it is the best meat I ever ate.
Mum? she got a small bottle of pashiona, luxury? waste? have you ever loved some one?
Even the dole supports small business cash is cash.

It is so clear Belly that you do not understand the term, welfare. You jump to dole bludgers immediately.

There are some, mainly in politics frankly but the majority of people want to work rather than get paid a pittance. But they don't want to do work that they don't want. They don't want to work in the sun, they don't want to pick fruit and they want work a reasonhable distance from home.

The welfare issue is about penalising people who can't fight back. Pensioners, disabled and so on. Easy marks but you focus on one group.

The Disablity payment is a joke is it Ralph?

How do you determine who's abusing it and who's not?

Do you think you just rock up and say I don't feel well or something?

Actually you need a specialist, not a GP, to certify that one won't be able to work for three years.

Tell me how you abuse that?

Again, Belly, you're an idiot looking for something that isn't there.

Did you ever report these people or were you one of them? As you can dob them in, you just need to be able to prove it, rather than making wild irrational statements.

Perhaps there's a group of specialists who are conspiring to bring the country to it's knees? Perhaps you are paranoid and irrational?

rehctub

You're an idiot too. They NEVER pay cash, even to aboriginals on communities that don't have bankc. Cash went out over 20 years ago you stupid gossip spreader.

Wow, even Belly thinks you are simple.

At last, a normal view from Lexi instead of the rabid who would die if they had an accident and could not earn. They'd be at Centrelink like a rat up a drainpipe.

3 good ones in a row, showing concern for other humans, well done guys.

The real cost of welfare was created by John Howard. He made more welfare recipients than all of history did. By giving child care and family assistance to those up to $125,000.

If people can't aford to look after their kids then why should society pay? Didn't happen for me, 4 kids but now I pay for everyone's. I even see these greedy pigs now asking for it to be tax deductable. Just give them a gun and a stocking and the freedom to take what they want. That's where the real abuse is. Not poor people who can't aford to live and skip meals and don't take meds.

RobbyH you have no right to think for me.
Or to use insults in my name, rechtub knows he disappoints me but other ways exist rather than insults.
Your view has no value for me, it and those who hold such views are an obstruction standing in the way of true reform, more so in my view than rechtubs lost and not shared by many opinions.
I am an active ALP member ex trade union official.
Son of a man who worked himself in to an early grave trying to feed his huge family.
I have eaten pumpkin and potato for tea and the skins for breakfast, those pumkins grew at the back of a rubbish tip.
In all debate I would ask every one to look at who contributes and why.
Some times it is a person who fears honest change may force work on them.
Foxys story about paying for another's food is some thing I have done and would do again.
Can ANY ONE say no fraud exists in welfare? no waste, or that government expenditure need not be checked on?

To have a need for welfare is in itself a sad indictment on our authorities. Why is our system so poorly run that we require welfare in the first place. I tell you why. We don't have an ounce of equality for our tax dollar. Why don't Governments have insurance for people who need help ? Why does it always require a whole department to deal with things ? Why is a portion our tax not put aside for pension ? I think we can never have decent reform until we have a flat tax. Only then can we say we have equality. Welfare on one hand is far too easy for those who are audacious enough But nigh impossible for the decent who need genuine assistance. We seem to have rather generous handouts for Arts but not for victims of Government policy.

I am afraid welfare is a much more complex issue.
A life changing injury can turn any of us to wheel chair bound.
Care and attention for children who have no parents or dysfunctional ones is welfare.
Insurance, seems to be on the surface popular right now, but lets look at it.
Say Queensland's failure to insure its infrastructure.
Few may know the real costs of such insurance, it is more than possible savings came by not insuring.
NSW RTA is self insuring, insurance costs became so big savings came that way.
Like the chances of big events in QLD welfare would bring big premiums.
And every government endeavor seems to bring big bills as bottom feeders charge as much as they can.
What would such insurance cost once we became reliant on it?
Last government, on our behalf , pays from its income sources every thing including welfare.
So the issue is not putting some thing away,, we do that.
It is not transferring the costs to some one else, it can not be done.
It is about managing a problem better.
A problem we have always had and ,without seeking better always will have.
In the end,we all of us, must confront this truth, no government can ever be every thing to every one.
It is far too easy to be critical and to give populist anti every thing statements but answers are harder.

Belly>>Even the dole supports small business cash is cash.

Yes, I agree, but it's the 'cash' that ends up going to the pokies, cigs and grog that I am concerned about.

Remember, welfare is mainly there to support kids.

individual
I hear you loud and clear.

We have now got an entire generation of people who think it's their given right to expect the 'norm' and assume someone else will provide it for them.

RobbyH,
Just so the 'retarded' can also participate in this debate, the 'cash' I am referring to is the cash they can 'withdraw' from their accounts.

Sorry, if I had known the level of intelligence of the participants had dropped so low, I would have better explained myself so you to could also join the debate.

I will try to give you a 'heads up' next time I post. Ok!

ps. Please let me know if there is anything here that you are having difficulty grasping to.

Also, if you want a lesson in 'whit', please feel free to take a shot at the title ya toss!

we can talk about wellfare reform all we like
but till we either stop spending ever more [on war]
or start clawing back that we gave to big business or the rich
by way of bailout and subsidy..nothing can change

http://dailybail.com/home/national-debt-grows-from-13t-to-14t-in-6-months.html

USA/national-debt
grows-from
13t-to-14t..[thats TRILLIONS folks]
ie thousands of BILLIONS
millions of millions
in-6-months

and it all needs to be repayed WITH INTREST
just like in portugal thery are planning ANOTHER bailout
[they cant afford the CURRENT bailouts..so bail em out more]

its like you cant repay your millions
simple we give you credit for billions

you cant afford the INTREST.../ursury..on millions
HOW THE HECK CAN THEY "AFFORD'..the intrest due on billions

we ned to end bailing out the big bailouts
[they keep it and it does change nothing]
but MUST kep bailing out the least[equally]
one pension fits all

those on minimum pension go up to average pension
those on huge pensions come down to average pensions

one bailout for all

big or small
you can only get this
[average bailout]..from govt

anymore is treason*
stealing

or fraud

[if you cant repay..yet lend more]
THATS FRAUD*

rechtub you got a different view out of individuals post than me.
I may be wrong, but saw no defaming of recipients.
And we both know better than to respond as we did to our fire fly, RobbyH is long gone and may only have been a child.
You are quite wrong, welfare is not and never was about mostly children.
Child welfare is a part but so too is disability pensions no small part.
As is unemployment benefits we spend huge amounts on welfare.
If you see the grog in the trolley and it offends you why not tell those who gave the food voucher.
Angry get a dole bludger stuff is rubbish.
Once on mid year annual leave a red neck pair of elderly females spoke loudly of me being out and about on a working day.
I am reminded of them now.
I again ask, can any one say no fraud exists?
And is there one of us who would drop all welfare, subsidized health education transport we spend a great deal and unlike the tea party right I only want to know we do not waste it.

I read the conclusions of a survey by the Australian Council of Social Services that 'more Australians are struggling to make ends meet', 'new data suggests more families are struggling to make ends meet' and 'the cost of essential items and services like food, rent, energy, health, education, clothing and transport costs continue to go up'.

Equally I read about widespread and increasing alcohol-fuelled public and domestic violence and, almost every day I see full page liquour ads and every month, see an application for yet another liquor outlet in my local area.

These people are obviously not short of money, nor are those who pump billions annually into gambling - at the races, on sport, in lotteries, on poker machines or online.

I suggest that this behaviour would be impossible if something like 2.2 millions Australians were truly living in 'poverty'.

Indulgent Australians are often abysmally unaware of what is happening across the world .... overseas, millions live on less than $ 1 a day ....

What makes you think those well dressed casino patrons are on welfare.
And have you seen who is doing the street fighting and drunkenness?
I doubt you can link welfare and these issues.
What by the way would you have us do?
Adopt low income lifestyles?
If you do not like drinking and gambling tell me how we stop it,

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­



Gold Standard now covers the Bretton Wood System

From http://www.thegoldstandardnow.org/component/search/?searchword=bretton+wood+system&ordering=newest&searchphrase=all&limit=20

1. Why real monetary reform can - and must - be done now
(Key Writings/Key Monetary Writings)

... of the 200-plus years of U.S. history. But "global monetarists," following Robert Mundell, advocated at least a temporary return to the 1944 Bretton Woods gold-exchange system, while others heeded Jacques ...

2. Why real monetary reform can - and must - be done now
(Key Writings/John D. Mueller)

... of the 200-plus years of U.S. history. But "global monetarists," following Robert Mundell, advocated at least a temporary return to the 1944 Bretton Woods gold-exchange system, while others heeded Jacques ...

3. Fiat Money, Fiat Inflation
(World Press/World Press)

... end of gold convertibility and the Bretton Woods monetary system in 1971. With expansive credit policy and Fed financing of the U.S. government deficit, every boom and bust cycle has been enabled by ...

