Message from a hard working Aussie.

[Barry Hicks]

This one has been doing the email rounds of late.

I work, they pay me. I pay my taxes and the government distributes my money as they see fit. In order to earn my pay cheque, as I work on a large construction site, I am required to pass a random urine test with which I have no problem.

What I do have a problem with, is the distribution of my taxes to people who don't have to pass a urine test. Shouldn't one have to pass a urine test to get a cheque because I have to pass a test to earn it for them?

Please understand - I have no problem with helping people get back on their feet. I do on the other hand, have a problem with helping people
sit on their backsides drinking grog and smoking dope.

Could you imagine how much money this country would save if people had to pass a urine test to get unemployment benefit payments?

[Wongo]

We do have a very kind and sometimes stupid government. We will help people get back on their feet. However, if people are unable to find a job for a long period of time then there is a problem.

We have such a strong economy. If you look hard and are willing, you will find a job.

I think it is part of culture though. Why work 5 days a week when you can get good money by sitting on your elbows?

[Gingermick]

When I was on the dole (7 years ago) I got about 160 a week. Can you imagine getting that money now and renting a room or a flat? Average room rent here is over 150. Hardly sitting pretty.
But I do agree with the original point. If you fail a urine test, then you should be given your allowance in food stamps or such.

[q9]

Could you imagine how much money this country would save if people had to pass a urine test to get unemployment benefit payments?

Feck all.

Straight from the Centrelink website:

Centrelink Facts and Figures:

Centrelink is in the top one hundred of Australian companies in terms of size and turnover. Its recurrent budget is $2.3 billion and it distributes approximately $63 billion in social security payments on behalf of policy departments. Centrelink:

* has 6.5 million customers, or approximately one-third of the Australian population
* pays 10 million individual entitlements each year and records 5.2 billion electronic customer transactions each year
* administers more than 140 different products and services for 25 government agencies
* employs more than 25 000 staff
* has more than 1 000 service delivery points ranging from large Customer Service Centres to small visiting services
* has reduced the number of letters sent to our customers from more than 87 million (in 2004-2005) to 86.4 million per year (in 2005-2006)
* provides personalised services in over 80 languages
* receives more than 30.77 million telephone calls each year
* receives 47.2 million website page views each year
* grants more than 2.8 million new claims each year.

The vast majority of payments are to non dole type recipients.

[hansp77]

RANT WARNING RANT WARNING

I gotta agree with Mick,
the sort of money that the doll provides really only allows below-subsistence living- nothing to write home about (even if you can afford the stamp).

and if anyone now thinks that being on the doll is some sort of eazy-breazy-holiday-bludge then methinks that they are colouring in the picture with memories of some surfing odyssey (funded by the doll) they may have had back decades ago when they were 19- relating very little to the deliberately degrading and timewasting jump-through-hoops arrangments they have now.
the only thing worse in my experience is Austudy which is where I have been (full time) for the last 4-5 years (and will be next year again).

Somehow, if you don't want to/can't find work- they will pay you A amount (full payment) + B amount (rent assistence)- yet if you attempt to do something proactive about your life/education/skills and study full time to improve your prospects, then you are only deemed to be worthy of an A amount payment or most likely only PART OF it (maybe you are supposed to still be living with mummy and daddy, or living in the clouds rent-free... I don't know).
In true disincentive style, when on Austudy they also make it a (extra) royal pain in the ass to declare any actual earnings- encouraging most people on Austudy I know to have to search out cash work.

I am not griping about welfare and student support- I am very thankfull of it. It just annoys me when people spout off about how good those on it have it.
Now that I am paying taxes again, as I have done for many years of my life, I am very happy that our country continues to provide welfare to the people on the bottom rungs of society- whether there by choice or necessity.
No matter how good the job prospects, there are always going to be a certain number of people who just don't want to and won't work.
Live with it.
Or, don't come complaining after you cut off their measly welfare and they smash your $300 car window to steal your $300 mobile phone and take it to the hock shop to sell for $20, or mug your 12 yr old child for their lunch money, or you interrupt them in the middle of the night going through your cupboards, etc, etc, etc.
What do you expect them to do? Hunt and gather? Get a job? really? you don't think that these people have shown that a job is the last thing they are going to get?
So after they do the inevitable, Then what? we lock them all up? With what that is gonna cost every week, providing their bed, food, guards/protection for their lazy ass in prison- you'll soon be wishing for the good old days giving them their $200 a week welfare.
So for me, welfare for the desperate, needy, and hard-of-luck, is unquestionable (and could/should probably be increased in some situations)- but welfare for the lazy- is IMO quite often, simply money well spent.

Welfare is apparantly one of the favourite whipping boy of some workers- and I don't really get it.
If you are not happy with your job- GET A NEW ONE,
Hell, if you still think that they have it so good- WHY DON'T YOU TRY IT!
From personal experience, I can tell you first hand IT SUCKS.
And if it is simply that you are annoyed that some people want to get something for nothing, that is you are annoyed at HUMAN NATURE, sure why don't you try to change that- that shouldn't take you too long, so while your at it, would you mind also
teaching our politicians some integrity,
teaching big business some restraint and sanity,
broaching lasting peace in the middle east,
solving world poverty,
overpopulation,
environmental degradation...
and then maybe stop for lunch before you get back TO WORK

Oh, and about the whole drug test thing.
I wasn't aware we were doing that here already (like the US)
and if we were, then I would assume it would be in jobs where peoples lives and public safety depended on you doing your job right (where it is probably a bloody good idea).

