Belly,
Long time no argue. I went off too for a few years but things are just too rotten to ignore hence both our returns.
By a Non-Military national Service I mean work based activities for those who can not or don't want to find work. In order to stop a fourth generation of welfare families it would be an advantage to use the welfare payments for work experience. Young(ish) people could be paid the minimum wage which should in my opinion be income tax excempt, but not for sitting on the steps of Centrelink offices but to actually be engaged in essential service related activities. These could range from cleaning parks, graffiti, waterways, the sides of roads etc etc. Why, even the canetoads could do with some bounty hunting.
People could help out in hospitals, on the railways, be engaged by local Councils in fact anywhere there is a chance for young people to absorb a sense of responsibility, respect & general decency. None of these are found on Centrelink steps.
Those who have aptitude could be syphoned off into background services & even absorbed by the armed services. Anything to get them experiencing responsible daily life. Like the rest of us the unemployed too need dignity & those who really are allergic to work & responsibility can be put on such basic welfare that even to them work looks enticing. The whole mess came from easy welfare for the lazy & harsh Centrelink treatment for the unfortunate. The show needs to an injection of sense not perpetual unworkable expensive schemes by our academic experts. Young people don't need work experience-they need to experience work !
We're not only talking about young people's future, we're also talking about a better society for a stronger Nation.

I was referring to businesses that are working their business and getting dole as well, as their business does not earn enough to get off the dole.

There is 13.3% of our population currently living below the poverty line, including "the working poor".

It seems that's not high enough for some businesses but ironically it's their own customers they are underpaying - and then they complain about economic downturns.

Perhaps we should return to Serfdom to make them happy.

doog SOME business employ only welfare people, and pay very very low wages,warning said workers they will dob them in if they complain,that is far from the only fraud, carers who never see the one they are paid to care for are another,we can surely, find another way

One way to address the dole bludger is to make the dole so uninviting that they would beg for a job.

You do this by firstly removing cash payments, as these are too easily wasted on the likes of gog, cigs and gambling.

As it stands, serial dole bludgers are literally paid to stay in bed, because let's face it, $250 a week is not bad for simply attending the odd job centre appointment, yet some can't even manage that and then complain about getting cut off. Of cause there are the genuine cases, but there are also the blatant bludgers so something has to be done.

Living wage. Just what is a 'living wage', and more importantly, how can anyone expect to work an unskilled 9 to 5 job and buy a house. Well actually, many could afford a house, just not 'the house' and there in lies a huge part of the problem. Of cause having useless governments resettling hundreds of thousands of immigrants into the likes of Sydney is a huge part of the problem. One can buy houses for under $100K in rural towns the likes of Miles. If these immigrants were relocated to regional towns, these towns would flourish with the additional welfare dollars, which in its self would create jobs.

Many of these towns accommodate a lot of 457 jobs, FIFO in fact, so these could be replaced immediately by the immigrants.

Foxy, thanks for your kind words. I can assure you I mean no harm to anyone, but despise those who think it's their given right to bludge off the tax payer.

So it's better to punish ten thousand people trapped by circumstance than to let one person get an easy ride?

Starving people into looking for jobs that aren't there doesn't seem like a fair notion.

Neither does a deliberate political and economic strategy that demands a constant unemployment rate of around 4% just to keep a cap on wages and inflation and claims that zero unemployment would be a very bad outcome.