“Foreign workers take jobs Australian workers won’t do”
This is a headline I read in the QLD Courier Mail today “21/4/17.
Not that long ago, before this country went berserk with politically
righteous indignation and outlandish political correctness, and I was
a humble member of a police force dedicated to ensuring the Australian
‘fair go’, there was a law that basically said” if you can work you will
work or you will go to prison until you learn that society is not there
to pay your freight”
It was called the “Vagrancy Act” and believe you me it worked well.
Sure there were many who managed to squeeze five three months
sentences into one year but at least the country wasn’t shelling out
Social Security payments to these people.
Send the foreign workers home and bring back the Vagrancy Act.
Make the rules indicate that if you make yourself unfit for employment
By virtue of your appearance or attitude you will be declared a ‘vagrant’
Pauline Hanson please read this carefully.

Put all the homeless people in the jug. You know it would be cheaper to give them money to stay out of goal .
Before long the govt is going to create millions of vagrants because cash money is going to go out of fashion.

I oppose violence.
I oppose slavery.

Apparently, not everyone does.

Regardless, supporting others through social-security should be seen is a privilege. Those who do not want to share the load should be able to opt out and be exempt from that part of their taxes - I will happily continue to pay my share in order to help those who are less financially fortunate than myself. I will never ask anyone to work who doesn't want to.

Personal freedom in some cases goes too far, remember years ago used to see some of the people going to CES (Commonwealth employment service) just one look and you could see absolutely no one would give some of them a job.

Now is worse multiple earrings, facial tattoos, body piercings and studs etc I have no objection to these things but when these things impede a persons ability to find work maybe there benefits from the taxpayer should be cut back until they change.

Hi Yuyutsu,

Yes, indeed, able-bodied people shouldn't be forced to work. But neither should they expect to be paid any benefits if there is work around.

I hope you agree :)

Joe

No work, no money. Unless a person is physically or mentally incapable of performing useful work, or too old, there should be no taxpayer handouts. So that young people can find work, nobody over the age of 65 should be permitted to work unless they are in their own business. If you haven't saved enough money by then to live on, or you are too extravagant to survive on the government pension, stiff cheese. We have an entire generation lolling about doing nothing but cause trouble. We have immigrants doing something similar at taxpayer expense.

No work: No money. No jobs: No immigration.

Why penalise the people because of an incompetent govt. what happened to jobs and innovation which has not been heard of since the election.

If you keep downgrading the citizens things will get worse and worse. Repression was never the answer to an economy under pressure.

What we need is stimulus to put life in the economy.

Out national debt is 530 billion $. Wages growth is stagnant. When Abbott won the election by fraud our debt was 250 billion $ and now it has doubled.

This govt has not worked we are in need of an election.

Hi Doog,

Straw man. What don't you understand about "if there is work around" ?

Of course, governments should be finding ways to create more jobs. If they did that, there would be far fewer skivers. Well, there might be more skivers starving, but all they would have to do - if the jobs were there - is take one. Get their hands dirty. Put up with something that is a bit boring. Come home with a sore back and crave to put their feet up.

And, of course, they could ask me for sympathy. Not that they would get it :)

Joe

CHRISGAFF1000...

Your forgot about the 'Consorting Act' and the 'Summary Offences'. Why not go the whole way and bring back the old, but tried and true, 'Police Offences' Act as well? Thet'll fix 'em.

Our economy is at an all time high 1.6 trillion. The populous has no spending money or not game to spend any, because this govt does not have a firm pathway, nobody knows what is going to happen next.

The only thing missing is stimulus. The atmosphere is not inductive of a consumer market. All you hear about is cut this chop that this is creating uncertainty and people have closed their wallets.

How long do we go down this path until they figure out it is not working.

I live in a town full of long term unemployed and backpackers doing dozens of jobs around town.
No dole should be paid to anyone in town whilst we have to use backpackers to keep our local economy going.

