Banging on and on about rights.......

[poddster]

......under what "right" are people paid to exist without doing anything for their payment.?

Is it just because they exist?

[bella_again]

Same with companies they may provide a few measly jobs but they are raping our country and making billions off the back of our resources that by the way belong to all Australians.  Yet I see this morning the Govt plan to cut tax further and accelerate depreciation on equipment in the up coming budget,  Who's the real welfare bludger again???

As for the unemployed doing nothing, you have no evidence of that,  there are stringent requirements for people to stay on benefits.  I think the problem is more with the public perception than the reality there.  Gosh no wonder so many left in desperate situations are ending up homeless or worse there is a high level of suicide in that group.

So sad so many just don't get it, don't understand until of course it happens to them and I hope you never find yourself in that situation and having to deal with the attitudes of so many uninformed people.

[curmu-curmu]

After reading some 10 pages of posts, many with incorrect information, supposition, conjecture or personal feelings about the issue. But very few facts. I felt the time has come for my two bob’s worth.

For some, I think the OP’s original intent has been misconstrued, and many seem to have gone off on a tangent. Whether it was perceived that way or not, I’m sure it was about welfare bludgers and their unwillingness to work. Two years ago, I retired from a 30-year career in the Job Services sector, to become an unpaid carer for my frail, aged MIL.

I’ve worked closely with recently unemployed, long-term unemployed, those on disability payments, young adults with both learning and comprehension difficulties, trained both welfare recipients and staff members on effective, successful job searching techniques, and managed a branch office.

My wife continues to work as a Medicare CSO, as her salary can support us both, now that our 3 children also work.

I have seen some truly amazing things in these past 30 years, not withstanding the sheer volume of unemployed who choose to remain that way!

• There are the ‘perpetual students’ – men and women of 35years +, with several degrees under their belts, who have never worked a day in their lives, as they have chosen study as a way of life. All paid for by Centrelink payments. Waiting for the right, highest-paid job to come along.
• I’ve seen the unemployed deliberately sabotage interviews to ensure that the employer does not choose them.
• I’ve seen the high school careers coordinator, at a careers function, advise the students that upon leaving school, the first thing they should do is register for unemployment benefits!
• I’ve seen the unemployed choose a payment suspension period over taking a job.
• I’ve seen unemployed move to areas of high unemployment to increase their chances of staying out of the workforce.
• Generational unemployment, where 2-3 family generations have been unemployed – so there are no work ethics to copy.
• I’ve seen University graduates refuse anything but the highest-paid jobs straight out of uni.

And despite your protestations, yes – these do occur. And many, many times over, and more often than we’d like to admit!

On the other side of the coin, I’ve also seen…

• Recently unemployed willing to do whatever it took to re-enter the workforce,
• A 26 year old Vietnamese single mother of two, who’d almost given up seeking work, but due to her good computer and observation skills, I managed to obtain her work as a security officer, monitoring CCTV’s. 8 years on, she’s still there and managing her dept.
• The unemployed creating their own jobs, by demonstrating to an employer how beneficial their employment could be.

For every argument, there are two sides. It’s just that as humans, we are apt to recall the bad news, rather than the good. There really are many who don’t want or need, the stigma of being labeled a ‘dole bludger’, but conversely, there are many who really do see it as their ‘right’, to be fed and clothed by others. Whether it’s a social construct, a learned behavior, or a lazy, indolent attitude, the fact remains that there are many who just don’t want to work.

Prior to working with the unemployed, I had owned and lost, my own business and declaring bankruptcy - and with a non-working wife, 3 kids and a mortgage, did whatever it took to put bread on the table. For several years we battled, with little more than potatoes and hamburger mince to eat – as anything else was totally unaffordable. We grew our own veggies, as retail was far too expensive.

We paid for the kids’ education, put food in their mouths, and clothed them – and sacrificed all else to do so.

Yes. I’m proud to say that I had a work ethic, and apart from family allowance, we were self-reliant and not dependant on the government for handouts. Hard work and determination have seen us bounce back since the 90's, and things are better now than ever!

[chameleon54]

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@bella_again wrote:

I don't understand where are the significant and large number of people bludging off the system? Where have you got that idea from exactly?  I honestly must live in a totally different part of the world because I see very little of that.  20,000 are under income management at the moment are considered to be problematic that seems to me to be a very small minority.

Just because people meet 1 or 2 or 3 or even 20 people doing the wrong thing it does not mean everyone does.

I just do not believe you can tar and feather the majority for the actions of the minority.  Deal with them on an individual basis not everyone else.  It is wrong to bring policy in that disempowers people further. Deal with the ones who do the wrong thing and leave the rest alone.