4. "China, the dollar, and the return of the Triffin dilemma"
(Golden Nugget/Key Blogs)

... (Yale University Press, 2009), perceptively observes: China’s position on imbalances is also the same as the US position at Bretton Woods: the debtor should bear the burden of adjustment. In the ...

Why not start a thread?
That post has nothing to do with the subject.
And while the thread is staggering along not going to far it may have killed it.
Few subjects are of more importance in a country with aging population, and growing welfare needs.

Belly,
I want to support your idea of the need for welfare reforms.
Welfare is such a huge part of government expenditure; suffers from constant political tinkering; has become too ridiculously complex to manage, to access and to be as 'fair' as we would like. It should work better.

I've not had any 'epiphany' about what might be done, yet. But here are some initial thoughts:

The thread you started got me to thinking about what is welfare, or what should it be? For now my working definition is that welfare is "sustenance provided by the government for people who are unable to do so for themselves without assistance."

Basic sustenance to me would be food, shelter and protection from harm.

Any one of us in Australia could find ourselves needing assistance to have sufficient food, shelter and protection at (and for) some time in our lives.

The luckiest of us are helped with these basics by our families (whatever that group of your loved ones is) and friendship communities (religious, political, social, sport).

When these sources of assistance are inadequate the government must be involved. Remember I'm talking about three basic human needs for a person in our society. It's what I would like for myself - so it's what I would like for everyone else.

Belly, I'm still pondering through the next steps. No 'answers' to put out into a public forum yet. But at least I'm focused on trying to think of ways to better achieve in practice the concept of welfare I have suggested above.

Thanks for prompting my thinking - I have long thought that all people in society need to constantly work hard at trying to make life better for everybody - or that society risks implosion or abandonment.

Wm Trevor thanks and welcome.
Say we start with what promoted the thread.
Welfare lobby is displeased with Governments intention to review disability support pensions.
They claim, many agree, some can in fact work, and that some are hiding in those ranks unfairly.
Once we owned post offices and such, could we consider owning some thing again?
And putting jobs, often very much needed and wanted, aside for such.
Unemployment, no intention to other than keep paying it but.
Can we do better.
Why contract out work like parks and gardens if those jobs could be used for a work for fair wages and benefits ones?

belly>>Welfare lobby is displeased with Governments intention to review disability support pensions.
They claim, many agree, some can in fact work, and that some are hiding in those ranks unfairly.

If you don't see this happening, then you are either blind, or you choose to ignore it.

I knew a guy who was on a carers pension. His duty was to be with his partner if her dodgy knee gave way. If!

Now I am not sure if his duty included the frequent visits to the pub, but I assume so. Now a walking stick, or frame could have provided suitable support.

>>Why contract out work like parks and gardens if those jobs could be used for a work for fair wages and benefits ones?

Now you're talking, it's called 'work for welfare', but for some reason, each time I bring it up I am shut down and accussed of being a 'dole basher'.

Now it was mentioned earlier that welfare should provide the three basics, food, cloths and shelter. That's it!

If you wish for more then get a job. That shouldn't be to hard if one believes our madam PM. She recons we are at 'full employment'.

If you want children, then find a way to pay for them.

If you work, then take out insurance incase you get sick.

Insurance costs less than a pack of cigs or a six pack per week. Your choice!

With the risk of sounding like a broken record, stop paying cash!

Pokies and pubs don't take vouchers.

Rehctub: ”If you wish for more then get a job. That shouldn't be to hard if one believes our madam PM. She recons we are at 'full employment'."

She’s a funny girl that PM.

“If you want children, then find a way to pay for them.”

Are we promoting financial abortions now? I guess not a huge difference between that and being encouraged to give birth for financial gain here.

“If you work, then take out insurance incase you get sick. Insurance costs less than a pack of cigs or a six pack per week. Your choice!”

A pack of cigarettes now costs more than 25 loaves of bread so yeah probably. Should we talk about Medicare levies?

“With the risk of sounding like a broken record, stop paying cash!”

I’ve only just quickly read through the thread and saw you say that a few times. You want them to have food stamps or something?

“Pokies and pubs don't take vouchers.”

Thing is – people with various addictions sell their food stamps for cash in countries that work the system that way. If you gave them food they would sell the food etc.

So the problem isn’t what they are given it is how the lives of welfare recipients are managing and who is helping them manage?

In aboriginal communities where they quarantined parts of welfare payments and reduced hours of alcohol being bought, removed porn etc…. what happened? Similar things going down in Alaska last I heard. It seems we're deciding how we can or should treat the have-nots, do we have a spare island we can put them on or something?

Would it need to be a big island, do we know how many decided to stop struggling to feed and clothe themselves or their kids and go to the pub instead?

There's pensions.

And there's welfare.

Seniors: If anybody reaches 65, and meets the assets test, they are entitled to a pension. Period. They've most likely earned it. End of story.

Disabled: if somebody is disabled, to whatever degree, then they are entitled to a disability pension. Unless they can be 'fixed up', that's it, end of story.

Then there's welfare: when there is no work, then OK, people need to be financially supported. But I used to take it for granted that, in rural areas, when the picking season started, UB stopped and you went out and worked. I picked peaches, grapes, apricots, pears, oranges, lemons and helped to raise my kids on it in some years, and pay the rent as a student in other years.

And single mothers of course are entitled to support while their kids are at home. But once their youngest is six or so, then they do either part-time study (genuine TAFE or university) or part-time work.

So WELFARE, as distinct from PENSIONS, is conditional: if someone is able-bodied, and not encumbered by small children, then they should be either studying (i.e. for future work) or working. No matter where somebody might be, this sounds fair enough to me. If people are in remote areas, then they move to where work might be. If they don't have skills to work, then they get them: the onus is on them, not on society in the first instance - but of course, 'society', government, should be facilitating this leap, especially through a re-vamped TAFE, a TAFE which was of actual value to the unemployed and unskilled.

What's the alternative ? That able-bodied people can stay unemployed forever ? We each have only one life - should be anybody be 'allowed' to piss it away ? We are all more or less intelligent enough to live fulfilled lives, raising children in financial security and reasonable comfort, providing some sort of model for those kids to encourage them to do something the same. We all have that duty to our children, to our society, and to ourselves.

Joe

See, i think our MP may of be suggesting that those school leavers that will commence New Start, be granted mailed tokens for the basics of general living expenses, for the reasons out-lined by some. This is to discourage and break the dependency or follow the leeder in the sence of what some of the 60-70-80,s born people that as we know, that time was completely different to what opportunities that are available now.

( singles only it applies to )16 to 20 years of age for that gen gap to be broken, then working will be the only choice instead of the "she,ll be right mate" when one leaves school. Bar-coded photo ID, along with the tokens ( BAR CODED TOO ) so corruption on the system can fool-proof.

Rent, electricity, and food this will apply to only, with center-link interviews required if circumstances for other problems arise.
Some money will be payed of course, but not enough to go and party with. Now if the work for the amount or number of people is not there, the governments cant just pull the rug from with-under the feet, since The governments are fully responsible for the number of people its systems can hold. Population growth and the size of it, again! its the Governments JOB to make sure is don't happen, but of course, we all know Australia is in-fact over-peopled.

On the other hand, and this is where rehctub fails to see....that if the adults or others don't have access to cash.....the have gots will targeted with all sorts of crime included home-invasions, bank robberies, break and enters on percentages never seen before, so I,d think twice if I where you on the adult level of things.

Some because of where and when they were born, technologies have surprisingly left some with no chance at all to gain a foot hold on todays fast-tracked multy-million hoops one must jump through just to get in the door, and you know what red tape Iam talking about.


The new generations have to been redirected now, before the problem continues.

LEAP

Well I don't know, Quantumleap, the last paid work I did at 61 was working in a beautiful brand-new dairy (now successfully defunct) at an Aboriginal community, twice a day, 5 am to 8.30 am, 4.30 pm to 8 pm, seven days a week, during which I gained enormous respect for all dairy farmers.

So I'm not all that fussed about any able-bodied person, Black or White, male or female, being required to do whatever work is available, fruit-picking, ditch-digging, fencing, whatever, and being required to move away for periods in order to tap into available work, if work wasn't available in their home area.

Nobody, who is able-bodied or unencumbered by children or other legitimate obligations, should be so unskilled that they cannot work, so either they go fruit-picking or similar work (so that we don't have to bring in labour from overseas while people down the road are idle - and comfortably on 'welfare') or they get skilled enough to do 'better' jobs, less strenuous, less outdoors, with less impact on their delicate muscles or skin.

Learn or earn, or go to buggery.

I don't think it is as black and white as you say, Loudmouth.

We all know that many prospective employers (be they orchard owners, dairy farmers, road maintenance companies, or whatever) will be choosy about who they employ.

People who haven't been employed for some time may genuinely not be able to find employment, eg longterm unemployed, ex-criminals, previous jail incarceration, those with previous mental illnesses, people with poor English, immigrants, Aboriginals (sad but true) and even people that look 'different' or 'threatening, such as people with multiple tattoos or piercings etc.

We can't simply say 'tough' to these people, and leave them to their own devices rather than give them welfare payments can we?

