Drug tests for dole recipients (4 Viewers)

[mrcalkin]

40$ of our revenue goes to dole blugers. I ve seen people on the dole take oversea's holidays every year. So its obvious we are paying way too much.

 

[the.RAVER]

The following proposal is put forward:

That random drug testing for illegal drug use by long-term unemployed recipients of the Newstart Allowance (more than one year) be introduced. A positive test for illegal drug use would result in the person having to sign onto a rehabilitation program as a condition for continued receipt of the Newstart Allowance.

Thoughts?

I think it's an excellent idea. They should really implement this for both white and aboriginal people's funding.

 

[incentivation]

1 in 6 rely working age people below retirement age rely on welfare payments.

Australia's welfare system is not mean but different and fairer - On Line Opinion - 17/9/2004

Indeed. 16% of the population rely on welfare as their main source of income. Still a relatively low number if you ask me when one considers the context.

A comparison to what existed 40 years ago is futile. The composition of the labour market was vastly different, as was the composition of families. Single parent families have probably been the main cause for such an increase.

Government was unable to merely observe these societal shifts without adapting social welfare policy to such changing needs.

With these considerations in mind, 16% is not a high number. If it tips over 20%, then we should be looking to re-assess eligibility criteria.

I do believe that we should be doing more to provide incentive for individuals to reverse such dependency and seriously consider/seek employment, but the solution isn't drug testing.

 

[Will Shakespear]

Fuck the age pension. Get a job grandad. It's a disincentive to save and self-fund your retirement.

Unfortunately seniors are an organised and powerful voting group.

there's a discussion to be had about maximum voting age...

 

[kokodamonkey]

We can find a job for anyone. Get the disabled people working in cal centres and stop our jobs going offshore!

 

[Graney]

there's a discussion to be had about maximum voting age...

haha.

The average 16 year old probably has more relevant knowledge of contemporary politics, pays more tax, and generally contributes more to society than most elderly people.

 

[Graney]

Yeah, unfortunately young people are generally pretty foolish and easily bought off, image is everything. In contrast to the elderly who have a healthy cynicism, yet are typically fairly commited partisan voters, reluctant to consider new ideas and are more demanding for self-serving policies than any other group.

 

[banco55]

Indeed. 16% of the population rely on welfare as their main source of income. Still a relatively low number if you ask me when one considers the context.

A comparison to what existed 40 years ago is futile. The composition of the labour market was vastly different, as was the composition of families. Single parent families have probably been the main cause for such an increase.

Government was unable to merely observe these societal shifts without adapting social welfare policy to such changing needs.

With these considerations in mind, 16% is not a high number. If it tips over 20%, then we should be looking to re-assess eligibility criteria.

I do believe that we should be doing more to provide incentive for individuals to reverse such dependency and seriously consider/seek employment, but the solution isn't drug testing.

Don't forget the 16 % only refers to people of working age. The % of people on the age pension is also pretty high. I think when the age pension first started there was something like 12 workers for every person receiving the age pension. Obviously that number is a lot lower and pie can't be sliced ever thinner. Of course then you have to factor in the ever increasing medical costs due to an aging population, increasing medical technology etc.

Either our generation (the ones that work) are going to be paying huge taxes to support people on the DSP, the age pension and the unemployed, the single parents etc. or something is going to give.

 

[Will Shakespear]

we'll be taxed to death to support the old ppl

breed prolifically so there'll be lots of young ppl to support us when we're old

but then have to eat dog food since our grey vote will be so much weaker :O

 

[Big Rain]

No one will be rehabilitated if they don't want to be, you can lead a horse to water but you cant (rest of useless analogy).
I don't think that this would do anything but waste more money.
That's just me though, good discussion.

 

[*Minka*]

More like, there needs to be a sex maximum amount of time you can be on the dole AND the reporting procedures for job seekers need to be more stringent.

As far as I know, all you have to do is say you've applied for job x,y,z but you didn't get the job.

Pretty much from what I can gather. You have to provide the address and phone number of where you applied (when I worked in retail, you I occasionally got asked my name when people dropped a resume in so they could put it in their little paper book thing), but it is not like Centrelink has the time to actually chase any of then up.

 

[*Minka*]

It's exactly like slavery. The individual should be given maximum choice and liberty as to how they live their life. If they choose to not seek gainful employment, then we as a society deem it necessary to give them a basic pitance to prevent them from turning too feral. This is civilized.

