Dear OnTheBeach,

<<Shouldn't diversity be challenging the slackers who find it difficult to even show up at Centrelink and would never take up a job because every offer is below them? Meanwhile employers are forced to import workers to take care of locals who are too tired to even wash themselves for a job interview.>>

What pleasure are you deriving out of having them show up at Centrelink?
What pleasure are you deriving out of making them attend job-interviews for jobs they never intend to do, using 1001 tricks to leave an unfavourable impression on the potential employer?

Think of the lost resources: How much it costs to have those Centrelink buildings, how much it costs people to arrive there, how much a Centrelink employee costs - like about 10 dole recipients. Then comes the electricity bill, the billions it takes to upgrade Centrelink's computers (http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/joe-hockey-says-centrelinks-computers-need-overhaul-that-will-cost-billions/story-fn84fgcm-1226894688255), then think of the poor employers who must waste their time in futile interviews instead of being productive! Why shouldn't they import good workers from overseas straight away, who would get the work done cheaper in half the time? Think also of those who do start to work only to sabotage their employer and get back on the dole.

Or do you prefer them breaking into your home? Can you afford the secure locks and extra bars on your windows? Do you want to hire armed patrols on the streets? Or do you prefer them rattling tin boxes next to your car-window whenever you stop at the lights? That's what happens in other countries that don't have the dole!

If you hope they're going to starve to death, just forget about it - they will always find a way to get a meal, and that way will be even more expensive for you and me.

Just give them that minimum income which neither of us finds adequate or respectable, no questions asked, so they stay at home and do us no harm. That's the cheapest option!

'Understandably, many of these people are actively searching for jobs and a source of income, but it seems to be that the majority of people on welfare are simply lazy.'

Yep! Absolutely right, mandialatopino. They're bone lazy - all of them. Not like you, a paragon of righteousness and work-ethickyness

So the only way to deal with these bone lazy (and probably smelly) people is to let them starve and go homeless.

Of course, we'd also have let that tiny, weeney, itsy-bitsy little minority of welfare recipients who are genuinely searching for jobs starve and go homeless too. But who cares about them anyway? They probably lost their jobs because they're stupid and inferior and made bad choices anyway.

I'd just love to see all those bone-lazy welfare cheats lying in the streets slowly starving to death and eating grass. I'd just love to see them sleeping on park benches shivering and cold and dying slowly of prolonged exposure.

I'd just love to see slums and tent cities growing up around out urban centres, full of raw sewerage and desperate people who have to turn to crime to stay alive. I'd just love to see poor hygiene-related disease running rampant and killing them off.

I'd just love to see them breaking into the homes of the deserving rich and stealing whatever they can to stay alive ... oops! Wait a minute - we can't have the rich suffering any form of inconvenience now, can we?

On second thoughts ... maybe we innocent taxpayers should keep supporting those bone lazy people after all.

Foxy et al,

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=1258

Welfare is not a small percentage, it is about 36% of the total budget, with medicare taking up another 22%, so nearly 2/3rds of all revenue is taken up here. To make it worse, these costs are the fastest growing with projected growth of 6% p.a.

The only rational thing to do is to tackle this area, or in a decade we will have similar debts to Europe.

Maybe just have a government making job's not selling us out to oversea's
I do think our job network agencies need to be looked at, Gina and some small group of farmers that say they can't get workers ( these are the only groups i have heard of crying) Don't even have a listing at the job network agencies. So am i missing something here ? We have a place unemployed go to get told they have nothing to offer to them, Then we have companies not listing Job's, Doesn't Seem the system is working.
As for Being Lazy yes some are all people are different and that's a good thing, but when an area has 15% youth unemployment and there is 3 job's in the area Do the math's yourself,We need to stop sending our Job's overseas, Free trade agreements with only countries that have minimum work policy i.e. wages and conditions Otherwise bring in the Tariffs, Soon we would a more level playing field

Dear Shadow Minister,

According to the OECD Pensions at a Glance 2013 -
Australia's public spending on the age pension was
3.5 per cent of the GDP. Italy's was 15 per cent,
France - 14 per cent. Belgium - 10 per cent,
Sweden - 8 per cent and the UK - 6 per cent.

It's good to have money in the bank - but at what cost?
Do we really want to go down the path of -
gross unemployment, crime, family's
suffering, suicides, people going hungry, our most vunerable
having no safety net, and a total break-down of society?
And all that in order to fix an imaginary problem in the
form of a budget "emergency" that doesn't exist?
And making it quite clear that those currently in need will
have to do with less, much, much less. It's almost as though
the government is penalizing the poor and the sick to
reward big construction companies with big contracts for
new highways.

It's simply not logical or fair. Business is being rewarded
while the poorest and the sick are being punished.
That's not the kind of society any one of us should be
wanting - or the kind of government any of us should be
supporting.

Foxy,

Aus's tax intake is about 22.5% of GDP and expenditure is about 25.5% of GDP, in other words the labor's expenditure is 10% higher than income, and Australia's debt is the fastest growing in the OECD. The debt is one of the lowest, but unless something is done, this will change.

Comparing Aus with other countries can be expanded,
- Italy is on the edge of bankruptcy, and France is not far behind. Italy's expenditure on pensions would be 2/3rds of Aus's tax take, and comparatively would wipe out all Aus's welfare and health budget.
- Most OECD countries have far higher proportion of older citizens, roughly where Aus will be in 2 decades. If Aus wants massive debt, high unemployment, crime, and unrest then Italy and France are the ones to copy.