Imagine the massive increase in crime in this country if we denied people welfare?

Sure, we can send these people to all the 'courses' we want to, but many will still continue to be unattractive to prospective employers for many reasons.
Maybe if the Government itself took on these people to attend to Government funded employment, it may help some of these people.
I won't hold my breath though.

LM:”Learn or earn, or go to buggery.”

Yes, let’s call it Buggery Island.

Leap:”The new generations have to been redirected now, before the problem continues”

I seemed to have missed the problem/point of what we are discussing here. What exactly is the issue with welfare? Are all types of beneficiaries included? Family Assistance as well? There’s other compensations for many of life’s little hiccups here I believe which probably explains why everything you touch or even glance at has some sort of tax or perpetual govt fee associated with it.

This is a country where you pay a fee indefinitely for having ownership or a turtle or a personalised number plate. Appears a strange cycle – make it so expensive to live so that you need more money while on a benefit so more people are on benefits which means govt must charge extra fees for everything so people on welfare can afford life in Aussie.

Suzy’s comment brings to mind something I have struck here and found quite shocking when talking to locals – everything is shameful and looked down on. If you are unemployed it is shameful, adopted, made a victim in some way, a young mum, immigrant, on the wagon, and the list goes on. So I can imagine if you have been unemployed for awhile you’d become blacklisted in the eyes of many an employer.

But there are training opportunities aren’t there – I’ve found many people only attending tafe to receive the benefit it comes with.

Utter twaddle about no work. We have dozens in our district who hate it, but have to pay dole bludgers cash in hand for a day only at a time, to get any one to work for them..
My wife just happens to work for one of the employment agencies. She is the one who is given the hopeless cases, long term unemployed, & the bludgers.

She is good at seeing which are the bludgers, & has no trouble getting those who want to work back into employment. She says those who got there by a couple of mistakes are easy, it's the bone idle who can not be helped. They don't see it as help of course, just interference in their easy life style.

Quantum she can get anyone who will work a job, although perhaps not a soft cop academic one.

If you are right about these yobbos who will rip off anyone, then it's time for the three strikes principal. If they won't work in society, they have no place in it, & should not be supported. We don't need an island, although Tassie worked in the past, a nice big POW type enclosure, in the middle of the Simpson desert should do nicely. The more unpleasant the better, & it will work as a deterrent.

Just to get it right, a few Indonesian gaol governors could be brought in to manage the places.

then there,s this by Sue!

"People who haven't been employed for some time may genuinely not be able to find employment, eg longterm unemployed, ex-criminals, previous jail incarceration, those with previous mental illnesses, people with poor English, immigrants, Aboriginals (sad but true) and even people that look 'different' or 'threatening, such as people with multiple tattoos or piercings etc."


These people are the one,s that will never have a real chance at anything, and all those tatoo,s and ear piercings are businesses that help this problem move right along.

And this....Sure, we can send these people to all the 'courses' we want to, but many will still continue to be unattractive to prospective employers for many reasons.

"Maybe if the Government itself took on these people to attend to Government funded employment, it may help some of these people.
I won't hold my breath though."
Posted by suzeonline, Wednesday, 30 March 2011 11:49:06 AM

That Sue, was the only helpful view post, that I liked.

So in contrast, you all really know whats going on, so wouldn't be pointing the blame at anyone since all know the three levels of our society and how it works each other.

Yes....I know....A perfect world doesn't make any money. Its just as well ignorance is for free.

This unemployed mess is all part of the game, and you know it.

Greed....Greed....Greedier............and some thought there was NO price to pay......How about now.

LEA

Jewely.

LM:”Learn or earn, or go to buggery.”

Yes, let’s call it Buggery Island.

Leap:”The new generations have to been redirected now, before the problem continues”

Thank-you for hi-lighting the multy problematic understandings that social-engineers have with growing populations, with the lack of infrastructure which as i see it, people are basically grown as cattle in order to save a troubled economy. Most here have tried to give intelligent imputs to for the problems, however Iam not sure about Hasbeens ideas:)

Problem 1

There,s an old saying that goes....you cant teach an old dog new tricks, and there,s a good amount truth to it. If one has grown up where a safety, the reaction is the same as taking candy from a baby, isn't it....however, I still believe that system changes must happen when one is with-in the boundaries of the non corrupted. I mean, if one is unaware of a faulting/incompetent foreseeability, then time to mould is a there for the under-taking.

Problem 2

Big corporations also have a hand in how our children think and behave. Just try and separate one now-days from Play-station, too macdoogles........and Loadmouth as suggested telling them to go on the harvest trail...lol....good-luck with that:) Big corporations have dumb-ed down any hope of trying to get anyone, let-alone child for getting motivated for a day of hard work..... The Government tax mob/economies and business wants us to go one-way, then the unemployed numbers/center-link figures show that the ones between the two meat-grinders are simply justifying that we all really know, and that greedy people in high-places knew what was going on, and the population is still increasing with more unemployed still to come at the end of the year................where are they all going to go?

LEAP

Well, Suze, every year it seems that fruit-growers are screaming out for labour when the picking season comes around. I do stress 'able-bodied' unemployed, people who are able and free enough to look for work where it may be.

My point about 'learning or earning' was just that - if people don't want to be stuck with the hard jobs, the boring, dirty, out-of-doors, physically demanding, often dangerous, jobs, then they train up, in GENUINE courses at TAFE or uni, in the sorts of jobs that ARE available.

The underlying principle should surely be that nobody should waste their lives doing absolutely nothing but dodging work, scrounging for this welfare payment or that. And they don't have to. So 'welfare', as distinct from pensions, is conditional and (should be) temporary, while they are studying, or genuinely seeking work.

I am uneasy about the threat posed in your question: "Imagine the massive increase in crime in this country if we denied people welfare?" In Aboriginal parlance, this is called humbugging. On a grand scale, Suze.

Are you actually suggesting that people on welfare might be inclined to turn to crime on a massively-increased scale if they don't get their fortnightly cheque - money that some poor b@stards have done overtime in a dirty, dangerous, boring factory job to earn, to pay taxes that these 'lords of the earth' have some unassailed right to ?

Sort of blackmail, Suze ? Stand-over tactics ?

By all means, improve TAFE and other training agencies, so that NOBODY is doing a bullsh!t course that gets them nowhere - and they know it - but only courses which provide real skills.

So in answer to your outrageous question: do the crime, do the time. Or learn and earn.

Joe

Loudmouth...you have No idea my friend, the disparity between the rich and the poor has grown substantially, and you want to take it to a new level....lol.....mate! There are 185.000 plus drug addicts just in QLD, and you want to take all the money off them....lol....your a fool mate. You will be putting everyone at risk. They will be needing their fix......where do you think they will be looking for it...?

And heres a another great insight from Loudmouth....So in answer to your outrageous question: do the crime, do the time. Or learn and earn.

And its that easy..lol...jails are full now as it is, where are you going to put them then?

Overpopulation of any species is a death sentence for any society of beings, so I,ll pretend that your just having a bad day.

LEA

Didn't say it would be easy, mate :)

But ask yourself: why should some able-bodied people live off the labour of other people indefinitely ?

Why shouldn't everybody do their share if they can ?

And yes, Marx and even Lenin ("he who does not work, neither shall he eat.") might have been onto something: nobody should live off the labour of others, not those with capital and other assets, not those who stand over their grandmothers, and not those who turn to crime to maintain their idleness.

Learn and earn.

Joe

Dear Mouth:)

"And yes, Marx and even Lenin ("he who does not work, neither shall he eat.")

That only works when there,s a workable population on the commonsensical,s lines of sustainability........not once people are breed like sheep so as the cash registers can ring for upper blessed lucky born Kings and Queens of our "fair GO" society. The Pharaohs had a set rule....."do not educate your slaves" but now because of the greedy one,s, the horse has bolted, so to speak:) The runway train....and everyone's going to try and stop it for repair with ban-aid quick-fixes....lol....birth control is the only option.

Sue-online is the only one that's close to reality, but that will mean the rich will have to take a pay cut to support the funding for her idea...lol....and I don't think we,ll be seeing that any time soon:)

Welfare reform.....lol..........take the wrong rail-track on this, and you will see some rather upset people, after they have been robbed:)AND its you my friend that might be needing some type of reform:)or able to run faster than ever before.LOL You know you should never poke a bee hive:)

Alright jokes aside......Loudmouth, you will get bad apples in any society.......mate, don't let it get you down.....Carma has a way of rewarding all those for there deeds.

LEAP

Leap,

"Karma has a way of rewarding all those for their deeds."

God, I wish that were true, that effort equalled outcome. A corollary of that is: 'no effort, no desirable outcome.' Sounds about right to me, for able-bodied people.