Personally, where it aint hurting anybody, I think what you do with your own time and brain cells is up to you.
So it should be no surprise my opinion that:
if someone on welfare has a hard day at work-for-the-dole (folding and licking envelopes), or feels a bid down after their 'Job-Network meeting' (where they were 'trained' how to spell their own name, tie shoelaces, and wear underwear properly (you know, not on the outside)), or simply if they are a little tired and frustrated after standing in line in the doll office (yet again for an hour and a half in a line of people that never moves, in an office full of scores of government employees strolling around sipping coffee and chatting on the phone or to each other while one person slowly picks individuals from the line)-
and somehow after paying rent, their utility bills, food, transport, maybe even buying an old pair of jeans and stinky shoes at the salvo's, etc, etc, etc... they have a few dollars left over to buy themselves an icy beer, or roll up a little scoob, and kick back and enjoy their life for a moment or two-
well I wouldn't dare begrudge them that- in fact, occasionally I would probably encourage it.

If their not feeding their kids to support a habit, or something like that, then that is entirely another matter-

but aside from that, like it or not (that your taxes pay their welfare), IMO it is their money to do with AS THEY PLEASE. If they choose to do something illegal with it, such as buy a bag of weed, then they run the gauntlet along with any other person like them chooses to break such a law- tradie, lawyer, doctor, cop, whoever...

[scooter]

We've found the new Dingo...

[astrid]

I agree with them.
astrid
but seriosly have you tried to raise 2 kids on 400 per week?

[hansp77]

We've found the new Dingo...

oh no.
no, no, no,
no non nononononoooo
don't make me edit

no one is going to (or ever could) replace Shane- let alone me.
I am more of the rant and run type- where Shane could rant back and forwards over a topic (or twenty) all night long.
This is just a topic that gets my goat of occasion- and I must've needed a venting or something.

EDIT-
oh, and Astrid- haven't had kids myself, but I WAS one of two who got raised by my single mother (earning very little on parenting pension and part time work when she could fit it in) and I will forever be in awe of how she did it (and how well). I don't know how families today survive on welfare. I can't seem to leave my front door without blowing $50-$100 on nothing at all.

[Groggy]

Ummm, what if you are on the dole and someone gives you a bottle to celebrate your birthday? The people you share with give you some tins? etc

One of those ideas that sounds right in principle but would not be practical.

[Frank&Earnest]

Hans, your "rant" is one of the most coherent, well construed arguments I have seen on this board. I admit that your compassionate defence of laziness on the basis of "harm minimization" is a bit hard to swallow for middle class breadwinners who are or have been with their nose to the grindstone, like me, but your point is well made and has broadened my perspective. Thank you.

[wheelinround]

Hans well said all of it

Warning RANT ahead

Astrid Sinlge mums get $400 a week shyte

Disablility pension is $490 thats with rental assistance added a fortnight and we still pay taxes everyday for every purchase its called GST. I can't get the gov asited super payments even tho I still pay inot personal super because I am on a pension.
I can't claim anything because they decree I dont pay tax so what's GST??

I do agree tho mums have more ends to meet with kids.
Saying NO is the hardest thing to say to your kids but it can strenghten their lifes heaps to what the value of a dollar is.

So Barry whats your thoughts on those who are well paid public servants who still sit on their preverbials and suck the weed, steal, lie and wander the halls looking or a way to avoid work.

Barry have you ever considered all those politicians who are retired from politics/governor generals/govenors/heads of departments who are on life pensions and still earning a remunation from a well paid job after they have left.

There are over a thousand all state & federal politicians who are on these pensions many have retired been ousted in the last 12 years.
Hawk, Keating, Wran 30+ yrs, Carr, Gough 30+ yrs, Lathem just starting out and he's our age if he lives till 80 thats 40 yrs on gov pension paid by all tax payers. All of these can with out penalty for earnings continue being paid and its indexed (correct me if wrong).

Or those CEO's who have shut up shop living the life of kings while those who have been forced to the Dole due to it get dumped on.

Or like myself denied Compo for a fall, because the state labour government changed the percentile laws which having a previous disablility left me paying out $7k in fee's and charges.
Putting me on disability possibly for the rest of my life because Australia's largest insurer refuses to insure persons with pre-exsisting conditions not just in the work place anywhere.

This is backed by HREOC Human Rights Equal Opportunity Commision who give guided instructions to insurance companies of how to go about it.

I myself since finding this out have been writing to ministers for 6 yrs, as well as HREOC demanding that Australia's laws of Equal Opportunity be just that.

[jow104]

I haven't studied economics but governments like to spend and print money.
So if they stopped handing out any money think what would happen. There would be billions less dollars floating around in the country for the public to earn.
So I think governments like to have a system where they can distribute cash and it also gives the majority of us the chance to go out and grab it.
There are other areas that are given this largesse with the same effect.

[astrid]

I recently did a houshold budget thing
I included the usual gas elec phone things were looking good until it came to the kids
school camp 300x2
guides camp
cubs camp
teeth
shoes
books ( state school)
fees
I came to the grand total of 76000 pa
and i dont have a morgage
we get most ofour clothes from op shops and as I am anti stuff
I dont waste at shopping centres
we run two cars (my work vehcle is essential
and smoke too much
but even so, how our brave leader thinks any one can manage on the real income of two working parents at30-45 grand each is beyond me.
astrid

[Rossluck]

Well said Hansp77.

[Wild Dingo]

Flamin GREAT rant Hans... aweflaminsome!! Well said


I have a bunch of stuff to add but that was soo good Im gonna hold back for now!