Dear Joe,

What's there to add? I would still support those who do not wish to work, but not through compulsory taxation, not through robbery of those who have no heart to help them. There are many who do not wish or are not suitable to be involved in a formal economic way in the industrial rat-race, but can still contribute in other, even better, ways and I would like to encourage that. Many work-places make immoral demands on their workers and I would like employees to know that they don't need to compromise their values just in order to pay their basic bills.

When I pay my taxes, at least I know that a portion of it goes for a good cause.

Doog, the problem is explained in your post.
We are spending more than we make, in whatever form you explain them.
The government can't cut back on pensions and other expenditure as
they will be vilified and tossed out in an election.
To avoid this they borrow more & more.
Production has fallen so the growth has fallen but is being pumped up
by increasing immigration. All that does is pretend that the new
consumers means growth,
It is not real growth, as the per capita growth has reduced.

There is no solution to this.
What it means is that someone will have to sustain a massive loss
on our borrowings. What will our creditors want in lieu ?
Our banks and insurance companies will be turned over to the creditors.
But will they have any assets, housing loans ?
Who will have money to buy them ?

The government will be bankrupt and salaries and pensions will not be paid.
Of course the governmentt can just print money or generate pixel money.

The only other solution is a debt holiday, ie the debt is forgiven.

Buzz you are off on one of your conspiracy,s again. We have a consumer depression, no one is spending money.
Unless confidence is overturned things will not get any better.
That is why we need stimulus now.

These clowns shot themself in the foot going on about labor debt. Now it has doubled and we are in the doldrums at a time of record GDP.

And you say we can,t afford it. The only reason we can,t afford it is the lack of direction. We need an election now to clear away the rubbish.

Funny how things. I read many peoples comments about the welfare system for individuals and how they hate the dole they and hote the people who claim it but they never say why they are so vehemantly opposed to it?

Dunno why but I also notice such people never critize corporate welfare, funny that. Might that be because the lady or the man on the tele has not told them about corproate welfare by any chance?

lets get things straight, all three political factions are very committed to the welfare system. Its just a matter of who for thats all.

Welfare haters need to consider one thing. If the economic stimulus packages the govt inects into the economy each forthnight was to stop, most shops in the shopping centre you go would close up within a week or two.

Moreover,the jobs of many dole haters themseleves would also dissappear over night. This is the precise reason the US economy is spiraling downwards and has been for years, because all these monthly economic stimulus packages have been getting less and less all the time

I know all about the national debt thing and you ought to also know that everyone talks about the national debt but no one ever asks the question - to WHOM are we in debt?

Ever hear the finanical and economic commontaters ask that question? betcha dont.

If all countires were in debt to each other all we would have to do is go into a huddle and agree to foregive each others debt wouldn't we?

lets also not forget that in the 1930's a Royal Commission in Banking in Australia found the Commonwelth Bank could lend money to the Commonwelath Goverment money on any terms it wished including the non repayment of interest, non repayment of principle OR BOTH.

Read the The Remarkable Model Of The Commonwealth Bank Of Australia by Ellen Brown, August 4th, 2010.

o sung wu,
Hi Ole Buddy,
Don't worry mate I had those other 'dastardly' Acts up my sleeve for the next round and the one
after that however before they can work we have to empty all the asylum seekers compounds
including Manus and Nauru and the other nineteen detention
centers around Australia and then we can fill them with real miscreants.
There are 6500 beds in these facilities.
Even the polies are now saying "if you can work you should work"
CG1000

I said it before but as usual you hateful rightards refuse to listen to anything but your own idiocy.
WORK FOR THE DOLE has existed for the past 20 years. NO ONE gets the dole without working for it.
It costs $15k or so to pay unemployment benefits. $100k+ to imprison someone. You people are fools if you think that is the answer.
The fascist, bigots of OLO just keep getting dumber and dumber.

Dear Mikk,

Yes, "work for the dole" exists for 20 years, but it was not clear from your post whether you support it.

We are forced to live in a society where it is impossible to survive without money. The fact is that one is no longer allowed to make a living out of a land, as mankind did for 100,000's of years and other species still do, unless they formally own/rent/lease it and pay the appropriate taxes/rates, which requires money.