The point is, Leap, and Suze, there IS work around for those who want to do it. I did twelve years or so in unskilled factory and farm work, so maybe I'm the wrong person to involve in a discussion about the legitimacy of free-loading :)

Joe

Leap:”Most here have tried to give intelligent imputs to for the problems, however I am not sure about Hasbeens ideas:)”

I’m not sure that we’d be allowed but he gets my vote. Not because beneficiaries bother me at all but I think more Aussies should be caged in a desert somewhere. :)

Leap: “Big corporations also have a hand in how our children think and behave…”

Hmm… some a direct hand where they are raising our children. Now what do you do with the private sector which makes its money from children – it’s hardly likely to bring forth a generation of hard working and awesome little citizens our country can be proud of but they are certainly trained up to take advantage of some extraordinary amounts of money and attitudes of entitlement due to a short life time of abuse.

“The Government tax mob/economies and business wants us to go one-way, then the unemployed numbers/center-link figures show that the ones between the two meat-grinders are simply justifying that we all really know, and that greedy people in high-places knew what was going on, and the population is still increasing with more unemployed still to come at the end of the year................where are they all going to go?”

I suggest France or Spain... much more casual work ethic going on over yonder.

But I thought as a population grew more goods and services were needed and more jobs created? We’re only a little country population-wise aren’t we?

>>You want them to have food stamps or something?

No 'J', my suggestion is for a special 'debit card' arrangement that can only be used to by necessities.

Now, assuming they receive $450 per fortnight, I must admit, I don't know. Now they can withdraw say $40 in cash from an ATM and that's it.

Then, when a purchase is made the recipient of that sale must keep a receipt for those goods in case of an audit. Perhaps they can be sent them in with their BAS. But that's messy.

>>Seniors: If anybody reaches 65, and meets the assets test, they are entitled to a pension. Period. They've most likely earned it. End of story.
Loudmouth,I'm sorry, but that's where you're wrong. They haven't earned it, someone else has but is told they must now go without due to their wealth.

It's sad to think one has the option to waste their potential savings, and get supported, while those who save, get screwed. Is that not back to front thinking, or what.

Leap>>On the other hand, and this is where rehctub fails to see....that if the adults or others don't have access to cash

I would rather pay more for better security than see our taxes being wasted as they often are.

Suze>>We all know that many prospective employers (be they orchard owners, dairy farmers, road maintenance companies, or whatever) will be choosy about who they employ.

You're right there, but unfortunately our hand has been forced here.

Now while we can't wipe out welfare, we can certainly make it a condition that the recipient be at all times DRUG FREE.

For the record, I don't hate welfare, who knows, I may need it myself one day. What I do hate is that is is to easily wasted and that is not what it is intended for.

If one is unwilling to earn, then they should be happy with what they get and, don't have children because you know you can't afford them.

I am always happy to provide the basics to the needy, not the lazy.

lol...another one with no idea:) So we have Hasbeen and Jewels with the desert plain, we have Rehctub with extra security, and while we are at it, lets open more jails and detention centres.....and hey! why not treat all that we dont like as Adolph Hitler did, and get the old gas chambers going..lol , And thats the best weak arsed idea,s you have got?...Sue..online is still the winner...LOL

I think we have more under-covers here than was in the socialist movements since the 19 century defeat against the what the protesters were marching for, with freedom of speech against the commies we also hate. There are a lot of haters in our society today:) and you three are the worst...lol I've ever seen:) haven't you got work to do yourselves?.....if so.....why are you at home:) So if your at home right now, isn't someone going out to work for you right now...lol..now I see why your at home:) Thank God you lot arn,t running the country....lol.

Hello! Democracy makes the human food grinder work the way it does, but Iam not here to show my human ugliness like some, but to find workable answers to a very completed problems that some how ( rollies eyes ) has managed to transpire in our wonderful non-resistance-racist Australia, that apparently we have the right to all enjoy as much as anyone else.

There seems to be a lot of hypocrites in our perfect world that some seem to think exists.

Have nice day you poor dears:)

LEAP

Rehctub:” It's sad to think one has the option to waste their potential savings, and get supported, while those who save, get screwed. Is that not back to front thinking, or what.”

Similar to how you pointed out once that people who choose a good spot to build/buy a house now pay stupid amounts in rates. It is back to front and grossly unfair.

“Now, assuming they receive $450 per fortnight, I must admit, I don't know. Now they can withdraw say $40 in cash from an ATM and that's it. Then, when a purchase is made the recipient of that sale must keep a receipt for those goods in case of an audit. Perhaps they can be sent them in with their BAS. But that's messy.”

I think it would establish a really interesting black grocery market where the ‘haves’ buy items cheaply off the ‘havenots’ who want the cash. Really this is looking for a solution back to front, treating the symptoms instead of the original cause.

So we have to go back to children and what they are taught about supporting themselves and being part of a successful community? Oh good lord… I have no idea how I’d define success.

Leap babe, I wish I could add tone to what I write but I am joking about camps in deserts. I did spend time on a benefit raising children and refused to make use of daycare and look for a job. :P

Quantum, unlike it appears you do, I don't dislike anyone.

I do however dislike some behaviour, & despise those who behave that way.

So how I feel about people is entirely up to them. Do your share, & pay your way to the best of your ability, & you'll have my full respect. I'll quite happily give you a hand, in the short term, if you are genuine.

We have quite a few around here so attached to the public teat that only surgery would get them off it. Many of these like a bit of cash in hand, to boost the welfare cash. Many of them have the hide to get annoyed when their moonlighting is reported to centrelink.

Tell me quantum, what do you think we should do about the habitual offenders in this group?

Hi Hasbeen,

"So how I feel about people is entirely up to them. Do your share, & pay your way to the best of your ability, & you'll have my full respect. I'll quite happily give you a hand, in the short term, if you are genuine."

Right on ! As long as people are able-bodied, then if they expect payment, it should be in return for effort.

Of course, I'm sure you would agree that nobody has to work if they don't want to. Nobody, none of us. And nobody has the duty to financially support us either if there is work around, AND if we are able-bodied.

If we don't like doing labouring or process-work, then we can enrol TODAY in courses to lift our skills: if we study full-time, we will most likely get fortnightly study grant payments from the government, i.e. from the taxpayer. And of course, if we have half a brain and if we are serious, not just playing around, we will gear our study towards the sorts of jobs that might be available, and that we might like to do. Onward and upward.

QED

Jewely and Co

"Leap babe, I wish I could add tone to what I write but I am joking about camps in deserts. I did spend time on a benefit raising children and refused to make use of daycare and look for a job. :P"

Yes I know, and most spend some of there live's revolving in and out of Centre-links doors. See that's just the point. like Hasbeen, he may of not needed it in his life, and while some sit on there high hill and command, life as you may know, is very SIMULAR to the game of snakes and ladders, and like how I've pointed out, for the long-term unemployed, Sue has the best so far.

Iam a carer and look after someone with an epileptic disorder that requires attention around the clock. To see this person on a good day or at the right time of day to be more precise, you would call fraud at first glance strait away, however, as you know, Centre-link DONT come to these conclusions lightly.

Hasbeen...you said the words of a true, and proud Australian; and your generosity and good understanding of whats right, true and the Australian way, is always commendable in any mans language.

Thankyou.

Continued

"We have quite a few around here so attached to the public teat that only surgery would get them off it. Many of these like a bit of cash in hand, to boost the welfare cash. Many of them have the hide to get annoyed when their moonlighting is reported to centre-link."

Hasbeen, the rich and well off like "moonlighting" on taxpayers money just the same. But in the majority, most people do the right thing.

Seen any of the upper levels paying there fair amount of tax lately.....I can pull up some links for you, if you like:) I suggest you all read the thread again, and pay close attention about the one,s that and never will, have the chance to hit the workforce. I know how much I miss it........ and given that between BHP...tec-collage...and my own collections of endless certificates of this and that......and I think you get the picture.

And Loudmouth, mate! not even the NASA,s space program would knock me back:) See, just when you thought you knew some-one:)

LEAP

What is truly worrying about the welfare debate is that that the rabble of the radical right of the Liberal National Party are attempting to link welfare recipients, to boat people to jobs, in a sort of pseudo racism, extending their idea's about teaching aboriginals how to spend their money, into the mainstream, and stimulated with a bit of class consciousness, served cold, and in the absence of humanity.

Makes me embarrassed to be Australian. Never once have the working poor, been a consideration in this discussion. All the little people, those without actual opportunity through lack of skills, education, aptitude, or born into social or economic social disadvantage etc, but with a job. All those people who haven't had a real wage rise commensurate with the rate of inflation since Howard abolished wage indexation in 96.

If you are unemployed in Australia today you are headed for poor health outcomes, (both mental and physical), limited opportunities, suffer from a lack of social inter-reaction and even end up homeless. That is the facts.

There is a school of thought that suggests that some 4.5% of the population, are in effect un-employable.
Unemployment is not easy, in fact it is a hell of a life.

We can hardly let them starve, as suggested by Lenin and Marx, looking down from our lofty perch,
if we are to consider ourselves to be civilised.

A link I found

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/31/3178976.htm

cheers thinker 2

Tony Abbot, I,ll tell you what. I will go back to the work-force, and when my other takes my children to school and has an.....well read if you can and tell me with your great visions, what might be the out-come.

