topic Re: Cashless Welfare Card in Community Spirit

Cashless Welfare Card

moonflyte — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 21:32:10 GMT

Could this be the end of the tragedy of alcohol fueled violence and child neglect.

A cashless welfare card aimed at stemming alcohol abuse would be rolled out across the country under a welfare reform the Turnbull government is considering taking to the election.

As regional trouble spots line up to be chosen for trials of the government’s new Healthy Welfare Card to begin next month, The Australian understands the Coalition may seek an election mandate to extend the card to welfare recipients across regional Australia if they achieve positive results.

Under the new system — proposed by mining magnate Andrew Forrest in his review of the welfare system in 2014 — 80 per cent of a person’s government payment would be quarantined to a bank card that could not be used to buy alcohol and gambling products, nor converted to cash.

The remaining 20 per cent could be accessible as cash.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/national-cashless-welfare-card-plan-by-turnbull-government/news-story/097dfa3a1bfc867afa5f8b298c43c248

Re: Cashless Welfare Card

esayaf — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 22:11:17 GMT

Yeah, it's not like anyone with a job has ever bashed his wife in a drunken rage.
Only welfare recipients do that kind of thing.
Nobody with a job has ever neglected their children.
I'm unemployed at the moment. If none of my money goes into my account how do I pay my mortgage? I don't have a wife or children. Why should I get a card. Why aren't I allowed a couple of beers on a hot day.
In fact why am I allowed to live. I'm useless, just a drain on the public purse.
I'd never vote for these rampant regressives and I'm betting I'm not the only one.

Re: Cashless Welfare Card

moonflyte — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 22:14:55 GMT

If that's all true I feel sorry for you.

Re: Cashless Welfare Card

esayaf — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 22:23:01 GMT

All is true. This is not a thought out idea. Just because someone is rich it doesn't make them smart. Welfare recipient bashing is now becoming a national pastime.
We need to address the problem of alcohol fuelled and domestic violence but first we need to understand that it is not just something welfare recipients are guilty of.
I don't know the answer but this cashless card is not it

Re: Cashless Welfare Card

moonflyte — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 22:33:17 GMT

Surely in the communities where children are neglected it is working.

All welfare recipients are not drunken bashers, nobody said that, but: if you are receiving welfare then surely the 20% cash would buy you a cold beer on a hot day.

And the rest of the money goes on rent, food and other necessities. In the USA you only get welfare for 6 months and you have to train up for another job and you get food stamps for food.

Welfare in Australia is sadly used by a small group to support a lifestyle choice.

Re: Cashless Welfare Card

***super_nova*** — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 22:44:03 GMT

@djilukjilly wrote:

Welfare in Australia is sadly used by a small group to support a lifestyle choice.

"lifestyle choice." one of the most annoying buzz words around. I mean what sort of lifestyle do you get on $200 a week? For most people getting welfare is NOT a choice. For those workers who just lost their jobs in Queensland and who may not receive their entitlements, getting the dole is hardly a choice.

Re: Cashless Welfare Card

esayaf — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 22:47:18 GMT

As you said a small group. So then why should all be tarred with the same brush.
I have no wife and no children. So who is being protected in my case?
20% cash will mean I won't be able to support my hobby of collecting and racing slot cars with my seven year old nephew. What do I say to him. That I'm a bad man because I lost my contract due to heart disease.
As usual some rich guy gets to choose how others live.
I don't tell him how to live but apparently he's some sort of expert because he has money and I don't.
The Liberal party claims to be for smaller government but it's just another blue tie lie.
They are regressives full of lies and it starts with their name

Re: Cashless Welfare Card

esayaf — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 22:51:02 GMT

Welfare recipient bashing is now a national pastime and whether you realise it or not your use of the term "lifestyle choice" is a bashers favourite phrase

Re: Cashless Welfare Card

esayaf — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 23:04:30 GMT

How are those that rent from a landlord that will only accept cash going to pay their rent.
what about the shops that still don't have eftpos. Is pizza only for workers now.
This card will only increase the desire of welfare recipients to find some undeclared cash work. In fact it will make unscrupulous employers to be more likely to encourage it.
So many unthought of consequences

Re: Cashless Welfare Card

esayaf — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 23:12:16 GMT

I use eBay to buy cheaper parts to fix my car. How am I to do that. If I can't buy parts on eBay and my local car part store doesn't accept the card and have to pay five times as much to a mechanic that does accept the card then what do I eat? Grass!

Re: Cashless Welfare Card

esayaf — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 23:16:21 GMT

Turnbull is a joke. Here is an apparently intelligent man but what have we actually inherited is Abbott in a mask
Nothing he stood for when he was opposition leader just the same old same old but now with a grey haired smiling idiot

Re: Cashless Welfare Card

icyfroth — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 01:00:20 GMT

@esayaf wrote:
How are those that rent from a landlord that will only accept cash going to pay their rent.
what about the shops that still don't have eftpos. Is pizza only for workers now.
This card will only increase the desire of welfare recipients to find some undeclared cash work. In fact it will make unscrupulous employers to be more likely to encourage it.
So many unthought of consequences

you can get Centrelink to pay your mortgage or rent straight into your account.

Re: Cashless Welfare Card

***super_nova*** — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 01:20:12 GMT

@esayaf wrote:
I use eBay to buy cheaper parts to fix my car. How am I to do that. If I can't buy parts on eBay and my local car part store doesn't accept the card and have to pay five times as much to a mechanic that does accept the card then what do I eat? Grass!

Also the cheapest and best veggies are available here in Melbourne from Vic Market, and various Asian shops in Richmond, and similar shops across the suburbs. Will these shops and markets accept these cards? I shop for veggies in our local market where fruit and vegetables are often less than 1/2 what Coles or Woolworth sells them. If pensioners are forced to shop in the big supermarkets, their buying power will diminish.

Alcoholics who want to get booze and cigarettes will always find way, just like junkies will always find cash to get drugs, even if it means stealing.

This proposition is terribly patronising and unfair treatment of the most disadvantaged people in the community; actually, one way to make it fair would be for all incomes to be treated the same way. Why not have the food/necessities card for everybody?

Re: Cashless Welfare Card

***super_nova*** — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 01:23:25 GMT

@icyfroth wrote:
you can get Centrelink to pay your mortgage or rent straight into your account.

That makes no sense, that is what having this card is designed to avoid, because it is claimed that if alcoholic's rent was paid into their account, they could very well take it out and buy booze instead of paying rent.

Re: Cashless Welfare Card

icyfroth — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 01:25:30 GMT

paid straight to the landlord or the mortgager, I mean.

Re: Cashless Welfare Card

latina4621 — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 01:38:07 GMT

The only thing i can see it will do is more crime.

really! what world do these politicians live in certainly not the real world.

Re: Cashless Welfare Card

esayaf — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 01:54:18 GMT

Wrong, my bank will only accept a direct debit from one of their accounts for mortgage payments. I can't pay into my mortgage account via any other means than via my bank account

Re: Cashless Welfare Card

esayaf — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 01:55:29 GMT

I know as I had to open an account with them to make my mortgage payments

Re: Cashless Welfare Card

esayaf — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 02:10:46 GMT

Most of my bills are already paid via centrepay but two of them have no centrepay option. How will I pay these?
Centrepay is a service Centrelink provides.
Everybody's situation is different. The government is now going to try to bash every different shape of peg into the same square hole.

Re: Cashless Welfare Card

moonflyte — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 02:48:50 GMT

I’m amazed you can afford to pay off a mortgage on the dole. Well done you.