Politics Centrelink

[Chief]

And how many of those are from suicide? How many people's quality of life diminished or f’ed before they died?

I have a couple of friends who had brief periods of unemployment, got Robodebts. Still waiting for money.

 

[Frank Bunn]

I don't think the pay of the minister is relevant in this discussion.

Unemployment, underemployment, poverty, amount of payments, robodebt - play on.

 

[Kram]

Now that the corona supplement has been wound back, I am finding the $250 a fortnight is survivable. Not comfortable, not luxurious, but it means I can pay the rent and not have to go without petrol or food. I'm getting by.

The prospects post December are frightening. They are talking about $75 a fortnight raise to the dole, whoop de ******* sh*t. None of those fu**sticks have any concept of living below the official poverty line and they want to cut it further to "encourage" people to work. Every single one of those motherf***ers making these decisions affecting our lives takes home more in a fortnight than the dole is for a year.

I had three years on $40 a day, f’ed if I'm going back there. Good thing I spent all my extra corona money on... nothing. It's all sitting there in cash for the Jan 1 rainy day to roll around. Looks like we're all going to need it.

It's too low but you haven't been able to find any work whatsoever in 3 years to supplement it a little?

 

[Over The Post]

It's too low but you haven't been able to find any work whatsoever in 3 years to supplement it a little?

Six years, not three years. I discounted the time spent waiting for all my savings to run out before reluctantly applying for the dole, the time casually employed, and the last six months with the virus supplement.

I worked full time casual as a traffic controller for 18 months (== some weeks $400, some weeks $200, two joyous weeks with a shitload of overtime $1000+, and many weeks with zero) until I walked away after being hit by a car for the third time. By the wonderful Richard Pusey, no less, who then proceeded to fraudulently sue me and my employer for $13500 pre-existing damage to his Porsche, and I had that hanging over my head for two years, but I digress. I also picked up a temp job driving a truck while the owner was off sick with a busted leg, but that was only for six weeks.

I've applied for hundreds of jobs in that time, had a handful of responses, one genuine interview and a few that were bait-and-switch fishing expeditions by labour hire companies. I'm sick enough that employers look sideways, but not sick enough to qualify for anything other than jobseeker, and now I'm in my late 50s there's not much hope of being given a role when I'm competing with a covid-unemployed 30-something with small kids and a mortgage.

So I've been reskilling myself in the hope of one day being able to generate a profitable sideline which may become a viable business, but it's a tough road.

I wouldn't be so bitter and resentful if this was the only life I'd known, trust me it is real cognitive dissonance when you are the top dog on $170k+ with international responsibility for a band of engineers servicing multi-million-dollar IT systems, to find yourself standing in the middle of the road holding a ****ing lollipop contemplating bankruptcy. Or being offered an unpaid "voluntary" role in a JSP's op shop to gain "work experience." So I know first-hand the inequity and injustice of the neoliberal system, and have greater understanding of and empathy with those in the same boat.

 

[go you pups]

I don't think the pay of the minister is relevant in this discussion.

Unemployment, underemployment, poverty, amount of payments, robodebt - play on.

If you've read some of her pathetic comments over the years, she's absolutely fair game as far as I'm concerned

 

[Hawk Dork]

'Heartbreaking': 9,100 homeless suffer jobseeker payment suspensions amid recession
Employment minister, Michaelia Cash, challenged over mutual obligations regime that has resulted in 74,000 payment suspensions

Job agencies have suspended welfare payments 74,000 times since mutual obligations returned last month, with 9,100 people experiencing homelessness among those temporarily cut off from income support.

About 7% of all jobseekers have experienced a payment suspension in those three weeks.



“We suspended mutual obligations for a very long period of time,” Cash added. “They are still suspended in Victoria.”


Siewert said she was “at a loss to understand” how “suspending a homeless person’s payment in the midst of a recession will help them find work”.


“These are cohorts that the government should be providing additional support for, not punishing them for being on income support,” she said.

'Heartbreaking': 9,100 homeless suffer jobseeker payment suspensions amid recession

Employment minister, Michaelia Cash, challenged over mutual obligations regime that has resulted in 74,000 payment suspensions

www.theguardian.com

 

[Over The Post]

I have to hold myself to a flicker of annoyance at disgusting shit like that now and move on, simply because if I gave it the anger it deserved, windows would be smashed and offices burned. And I can do without that sort of drama right now. Much easier to pick on a target like Princess Ruston and vent.

At least until there are sufficient angry downtrodden people who are prepared to throw off the shackles of good ol' Aussie complacency and go righteously apeshit at these campaigners, when I might consider joining in.

 

[Over The Post]

And in the surprise of the week (those of delicate disposition please sit down and get a handkerchief and smelling salts ready):

Companies are telling older people not to bother applying in JobMaker job ads. Is that legal?

The Federal Government's new wage subsidy hasn't passed Parliament yet, but some employers are already advertising for young workers who will qualify for the program, prompting questions around the scheme's legality.

www.abc.net.au

tl;dr yes it is legal

 

[Frank Bunn]

Six years, not three years. I discounted the time spent waiting for all my savings to run out before reluctantly applying for the dole, the time casually employed, and the last six months with the virus supplement.

I worked full time casual as a traffic controller for 18 months (== some weeks $400, some weeks $200, two joyous weeks with a shitload of overtime $1000+, and many weeks with zero) until I walked away after being hit by a car for the third time. By the wonderful Richard Pusey, no less, who then proceeded to fraudulently sue me and my employer for $13500 pre-existing damage to his Porsche, and I had that hanging over my head for two years, but I digress. I also picked up a temp job driving a truck while the owner was off sick with a busted leg, but that was only for six weeks.

