Politics Centrelink

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Hawk Dork said:
Interesting leading into the Wentworth election, with bad news coming re gays and Christian schools, its a good vote winner to come out with take a job on a farm or get kicked of the dole.

until the farmers federations told them they were dicks who had no clue

https://startsat60.com/news/politics/farmer-backlash-scott-morrison-fruit-picking-welfare-plan
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Farming is not as easy as it seems, mentally one of the toughest industries to work in. We had an opportunity to “recruit” skilled white farmers from South Africa during their regime last year but the Greens and lefties canned that suggestion.
 
Jibroni said:
Farming is not as easy as it seems, mentally one of the toughest industries to work in. We had an opportunity to “recruit” skilled white farmers from South Africa during their regime last year but the Greens and lefties canned that suggestion.
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Can white SA farmers farm if they dont have anyone to point at ?
 

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Jibroni said:
Yes expect they will want to do it.

Sending dole bludgers to farms in not the solution, after 6 months your done.
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I dont mind the farm idea, I just think there needs to be clarity. Some farms are run properly and others , as you note , burn people out inside 6 months.
 
Jibroni said:
Yes expect they will want to do it.

Sending bludgers to farms is not the solution, just cancel the benefit after 6 months.
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Care to clarify?

Sending dole recipients to farms would work about as well as the current Work for the Dole program IMO (IOW mostly just being a money sink that doesn't allow for the development of relevant skills for most dole recipients). You would also have to deal with logistical/boarding costs as well, which the taxpayer would probably have to bear at least in part.

Just another 'thought bubble' from Morrison then...
 
Kram said:
Very and I mean, very few people would actually want to be on the dole permanently just to avoid doing some work. Why, because it's an absolutely shithouse way to exist, especially with the way cost of living is now.

Remember working early 00s on a construction and a bloke on site kept going on an on about government giving this an that to bludgers not working. My boss finally had enough and goes something like "Yeah sure if you want to live in some crummy flat.. have just enough money to eat and pay basic utilities and clothe yourself. Yeah OK sure the government will give you that. So..? Sure work is pretty s**t, but who the **** wants to live like that?" Basically sit around bored all day because you have no money to do anything at all anyway.
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Yeah you'd have to be a genuine nuffy to think it's some life of excess and ease.

Or, one of these bigfooty posters who think they're in the Australian elite because they clear 80 grand or something...

I'm on the dole. I get about $220 a week. I don't save money. When I was a student I got a bit more but I studied in the city, worked and lived in the inner suburbs, and 70% of my money went to rent. Asking your parents for a grand to get through your last rent is a terrible feeling and hearing their 'yeah mate... sure...' because they want to help but they're angry because they can't afford it is also a s**t feeling. Getting on the tram without a ticket every single trip, because the 8 bucks a day adds up, and stressing about or getting a $200 fine is also pretty shitty too. I'm lucky I was a walker.

Pretty sure the absolute ceiling, with high rent assistance, is about 300 a week. I don't know where you'd have to live to have rent under the cost of half of that per week, and this is under the proviso you're a young person and not head of a family. I know someone who tries doing this and though it's a very very harsh example, and there's contributing factors, he was living alone in Mt Lawley living off rice and lentils and one steamed bunch of veggies a week. Couldn't get the internet put on, had to get things off people for free to fit out his flat, and doesn't bother with the TV because it costs. He ended up having some pretty bad mental illness episodes and I have no doubt it was due to diet, lack of socialisation, and entertainment. Can see his mates but generally doesn't because he feels bad when they shout him beers or a bit of sushi constantly.

This idea it's some easy, fun existence and a choice is a joke. You're poor on Centrelink and no one wants to be poor.

As for job agencies, hahaha what a *in joke those things are. Patronising women who'd be lucky to otherwise work at a Maccas treating you like a child, or else power-tripping arseholes asking you questions that should get them fired ('you seem to be lazy' I copped in a first ever interview with one once...) is ****ed. They're usually less educated than you, less polite than you, and generally dumber. You rock up on time and say the right things while the down and outs, the 'no English' brigade don't and * them around, and you might as well carry on like them because there's no benefit to trying to do the right thing. They offer no insight, they're completely clueless, and the idea of those idiots getting you a job is less likely than a *in ape doing it for you.

It might have been cool back in 1991 when the cost of living was lower, rent and a week full of middies was $200 and Centrelink was double that, but it isn't that anymore.
 
