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]