Centerlink payments with conditions
- Thread starter kathryn d
- Start date
I make no apology for making generalisations about TT and ACA. When Marx said religion was the opiate of the people he clearly hadn't watched either of these shows. They have no redeeming features.
As to the Basics card, I don't know enough about them to make comment.
Regarding income management more generally I think it definitely has merit. Only fair that govt has some say in how the money gets spent when they are providing it for nothing.
Regarding future pensioners, we already have income management for them - it's called superannuation.
On the totality of our social security bill, I'm sure there is room for greater efficiencies and improvement. But let's talk about it in that context rather than the hysterical "all the bludgers are sending us broke" type of arguments.
As to the Basics card, I don't know enough about them to make comment.
Regarding income management more generally I think it definitely has merit. Only fair that govt has some say in how the money gets spent when they are providing it for nothing.
Regarding future pensioners, we already have income management for them - it's called superannuation.
On the totality of our social security bill, I'm sure there is room for greater efficiencies and improvement. But let's talk about it in that context rather than the hysterical "all the bludgers are sending us broke" type of arguments.
I agree being objective is best.
I get the impression that some of these initiatives being introduced are (supposedly) due to social concerns, more than savings, but you just never know what the reasons behind the changes are (appearing pro active, seen to be taking the hard line as a positive thing, hoping to cost cut eventually).
If the teen mother program is implemented correctly you would think it would be a costly exercise, initially anyway.
Btw, the welfare budget expenditure for 2011/12 is $121,907,000,000 - bigger than the total expenditure of health, education and defence combined.
Infact it's around one third of total spending
.Good thing unemployment is down.
I don't know either. I thought Grossreal was the king of grammatical, um, originality
You got it in one!
As a pseudo Buddhist , i prefer this quote which speaks volumes ... "i dont want you to convert to my religion, stick to your own religion, learn and respect your own religion, just adopt our way of life."
Last edited:
A rat with a gold tooth
At least a card system would cut down on fraud for cash:
http://www.theherald.com.au/news/lo...-fraud-costs-hunter-16m-per-week/1990329.aspx
That's $1.6mil a week in only one small area of Australia ... or $83mil a year in an area with a population base of around 650,000.
IF (and that's a big if assumption) this is the average fraud figure - extrapolate that out over the entire country of 23mil and could be looking at fraud of around $2,900,000,000/yr ... that's a lot of medical, education, roads and infrastructure.
Granted that is only around 3% of the total welfare bill ... but it's still big dollars. Oh, and get rid of PartB welfare for anyone over the poverty level!
http://www.theherald.com.au/news/lo...-fraud-costs-hunter-16m-per-week/1990329.aspx
That's $1.6mil a week in only one small area of Australia ... or $83mil a year in an area with a population base of around 650,000.
IF (and that's a big if assumption) this is the average fraud figure - extrapolate that out over the entire country of 23mil and could be looking at fraud of around $2,900,000,000/yr ... that's a lot of medical, education, roads and infrastructure.
Granted that is only around 3% of the total welfare bill ... but it's still big dollars. Oh, and get rid of PartB welfare for anyone over the poverty level!
Part B is stupid. We don't get it because my partner earns over $4000, which is where it starts to cut down.
But if I earnt $120k and he earnt $0, or if I had no partner at all, we'd get the full amount. I have absolutely no idea why they peg it to the lower earner with such a low threshold, the limit has been $4000 for ages while the limits for everything else goes up in leaps and bounds every year.
One of many little quirks of the system that bias *against* low income couples, and one of many quirks that explain why single mums on welfare *stay* single. If both parents are on welfare alone, no other income, you 'earn' more if you are separated than if you are a couple. You don't get a concession card if you are a couple either.