I've applied for hundreds of jobs in that time, had a handful of responses, one genuine interview and a few that were bait-and-switch fishing expeditions by labour hire companies. I'm sick enough that employers look sideways, but not sick enough to qualify for anything other than jobseeker, and now I'm in my late 50s there's not much hope of being given a role when I'm competing with a covid-unemployed 30-something with small kids and a mortgage.

So I've been reskilling myself in the hope of one day being able to generate a profitable sideline which may become a viable business, but it's a tough road.

I wouldn't be so bitter and resentful if this was the only life I'd known, trust me it is real cognitive dissonance when you are the top dog on $170k+ with international responsibility for a band of engineers servicing multi-million-dollar IT systems, to find yourself standing in the middle of the road holding a ******* lollipop contemplating bankruptcy. Or being offered an unpaid "voluntary" role in a JSP's op shop to gain "work experience." So I know first-hand the inequity and injustice of the neoliberal system, and have greater understanding of and empathy with those in the same boat.

Jobs for the over 50s have more or less disappeared. Yet they are required to work or pretend to work until an ever increasing retirement age.

Have you contemplated your white privilege? Stop complaining!

 

[Over The Post]

These impoverished Aussies choose to take their chances over 'deliberately difficult' JobSeeker

Catriona considered ditching the many years of work put into her degree for a lower skilled job after Centrelink's "punitive" approach contributed to her mental collapse.

www.abc.net.au

 

[Kram]

Literally what i just did.

Just gonna make my case manager waste half her day when i go in there and pretend to be computer illiterate and she can walk me through step by step to prove my point.

Farce , imagine what it's like for 1st timers

All month I waited for your Latex Salesman application to hit my desk at Kramdelay Industries but nothing came!

 

[NSWCROW]

All month I waited for your Latex Salesman application to hit my desk at Kramdelay Industries but nothing came!

Listen, you've seen the commercials on TV.

The Academy's taking all kinds these days.

Anybody can get in.

Even you.

 

[Rotayjay]

As my friend (who usually votes Liberal) said the other day: 'Don't hold your breath waiting for the Liberal Party to look after the poor - it ain't going to happen.'

This Coronavirus Supplement (as opposed to a base rate increase) is the perfect excuse to tack on something quick and easy, and rip that sticky-taped thing off whenever they choose.

If a Jobseeker recipient or their partner earns just under the threshold in a fortnight, they get the full $250 covid supplement. If they earn just a few dollars more and go over the threshold, the entire supplement disappears for that fortnight. A cliff effect rather than a tapering effect like almost every other Centrelink payment - so much for incentivising working more hours!

Goes to show how crudely and hastily it was coded into the welfare computer system (a supercomputer which, by the way, has only had piecemeal reconstructions since the early '90s).

 

[Rotayjay]

Hundreds of thousands of people are entering the welfare system for the first time, or the first time in years. They can be tripped up by confusing technicalities that don't make sense in any context outside Centrelink. For example, there are numerous technicalities which Centrelink staff members can use to mark a medical certificate invalid, so people think they have been exempted based on providing a medical certificate, but are instead not exempt at all.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

If you've read some of her pathetic comments over the years, she's absolutely fair game as far as I'm concerned

Whatever. She gets more than people on the dole, because she has a job.

 

[go you pups]

Whatever. She gets more than people on the dole, because she has a job.

You a fan of kicking people when they're down?

Curious

 

[NSWCROW]

Told ya jobseeker would continue but another reduction.

Shaved another 150 off it lol.



ib4 usual lib talking points....

 

[Kwality]

Told ya jobseeker would continue but another reduction.

Shaved another 150 off it lol.



ib4 usual lib talking points....

Tough for those involved but Aus cant continue with phoney settings on where we really are.
In Melbourne we are looking at baristas at the front line of covid recovery, 150 is a couple of over priced coffees common in these parts.

 

[DaRick]

Tough for those involved but Aus cant continue with phoney settings on where we really are.
In Melbourne we are looking at baristas at the front line of covid recovery, 150 is a couple of over priced coffees common in these parts.

The original rate was definitely too low.

A $75 per week increase would be a minimum given the economy's current fragile state.

 

[Kwality]

The original rate was definitely too low.

A $75 per week increase would be a minimum given the economy's current fragile state.

Agree it was too low. Not sure what the fragile economy has to do with it.

 

[DaRick]

Agree it was too low. Not sure what the fragile economy has to do with it.

In a fragile economy, the more money you give people, the better, because they can then spend it.

 

[Rotayjay]

Morrison and his band of ideologues dragging their feet once again. Another extension to the tack-on supplement rather than an acknowledgement that the old rate was unreasonable. They'll never admit it.

 

[Hawk Dork]

Morrison and his band of ideologues dragging their feet once again. Another extension to the tack-on supplement rather than an acknowledgement that the old rate was unreasonable. They'll never admit it.

gives them another chance to cut it again

 

[Kwality]

In a fragile economy, the more money you give people, the better, because they can then spend it.

That was my position pre Xmas, the best way to fire up the flat economy then.

When we cant get fruit picked at the moment, something is awry.

 

[DaRick]

That was my position pre Xmas, the best way to fire up the flat economy then.

When we cant get fruit picked at the moment, something is awry.

COVID will disrupt things and the economy is even worse now.