First I remain a committed ALP voter/member.
But this subject is under review, I must let truth have its say.
Labor giveth Libs taketh, too much on both sides.
Here the difficulty sets in, some are unable to even concead that truth.
Some want the lot no welfare or more welfare.
It is because I am a true believer that I want my side of politics to confront this area before we come in to government again.
We the ALP bleed votes because some of us are stuck in the nineteenth century on this issue.
Signals are being put out by this government it is about to confront this issue.
Labor must face the truth, if we do not lead in reform others will.
This country knows its future, just with the weight of soon to be pensioners from those like me Baby boomers is creating difficulty's.
If we get a start, and we have had such threads in the past, it would be good if we swapped ideas for true reforms.
I Labor to the thong straps see no reason to forever support work shy or free loaders and call for a job not a hand out as first step.

On this subject Belly there is plenty of room for co-operation, and
a non political approach. I know that the government is aware of the
economic problems down the track and I suspect the opposition does also.
The coming situation is not the fault of either party and each should
not try to blame it on the other.
Having to face it with such a large debt is a problem but there it is.

I think the economy will continue as it is now till about 2018 2020
and then start a slide to high unemployment of say 15% +.
There is a catch, finance, if it drys up for drilling it could happen before 2018.
Now there is a prediction Belly, so pin it on the wall and we will
look at it then and see how close it is.

I think the government is aware of that timing and they have been
told enough times that hopefully they now acknowledge it.
The governments, especially the US government, took steps before the
2008 crash to suppress the information because they did not want to
panic the stock markets, but they were too late, they panicked anyway.

It took a whistle blower from OECD's IEA to dob the US in.
Our governments of both parties were told but they did not want to
know, unless they already knew. That is why this time there is no
justification to make it a party political war.

Lets start by not giving well to do mothers the massive payouts that are promised. I think your unemployment figures will come in much earlier than that Bazz. The start is already in place. Which part of welfare do you attack. Pensions, Disability Pensions, Dole payments, No matter what part is attacked it is going to cause poverty and more living in cars.
How can you down grade a pension without first having jobs waiting. Youth unemployment should not exist, If they can't find a job they should do a national service and get some job ready skills.
You can't fill jobs that don't exist, so first you make jobs.

The very term "sustainable welfare" is an oxymoron of sorts, especially when used in the world of 2014, the whole society is unsustainable. Let me explain the mentality of a welfare recipient in a "working poor" family. As I've grown older I've become relatively poorer and my wife and I now receive the parenting payment even though our income has gone up slightly since 2003 when we were last judged to be eligible.
I began full time work in 1988 in a unionised workplace and working five and a half days a week plus doing on-call maintenance work on the side I was making about 48,000 gross and being taxed at some horiffic rate, last year I made about 52,000 gross and still ended up with a $4,500 bill I haven't yet been able to pay...yet we receive both parenting payments, the schools allowance etc.
This makes no sense to me, surely parenting payments should be for people on minimum wage and it's insane to cause hardship to those on the median wage by taxing them in the first place then reimbursing them via welfare.So unless I double my income it's basically not worth taking on extra work these days because if I go over 60,000 I lose benefits and have to pay more tax, only by working twice as hard could I get ahead and at 47 years of age doing more than 30 hours a week of hard manual work is only going to shorten my working life by years. I'm in a situation where I'm better off doing 15-20 hours a week until I'm 75, becoming foster parents or taking in boarders when our kids leave home and just sponging as much as we can get from the state.
Why bother extending ourselves if nobody else is expected to? It's not like material comfort is even that much of a status symbol in this country anyway.

Dear Belly,

The social impact of welfare dependency is high
in this country - even by international standards.
Australia has a high proportion of people living
in jobless families. I read somewhere that 690,000
children live in households where no parent works.

Australia's welfare system provides support to those
in need, but it must be sustainable to ensure that it
meets the long-term needs of our society.

We need changes to the welfare system for working-age
Australians that will address the high levels of welfare
dependency and will improve workforce participation.
Policies need to focus on self-reliance and the message
has to be that the best form of income comes from a
job, not welfare.

When Bob Hawke was PM, he negotiated a deal with the LNP not to debate immigration issues and the two major parties have stuck to that. They each believed immigration was a no win situation politically, so they left it to the party in power to set the agenda without debate.

I am not too happy about that as I want immigration to be debated. However could not social welfare come under a similar arrangement or approached in a bipartisan way.

Both major parties support social welfare and both parties are aware of the costs involved. There is little difference between the policies so be bipartisan and take the politics out of the issue.