A few years back when my partner got paid $0 and I was getting paid $200pw or so to feed all three of us (an adult earning nothing because they fall through the cracks of the welfare system doesn't count as a dependent so you get paid half the couple rate between you not each), the number of people who said we should break up so I'd get more money was frightening. At the time, for me the single rate was about $900pf and the couple rate was about $400pf including FTA and FTB, partly due to the higher base rates and partly due to the incredibly low income limit for couples. The income limit is a flat $60pf then you lose 50c in the dollar for couples, and $200ish+extra per kid then lose 20c in the dollar for singles. These are all pre-tax figures.
Thankfully back then my mortgage was $40 a week so it was doable. Now its $350 and we earn a lot more too, but back then it was ... interesting.
Edit: interestingly enough, at the time he got cut off the dole because they found out he didn't have a driver's license at one of those interviews. But they wouldn't assist with getting a license because he wasn't on the dole. Tried paying for $50 a pop driving lessons on $400 a fortnight? This was just when the logbook through a qualified instructor became compulsory so you couldn't just learn on your own and then pop in for a test. Took months of arguing with them to get his pay reinstated (and BACKPAID) and for them to pay for 2/3 of the driving lessons.
RE you need to check into it a bit better. If your youngest is under 5 you can still get some part B until your partner earns over 24000. and if you were both on unemployment with 3 kids you would get 1510 per fortnight (no rent assistance in that either) - you would get more if one of your kids was a teenager. That doesn't include the 2100 you would get as a supplement at tax time for part A and I think there is a supplement for part B too. So all up for a family with 3 kids over 40 000 per year- tax free.
is it time to take a 36 month put on TABCorp?
Some part B might be only 10c. Until our last income estimate we still got $20 or so a fortnight, now we get nothing.
"Payments are reduced by 20 cents for each dollar of income earned over $4,891."
He makes quite a bit more than that so we get diddly squat. Its entirely assessed on his income. If he earnt nothing at all we'd get the full rate because I earn less than $150k, but we have a business partnership so it is all split down the middle.
http://www.centrelink.gov.au/internet/internet.nsf/payments/ftb_b_iat.htm
Nasty little loophole there that penalises families with two incomes that add up to less than $150k but happily hands considerably more middle class welfare out to a family with one earner that makes more than us combined.
Edit: pensions and allowances like the dole count in that $4k, so its not like it is income earnt *over* the dole. A couple with both parents on the dole can quite simply never get full FTB.
All the more reason to allow income splitting, IMO. (Forgetting the middle class welfare of the FTB...)
Or tax on combined income of partners
He wasn't working until recently and we were getting $20. Someone on just under $150k gets $180. *that* is why I care. Why do they cut you off from $4k *if you are a couple* instead of picking some slightly higher figure, like, say, the couple rate of the dole? Why does a family earning $150k need this particular component of income support and a family earning say $48k does not?
I don't have any problem with not getting welfare at $24k (its higher than the single pensions at around $17k), my problem is if we arranged our finances differently from partnership to basically any other structure we *would* get welfare on exactly the same income, which seems to penalise dual income families on low incomes vs single income families on high incomes.
Go to news.com.au when they brought in the $150k limit and you'll see families on $151k complaining furiously that they don't get FTB and they can't make ends meet without it and they just don't get that lower income couples don't get it at all. It wouldn't bother me at all if it started cutting out for both couples and singles/single income at the same amount.
Middle class welfare. Don't you just love it.
Agreed. This is one area where as a nation we need to start to wean ourselves. Of course the people who no longer get the benefit won't like it, which means politically it will be very difficult. Perhaps one way to do it would be to ensure all welfare is means tested, and to put a freeze on the income levels at which various benefits disappear. Over time, more and more people will become ineligible, and our welfare bill will go down.
Right now we spend about a third of the annual tax take on welfare. If we could trim that even 10%, imagine the infrastructure investment we could make!
That and to not give any CPI increases for specific benefits.
Problem is that it would take a very long time AND the benefits will never actually go away, so anytime we get Labor in, those benefits WILL get CPI increases and the freezes will unfreeze AND they will stupidly give out even more benefits.
