Ask not what the treasurer can do for you
- Thread starter Scott No Mates
- Start date
We were always going to get to the point where welfare had to be wound back, and it was always going to be painful. There will be some adjusting, but the country will be better for it.
Australia needs to learn that welfare is for the poor and needy, and not an entitlement.
Australia needs to learn that welfare is for the poor and needy, and not an entitlement.
True, but if your credit card carries a balance month to month, and this balance is growing, does a prudent person say "hey my credit card is lower than Freds and Mikes, so it doesn't matter"? I sure don't.
But why take the money from the people with less?
Welfare is a safety net. Cutting back on it comes at a price. If someone is on a Dis Support Pension (DSP), they have been assessed by doctors that they can't work. The media which supports the Govt shouldn't judge these people.
If too many people are going on DSP then look at the root cause eg over stressed workers forced to do 6 hours work in 4 hours, unsafe work sites with blatant disregard of OHS, excess travel to/from work, companies putting profit before people etc.
It's the workers who sign the swms, undertake the workplace inspections & are closest to the issues- why blame the employer?
If you choose to work far from home whose fault is that?
LOL, you start questioning your employer over safety and you'll be looking for a new job in most cases. Gotta look at reality here.
Abbotts. He wants to change the rule so that if you knock back work even though you have more than 90 min travel then tuff tiddies, you're off the dole.
lol datto you bleet some stuff out mate
Anyone can say 'what if this happens' to every scenario in the world. There's infinite of them. End of the day people are only upset because they've gotten used to things rather than being grateful for them. Patterns will change to accommodate them, equilibrium will ensue
Anyone can say 'what if this happens' to every scenario in the world. There's infinite of them. End of the day people are only upset because they've gotten used to things rather than being grateful for them. Patterns will change to accommodate them, equilibrium will ensue
How's that 90 minutes measured? If it is Pinkboy who rides to work that's probably only 60km away, it can take me 40 minutes to go 7km by bus in the inner city.
I don't agree, Datto.
The reality is always: how it's going to affect ME, ME, ME.
The public like to hear that the Gubb is going to fix the probs - as long as their hip pocket is ok.
It's human nature, I'm afraid....
Let the rich take the fall; make sure it's someone else who pays.....
And, this is why we end up with do-nothing Pollies, because to make hard decisions which are for the greater good - not necessarily the personal good of many - will almost guarantee them a very short political career.
I applaud Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott; they know what they are embarking on will be unpopular to the selfish majority, but have the guts to continue on anyway.
We need more Pollies - in the entire world - like these blokes.
Meanwhile, has the Labour Party come up with the solution to returning a deficit into a surplus themselves since last September?
They had 6 years to find one - and didn't - yet if we had an election today - a mere 8 months later - they would win?!
What does this tell you about the voting public majority? It's insane.
There are loads of folk who travel for that amount of time every day, and for years.
Many of our residents down my way do it each day; I see them on the freeway at 6.00am and earlier.
They can always choose to move closer to work, or change jobs. Many simply put up with it and keep on going.
The world owes you nothing.
Mate, I run a business and work a shoit load of hours and am curently making no money, have halved my wage and have had to send the wife back out to work almost full time with 3 kids to attend to, and I cannot take "stress" leave, or sick leave, or any of that other boolshidd...all to keep my 3 blokes employed, and not lose my house. I really should be sacking 2 of them right now.
Don't talk to me about stress or overwork - don't talk to any small business owner about that shoit.
Your comments of hand-wringing for the poor and being overworked carry no weight with me.
As far as Companies making profits - they have to; otherwise the handwringers will have no jobs.
Don't begrudge the Boss making money; he gives you a job. You have no idea what is really going on in his/her life away from the workplace.
Actually; start making him more money, or the next redundancy might be you.
Suck some concrete, you lot.
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Why take from the people with less? My cynical side says because they are already taking the most and contributing least.
I have no problem with supporting the genuinely needy and those with health/disability issues, but there are plenty of middle class people getting money they don't need, and plenty of people on the dole doing very little to help themselves. There are also plenty of pensioners using superannuation to set themselves up so they can receive welfare they really don't need.