Picture this!...Tony.... All,s fine, then Bang! Sorry Tony, I and we know how much money means to you, but how are you going to tell the families of dead, in the other car? or if she dies alone. ( And carer,s are not important tony! ) you silly man.

And how do I give my employer my fullest attentions? knowing what can happen to the person I love.

Thank you Thinker 2

At least you understand.

LEAP

Yes, Thinker 2 has hit the nail on the head!
How can we, as a supposed civilised society, sit back and say to the long-term unemployed that they can no longer have welfare?

We would effectively be saying to them, 'you can't have any money any more, and you can now find free food and shelter wherever you can, but if you steal any food, we will put you in jail'.
I would suggest that the money involved in keeping them in jail would be far more than that for welfare payments!

For whatever reason, some people remain unemployed despite the Government's best efforts to get them off welfare.

I doubt there are very many true 'dole-bludgers' these days.
The criteria for receiving welfare payments are just too onerous for someone who isn't really trying to get a job.

Centrelink is not a caring department, that's for sure.

I would rather work at any job at all than fill in the seemingly dozens of forms each week, AND jump through all the appropriate hoops, AND watch my back for anyone who might dob me in, just to get a welfare payment.

Thniker 2,

Yes ! As you write,

"those without actual opportunity through lack of skills, education, aptitude, or born into social or economic social disadvantage etc."

OF COURSE should have pathways available to employment - through skills-training, TAFE or university. I would go further and suggest that all jails should be educational facilities, rather than just custodial or punitive ones.

Yes ! LEARN, and earn. LEARN, to earn. LEARN, then earn.

Yes ! Those without access to opportunities should be assisted to improve that access, through access to skills, skills for gainful employment.

I don't know that any able-bodied person is actually unemployable, unless they have mental impairment. Certainly, people can become totally discouraged from looking for work, they may be conned into phony training schemes, or worthless TAFE courses, and give up; or be living in such remote areas that there isn't any sort of unskilled or semi-skilled work within cooee. But those are the issues that have to be tackled, instead of leaving people trapped outside of the society and economy, denying them the keys to productive lives.

And yes Suze ! Once people are aware of opportunities around them (and there are almost always more than they think), and once TAFE and other skills-training mechanisms are improved, you are right:

"We would effectively be saying to them, 'you can't have any money any more, and you can now find free food and shelter wherever you can, but if you steal any food, we will put you in jail'."

So long as jails are re-configured to become educational institutions as well ....

Didn't say it would be easy :)

Joe

Yes Joe, I agree about education in jails, however it is already happening.

Inmates can study up to University level courses by correspondence.
However, they also learn other choice behaviours while they are there too...such as how to better open the new safes etc!

Wouldn't it be better to just cut our losses and give welfare to these people rather than cut them off and send them to jail?

And no, it isn't easy :)

Suze,

No, IMHO, it would be better to require people who do the crime, to do the time, and to make that time as education-friendly, and regression-unfriendly, as possible. If people want to learn how to crack safes, then they take the consequences, until they understand that there are better options.

Meanwhile, back in the world of people trying to find work, I would happily support extra payment to unemployed people who enrol in full-time study, anything to make study and skills-gaining more attractive than sitting around watching daytime TV - that AUSTUDY and other study grants should be at better rates than flat UB.

Pretty obviously, the problem of long-term unemployment (LTU) is so huge that no government would be able, in only one or two terms, to bring it back to sensible levels: of course, any government that was serious would start with the easiest part of the problem:

* finding work for, say, able-bodied under-30s LTU, in easily-learnt unskilled jobs, or jobs for which on-the-job training could quickly provide what they need, perhaps by the employer.

* more long-term, under-30s could be encouraged to study genuine skills-oriented courses for jobs in regions that they were prepared to work in.

* more long-term again: LTU people should be encouraged, perhaps given financial incentives, to enrol in more formal courses, ideally ones which provide the solid skills for employment in the industries and regions that they want to work in.

* once the pool of under-30-year-olds has been put on the various pathways to employment, and young people leaving school are quickly absorbed into such a training system, then the harder task of getting older LTU people back into the work-force can begin. But first things first :)

[TBC]

[contd.]

But there actually is some urgency: life on permanent UB is frighteningly deadening - and risky. In the seventies, I worked as an unskilled labourer in an Aboriginal community and noticed that one family of young people, two guys and their sister, never worked, not one day between them in about five years. They were all dead, mainly from the grog, before their mid-thirties.

So, those who are sympathetic to the plight of the long-term unemployed should be aware of how short their lives can be. And we each have only one of them. What do you want to do with yours ? And what would you prefer the long-term unemployed do with theirs ? Why should they have less fulfilled lives than you or me ?

What procedures should be in place to help them get there ?

Joe

Yes Joe, of course I want all LTU people to find work, but we all know that will never happen. Many of the true LTU people have deep-set problems, like alcoholism, mental health issues and other substance abuse problems.

These people will never be able to hold down a job. All we can do is to be a compassionate society and just support them, or else they will support themselves with crime.

Maybe a better mental health system in our country can at least cut down some of the unemployment problems many people face. If some mental health issues are tackled well early in their lives, then they would avoid long-term problems that would include unemployment.
As for unemployed Aboriginal people... that is a whole other thread !~

Well, Suze, I'm not sure that LTU is good for anybody, Aboriginal people, the mentally impaired, alcoholics and all of the above: I suspect that the life of the long-term unemployed is comparatively nasty, brutish and short, and that it is far more likely to be associated with violence, abuse, illness and general destruction, to other people as well as the LTU.

So whatever supports people can be given to avoid being put into that situation in the first place, should be instituted. It's a bit late for some of the older people, except for the glaring fact that training opportunities at TAFE etc. are as available for them as for anybody else.

Most certainly, programs should be in place now for young people bugger up their education and who leave school without sufficient skills to even do fruit-picking or dairy-work or cleaning, to provide those skills and to motivate them to keep either looking for work or gaining employable skills.

We live in a capitalist economy, it's not perfect, and of course people shouldn't have to chase the almighty dollar. But if someone doesn't do that, how do they live except off the labour of other people ?

When I was working in factories in the sixties and seventies, I remember little guys, migrants, working their guts out for their families and to get on their feet, doing the dirtiest, most boring jobs, with good humour and great skill, grabbing whatever overtime came along. They paid their taxes, and the notion that some can go idle while others work all their lives - the Benjamin Brandysnaps of the world - is not something that I would defend. Welfare isn't some sort of Magic Pudding, cost-free to everybody.

By all means, when people are caught out and are unemployed for a time, of course they should get the benefits of social support. But not for life, not on somebody else's backs. And there should be all necessary manner of supports and programs to get people back into work, so that they can contribute to the economy and society.

Joe

At the most basic level, establishing the routines of a working person, in an unemployed person, might be a good start.
In order that the body clocks are set correctly in the unemployed, to meet the requirements of modern life.

Forget about daytime television, late night television is the poison of the unemployed.

They,(the LTU), are often prisoners in the their own paradigm, caught in a time warp, attitudes shaped by their own singular surroundings in front of the box in the early hours of the morning. Most alive, most receptive, (while the rest of us rest in order that we comply with the alarm in the morning) sleep. A routine that gives reason for existing for most of us.

No reason to get up, why bother ?, why factor it in to your daily routine ?. The unemployed probably think it is one of their few privileges, to be able to play computer games at 3 o'clock in the morning without restraint. And you know what, it is.

Another problem for the unemployed was the privatisation of the Commonwealth Employment service, placing a middleman between the unemployed and their funding.The rendering of the Social Security Dept as a far less user friendly place, also occurred during the Howard years and has been spiralling downwards in it's duty and social accountability ever since. None of this has served to improve the problems of LTU's, but instead have served to exacerbate them.

A tightening of the screws proposed by both sides of politics, is just tugging at your deepest emotions. Extreme populism. Something to feel put out about, when your waking up to your alarm in the morning.

We need to rethink this.

I think all the beeding hearts are missing point.

There are very few, myself included, who want to see welfare removed.

But the reality is that so long as we have 'full employment', madam PM's words, not mine, then there is simply no excuse for any able bodied person to be on welfare for any length of time.

My beef, and I am sure others agree, is the way in which welfare can be miss managed by the recipient.

Welfare should not be spent on grog, cigs or gambling, FULL STOP!

Now addess this and you are well on your way to reforming welfare.

Rehctub <"Welfare should not be spent on grog, cigs or gambling, FULL STOP!"

Gee Rehctub, I would hate to be the person at centrelink saying to the unemployed, fag-addicted, alcoholic guy who spends his weekends at the casino, that he is now getting welfare payments and thus will only be receiving food and rental stamps each week from now on!

That very night, he would be down at the local shopping centre, smashing his way into the local supermarket/liquor store to steal grog, fags and cash!
We would have even more crime than we already have!

No thanks, I think I would rather deal with paying the unemployed at least some money, but then have most of it in food stamps, so at least their dependents would get food rather than nothing.

