Politics Centrelink

[Chief]

I have had the baby. Little XXXX is born. I’m finally a mother and can now be on long term welfare I had a baby, I had a baby Don’t ask me who the father is #lol

What does this mean? Who was this? What does it add to this conversation?

 

[JackOutback]

I'm seeing a lot of broad statements about people on the dole with absolutely nothing to back it up except anecdotes and assumptions.

They also back copies of have A Current Affair.

 

[GreyCrow]

What does this mean? Who was this? What does it add to this conversation?

That there are people who are quite happy to be on long term welfare - its an edited screenshot of a tweet from 3 days ago

 

[Chief]

That there are people who are quite happy to be on long term welfare - its an edited screenshot of a tweet from 3 days ago

Oh a Tweet.

Showing that someone might be resigned to their fate.

Conclusive.

 

[Number37]

In the country it's feasible to live off welfare. As it should be. I don't have a problem with it, but lots of people either have no interest in work or finding a less than ideal job.

And some of those people can afford to drink several hundred dollars worth of premixed Jack Daniels every week, and a TAB, and cars more numerous and newer than many who work. Some of them have 70k twin cabs, 4x4s, or the last series of SS Commodore.

Where does that fit in to old mate's spreadsheets?

It's impossible to square off your scenario with the facts.
Perhaps you can explain it to me?
I'll start you off, here is the current Jobseeker payment rate...

 

[edgie]

It's impossible to square off your scenario with the facts.
Perhaps you can explain it to me?
I'll start you off, here is the current Jobseeker payment rate...

View attachment 1507132

Explain to me how someone that's been on Centrelink for a decade has had a VF Commodore since it was a current model of car.

Because they do.

I can't explain it. That's what I'm saying. But it is happening. So there must be more going on than your data indicates.

Sent from my Nokia 7.2 using Tapatalk

 

[edgie]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'old mate's spreadsheets', but I drank a hell of a lot when on the Newstart. There's nothing else to do. You're bored, and you're stressed. You've done your washing, mopped the floor, cleaned the bathroom, made your bed, applied for a job or more a day.

I find it interesting how an awful lot of people became massive booze hounds during Covid lockdowns in Melbourne but neglect to extend any of that empathy towards welfare recipients. You deprive people of means or anything to occupy their time, they're going to do whatever they can to gake their minds off what stresses them. And alcohol is addictive; I shouldn't have to acknowledge it here, but I do.

I have no idea how they got those cars, but it kind of weirds me out how definitively you know all these people are on welfare and purchased the most recent ute or commodore. I also don't know how much more feasible it is to live on welfare in the country. In the country distances are greater and you're more likely to need a car, and cars are expensive as hell. Rego, insurance and petrol costs all went up prohibitively while I was on the Newstart.

Society functions on the basis that there will always be unemployed, and that there will always be a percentage of people that are unemployable. The question needs to be, how do we manage those people? Are we going to let them starve, go hungry, wither and die from sickness?

What are we willing to have done by a government we elect and pay taxes to, to compensate for systemic issues that leave other people without a chair when the music stops?

The point isn't that people drink.

The point is the people with apparently the bare minimum income, afford to drink literally the most expensive overpriced taxed to the hilt, variety of booze.

Cost of living is less and transport associated costs are less, despite no real public transport. Distances are not greater it's a 15m drive from one end of town to the other.

I've lived amongst and rubbed shoulders with long term unemployed for a while, I employ people casually that only want to work a minimum of hours to not interfere with Centrelink.

Some of those people, a minority but not a tiny minority, display material wealth far beyond their means, personally, and in a family. How? A level of comfort in life that welfare systems surely weren't designed for. But I remember dad taking me to raid the donations bin for footy boots that fit yearly because we couldn't new ones that fit, in a Subaru Sherpa or VK Commodore because we couldn't afford anything newer, or less economic, I remember not having a video game console until I literally got a job as a teen myself, other than my brothers NES from the same era as the cars, before redundancies.

So when I see a family of unemployed in a brand new Kia Sorrento, yeah, I raise my eyebrow.

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[Gethelred]

The point isn't that people drink.

The point is the people with apparently the bare minimum income, afford to drink literally the most expensive overpriced taxed to the hilt, variety of booze.

Cost of living is less and transport associated costs are less, despite no real public transport. Distances are not greater it's a 15m drive from one end of town to the other.

I've lived amongst and rubbed shoulders with long term unemployed for a while, I employ people casually that only want to work a minimum of hours to not interfere with Centrelink.

Some of those people, a minority but not a tiny minority, display material wealth far beyond their means, personally, and in a family. How? A level of comfort in life that welfare systems surely weren't designed for.

