ACTU claims wide support for higher dole.    

    by: Ewin Hannan
    From: The Australian
    March 13, 2013


UNIONS have seized on research showing most voters support increasing the Newstart allowance, renewing their push for the Gillard government to increase the unemployment payment in the federal budget in May.



To coincide with a two-day summit on job insecurity starting in Canberra today, the ACTU has released a survey of 1013 people that finds 54 per cent believe the current Newstart rate of $246.30 is not high enough and the ideal rate would be $315.    

President Ged Kearney said she expected debate over Newstart to be a key theme of the ACTU summit, scheduled to be addressed by Julia Gillard tomorrow. The survey of work and welfare perceptions found voters overestimated the amount of welfare fraud and money directed to welfare payments compared with the US and Britain.   

Voters believed 17 per cent of welfare recipients were prosecuted for welfare fraud, but the prosecution rate was less than 1 per cent in 2009-10.


When asked how Australia compared with the US and Britain in terms of welfare payments, 61 per cent believed we spent more than the US, and 31 per cent believed we paid more than Britain. In 2009, the last year for which there is complete data, Australian public spending on cash benefits was 22 per cent of total government spending, compared with 23 per cent in the US and Britain.

The Australian reported last week that a proposal to give Newstart recipients -- including single parents -- a blanket $50-a-week increase has been all but ruled out by the government.    

However, a proposal to allow single mothers and others on the dole to keep more of their earnings before losing welfare benefits is shaping as a key element of the May budget.

Ms Kearney said she was concerned that the participants believed welfare fraud was higher than the actual rate as it showed the "dole-bludger view of people on welfare" remained common.

The ACTU is pushing for a $50 a week rise in Newstart.

Ms Kearney said the survey found perceptions of the importance of the mining industry "vastly exaggerated". The perception that its contribution to the economy was 38 per cent of gross domestic product contrasted with a reality of 10 per cent.

The summit will consider data showing Australia has overtaken Spain and lags behind only Chile for the highest rate of temporary work in the OECD, at 27.9 per cent of the workforce.    

Ms Kearney will say the social compact that has bound Australia together for more than 100 years is under threat from changes in the workplace. "Many of the changes to our workplace have had negative effects on workers and their families. We have forgotten that the burdens of economic change do not fall equally, that the drive to a more efficient and flexible economy has hurt some people more than others and increased inequality."

Quote:



Now, this assumes that they can find the work in the first place. And that's where it ALL falls down.

This is a cop-out, pure and simple, and is no-where near acceptable.

It does NOTHING for those who cannot. So, are those who cannot ALL bludgers, as some believe?

Impossible. Despite rightist rhetoric and media beat-ups to the contrary.

It's like the deplorable John Howard, who would fund 'training' for the unemployed then cut training
placements and make it impossible to get training assistance for all but the most menial of jobs.

It helped NO-ONE, but looked and sounded good to the assholes who thought (and still think) that
the unemployed are all lazy, drug-addicted, gambling drunks.

The $50/week raise should NOT be negotiable, and the Govt should have no choice but to grant it.

And the dole should be set at (say) 60% of the minimum wage, locked in, and indexed whenever
the min-wage raises come into effect. That would be fair, just, and affordable. The other alternative
is to return the dole to parity with the pension, and index it equally with the pension.

Anything less is an insult, and will ensure that the current, frankly obscene, ineqality compared to
other pensions and allowances not only continues, but will become worse, and progressively harder
to deal with.

The Govt likes to talk about 'mutual obligation' which is a real laugh, as they have never met theirs
but constantly harrass and victimise any poor bugger who has the temerity to miss an appointment
or not front-up for their make-work, pointless, training-bereft WfD schemes.

The unemployed are now perfectly within their rights to tell the Govt to pound it up their collective
dark, wet places, IMO.

Dnarever wrote on Mar 17^th, 2013 at 10:13pm:



Agreed. Both need to be addressed, and should have been a long time ago.

Someone on the dole who gets work may sometimes only work for a matter of a few hours a
week before losing benefits, depending on pay-rates and hours worked.

And once you use those 'working credits' it takes a LONG time to build them back up again.

It's somewhat better for pensioners, but not by much.

Just how much longer is this obscene discrimination going to be allowed to continue?

Crook, I've posted a synopsis of this in General, cos they won't come down here to debate.

I think they hope me, this board and the whole issue will simply fade away.

We won't be, though.

Agree 100%, Crook.

It's sad, though, that all some members can do is abuse the messenger.

I've felt all along that, being an election year, they'll get nothing, but we
must, as you say, keep the pressure on.

Longie and a few others think I just come here to 'rant' (their words)
about it, but I'm also active elsewhere on this matter.

Thanks for the support...