While some people suffer as a result, other people seem to be enjoying this fact that human-life is no longer possible without money.

Money gives its users certain powers (such as the ability to organise and raise an army or a police force) and historically, those who used money, abused these powers to enslave, outnumber, decimate and/or evict from the land those who did not.

Isn't it only fair that those who enjoy the use of money, should to that extent compensate those who suffer from its use? Such compensation should provide the victims with the only remaining means of sustenance - money, the amount of which should more or less allow a similar subsistence standard of living as one would have had in nature otherwise, without the use of money.

This is how the dole should really be looked at - not a favour, but a rightful compensation for damages. One should not have to work for what is already justly theirs. The current situation is a mild form of slavery.

Well why stop at cutting their dole? Why not just kill all the poor?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mku-rUTG3eg

Or perhaps we should with the Johnathon Swift's timeless solution: we cut their dole, but allow them to derive an income by selling their children to the rich as food.

Doog said;
Buzz you are off on one of your conspiracy,s again.

Where did I write anything about conspiracy ?
I am afraid you read thoughts into other peoples posts that are in your own mind.
It is not so much incompetence, although it is a factor, as a failure
to understand what is going on in the depths of the economy.

Milk you are wrong. Plenty of people receive the dole without working for it, including some of my family. I live in a town where there is no work for the dole scheme and in fact I dont think that scheme exists anywhere in the whole Kimberley.
Unemployed people just have to meet with their employment agency once every two weeks and thats all.

well suppose Toni selling your children for food is better than using your kids as human shields like the Palestinians do. Also better than butchering them in the womb as endorsed and promoted by feminist/humanist.

Yuyutsu, you may be unaware that there is a group of people in this country who have the ability to live off the land unassisted.
Aboriginal people, via Native Title, own approximately 20% of this country and it is land on which no rates or fees are ever paid.
If they wished they could return to the hunter gatherer life style they lived before white settlement.
Not that any wish to but the option is there.

Hi Tone,

We would probably have to ensure that those kids were halal: wow, there's a huge money-spinner for Muslim accreditation agencies and overseas 'cultural groups'. Alternatively, as Runner says, in the event of war, we could use them as human shields.

Mikk,

No, at least in advanced parts of Australia like Adelaide (I don't know what conditions are in Sydney or Melbourne) but here, people don't work for the dole, but may get only around $ 10,000 p.a., and have to apply for up to twenty jobs every fortnight. If it was me, I'd prefer to work for the dole, a bit less demeaning.

I was just looking up 'Bob Newhart' on Wikipedia (as you do): he started out as an accountant for the department of labour, but realised that he was earning $ 55 per week, while those on unemployment benefits were being paid $ 45 per week; so he chucked it in and went into comedy.

Come to think of it, I wish Trump would try the same career path.

Cheers,

Joe

Bazz you write there is no solution to this. And then you go on to tell us your version of an outcome. That is a conspiracy.

Everything has a solution it,s just we do not have the govt. to implement anything.

The govt says work for the dole is a failure, so what is the next phase.
How can you have a mild form of slavery. What about a little bit of tourture.

5 percent unemployed is full employment. That is govt,own words. So what percentage are we looking at.

Hi There CG1000...

Yeah you're right. Well ol' son it's ANZAC Day, never thought I'd ever see another one, after last year? I gotta be at the head of the queue now surely? No more marches (physically unable) massive contempt for the RSL, but hey, all's good you know how it is ?

Interestingly a bloke here on 'The Forum' (couple of months ago), claimed NSW 'Wallopers' received the most generous retirement pensions/benefits than any other blue collar industry in the Nation? I responded by saying, be that as it may, after spending 32 years in the job, you don't reckon we earned every penny of it!

Still he's entitled to his opinion nevertheless. What has got me annoyed though, many of these young blokes have absolutely no intention of ever seeking meaningful work, or undertake training, fitting them for employment. In other words ensure no employer will ever consider them as employable in any capacity. Preferring instead, to drain the public purse, each and every fortnight or whenever they receive their benefits. Our government must take a much harder line with these lazy individuals.