Although, I am reliably told that some people on welfare in North West Australia swap their food vouchers for grog from other people... so am not sure this would be effective anyway...

suzeonline, Rehctub here. Nice to see I am still on your fan list.

>>No thanks, I think I would rather deal with paying the unemployed at least some money, but then have ....

Perhaps a little research into this thread would have revealed the fact that what you are suggesting is exactly what I have suggested from the beginning, only with a 'debit card' rather than saleable stamps. In fact, every time I have posted on a similar thread I have suggested something along this line.

Nice try dear, better take that foot out of your mouth to make room for the other one, Hey!

Rehctub, I am pleased to still be on your fan list, with the endearing term of 'dear' you gave me :)

Did you, or did you not, appear to suggest that people on welfare should not have access to cash?

I'm sorry, but I obviously must have missed the debit card comment.

A debit card is used anywhere that cash is used, as long as there are funds left, isn't it?

How, exactly, would you stop people buying grog and cigarettes using a debit card?

suzeonline, "Rehctub here. Nice to see I am still on your fan list."

Yes, it would be a long sheet of paper with only one name on it:) and I loved this one......"My beef, and I am sure others agree, is the way in which welfare can be miss managed by the recipient"....and lets just say that you got your way Rehab, and with that missing injection of cash that all business/shop owners would be missing, your Idea will just create more unemployed and not to mention sky-rocketing prices, with more break-in,s if we add Sue on-lines inputs to the equation.

Gov based employment.

It works for all.

LEAP

Gov based employment.

It works for all.

LEAP

Now we're getting somewhere.

You see, as a nation we export so much raw product that could be 'value added' right here, which in turn would either create export wealth, or reduce import expenses.

Live export, wood pulp, iron ore to name just a few.

Governments need to subsidise wages so that local companies can compete.

Surely we could build a home made car that can compete with the 80 odd percent of imports.

But nup! Our government would rather screw employers to the point whereby the floor sweeper costs the employer $20 and hour.

Don't you think a better option would be say $15 per hours from the employer and the other $5 from the government. But only if the company is value adding and creating real jobs.

TJM, a local business used to employ hundreds of workers building 4x4 accessories.

Nowadays, they employ TWO. These guys build a 'prototype' and, when they are satisfied it is what they want, it is sent to China for production.

Most cabinet makers no longer build kitchens. They simply send the dimensions off to China, China designs, cuts and builds the kitchen, then we simply put them together.

These are the jobs that need to be brought back home.

You see, the biggest problem we have is that wages are to high for these businesses, yet to low to live on.

Now as for businesses suffering from 'no cash' from welfare, I am sorry, but you are wrong.

You see, I am in retail, have been for 30 + years, which I recon makes me somewhat of an expert on this matter.

Do you know that each time there is a 'super draw' in loto, our sales are down because people choose to take a punt, rather than buy good food.

Now I am not suggesting that welfare recipients are the only ones who take that punt. But I will bet they make up a large portion, forever chasing the elusive dream.

So, in summing up, I am afraid your prediction is wrong.

Continued

suzeonline, I did say a 'special' debit card.

Quite simple. Only a certain amount can be withdrawn in cash. Then, there are 'restricted items'. You see, every item sold today has a 'bar code', so it really is quite simple. Use your imagination here.

It’ll be interesting, first the bullying and taking of the cards on payment days as already often happens between couples. Buying up items when on special and re-selling them later. If they don’t wait they’ll just sell what they buy on exiting the market.

I can imagine being out shopping and being approached with a “hey I’ll pay for your groceries if you give me the cash you were going to spend on them anyway…”. Savvy shoppers will probably add some extra items they wanted as a fee.

Dodgy shopkeepers can sell then buy back quickly or have receipts ready to sell on at the counter.

Dummy shops would be set up. Whole thing could turn out really interesting and the public wont know, stats would show that people are spending most of their benefits on life’s necessities. So it might work in the way that the general feeling towards the unemployed might improve.

And maybe the shopkeepers would help the unemployed who honestly want to feed and clothe themselves/their families by selling them cheaply the goods they already sold 3 times that morning.

it is so easy hitting out at bludgers
why is noone speaking of the costs
[tonies plan costs out arround 12 billion]

see working for dole costs near as much
as the dole they are trying to 'save'

look at when howhard privatised welfare[ces]
teriese rudd made millions..others also made millions
[putting people on work contracts for flat costs like 20 dolars an hour[regardless of at what hour or how many]

these 'self em-ploy-ed'..gwet no holidays
no leaveloading no sick pay no super..we have been here before

you want to save money pick on the big guys getting govt handouts
[like those people bulding school hals via sub contracted subcontacters]..or putting pink bats in roofs or solar cells on ya roof

or like big pharma cleaning up on nicoten gum
[subsidised by me-di/bank..or who ever]

or those privatising water/electicity/roads
its funny how its easy to pick on the poor dumb mug forced to accept the best they can expect from our govt is a poor education and dole..

[giving away rights
being forced to beg]
unable to give their kids what honest work is supposed to give

its so easy to pick on the poor
so others can collect go0vt money to force them to pick weeds
or plant trees or build fences for rich farmers

[just some of howards other work choice gifts]

you want to reform welfare
let govt servants deliver it
not capitalists

OUG,

What's the collective noun for stereotypes ? You've certainly provoked a search for one :)

Any chance of working with reality ?

Fencing for rich farmers ! The average cocky will get a kick out of that one.

I don't think you can get anymore spot on OUG than with your last post.

Thinker 2

Thinker 2,

'Learn and earn': pathways must be found and promoted to take people from where they might be, to employment. This may involve literacy and numeracy programs, English-language programs, work-habits programs, a whole range of programs in jails to ensure that people come out better-skilled and hopefully less inclined to seek 'income through crime', programs for single mothers returning to the work-force, and so on.

'Learn and earn': I went to TAFE at 34, to do a genuine course, then on to university. Without those appropriate sorts of bridges at that time, I don't know where I might be now. Probably still picking fruit, with a crook back and knees. It's not such a bad job, a young person's job, but not for life.

Joe

Hi Joe, I think before we turn jails in to schools, we would have to think about whom we incarcerate and why.

The whole system of crime and punishment is self perpetuating. And yet, there are only a limited percentage of really bad things or people that we can't prevent. They commit acts that endanger the rest of us, or life.

We extend our view of "what it is that endangers life" by creating rule's, frameworks and prohibitions. Most people incarcerated are so, because of breaking one of those rules, stepping outside one of those frameworks, or participating in a prohibition.

Just how many really bad people are incarcerated ?,enough to control what goes on within it. Enough to impact negatively on the lives of most people imprisoned within it's walls.Most of this problem could solved with more sensible regulations.

I guess I'm optimistic Joe, I know there are some really bad people out there, but not as many as the number of people we incarcerate. Some are victims of circumstance, some innocent, some bystanders, some unable to control events around them. Who knows Joe.

How many people have you met that are truly bad in your life ?. People you know that the rest of world would be better off if they were behind bars.

Depends on your associations. The circles in which you exist, or would prefer not to exist.
Your possibilities, these things are learnt in a sort of school of hard knocks in our jails today as I understand it Joe.

Although I cant confess, to have ever having been there.

Ok, so why don't we all just bury our heads in the sand and say it's all just to hard.

I think I might just sell off a spare property or two, you know, take the pressure off a bit. Who knows, in ten to 20 years from now, after having lived the life of riley, I to may also be eligible for welfare.

Thinker 2,

With the proviso that 'if you do the crime, you do the time', I couldn't agree more with you - incarceration should be more, or other, than punishment and confinement.

It should provide the opportunity for people - and we punish the crime, the deed, not really the doer - to improve their life-chances, through education, among other things, so that they will be less inclined to commit further offences after they have served their time.

And OF COURSE there should be a range of appropriate education programs to move people into satisfying employment BEFORE they/we feel the need, and to minimise the desire, to commit offences - programs to overcome whatever obstacles stand between them and satisfying employment. It seems that employed people are far, far less likely to commit serious offences: maybe I'm wrong ?

The bottom line is simply that we all should make our way in the world by putting in as least as much as we take out. Nobody has some eternal right, or privilege, to live off the labour of others. We each have a social obligation to do as much for others as they should do for us.

So society also has obligations to ensure that those of us who are not ready for employment are helped to make themselves ready. Once they/we are able to work, then they/we can give back, in order to help others in similar situations.

No, there doesn't have to be any issue of punitiveness about getting people off welfare and into satisfying employment - what matters is how to devise the most appropriate programs to help bridge the gap, and they would tend to be educational/skills-oriented programs. Yes/no ?

you cant have missed the advert on top of the page
based on million dollar drop
[it reminds me of the billion dollar crop]

[re howhards working poor working it off
for the well off ..working for welfare poor as job providers]

WE SORT the applic-ants
WE sort those getting the intervieuws

if your not withus
were are sent against you

are you one of the surviving 3
or will you be one of the 6 who goeas the fall?

we see much the same imagry on the world vision advert
the masses..and zooming in on the one

then subliminally we see how the trickle down affect works
[as all the blacks bleed ibnto oranges]

we are being played
if i was given the power to chose
who do you think i would chose joe?

would i give it to you?

or others
who i feel
might be more of like mind?

thing is mate
if your one who got dropped into the vacume
it was by someone chosing who wins and who loses

[mate realise the same thing as in movies and acting
its not what you know..but who you know]

i done a few tafe courses as well

i recall i once did the research for a bicicle repair shop
scouted out location..costed rents..worked a day [at their prefered bike shop..] for free

drew up inventory lists costings
locations and market research..etc

went for the govt grant...
and lo didnt get a thing...