I've met dozens of people over the years who prefer their unemployment or disability pensions over working.
Full time work would interfer too much with their lifestyle
 
Kram said:
Seriously, what 'lifestyle' can a person have on a pittance that's just enough to scrape by an existence?
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Not for me to say about their lifestyle

Here are just a few ways people manage it:
Housing commission accommodation.
Housing commission & could add some people to live with them paying them some cash to help out
Partner earns some money. relationship undeclared.
Inherited accommodation or own their accommodation. That large expense is minimised
Low mortgage...repayments under $1000/month. Rent out a room to a student - cash
Don't own a car. Expense minimised
Share a house outside a city with 3 or 4 other people
Do some occasional cash work, including fruit picking stuff
 

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CheapCharlie said:
Not for me to say about their lifestyle

Here are just a few ways people manage it:
Housing commission accommodation.
Housing commission & could add some people to live with them paying them some cash to help out
Partner earns some money. relationship undeclared.
Inherited accommodation or own their accommodation. That large expense is minimised
Low mortgage...repayments under $1000/month. Rent out a room to a student - cash
Don't own a car. Expense minimised
Share a house outside a city with 3 or 4 other people
Do some occasional cash work, including fruit picking stuff
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In my state, commission houses (for want of a better term) are difficult to come by nowadays.

In general, this doesn't seem like a terrific lifestyle.

I would maintain that if people are so unambitious as to live off the pittance that is the current dole, then you wouldn't want them in your workplace anyway. Better to allow such people to live just above the poverty line than to punish the many, many dole recipients that actually try and do the right thing. I would say that the latter well and truly outnumber the former in my experience.
 
CheapCharlie said:
Not for me to say about their lifestyle

Here are just a few ways people manage it:
Housing commission accommodation.
Housing commission & could add some people to live with them paying them some cash to help out
Partner earns some money. relationship undeclared.
Inherited accommodation or own their accommodation. That large expense is minimised
Low mortgage...repayments under $1000/month. Rent out a room to a student - cash
Don't own a car. Expense minimised
Share a house outside a city with 3 or 4 other people
Do some occasional cash work, including fruit picking stuff
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I used to live next door to a men’s shelter and I can tell you now, there is no way someone is voluntarily not working so they can continue being on Centrelink and living there. I know people who went in it and they said it was complete squalor. The bins used to get set alight, windows smashed and that was just the outside.

Also you can’t get a mortgage of living off centrelink. Maybe if you did from 22 to 24 while you finished your degree and you end up clearing good money, but short of a great success story no one is being on centrelink for ten, 15 years and ending up with a house.

Centrelink is a s**t lifestyle.

It’s only ‘good’ if you’re say 20, have parents who just don’t clear the bracket, live with them, study, and do some cash in hand café work but even then most cashies (that aren’t for labourers) only go to 10 or so hours because pubs, cafés simply don’t have that much cash on premise - it’s all card from customers and even if you do, the ATO get easily suss because of it.

So $200 + $200 a week centrelink is pretty good at home if you’re studying but no one is doing that post about age 25, short of some serious issues getting jobs.
 
Silent Alarm said:
I used to live next door to a men’s shelter and I can tell you now, there is no way someone is voluntarily not working so they can continue being on Centrelink and living there. I know people who went in it and they said it was complete squalor. The bins used to get set alight, windows smashed and that was just the outside.

Also you can’t get a mortgage of living off centrelink. Maybe if you did from 22 to 24 while you finished your degree and you end up clearing good money, but short of a great success story no one is being on centrelink for ten, 15 years and ending up with a house.

Centrelink is a s**t lifestyle.
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A mens shelter is not a great baseline for if people can or can't live on centrelink.
So many guys who end up in these places have suffered from alcohol, drugs, mental issues.

If you have a low cost housing situation and your lifestyle is basic, centrelink can and is an option for many people

It’s only ‘good’ if you’re say 20, have parents who just don’t clear the bracket, live with them, study, and do some cash in hand café work but even then most cashies (that aren’t for labourers) only go to 10 or so hours because pubs, cafés simply don’t have that much cash on premise - it’s all card from customers and even if you do, the ATO get easily suss because of it.

So $200 + $200 a week centrelink is pretty good at home if you’re studying but no one is doing that post about age 25, short of some serious issues getting jobs.
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You have it backwards.
Take an example of someone who is 35, has a low mortgage, has inherited property, is in a housing commission place, is sharing accommodation. They decide that they have minimal living costs and they can supplement their expenses with some occasional top ups.