Sorry if my contribution is garbled I'm not great today.

Enjoy this special day CG1000.

//Alternatively, as Runner says, in the event of war, we could use them as human shields.//

Yeah, I'm not sure that you guys have really grasped the point of 'A Modest Proposal'. It's not really about the cannibalism at all; it's a piss-take of... you know what, never mind. Either you get it or you don't. Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog: you understand it better but the frog dies in the process.

Hi Tone,

Yes, Jonathan Swift's proposal, mainly in relation to an over-supply of Irish children: as an Irishman, he was concerned to ensure that Ireland was contributing its share to the British bottom line.

But your proposal does also infer that there could be a market in the live children trade to the Middle East: the transport ships would need hardly any modification; maybe hosing the decks down a bit more often. Any revenue gained could go towards making the lives of the workless more comfortable.

And we could make a good and environmentally-friendly start by rounding up all the children of the anti-populationists :)

How's that for a modest proposal ?

Joe

Doog, go and read the dictionary meaning of conspiracy.
I see no conspiracy, just a lack of knowledge.

Incidently, someone on the radio was saying that unemployment is
less in regional areas. Typically regional towns in NSW were around
3 or 4 percent.
Tie that together with lower house prices and it looks interesting.

o sung wu,
I couldn't trust me legs or heart to carry me the full journey today. I'll leave that to the younger generation I think.
Had a few cold ones and tossed a coin or two (and lost) back home for a 'nanny nap" around three.
What happens if Trump pulls the plug mate?
Maybe all the unemployed will get jobs as front line fodder.
Couldn't see them defending anything other than their dole though.
I look at all the backpackers that come through here (Cairns) and I see hordes of strapping young
youth, full of beans and rearing to go, obviously workers wherever they come from and then I look
at the pitiful specimens of humanity that we are
producing today and I see nothing less than complete social failure.
The system,, as it is, cannot support itself for much longer.
It's time we asked just who do we owe these billions of dollars to and maybe do what they did in South America.
Repudiate the debt, renege, go bankrupt and start again.
I am sure there would be plenty of takers out there in the world who would support our rise out of the financial mess we are in.
CG1000

//Yes, Jonathan Swift's proposal, mainly in relation to an over-supply of Irish children: as an Irishman, he was concerned to ensure that Ireland was contributing its share to the British bottom line.//

But your proposal does also infer that there could be a market in the live children trade//

Whoosh.

Jo: it's not about the cannibalism.

//How's that for a modest proposal ?//

In a word? Shite.

chrisgaff1000

We are not bankrupt.
Government debt is literally at 0% of our credit limit!
Unlike certain South American countries, we have practically no sovereign debt and we let the market determine the value of our currency. Because we're not holding our dollar above its market value, we have zero risk of a catastrophic collapse as we lose the ability to control its value.

We own the Reserve Bank, and could always borrow from it if necessary. But of course it's not necessary, as there's no shortage of buyers for our government bonds.

With unlimited credit, debt levels don't matter. But deficits still have consequences. Sometimes (regardless of debt) surpluses are desirable to keep interest rates and inflation low. But right now, inflation's below the RBA's target despite interest rates being at record lows. Meanwhile the high unemployment in much of Australia indicates that fiscal stimulus is needed. But instead the politicians are doing the opposite: trying to cut their way to surplus to give the illusion of fiscal responsibility.

We need stimulus, after the ruckus the liberals went into about labor using stimulus to keep an even balance, this mob have dug themself into a hole they can not get out of.
They know what's needed, but the consequences are dire.

So they just cut cut, the voters get more depressed and tighten up even more. That sort of politics is no different than a dog chasing its tail.

Chrisgaff, Aiden is of course right, the RBA can cover any debt.
Just print it and if you cannot buy enough paper issue pixel money.