...but a bicycle shop appeared in the place ..i found

[and as to why i didnt get it
a simple phone-call..my wife took..
asking who we voted for]

you never know when
its your turn to take the fall
there are those who know how to play games

http://www.revoltoftheplebs.com/categories/occupied-palestine/goldstone-%e2%80%98retractions%e2%80%99-vs-facts/
http://dailybail.com/home/ronald-reagan-on-ges-tax-avoidance-in-1985-i-didnt-realize-t.html
http://dailybail.com/home/tax-avoidance-by-us-corporations-1995-vs-2011.html]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qygEcorvKMs

http://jewishcrimenetwork.blogspot.com/p/israel-did-911-all-proof.html
http://www.revoltoftheplebs.com/categories/news-analysis/zionists-in-war-with-consciousnesses/

http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/04/04/radiation-study-estimates-200k-cases-cancer-fukushima-nuclear-fallout-13880/
http://www.bushstole04.com/911/9-11_lies_war.htm

Sorry, OUG, I've got a very short attention-span, about two seconds (very handy for an ex-smoker). But as far as I can understand you, are you talking about corruption in small-business and job placement ? If I get you, then you're probably right.

For all that, and all that, you keep going, keep trying - it's a b@stard of a world sometimes. Learn and earn: keep going until you get there. What's the alternative ?

Joe

Excessive taxes. How much more will they take from you?
https://www.ideservetobeheard.com.au/home.php

The government has already hit you with a 25% tax increase on your cigarettes in April 2010. How much more will they take from you? It’s time to get involved, speak up and say enough is enough.

Did you know?

As of February 2011, about two thirds of the $18.25 recommended retail price for Peter Jackson 30s is government tax.

Less than 1% of tobacco excise taxes is put towards preventative health measures such as anti-smoking campaigns. (Source: National Preventative Health Taskforce, Technical Report 2, 2008)

The recommended retail price of Peter Jackson 30s has increased by 109% since 2000.

The real price of cigarettes has tripled since 1983. (Source: National Preventative Health Taskforce, Technical Report 2, 2008)

Now’s your chance to write to your local MP to say NO to more tobacco tax increases, NO to more bans on smoking outdoors and NO to plain packaging of cigarettes.

Click here to send a letter to your local MP.
https://www.ideservetobeheard.com.au/getInvolved/writeLegislator.php

OUG, yeah,

As an ex-smoker, I fondly remember when a packet of fags cost only 3/4, i.e. 33 cents, at the time of the decimal changeover in 1966. Wages back then were around $40/wk, so a packet cost the equivalent of a 120th of a week's pay. But as an ex-smoker, I am happy if the government racks up the tax to discourage current smokers - us ex-smokers are utter b@stards that way :)

And getting back to topic, pretty clearly, a smoker who finds herself or himself unemployed should seize the opportunity to give it up once and for all. It's not so hard - I've done it many times myself.

Joe

sorry about the previous post
that was of course meant to be at the smoking banning topic

i just visited my regular news site
http://whatreallyhappened.com/

just about every topic screams for hearing
but i will reply your question
'whats the alternative'

there is no one fix it for all the problems
like nbm cancelling all tender aplications..because the main tenders plan to sub tender it out[thus have boosted up their tender price]

the cure for this one is for govt to do the cable replacement..itself
[using work for the dole]..to do the 'work' needing to be done for a reasonable distance from home[say 5 or ten k]..with a bonus or share in their labours

[say free web connection or a value in shares]

how to fix the govt debt problem..is via people needing to deney its obligated on them to repay ODIOUS debt[ie debt criminallly laid upon them..[re the p.i.g.s][bailing out bankers isnt govt responsability..[thats why they got fed reserves for]..

govt putting out bonds is why the fed was created
before the bankers subverted it into their own privatised franchise[literally a money creation machine]..by fiat[by decree]

trouble being they created a fiction..
that had no value in it]..so they simply 're-possesed' homes]
they never possesed in the first place
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/04/some-banks-should-face-criminal-charges-over-foreclosuregate/236838/

of course there are other problems
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5151512921334112942#
but these can be cured by govt seizing assets globally
[nationalisation]..
then returning to honest currency based on coin
[at real 'true'values]..1 cent=1 dollar]

leaving the fiat paper and securities market
to live [or die]..by the capitalists sword
[viability or non viability]
honest product/service

workers get paid in cash coin
not fiat credit..[in paper/notes]

why?
the system is broke
only the poor arnt broke
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBSMyS1CdL8&feature=related
and govt governs for the poor
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5151512921334112942#
http://dailybail.com/home/video-from-bankrupting-america-whos-more-responsible-charlie.html
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/ndebt.php
http://dailybail.com/home/government-capture-by-the-big-4-accounting-firms.html
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2011/4/5_Richard_Russell_-_US_Dollar_Collapse_Will_Accelerate.html
http://dailybail.com/home/vanity-fair-exclusive-billions-over-baghdad-how-9b-disappear.html
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/ARTICLE3/index.php

"And getting back to topic, pretty clearly, a smoker who finds herself or himself unemployed should seize the opportunity to give it up once and for all. It's not so hard - I've done it many times myself."

That was great LM... my first giggle of the day.

I checked out the I deservetobeheard link and did it a few days ago OUG. Somewhere my kids found a handout for it and bought it home. Bless them.

Back to topic, I am trying to convince one of my children to go on the dole. It's there so bloody make use of it. Aussie has changed many of the ways I look at things.

Pride being profitless comes to mind.

Yes, everybody should be entitled to go on to UB for a time if they can't find work. But for how long, Jewely ? What other options should be utilised to get [back] into employment ?

Keep a journal, dear :)

Joe

“Yes, everybody should be entitled to go on to UB for a time if they can't find work. But for how long, Jewely ? What other options should be utilised to get [back] into employment ?”

Tricky case LM, the girl “might” have a chronic illness. She’s been told it’s chronic by a specialist but I do not believe this yet since no underlying cause has been found to explain the symptoms which have been labeled chronic. It seems backwards to me.

If I was an employer I don’t know if I’d be that keen on someone that could only come to work between 0 – 5 days a week. This would affect any tafe course as well but she can always apply then drop out time and time again I guess. Does centrelink do/fund anything to make sure someone has had all correct medical procedures to label an illness chronic?

I’m damn sick of that chronic word now but hey you might be witnessing the beginning of a long term unemployed person’s life. As long as she doesn’t take the next perceived easy step – the one of the teenage solo mum - I may continue to sleep at night.

Joe.
"us ex-smokers are utter b@stards that way :)

Oh Joe:) you are just hilarious, and I wonder who that was directed to.

"She’s been told it’s chronic by a specialist".....and? Well...we may as well throw all the Specialists on the dole while we are at it........since their reports are worthless, and all so-called chronic people that are seemingly full of sh!t, we will get Joe with the slaves whip, just like they did in the old days:)

Remember those good-old-days Joe...:)

LEAP:

LEAP,

Well, going down into the salt-mines at four didn't do me any harm :)

Well, going down into the salt-mines at four didn't do me any harm :)

I dont doubt it for one minuet:)

LEAP

Leap:”"She’s been told it’s chronic by a specialist".....and? Well...we may as well throw all the Specialists on the dole while we are at it........since their reports are worthless, and all so-called chronic people that are seemingly full of sh!t, we will get Joe with the slaves whip, just like they did in the old days:)”

Her symptoms are chronic, now if they’d just find the cause and cure it there’d be one less beneficiary around. Actually she isn’t one right now but I’m pushing. I reckon most chronic people have a label for what they’ve got while she just seems to have chronictitis. She did however use to walk to school in the snow so she has something to tell the grandkids one day.

Besides that – when quoting something already in quote marks do you again use quote marks on each side?

Besides that – when quoting something already in quote marks do you again use quote marks on each side?

Jewely.... Didn't notice:) My super fast typing skills is just a blur to most mortals, if I do say so my-self..:) Look....the point is, Thinker 2 brought up the link to what Tony is trying to do, and Johnny Howard did, with the bring in of the 20 points system, just to guinea-pig, and to trick the population into thinking that was going to fix the numbers problems he was having, from brainless people that have No-idea what some people go through. All it achieved, was the numbers was just shifted to new start, and was a whole thing was just waste of time. And the real bullsh!ters just took and bigger hand-full of hypercondreact pills and they just were put back where they started from.

Welfare Reform.....lol.....dont make me laugh, its just a fake political stunt, just to show what can be done about nothing.