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Welfare—what does it cost?

.keyissue { background-color: rgb(216,216,216); padding:6px; } Michael Klapdor and Don Arthur, Social Policy Key issue Social security and welfare represents 35 per cent of the Australian Government’s expenses. The level and sustainability of this expenditure will

www.aph.gov.au

People on the Newstart represent a minority of total welfare payments provided, based on this link. So a smaller group again would absolutely be an even smaller minority, and that's if I accept your scenario at 100% face value.

 

[Ghost Patrol]

Explain to me how someone that's been on Centrelink for a decade has had a VF Commodore since it was a current model of car.

Because they do.

I can't explain it. That's what I'm saying. But it is happening. So there must be more going on than your data indicates.

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Inheritance.

 

[Number37]

Explain to me how someone that's been on Centrelink for a decade has had a VF Commodore since it was a current model of car.

Because they do.

I can't explain it. That's what I'm saying. But it is happening. So there must be more going on than your data indicates.

Sent from my Nokia 7.2 using Tapatalk

So I'm old mate with the spreadsheet. LOL

Punching down on people on the dole because your local crackhouse pimp is livin' large is the height of stupidity.
Basic commonsense should tell you something else is going on there.

 

[Nuggs Bunny]

Explain to me how someone that's been on Centrelink for a decade has had a VF Commodore since it was a current model of car.

Because they do.

I can't explain it. That's what I'm saying. But it is happening. So there must be more going on than your data indicates.

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They probably fall into one of the below categories:
a) got a disability payout
b) got a victims of crime payout
c) sell drugs

 

[SaintsSeptember]

So I'm old mate with the spreadsheet. LOL

Punching down on people on the dole because your local crackhouse pimp is livin' large is the height of stupidity.
Basic commonsense should tell you something else is going on there.

Get with the times. The Crackhouse pimps are in a BWM or Benz.

 

[Goroyals22]

In the country it's feasible to live off welfare. As it should be. I don't have a problem with it, but lots of people either have no interest in work or finding a less than ideal job.

And some of those people can afford to drink several hundred dollars worth of premixed Jack Daniels every week, and a TAB, and cars more numerous and newer than many who work. Some of them have 70k twin cabs, 4x4s, or the last series of SS Commodore.

Where does that fit in to old mate's spreadsheets?

100% people can survive in the country.. its why there is a percentage that go to country towns with no connection to the area, rent a small place, claim to have no licence and the bus passes through town once or twice a week ( eg Milmerran to Toowoomba) to take them into the biggest town nearest them where any Jsps and Centrelinks are…

They become impossible to engage with and just play the system.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

It's impossible to square off your scenario with the facts.
Perhaps you can explain it to me?
I'll start you off, here is the current Jobseeker payment rate...

View attachment 1507132

If your wife leaves they tell you it costs a zillion million of your money each week to raise a kid, but if its welfare, its $50 per fortnight.

 

[Gethelred]

100% people can survive in the country.. its why there is a percentage that go to country towns with no connection to the area, rent a small place, claim to have no licence and the bus passes through town once or twice a week ( eg Milmerran to Toowoomba) to take them into the biggest town nearest them where any Jsps and Centrelinks are…

They become impossible to engage with and just play the system.

So, let me get this straight.

You're saying that someone on the newstart will find a country town with available and affordable rent, have the financial wherewithall to uproot themselves from where they currently are, remove themselves from what supports they have (whether family or community) to move somewhere in which they know no-one, just to claim $540+rent assistance? If they have a child, s**t just got harder; if they have more than one, s**t got harder again.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist on an example of this exact thing or a retraction, Goroyals. If you do not provide either within 48 hours, your account will have a misinformation pin attached to it, and you will receive an infraction.

If you wish to demonise welfare recipients, let's ensure that we're doing so within the bounds of fact.

 

[ElectricG]

I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist on an example of this exact thing or a retraction, Goroyals. If you do not provide either within 48 hours, your account will have a misinformation pin attached to it, and you will receive an infraction.

You are out of control mate.

 

[Chief]

You are out of control mate.

Unfortunately some users can post some very misleading stuff, which sets a thread off on a wild tangent or simply starts flame wars. Mods are here to contain that sort of thing.

 

[Gethelred]

You are out of control mate.

If that poster knows of that actually happening, they can surely find a single example of it. If they cannot or have another reason to deny putting said information out there, I'm breathless to hear it.

What I'm not interested in is welfare recipients being attributed the demonic level of malice described without evidence that it's actually happened or is happening.

Let's get this out in the open, instead of me or another poster accusing them of lying or exaggerating. If they want to keep from being known as a person who spreads misinformation, they have an opportunity to demonstrate or amend their statement.