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Bella, I dont know where you live, but from your posts it would appear it is indeed a different part of the world to me.

Most of my life I lived in an isolated rural area where there where very few government services and even less " people bludging" off of the limited services available. Yes there where people on welfare payments, but these where either retirees, people with genuine physical or intallectual disabilites, single mums who actively cared for young children and a few poor souls with either drug or alcohol addictions. We had a high migrant population including recent boat arrivals, but these where all there to work, assisting in the vegetable growing industry. ( you wouldnt live in this isolated place for the scenery LOL. )

Because of the isolation and lack of government services, people had to be more resiliant and self reliant. If you needed something you got off your but and got it organised. If you needed work, you asked around and found it. The welfare system was working as it should, with genuine people claiming benefits and the rest taking care of themselves ( and looking after each other )

Around seven years ago I moved to a beautiful coastal town which has cheap housing. As this is a regional centre and tourist holiday spot there are plenty of services, junk food shops, a very large centrelink office and a very large welfare client base, enjoying the coastal lifestyle and cheap housing.

I live in an area which has low cost rentals and have public housing for my neighbors. ( Bella do you have public housing for neighbors, yes, really I would like to know )

I was shocked to see the differences in attitude towards welfare from the two locations I had lived in. In the rural town, only genuine people accepted payments. They needed the money and in a commpassionate society I felt they did have a "right" to accept the payments. There was not the "bludger" stigma towards these people as they where genuine and most would do something "usefull" volunteering in the community if they had the capacity to do so.

In the regional centre with beautiful scenery, cheap housing and a "welfare culture"  it is completly different. There are plenty of fit, able boddied and often quite inteligent people sitting around on welfare, regularly going fishing ( my unemployed neighbors pet hobby ) and generally living quite nicely on the public purse. Many have made an art of tapping into the cash economy and supplement their income this way while still living in public housing and recieving welfare payments. There is employment opportunities available if you try ( my son with mental health problems secured his first job in two days from commencing looking ) and when we first moved to the area I had a number of job offers from employers looking for reliable workers.

My point is that I have seen fairly dramatic first hand examples of the welfare system working as it should and then the other extreme where there are signifigant numbers of people abusing the system. And yes it does concern me that what should be one of the pillars of a compassionate society ( welfare for those in need ) is being distorted and ruined by lazy, selfish people who dont care for anyone other than themselves.

[chameleon54]

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@bella_again wrote:

Just because people meet 1 or 2 or 3 or even 20 people doing the wrong thing it does not mean everyone does.

I just do not believe you can tar and feather the majority for the actions of the minority.  Deal with them on an individual basis not everyone else.  It is wrong to bring policy in that disempowers people further. Deal with the ones who do the wrong thing and leave the rest alone.

---

Despite what you have inferred several times in different threads, I have not "tarred and feathered" the majority of welfare recipients as being bludgers. As mentioned earlier, the only one that I can see who is using the "majority of welfare recipients are bludgers" line is you and when asked, you where unable to show where others had used this term.

I passionately believe in providing welfare, public housing and services to those in genuine need. Over the years I have provided "one on one" private help for a few individuals who where " down on their luck ", either by employing them when no one else would touch them with a barge pole or in one case providing a reasonably substantial cash loan to an unemployed alcoholic who wanted to start his own business. He went on to make a success of this, repaid most of the money ( story there, but he did the right thing ) and a few years later purchased his first home at age 45. A tumbled down little shack, but it was all his and he had worked hard for it.

The problem I see is that a signifigant number of people who are quite capable of looking after themselves have jumped onto the welfare bandwagon. This has become such a problem, that a culture of dependence has developed, with this group knowing all of the tricks in the book to get around the few barriers put in place by an under-resourced centrelink department.

The number of people with this attitude has reached a point where they are placing a strain on the social welfare system to the extent that the genuine welfare recipients are affected through reduced payments and services than would otherwise be available to them.

With an aging population and increased genuine unemployment due to globalisation and the loss of manufacturing industries etc. this is going to be an important issue in future.  

We need a constructive debate and how we are going to provide services for increasing numbers of genuine people with a smaller taxpayer base due to ageing population. To simply bury our heads in the sand and make out that every person currently recieving benefits is in genuine need and there is not a signifigant culture of welfare dependance, is niave and unhelpfull in the debate on how we go about provide adequate services to genuine people in the future. 

[watta*drama*queen]

Thank you chameleon54 and curmu-curmu for your thoughtful and informative posts

They make a refreshing change to some of the previous 'contributions' !

[***super_nova***]

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@bella_again wrote:

The govt seems once again to be talking about getting more women into the the work force and concentrating on the older people which is all well and good but I think the real issue is with youth unemployment that is in some places is around 20% Target that and we can change a whole lot in terms of the future of this country.