LEAP

any leader knows
govts are too broke
to aford welfare reform

[specificlly anything needing extra govt spending]
/..like walk for ya doll..[or work for ya droll]

see govts been broke a long time
mainly cause of them war bonds issued..from ww1 and ww2
add in govts needing to pay war reparations etc..

they decided to follow the the bankruptcy trustees admines-traiter's[bankers] advice..to introduce ever more taxes..it becan with a tax on income[money made from no added inmputs]...wages arnt income

but it gets too complicated for mugs to comperehend

anyhow the need for bankers
to get ever more payments from govt
saw them gifting the poor with social security
mainly so the landlord could get their rent...and shopkeepers get their income

when govts went broke..it gave up the rights to print[and coin]
its own money for free...from then on it needed to issue ever more bonds at intrest..[repayed by your taxes]

heck i dare govts
to stop paying pensions or dole

its the only way to finally kill off bankers
[who have turned our kids into consumers]

made factories produce ever more 'trendy'products
and temporiy fashionable..needing to buy the latest

fashion addicts
spending their dole

unable to read or add up the numbers
unable to work...aint it great the chickens are comming home to roost

they wouldnt know work if they fell over
a job half done

but its easy [too easy]
to pick on kids

its the bankers govt and public servants
who know what they paid to be done

[re-form society]

by dimishing the [power of the father]
giving the kids income
to buy ccccrap..

recomended by their peers/media spin and propaganda
lubricated by govt free money...my tax

greed serving want
not need

keep the blame on those
who should have known better

law church and state
bankers and govt
educaters and media

OUG.........you are so right. Its.... Corruption.. Corruption.. Corruption! The world has lost its mind/way and you dont need to be rocket-sciencetist to figure that one out. Yes they over-populated the country for nothing more than greed, then feed and fuel their own children for suck-sess-es, while the church con,s there way into everything for some make-believe-god that dont exist. Now we have an infrastructural disaster by the greedy one,s, with the number of jobs in Australia, is the ratio of 20 unemployed for one job.

OUG said..... recomended by their peers/media spin and propaganda
lubricated by govt free money...my tax

greed serving want
not need

keep the blame on those
who should have known better

law church and state
bankers and govt
educaters and media

and all they do is push around the little guys.............What a bunch of cowards.

Iam too angry to continue:(

LEAP

QL,

Try a minuet, they're great for anger management :)

Yes, of course, there is corruption etc., etc. It's not a perfect world - but it's not an impossible world either. Ways can, and must, be found to resolve those imperfections. Corruption in high places doesn't excuse skiving and loafing in 'low' places, and living off the factory-worker paying her or his taxes.

The solution to such a corrupted system is not for the long-term unemployed to join the oppressors, in exploiting the working population, but to join the workers. Well, for the oppressors to take a turn at hard grind as well, every so often.

The easy course is to say 'Aaaaaah! to hell with all of it ! Let it all rip !' The workable course, usually much more difficult, is to try to find ways to minimise corruption, and to develop pathways from long-term unemployment, for whatever reasons, to employment. Better TAFE, more individually-appropriate programs (horses for courses, if you like) combined with more rigour, far more attention to the sorts of jobs might be around today, tomorrow, in a year, two years, five years, ten years, and gearing education and training to those opportunities.

In other words, learn and earn to tap into work opportunities.

I never started the thread to flog any on welfare, well other than slugs who should not be.
Having been truly poor as a child my thoughts go out to the needy.
But we took any job, any pay, rather than be hungry.
Can any of us not know of just one very long term person who refuses any work.
Are we not aware government money paid is ours?
We can change and renew we are about to do just that.
As a once Socialist,I still hold the view a safety net for the fit to work should be a job, paid award rates, with positive outcomes for those who fund it, taxpayers.

You really believe all that mumbo-jumbo dont you Joe:) Yes I agree that it will work for egumakaied, however public educational policies dont carter for the slaves, ( I mean someone has to wash the dishies, and could you imagine everyone with your ED,s Joe, I guess we,ll all draw numbers out of a hat, just to see who gets there hands dirty:) ) and whats more..... there's 30 to 35 per class Joe, and the wings all-fairness dont spread that far. It doesn't matter what you say my friend, just look at the bigger picture which will make you count the heads. The system only works for the smart Joe......what about the rest.

23 million in Australia Joe and counting:)

Another 240.000 plus job seekers at the end of next year Joe, I guess your,ve got jobs for them as well:)....lol....It must be nice on your planet:)

Human nature is now in Question.

LEAP

"But we took any job, any pay, rather than be hungry.......well Belly....any pay...any Job.....just wont cut it, and you know it:/ Spoken like a true fascist...........Too many people and next to no Infrastructurals to cater for them......get both your heads out of your bums, and see the BAD managements of this system. ( breeding people so you can pick n choose )( plus the see-though bin-aid solutions you cant hide any-more )

Socialism ( Thats where all get there fair share from what the land gives to all living things, and just not the RICH:/! Your system is just trying to keep all, "thats fail them" busy while you all scratch your heads to the F..k-up that you both know is the truth.

Now Joe......I will have to take another minuet:(

LEAP

Well, QL, I don't think class size makes much difference, up to a point: after the salt mines but before I worked in factories, I was a primary school teacher for a very short time, with mixed classes of 49 and 41 of Grade IV and V kids. They all passed, by sheer chance.

My own primary schooling was always, always in classes over 40, usually around 48: eight rows of six, and we seemed to do okay - not in flash schools either, schools in Bankstown and Penrith, working-class areas, before we all got sent off to the mines. A class of only 30 kids would have seemed empty, a real breeze for any teacher :)

As for a scarcity of jobs as a population grows, check out Bernard Salt's column today in the Oz on the impact of a retiring Baby-Boomer population on tne economy. You might learn something, with respect, QL.

And to add to what Belly is saying: so many low-skill jobs these days are much less labour-intensive than similar jobs in the past: thirty-odd years ago, fruit-picking meant wandering from tree to tree, up and down those bloody ladders, in the blazing sun, with a bag of fruit hanging around your neck, up and down, back and forth. Try that in 46 degrees. Nowadays, a picker is likely to be sitting on a trailer and being driven under the trees, picking directly into boxes, perhaps under a canopy, and not unloading the trailer by hand but by fork-lift.

So hard labour is nothing like it used to be. Lumping hay meant just that thirty and forty years ago, picking up and heaving bales onto a trailer and somebody else stacking them, all by hand, then unloading and re-stacking them again - nowadays it would be done almost completely mechanically, with one person driving and another person guiding the machinery. In other words, low-skilled labour requires much more skills than it used to, but a lot less grunt.

Stick to the minuet, QL, it's more fun, especially if you can get UB for practising it.

Joe

I see I am keeping bad company here, my time in the land without computers has seen the thread take turns.
13 years old, finally gave up school, about 3 months before the education department gave me that right.
I had been working more than school for 6 months in any case.
Hard mans work for boys wages, as eldest son very big family it was not uncommon.
Burnt charcoal, turning big logs in to charcoal and no machines load and unload by hand.
Went on to load spuds by hand carry sugar up ramps on my shoulder keeping up with the best men.
Carried night soil in Queensland, not yet 18.
The money was clean.
Right now if hard work had not provided the ability to not work, near 66 years old, I would would still.
True Socialism if it ever was to work, would carry no leaches.
As a union official I helped many get a start,first job, foot on the ladder in an industry that will pay them well.
But saw many who refuse to work.
Kid your self if you wish, but every dollar wasted on bad welfare reminds me how much better we could do for the true needy if we stop feeding the greedy.

Well belly and friends..............all,s looking well on your sides of things:).........See you all somewhere else:)

Joe.........I will beat you sooner or later:)

All the best.:)

LEAP

"I will beat you sooner or later:) thats in mind completions:)....just making sure thats all understood:)

As you were.

LEAP:)

While the thread wandered about a bit it may have been my fault.
It should have started this morning.
And my absence did not help.
Now both Abbott and as of last night Gillard are on record we will have change.
I hope it is good well thought out change.
Strange that I, from a true battlers background, want to defend accountability in this area.
But I must.
In my pre teen age years dole was no walk up start,my dad went to a police station to get needed help.
In the 1970,s I was baffled by hearing in the pub after a hard day at work grown men brag about not having done a thing, on the dole.
We who worked thought of them as smart!
Life moved on my dad died and I took over as family head.
In time one of the nephews I was raising went on the dole.
He was unconvinced that a job was in his future quite happy to sit around
continued

In time I told my nephew of his grand father shirt stained in pure salt from sweat and how my generation would rather brag about how much we had done at work over a cold beer.
He remained unimpressed [by the way he never made it in life wasted every opportunity].
It may have been work for the dole or move to a new area or no dole but he was warned he would be cut off.
He took a tantrum, said this is unfair!
Be gentle on this reform folks, do not go in too hard.
My stand is built on my near coast but bush town,work here for every one who wants it and under standing.
If today work for the dole started 20.000 fraudulent claimers would be found out nationally.
We give too freely what others have busted their guts for no shame in working