Plenty of employers who will prefer to pay cash still, because they can pay a lower rate, they don't have as high workers comp premiums, no superannuation, no sick days, no holiday pay, no penalty rates....the savings are many
 
DaRick said:
In my state, commission houses (for want of a better term) are difficult to come by nowadays.

In general, this doesn't seem like a terrific lifestyle.

I would maintain that if people are so unambitious as to live off the pittance that is the current dole, then you wouldn't want them in your workplace anyway. Better to allow such people to live just above the poverty line than to punish the many, many dole recipients that actually try and do the right thing. I would say that the latter well and truly outnumber the former in my experience.
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The point i am making isn't whether or not people should lose their dole payments, it is that there are plenty of people who choose to stay on benefits rather than have to work full time
 
Kram said:
I bet it's knowing one or 2 people they think is probably scamming the system and then somehow expanded that to 'dozens' over their town/suburb. Then over the whole country it it equates to 100s of thousands!
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They're probably the same people that the tax office chases each year for the ~$1bn in fraudulent deductions....because tax evasion is a far nobler crime than dole bludging.
 
Kram said:
In trade work you get quite a few people (and often pretty well off) asking if you can do a job cheaper for cash, perfectly cool of course with the government getting no tax if it means they can get a 15% cheaper bill.
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But that's redundant to the conversation really, because people who can do cashies in labouring have a skill. A proper skill. They've gone past the apprentice stage. Most of these people will do cashies for mates and friends of friends now and then but not many people are making $200,000 a year from cashies and getting Centrelink too.

Where people used to do it, commonly, was working at a pub/café/restaurant while at school, in a gap year, studying, or in limbo, but it's basically impossible now. My local pub, the bar girl was saying if they get offered cashies it's for a very last minute shift and generally a hundred bucks for five hours. Most places literally do not have that much physical cash in a till. You can't be paying the six people behind the bar their 10-hour shift in cash because it doesn't exist. Maybe everyone gets a short Sunday shift a week on it but that's it. The people who work at said pub are studying all sorts from engineering, to writing thesis papers, radiology... somehow their 200 invisible bucks once a month and the $60 they skim off Centrelink every pay cycle will be paid back, I reckon.

The main issue, which comes from this here too, is under-employment and the casualisation of the work force.

I reckon the main 'users' of Centrelink now are these people – the skimmers. I was one.

I had a job that paid me entirely as they should have – they simply couldn't do cash in hand – and I was on Centrelink because sometimes I'd made $800 a week, other times $500 a fortnight. Sometimes I'd get bupkis from Centrelink, other times it'd just be 70 bucks or even 58 cents, and sometimes if it was a lean period or I was somewhere else I'd get the full payment. It works well and it was a crutch. When I struggled paying rent, that Centrelink borderline saved me from having to have my parents bail out half a *in' rent agreement.

In all my years going there (I first got it at 18 going to uni), the one big demographic shift has been... a broader one.

Back in the day, people were generally mentally ill, recent immigrants, Aboriginals, and a splattering of students sitting down trying to tap into the wifi on their MacBooks Pros. Now I see a huge amount of late 20s people, but the biggest thing is those between about 43 and 65. Well dressed, quiet, decent, and people who probably own a house or have brought up children, have a degree or trade, have a *in clue but the world is getting more and more difficult for the average person to navigate. You walk in a Centrelink and it's no different to walking down a street. There is clearly a generation of people who aren't especially well versed in computers or smart phones and maybe can't type and set-out a resumé these days (but they aren't dumb) who are in the gap between bonafide boomers who never needed a computer at work, and people who do every single day. People are clearly in there for rent assistance, for those 50-bucks-a-pay-cycle top-ups... cruel *in game.
 
Kram said:
I bet it's knowing one or 2 people they think is probably scamming the system and then somehow expanded that to 'dozens' over their town/suburb. Then over the whole country it it equates to 100s of thousands!
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It most likely is hundreds of thousands who don't want to work. That in itself is not a high percentage of the working age population of Australia

The question becomes whether or not as a society we accept that
 
CheapCharlie said:
It most likely is hundreds of thousands who don't want to work. That in itself is not a high percentage of the working age population of Australia

The question becomes whether or not as a society we accept that
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Eventually it will be the norm that everyone is on the dole as automation takes away jobs.
 
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