Dnarever wrote on Jan 17^th, 2017 at 7:54pm:



i don't think he's referring to earnings, I think he's talking about splitting the worth by the estimated 10 yrs ($1m by 10 gives her $100 000 per annum) chances are she probably wouldn't spend that anyway so it'll most likely last her longer than the ten years.

rhino wrote on Jan 17^th, 2017 at 8:44pm:


then she would be entitled to the pension

A second Tasmanian Liberal senator has criticised Centrelink’s debt recovery system, urging his colleagues to avoid “another talkfest” and “get the problems fixed”.

The recently elected Liberal senator Jonathon Duniam has written to the human services minister, Alan Tudge, to express concerns about the troubled system.

He told Guardian Australia he had conveyed concerns raised with his office to Tudge and sought an urgent solution.

“The debt recovery process has clearly caused unnecessary angst for people,” Duniam said. “With reports that some system-generated calculations have been significantly inaccurate there must be an improvement on this new process.

“I’ve written to the minister expressing the concerns raised with me and seeking an urgent fix to this situation. Rather than another talkfest by politicians, we just need to get the problems fixed.”

Duniam said he believed recently announced changes to the debt recovery system would “improve the process” and help resolve many of the current problems.

Fellow Tasmanian Liberal senator Eric Abetz has also criticised the system, saying a member of his extended family had been wrongly issued with a welfare debt notice.

“It would be fair to say that the manner in which this computer-generated letter-writing campaign got under way was not as robust as it might have been,” Abetz told ABC local radio this week.

Tasmania has the highest rates of welfare in the country and is feeling the impact of the automated debt recovery system acutely.

The state has the highest proportion of age pensioners, disability support pensioners and female sole parent pensioners in the nation.

It has the second-highest proportion of unemployment benefit recipients behind the Northern Territory and the state’s average median household income is just $40,800.

The Tasmanian Council of Social Service (Tascoss) has joined with other welfare and community sector groups to set up a disaster relief fund for people affected by the government’s push to claw back billions in welfare debts.

The fund is designed to improve access to welfare rights officers for individuals to dispute debts they believe have been wrongly issued.

The chief executive of Tascoss, Kym Goodes, said Tasmania’s community sector had been swamped with requests for help.

“We have just been inundated with people in despair and really high levels of anxiety,” Goodes said.

“I took a call from a woman the other day, she’d been contacted by a debt collection agency, she had no idea – she’d moved so she hadn’t got the original letter,” she said. “She didn’t know what to do so she agreed to repayment arrangement.”

When the woman realised the debt may be false, the debt collection agency told her it was too late to dispute it, because she had already started repayments.

“People are paying these debts even though they don’t think they’re accurate because they’re scared,” Goodes said.

Goodes believes the level of anxiety in Tasmania has translated into pressure on the state’s federal representatives.

“There are a whole range of people that are being hit by this and, as a government, I don’t think they have understood the broad cross-section of the population that it would affect,” she said.

A Senate inquiry into the debt recovery system now looks all but certain.

One Nation and the Nick Xenophon team have confirmed their support for an inquiry, easily giving the Greens and Labor the numbers.

The commonwealth ombudsman is also conducting an investigation.

The welfare claw-back debacle is due to the incompetence of public servants exacerbated by the insensitivity of politicians.

I do not believe that I should have to fund drug addicts, retards, lazy and stoopid people that have as much drive as a broken down Vee Dubb. 
I have worked and saved, amassed many toys, bought my own home and raised a family without any assistance from Govco over the last nearly 50 years. 
I deserve something for my effort and work. 

Why should I receive any less than some lazy, wasteful bludger who didn't work hard enough, long enough or smart enough to buy his own home and build up a nest egg?

Where is my reward for paying tax for all those years?

What have these worthless many done to deserve that which I, a fully funded functioning taxpayer do not?


I say;
Pay a pension based on how long you have worked, without an asset test.

Pay a pension based on contribution, not on laziness or stoopdiity or bad choices.

Pay a pension based on what an individual is used to living on, not some below average wage crap.


But hey;
Such is life.

... Pay a pension based on what an individual is used to living on, not some below average wage crap...

Grendel wrote on Jan 20^th, 2017 at 8:06am:

You're wrong here, Grendel. You seem to have been misled by the inaccurate ABS statistics. The actual number of unemployed is over a million Australian workers.

Someone doesn't have to be actively looking for work to be unemployed and willing to work.