Does it feel unreal ? Well it is, it is all based on confidence.
If one morning, if enough people in the right places get out of bed
feeling a bit nervous then there is nothing more nervous than a trillion dollars.
There is nothing more contagious than a currency panic.

Hi Tone,

Don't knock it, I should imagine a small child would be quite tender and tasty - all one might need is a bit of mixed herbs, salt and pepper. Roasted slowly, the meat would just fall off the bone. Ideal for meat pies.

Of course, there would have to be an age-limit, say fourteen: no kids over that age, roughly the age from which young girls can start having children of their own for the market. And any sensible government would limit the process to only a fraction of all births, say 60%, so that there would be enough reproduction to make the whole system viable from one generation to the next. So market forces would have to be controlled, perhaps by the imposition of export duties on the live children trade.

If only Jonathan Swift were still here, he could advise governments properly.

Perhaps another innovation could be to require those aged fourteen and over to either study or work, and if they had not found work by, say, 25, then they could be drafted into the trade, like old cattle and sheep are these days, perhaps for dog-food, and blood-and-bone as fertiliser.

What do you reckon ? A child-led economic recovery ?

Joe

No, Bazz, it's not all based on confidence. Confidence plays a big part in setting the short term value, but has little long term effect.

The real bases are fiat and trade. Fiat (the requirement that Australian dollars be used to pay taxes in Australia) creates a demand for the currency. Trade sets its value against other currencies. This is largely self correcting because if our dollar goes up we import more and export less, and if it goes down we import less and export more.

Any increase in the amount of money in circulation (whether from the RBA or commercial banks, and whether the money is spent by the government or the private sector) is inflationary unless it is balanced by an increase in production. But money in savings is effectively not in circulation, as it's not being spent.

Increasing the money supply will cause competitive devaluation (resulting in us exporting more and importing less). But despite the widespread perception it does not cause hyperinflation; that only happens when something prevents competitive devaluation. The "something" is the government either trying to fix the exchange rate or immediately selling the money it prints to fund large foreign currency repayments. Technically it can also happen if the country's being blockaded (but that's rare) or if the country doesn't have an effective tax system (even rarer, but easily fixed).

Turnbull and Co screw the pensioners, unemployed etc while in the past 8 weeks have given away 500 Million in aid to other countries many of which most will go to official corruption.

http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2017/04/turnbullbishop-hand-out-500m-new-overseas-aid-in-past-8-weeks-make-ruddgillard-look-responsible.html

Half a billion new dollars - in just 8 weeks!

When did we decide to build a new education system for Myanmar ($71M) or add $40M to The Philippines Islamic system in the autonomous region of Mindanao?

$10M for gender equality, a few million for anti-terror pamphlets - and those hundreds of new millions for the bosses of Iraq and Afghanistan to launder.

Considering how much Australia is in Debt I wonder who he going to screw to get the money back from already done the pensions etc and is giving tax cuts to big business.

Well said Philip S
I know and so do a few others that this forum, as well as others, is watched
very carefully by agents of the government.
In fact, in many cases, they use it as a barometer to gauge public opinion.
Therefore Mr. Prime Minister, and your cronies, when will you start governing
for the little people that make up ninety percent of the population and whom
have less than ten percent of the countries wealth.
Am I angry? Yes I am!
Are you angry? Well yes you should be.
The people should revolt just like they have overseas for centuries.
Who the hell do these people think they are?
We elected them to govern for all of us and not just for the select minorities with deep pockets.

Hi Chris,

Good god, is that so ?

Mr Turnbull, I was only joking about the kids :(

Hi there CG1000...

Thats very much a rhetorical question you've asked our esteemed Prime Minister, CG1000? '...When is he and his cronies going to govern for the little people...'? No Mr PM, CG1000 isn't referring to that little known tribe of Pygmy's that live somewhere in the deepest recesses in darkest Africa?

He's in fact referring to the ordinary working class folk, who regularly contribute their obligatory taxation payments through the existing PAYE system, and who happen to make up about 90% of the electorate. Mast of them, have less than 10% of the nations wealth Sir? You with me now, Mr. PM ?