The problem with this economy is that a whole lot of decent, hard working people with plently of skills and no drug addiction are going to end up on the dole because their position has been cut and they are struggling to find a job in this shortage of employment.

My friend's mother works for centrelink and there are qualified teachers and accountants on the dole because of the current work shortage. (I also find it insulting that such highly skilled people have to apply for josb washing dishes, but that is another issue for aniother day).

 

[Iron]

What's that got to do with this economy? Unemployment happens. Fortunately we have a fairly civilized way of dealing with this, to ensure that people dont find themselves completely down and out. The degree to which you assist folks is a legitimate debate topic, but surely we all at least agree on a bare minimum survival wage? Surely we can then say that children shouldnt be disadvantaged/doomed to their parent's working failure, so there should be added provision for them? etc

 

[*Minka*]

What's that got to do with this economy? Unemployment happens. Fortunately we have a fairly civilized way of dealing with this, to ensure that people dont find themselves completely down and out. The degree to which you assist folks is a legitimate debate topic, but surely we all at least agree on a bare minimum survival wage? Surely we can then say that children shouldnt be disadvantaged/doomed to their parent's working failure, so there should be added provision for them? etc

I am aware of that, but this economic situation is only going to see increases in the unemployment levels and thus people who would not usually even have to think about claiming the dole having to swallow their pride and do it because that extra money will help raise their children. With this situation, not everyone on the dole will be a "dole bludger" and one of those people who goes into centrelink not wearing shoes. There are going to be professional people claiming it until things improve.

 

[dieburndie]

If the government is going to start telling welfare recipients what they can and can't spend their money on, then surely the only way to remain consistent is to reduce welfare to being paid in food stamps and rent assistance.

Dole payments being spent on drugs may be a waste of tax revenue, but I don't see how drugs are any more wasteful than most other things a dole recipient would purchase.

 

[Enteebee]

I actually don't think their spending money on drugs is all that wasteful.

 

[chelsea girl]

It's exactly like slavery. The individual should be given maximum choice and liberty as to how they live their life. If they choose to not seek gainful employment, then we as a society deem it necessary to give them a basic pitance to prevent them from turning too feral. This is civilized.

I think that addicts would sooner drop out of the system than be forced into rehab practically against their will. This is not how we should run things. We should empower the individuals from below.
Clean livin
Respect for life
Respect for private property
Dignity in work

These, THESE are found in the Church. We're good at lifting people outta the gutter
Forcing vulnerable individuals to do stuff through such cold bureaucratic mechanisms will always backfire imo

Okay, ignoring the weirdo religious stuff that is typical of a post by Iron, I agree with the bolded part.

Welfare money is barely enough for a regular person with any sort of life to subsist off for an extended period of time. If you think that anybody with an ounce of desire to live a comfortable life would willingly remain on the dole, you should go and have a look at what the actual amounts given are and think about whether you'd choose that over being employed.

The people who don't make any effort to find work are probably not the sort that anyone would want working for them anyway. Or they do try to search for a job but are are just so hideously unemployable that they are never hired. It's not their fault if they're socially inept; and yes it is our responsibility, as a society, to at least let people stay alive, if nothing else.

 

[banco55]

I'm sure our generation will have fun at tax time:

THERE could be one person of working age on welfare for every three people with a job by the time the recession ends, according to one of Australia's leading economists, Bob Gregory.

The welfare blowout, with more than a million more people likely to be relying on benefits, will far exceed the threat posed by an increasing aged population and has so far been overlooked by federal Government and Treasury. Professor Gregory has modelled the changes in the welfare population following the 1990-92 recession, and says the rise in unemployment is likely to be followed by increases in the number of people on disability, carer and sole-parent pensions.

A paper to be presented by Professor Gregory to a Victoria University conference next month shows the full-time male workforce never recovered from the 1990-92 downturn, when it dropped from a historic average of about 62 per cent to 54 per cent of the male working-age population.

"What happens is that male unemployment goes up, and then, as time goes by, the unemployment rate comes down, not because there are more jobs but because the unemployed gradually seep into disability payments," he says.
Professor Gregory says that a year or two after a recession, half the men on disability benefits have come from the unemployment pool, where they have been in and out of jobs for some time. It is usually men aged over 55 years.
The rise in the number of women on welfare during a recession is more likely to be an indirect result of male unemployment.

"For women, because the men didn't have jobs, they took up welfare as partners, carers or as lone parents," he says in the paper.

One in four workers to go on welfare | The Australian