The question we have to ask is whether we want to see welfare as a safety net, or yet another entitlement.
I have recently had discussions with a pm in an LGA in an outer Sydney suburb. She is a single parent (@ 15), completed her hsc & Tafe qualified. Lives in her own t/h that she purchased, mortgaged & in debt to the hilt but she is giving it a go. Just to make it harder, she's in her final years at UWS in a property degree.
She's not affluent, misses out on much of the child support and earns below average weekly take home pay.
Enough of the background.......
She has told me of the myriad of ways that her old school cohort exist. Charities don't give you money for mobile phones, foxtel, cigarettes, grog or gunja but they will pay your rent, services costs, food to help out. None of this additional assistance is recorded as income.
Government is politics, art and science all thrown in. In any country, there is usually a pervading culture. Australia follows the western democracy of development and has developed a welfare system that has worn down family and relationships networks and replaced them with impersonal government welfare. Other people have replaced own family in providing for welfare. Part of this is good, too much is bad. So, has Australia gone too far away from family and personal exertions and instead relying on government (proxy for redistribution, euphemism for taking from other people)?
Some over simplifications or corollaries: Coalition probably thinks so and emphasises self-reliance, family networks and market conditions hence macro economic developments. Labor/Greens do not and emphasise class struggle (analogy of big end of town), social injustice, compensating welfare and tax provisions, and anti-establishment (some anti-family is caught up with that), hence micro management and tending to over regulate or big government.
Signs of stress that Australia has gone too far:
- too many people on DSP (I have seen stats indicating growth and significant proportion of numbers of working age on DSP)
too many people relying on government benefits (I have seen stats of high proportion of people relying on government benefits)
welfare expenditure exceeds revenue income
growth of welfare services exceeding productivity (JH and his Secretary of Treasury has shown charts showing this imbalance)
Australia contrasts with other more productive countries that have measures for families to look after aged members by law (eg if government welfare is insufficient adult children are required under German law to provide for their aged parents, same in Singapore)
Australia contrasts with other countries that look to strengthen family network (eg proposed Spanish law to compel children to do household chores)
Even with all the freezing of growth in benefits, tightening of eligibility criteria and higher contributions to government coffers, people in our neighboring countries would love to jump into a boat and migrate to Australia anytime.
There are degrees in property?
What's next a PHD in silverware polishing, with a specialisation in cutlery?
Would you trust your $3b development project to bod who has completed a 3 day real estate registration course or to the one who understands feasibility studies, stratification of finance, sensitivity analysis, town planning, design concepts, property law, valuation methodology...
Are you still quite happy to deal with low value transactions?
Hopefully at some point the government will look outside welfare spending and start looking at tax concessions/expenditures that have piled up over the years. From memory we have amongst the highest (if not the highest) amounts of tax expenditures as a % of GDP in the OECD, and they're growing much faster than gov't revenue and most welfare payments. Surely this is also an area the government could go after low-hanging fruit in their budget repair job. Unfortunately going after tax expenditures to find savings can sometimes stir up influential people with the ability to give gov't a bloody nose in the process.
Ever heard of money makes money?
How does (excess) welfare make positive cashflow?
Welfare rides on the back of tax concessions, why would you cruel that?
Tax concessions in most cases are lobbied for and granted to rent-seekers. If you wanted to get serious about granting tax concessions to groups, thenyou would impose a cost/benefit test on them to keep it honest, as there's many concessions in the system that aren't benefiting taxpayers.
Just as an example, super concessions (including transition to retirement, tax-free withdrawls etc.) are probably going to end up costing the government much more than it would have saved on the pension, same for concessions on novated leases on vehicles.
In some cases, giving high income/high net worth individuals & companies tax breaks is on par with Rudd giving folks a $900 cheque, and excusing by saying it's stimulating the economy... while there may be some truth in it, it ends up costing the taxpayers a lot more down the track.
Yep, best kudos post this year.