I am not saying other issues shouldn't be addressed but this is clearly a priority.

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Few years back France faced similar problem and they decided to reduce the working week by few hours, and encourage employers to hire more people.  i am not sure if it passed; the right wing parties objected. 

Here  people are working longer and longer hours, often without being paid overtime.  Maybe that would be the way to go.  Reduce working week to 35 hours, and anything over the employer has to pay double.  If they do not want to pay overtime, they need to hire more people instead and share the jobs.  it also fact that longer hours people work lower is their productivity, while accidents increase. 

[curmu-curmu]

In the regional centre with beautiful scenery, cheap housing and a "welfare culture"  it is completly different. There are plenty of fit, able boddied and often quite inteligent people sitting around on welfare, regularly going fishing ( my unemployed neighbors pet hobby ) and generally living quite nicely on the public purse. Many have made an art of tapping into the cash economy and supplement their income this way while still living in public housing and recieving welfare payments.

So very true! My wife and I regularly holiday on the Gold Coast, and the preponderance of young, fit, tanned men and women, so obviously on welfare, is amazing. Yes, there is accomodation in the outlying areas at very attractive prices, (I know, as I study it each time we go, as we are debating moving there in the not-too-distant future).

I've even made approaches to the job networks there, who have already offered me employment should I move there - and I'm nearing 60 years old!

There are any amount of part-time and casual positons available in the area - particularly in the hospitality and tourism fields, it's just that those on welfare choose not to work, as it cuts into their relaxation time!

So although this is a snapshot of just one area, multiply that by the number of holiday resort areas around our country, and the numbers start to rapidly increase.

Further, as an employment consultant a number od years ago, I was involved with the unemployed of Prahran, VIC.

Many, many would-be actors and musicians gravitate to the area to live, and adamantly refuse fulltime employment, as it may prevent their acting/music careers taking off!

Yes, I know...there are areas of Australia where unemployment is minimal, and if you are isolated within that demographic, you may not be able to see the wider implications of welfare abuse - but it is there, and doesn't appear to be going away any time soon.

Most of these habitual welfare recipients know the centrelink rules and obligations far better than the centrelink staff - and also know how best to circumvent them.

It has been mentioned earlier that there are approx' 150,000 jobs available, for over 700,000 unemployed. Whilst I'm too lazy myself to research the correct figures, this only takes into account the jobs advertised - and possibly only those through government agencies - as they are in all probability, government figures.

Personally, I have held more jobs than years in the workforce - and almost all were obtained by word of mouth, targeting specific employers, proving I could solve their problems, and not applying to advertised positions. All my 3 children found work, and eventually careers, by sourcing their own employment, and not through advertised roles.

I don't for a moment assume that everyone is capable of the same - indeed, there are far more who need an advocate such as an employment broker, those who don't have the skill/knowledge/fortitude to make their own future.

But then there are some, who through one fault or another, expect the world to be handed to them on a silver platter!

[myoclon1cjerk]

I've known a few actors over the years,curmu and to my knowledge none of them have been on the dole.They need flexibilty in their jobs just in case they land an acting role.A wine club in Bondi hires them for example to man the phones.Others drive cabs etc.One good friend does fill-in teaching in high schools in Sydney.You can see him in Rebecca Gibney's new Silent Witness mini-series due to be screened around April.He plays a cop.

[***super_nova***]

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@poddster wrote:

Deb, read back there was no hand out unless you consider 10 quid a hand out.

We and millions of others fled because our country was occupied by an enemy force. those who fled awaited relocation for years to anywhere that would take them.

In fact Australia owes most of its infrastructure to post war immigrants who were willing to work doing jobs the the locals would not dream of doing.

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Just like present day migrants are doing jobs that Australians do not want to do.  

OK, so you fled your country because it was invaded by enemy force in the 1940s.  I imagine that means you come from one of the Baltic states - Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia?   They were invaded both by USSR and Germany during the 1940s.  The Germans intended to exterminate the populations, USSR just send people to Siberia.  Many people fled south and into Iran; is that the way you came?  In any case you were supported by the UN and then Australians financed your journey, uncomfortable as it was, to Australia.  Then you were housed and fed in migrant camp here.  Now you would turn your back on people who need help in present time.

[evil_akuma_2002]

I guess there's always exceptions to any rule.

Whether the unemployed actors I dealt with, (and I use that term extremely liberally, as none of them had actually scored acting roles,) or those you know, are the exceptions, I don't know. But I do know that our client base had in excess of 150 long-term unemployed, either actors or musos, who'd never worked since gaining their qualifications.

And that was in just one small demographic of Melbourne.