Welfare reform to target dole bludgers

http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Welfare-reform-to-target-dole-bludgers/2007/09/17/1189881377520.html

Fresh welfare reform will target coastal unemployment.

The federal government is considering tightening welfare rules and forcing people to work for the dole earlier as Prime Minister John Howard puts the promise of full employment at the centre of his re-election campaign, The Australian newspaper reports.

Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey said there were areas near beaches with "stubbornly high levels" of unemployment and tougher rules were necessary to force people into jobs.

"There's the capacity for targeted initiatives in high unemployment areas," Mr Hockey told the paper.

"There are pockets of unemployment. There is an unfortunate tendency for unemployment to be higher in warm coastal seats - it is still stubbornly high in southern areas of NSW, the south coast of NSW and around Wollongong."

Mr Hockey said he was appalled to find business owners desperate for workers while unemployment remained high in some coastal areas.

people like the bra boys will never work, its just the way it is.

Should 'artists' on welfare be excused from searching for work?

http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Costello-slams-ALP-plan-to-help-artists/2007/09/18/1189881505295.html

Treasurer Peter Costello has mocked a Labor plan to help artists on welfare, saying they don't need special government support.

Labor's arts spokesman Peter Garrett has promised to harmonise the tax and welfare systems so artists on benefits aren't slugged with extra taxes on royalty payments.

He has also promised initiatives to give artists on welfare greater opportunity to produce work.

But Mr Costello said that artists on pensions had plenty of time to do their art.

"You might say to yourself well if you're welfare, you would have a lot of time to produce work if you were an artist," Mr Costello told parliament.

"What are the responsibilities of someone who's on welfare? Do they have to turn up at the office at 8am in the morning and take them away from their easel?

But Mr Garrett laughed off the jibes and said Mr Costello had deliberately misrepresented Labor's policy.

Labor's policy could allow struggling artists to include participating in arts projects as part of their jobs diary, he said, giving them a better chance at gaining future employment as practising artists.

Art is by and large a voluntary nonproductive pasttime.
Traditionally artists have been always poor when alive. If their art is good enough, then they can do it for a living.

"The hunger of the labourer works for him, it drives him on."

Can't pay people for an interest.  It won't help them.
If their artistic drive is good enough, they will make a living from it.
if not, they can work and do it parttime.

Maybe the government could pay me to work on this website all day? 

Thanks to deepthought for digging this one up:

http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/yoursay/index.php/theaustralian/comments/parents_work_for_the_soul

IMAGINE you fall on hard times and (it’s hard, but try) imagine further that there is no government welfare to fall back on. You have a couple of kids to support, you have no idea who their father is, you have no source of income, no savings and you cannot find a job. So what do you do? asks Peter Saunders.

Quite probably, you would ask your friends or family to help you out until you managed to get on your feet. You don’t like to impose on them in this way, for it’s embarrassing having to rely on aid from other people when you should be looking after yourself. But sometimes things just go wrong in life and, in your present circumstances, you really have no choice but to rely on your nearest and dearest.

They ask you how much you need. You tell them you’d like $512.66 every week (this is how much a jobless single parent with two children gets from the government in parenting payment, family tax benefit and rent assistance). They think that sounds rather a lot, but they cough up, for they care about you, and you are in desperate straits.

After a while you are offered a part-time job. Your kids are at school most days, so it’s perfectly possible for you to accept the job and combine it with your parenting responsibilities. But it’s not very well paid. Indeed, once you’ve paid your travel and other related costs, you work out you’ll be only $25 a week better off. You gather your friends and family around you and explain the situation.

“I could earn enough to look after myself without having to rely on you guys at all. But it’s hardly worth my while; I’d be only $25 better off each week. So I’ve decided to turn down the job and stay at home watching daytime television while you lot continue going out to work to earn the money to keep supporting me.”

It’s unthinkable. You’d never say it. You’d never even consider it. Even if you ended up no better off than before, we all know it would be preposterous to demand that your kith and kin continue supporting you once the opportunity arose to earn money for yourself.

Australia was one of only three developed nations that thought it was sensible to allow single parents to fester for years on welfare in this way. To its credit, the Howard government finally grasped the nettle and changed the rules.

We still have one of the world’s most generous set-ups, but at least now single parents are expected to look for part-time work once their youngest child is at school. However, the rules stipulate that if a claimant is offered a job that leaves them only $50 better off than they were on welfare ($25 after travel and other expenses), they can elect to stay on benefits.

In other words, even if you could look after yourself and stop being a burden on others, you don’t have to.

The welfare lobby thinks this $50 figure is too low and so, apparently, does Kevin Rudd, for the Government is reportedly thinking of raising it. The argument is that people should have a strong financial incentive to go to work. If working leaves them little better off than being on welfare, they should not be expected to work.

freediver wrote on Sep 17^th, 2007 at 5:19pm:


There's an unusually high rate of crime here. I've talked to train guards and drivers who say that Wollongong is worse than Sydney in regard to vandalism and violence. Unemployment is a problem, but so is the prevalent attitude among many of the young that the world owes them a living. There are many jobs to choose from, but the problem is that many are too selective in what they want to do, and refuse to work in areas which they feel inconvenience them. They are unprepared to travel to Sydney for work, which many do, so they'd rather the laid back dole bludger lifestyle, even if they have to sacrifice some luxuries. I know so many who defy this and work obsessive hours because of travelling to Sydney to be gainfully employed.

The others I can only describe as pathetic losers who want to start on $100,000 a year, with a primary school education. Their hands will never touch bricks and mortar. They don't deserve empathy, they deserve pity.

djrbfm wrote on May 19^th, 2008 at 2:10am:


I did it for nearly 9 years, from Gong to Sydney (Parramatta). I worked with others who did the same trip from Gosford, and the Blue Mountains.