• 🇳🇿 🇲🇲 🇯🇵 🇨🇳 🇦🇺 🇦🇶 🇮🇳
    Australian & Asian
    Drug Discussion

    Welcome Guest!
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
  • AADD Moderators: swilow | Vagabond696

Drug tests for People trying to get the dole

thestudent14

thestudent14

Bluelighter
Joined
Jan 23, 2010
Messages
1,619
National Affairs


Drug test the unemployed before dole, says Coalition MP George Christiansen

by: Ben Packham
From:The Australian
May 31, 201211:40AM
29 comments




A NORTH Queensland Coalition MP wants the unemployed to face drug tests before they can receive the dole.

The Liberal National Party's George Christiansen, the Member for Dawson, said that if mine workers in Mackay had to submit to drug testing, so should the unemployed.

"If it's good enough for a hard-working miner, who pays taxes, to undergo a mandatory drug test, then it's good enough for the person who receives those taxes in welfare," Mr Christiansen said.

"To argue against drug testing for Newstart recipients is to foster illegal activities, while undermining the economy and the self-respect of future generations.

"If you cannot pass a drugs test to receive the dole, you are automatically ruling yourself out of employment opportunities and Newstart is about helping the unemployed into the workforce."
.
. .
But the Coalition's welfare spokesman Kevin Andrews rejected the idea.

"It's not Coalition policy," Mr Andrews said.

Employment Minister Bill Shorten ridiculed the proposal.

"I thought the Liberal Party was about reducing the size of the state but evidently Mr Christensen wants to bring the state - holding a plastic cup, I might add - into the bathrooms of over one million Australians,'' he said.

"What does Tony Abbott think?''
Click to expand...

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...rge-christiansen/story-fn59niix-1226376268042


I know this article is from the end of May, but I don't remember seeing it posted, also this is still going on.
A Current Affair is going to do a thing on it some time this week, can't remember which day though.


I think it's whole heartadly a step in the wrong direction and shows a great level of arrogance and ignorance from people who have no clue about drug use and drug dependence.
I find the idea insulting and a waste of tax payers money, peoples time, an invasion or privacy and will not help people who need it most if this ever goes forward.
 
Stupid, pointless idea. Iirc a state in America tried it, and found they spent more money testing all those people than they saved back by denying welfare to those testing positive.

He's just some out of way MP nobody knows or cares about, trying to summon a little attention by picking on a socially acceptable target.
 
"If it's good enough for a hard-working miner, who pays taxes, to undergo a mandatory drug test, then it's good enough for the person who receives those taxes in welfare," Mr Christiansen said.
Click to expand...

How about we drug and alcohol test politicians before they go into parliament each day? :\
 
^ that'd make that guy in Canberra doing all the coke broke

I can't believe pigs are not subject to random or not drug tests. How many weapons do they posses and all the ridiculously dangerous driving etc etc. all ways hearing about them razor ing or shooting someone dead not to mention all their car accidents car chase crashes etc etc

^^^ socially accepted and no doubt most vulnerable...the obvious idea is an easy target to tax...shame
 
Yes, it was Florida that tried it out - and, IIRC, the Florida State Supreme Court struck it down so the program was canceled....I'm not sure what the reason was, though. Could may have well been due to cost.
 
poledriver said:
^ I posted an article on that not too long ago, i'll try and dig it up and post it here, some cop got busted with meth in a random test I think and some people are calling for more regular testing, wait a sec and ill have a look.
Click to expand...

The cops that shot the knife wielding mentally unstable man on a Sydney beach years ago were proven to have been out on the gas all night. They then went to work without any sleep and shot the guy on the beach dead.
 
No surprises there. I went to school and grew up with two pigs before they joined the farce they did as many illegal activities as anyone else I doubt that would have changed much except now they are protected by their gang...dogs that hide behind a uniform... Worst type of scum
 
Yes VeryBuffed, his name was Roni, at Bondi Beach, i recall it pretty well.