He (CG1000), has also indicated that he's quite annoyed with you personally, and your political sycophants? Very angry indeed, as we all should be! Asking who in hell's name does he (the PM) think he is! Reminding him, that he was elected specifically to govern for us all, every man, woman, and child, not just a select few of these trendy minorities. All of whom are loaded down with an abundance of 'filthy lucre', most of it accumulated as a direct consequence of ingratiating themselves with a Merchant Banker of course!

Aiden, are/were you in the economics or finance businesses ?
That might explain everything.

Anyway to go off thread a news item;
Nth Korea has introduced petrol rationing and it has enough fuel for a one day war.

Dear Nana,

«Yuyutsu, you may be unaware that there is a group of people in this country who have the ability to live off the land unassisted.
Aboriginal people, via Native Title, own approximately 20% of this country and it is land on which no rates or fees are ever paid.
If they wished they could return to the hunter gatherer life style they lived before white settlement.
Not that any wish to but the option is there.»

True, but that's very limited:
1. You need to be aboriginal.
2. The land in question is the worst and most arid.
3. There are other possible styles and uses of land, other than the hunter-gatherer life style. While government would probably allow and won't feel threatened by a hunter-gatherer life style I'd be surprised if government would allow more complex lifestyles, even by the same aboriginals on that same land.
4. If you haven't had the opportunity to grow up in a simple society, you will be spoiled by civilisation and be unfit for that kind of life later on.

I have always thought it was very stupid to borrow money and then
give it away as aid !
Even more stupid, I understand some time back some aid went to China.
Does it still go there ?

Some of our borrowings come from China. ummmm errr are we THAT stupid ?

Oh, all sorts of people get to snoop on our phone and internet activity.
I'll bet you never thought Bankstown Council and the RSPCA would get
access to the megadata held by your ISP ?

Hi Yuyutsu,

20 % of all Australian land, and " the worst and most arid" ? By no means "all" of it. Yes, a lot of it, but we're talking about one and a half million square kilometres, 150 million hectares, and a hell of a lot of that 150,000,000 is beautiful country, it can grow anything.

Plus, a lot of it on artesian basins, so that land could be irrigated.

But all of that needs one secret ingredient: effort. But why put effort in if you can get the equivalent of the average national wage by doing nothing at all ? People aren't silly.

Of course, there's the fundamental problem: foraging societies throughout history have very rarely taken up agriculture: even in Europe, it seems, where agriculture took the best part of six or seven thousand years to spread from the Middle East to the corners of Britain - and longer in Scandinavia -it's possible (from DNA studies)that the IDEA of agriculture didn't spread, or diffuse, but agriculturalists did, colonising coasts and fertile valleys, and displacing or absorbing local foragers through inter-marriage.

In effect, what has happened in Australia

[TBC]

[continued]

In effect, what has happened in Australia is that an agricultural-industrial society came up against a foraging society, one with very different notions of the world and how to live in it. And, in some parts of the country, before any notion of transition from one to another could become strongly fixed, generous welfare systems were put in place. So, from one point of view, why work ? Why put effort into anything ? If anything, 'community consultation' simply means that people are encouraged to ask for more an more.

And they've got it. Go into a remote community and observe, and you will notice services provided that no non-Aboriginal community would dream of.

My late wife's community controls 12,000 acres, 5,000 hectares, of mostly good land, relatively free from droughts, often with very deep soils; it used to have an unlimited water licence; CDEP funded most labour costs; and as Big Nana pointed out, no rates are paid on Aboriginal land. I used to make her wild by suggesting that a thousand Vietnamese would have the entire place under production in a year. Her late brother worked his arse off to build up the new dairy and farm, but an accident stopped that effort and the dairy was closed: low milk prices, they said. Nowadays it runs a few hundred head of beef cattle.

If only 10 % of all Aboriginal land was worked as it could be, that would be more than all the land in many European countries. So what's missing ?

Cheers,

Joe