 

[Kram]

If that poster knows of that actually happening, they can surely find a single example of it. If they cannot or have another reason to deny putting said information out there, I'm breathless to hear it.

What I'm not interested in is welfare recipients being attributed the demonic level of malice described without evidence that it's actually happened or is happening.

Let's get this out in the open, instead of me or another poster accusing them of lying or exaggerating. If they want to keep from being known as a person who spreads misinformation, they have an opportunity to demonstrate or amend their statement.

Umm we get quite a few people out my way in a small town 3 hours from Perth that move here because there is plenty of state housing available.

There's a bloke (very odd but decent honest fella) with a family that I know personally a couple of doors down from that did just that, although he has finally gone back to work for the first time in like almost a decade at the local market shop.

And why not with the amount of work in WA atm, it is the most I've ever seen in the 20 years since I've left school. Unusual situation that wont last of course so welfare recipient need to be looked after but right now anyone that's mentally and physically able can find something if they want to.

 

[Gethelred]

Umm we get quite a few people out my way in a small town 3 hours from Perth that move here because there is plenty of state housing available.

There's a bloke (very odd but decent honest fella) with a family that I know personally a couple of doors down from that did just that, although he has finally gone back to work for the first time in like almost a decade at the local market shop.

And why not with the amount of work in WA atm, it is the most I've ever seen in the 20 years since I've left school. Unusual situation that wont last of course so welfare recipient need to be looked after but right now anyone that's mentally and physically able can find something if they want to.

That to me sounds like a person moving for cheaper rent/state housing, rather than for an affordable long time stay on the newstart lifestyle choice which is what that poster described. It's also kind of interesting how the myth here - the welfare recipient moving to somewhere cheap to stay on benefits - replicates similar arguments in refugee rhetoric; the above argument is an anti economic migrant argument, catered for someone on the newstart.

Rent is prohibitively expensive and getting worse at the moment, even if the real problem isn't really rent so much as housing and a general cost of living increase.

 

[Chief]

That to me sounds like a person moving for cheaper rent/state housing, rather than for an affordable long time stay on the newstart lifestyle choice which is what that poster described. It's also kind of interesting how the myth here - the welfare recipient moving to somewhere cheap to stay on benefits - replicates similar arguments in refugee rhetoric; the above argument is an anti economic migrant argument, catered for someone on the newstart.

Rent is prohibitively expensive and getting worse at the moment, even if the real problem isn't really rent so much as housing and a general cost of living increase.

And yet if people don't want to move for employment, we get others saying they should lose benefits.

Uproot your life, leave your support networks, kids schools etc otherwise you're not serious about working.

 

[Goroyals22]

So, let me get this straight.

You're saying that someone on the newstart will find a country town with available and affordable rent, have the financial wherewithall to uproot themselves from where they currently are, remove themselves from what supports they have (whether family or community) to move somewhere in which they know no-one, just to claim $540+rent assistance? If they have a child, s**t just got harder; if they have more than one, s**t got harder again.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist on an example of this exact thing or a retraction, Goroyals. If you do not provide either within 48 hours, your account will have a misinformation pin attached to it, and you will receive an infraction.

If you wish to demonise welfare recipients, let's ensure that we're doing so within the bounds of fact.

Would you like names, address and photos of these people also… having worked in this industry I have seen and experienced it.. it happens. Its actually very clever

 

[Kram]

That to me sounds like a person moving for cheaper rent/state housing, rather than for an affordable long time stay on the newstart lifestyle choice which is what that poster described. It's also kind of interesting how the myth here - the welfare recipient moving to somewhere cheap to stay on benefits - replicates similar arguments in refugee rhetoric; the above argument is an anti economic migrant argument, catered for someone on the newstart.

Rent is prohibitively expensive and getting worse at the moment, even if the real problem isn't really rent so much as housing and a general cost of living increase.

Mate most of these types imo aren't looking for work.

Which in all honestly I'm fine with if they want to live like that on 3 strict conditions. They don't commit crime, they send their kids school every day and lastly they give them some lunch to take with them.

At the end of the day Jobseeker expenditure is so small and it's a small % of the population so again I think we will agree does it really matter supporting these people? But ffs give your damn kids a chance.

 

[Number37]

Would you like names, address and photos of these people also… having worked in this industry I have seen and experienced it.. it happens. Its actually very clever

The only problem with your BS is that the person will lose their payments, so it isn't very clever at all.

 

[Number37]

If your wife leaves they tell you it costs a zillion million of your money each week to raise a kid, but if its welfare, its $50 per fortnight.

More proof the govt doesn't care about kids.