Roni Levi waded fully clothed into the Bondi surf carrying a large kitchen knife. When he returned to land, he was surrounded by officers who, with guns drawn, ordered him to drop the weapon. After a tense encounter witnessed by a packed promenade, Mr Dilorenzo and fellow constable Rodney Podesta fired two bullets each.

In the days that followed, Levi's friends described a softly spoken spiritual man diagnosed with a mental disorder. Witnesses raised serious doubts over the threat he posed to police.


Then it was revealed both officers had spent the night socialising at several drug-fuelled parties before their 6am shift. Neither officer was drug tested after the shooting. Without those results, a NSW Police Integrity Commission inquiry failed to prove either was affected by drugs or alcohol.
Click to expand...

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national...shot-a-man-dead/2005/08/06/1123125942793.html
 
This is a despicable idea.
People who use drugs are vulnerable and may need the "safety net" welfare supposedly provides.
Drug use is so often a symptom of hardship - not always the cause. If these politicians put more energy into creating workable social welfare policy, and less into demonising people, they might earn the respect of their constituents, rather than the contempt generally felt in the community towards such "leaders".
just dog whistle politics in its lowest form - picking on the vulnerable. Really low IMO.
 
are they proposing to test all on welfare?

New mothers, aged pensioners, the disabled and school children alike?

So why not extend it further? Test police, politicians and judges? Make it mandatory for them and strip them of their jobs and titles if they fail. Which would also mean they would'nt be able to get welfare when they're jobless.
 
The article is about the unemployed, but i hear what you are saying, and i think it's even more appropriate for those kind of titles to be tested more regularly (some probably arent at all? (judges, politicians, i dont think they get drug tested)...

Instead some people, ie the MP in the article want the unemployed who get what is it, like $250 a week to live on to get drug tested? wtf. When these other jobs we mention, cops, judges, politicians and mp's etc get what, over $800 + (probably alot more in most cases) a week and have some very significant decisions to make and actions to take in their jobs sometimes.
 
spacejunk said:
This is a despicable idea.
People who use drugs are vulnerable and may need the "safety net" welfare supposedly provides.
Drug use is so often a symptom of hardship - not always the cause. If these politicians put more energy into creating workable social welfare policy, and less into demonising people, they might earn the respect of their constituents, rather than the contempt generally felt in the community towards such "leaders".
just dog whistle politics in its lowest form - picking on the vulnerable. Really low IMO.
Click to expand...

^This^

I work full-time and study full-time, and it really doesn't bother me when people choose to study instead of work (I've done this in the past) or if they are unable to work (for whatever reason) and they're on the dole.

People are so consumed with their own life and this pathetic idea that their taxes shouldn't go toward helping others who, in the majority of cases, really need it.

I freaking hate the conservative rhetoric: "My taxes shouldn't go to helping bludgers" - it smacks of ignorance.

People really can be heartless fucks.
 
yagecero said:
^This^

I work full-time and study full-time, and it really doesn't bother me when people choose to study instead of work (I've done this in the past) or if they are unable to work (for whatever reason) and they're on the dole.

People are so consumed with their own life and this pathetic idea that their taxes shouldn't go toward helping others who, in the majority of cases, really need it.

I freaking hate the conservative rhetoric: "My taxes shouldn't go to helping bludgers" - it smacks of ignorance.

People really can be heartless fucks.
Click to expand...

Your whole post is all to familiar for me, I've heard this nearly weekly for the last 5 years from my friends. It's ironic that alot of them don't pay bills and still live at home, whilst I pay all my own bills and pay a third of the rent with my dad.
I need the cash from centrelink, I work 2 part time jobs and full-time study and people who say "well than you should just not spend your cash on alcohol rather then getting money from me working" are basically asking me to sacrafice the few things that keep me happy and driven to be successful. And I have no problem with the idea that one day my taxes will go to helping other students get forward in their future, to me it reminds me of one of the great things about our country and what allows our greatest minds to be able to study and survive instead of needing to choose between the two like they do in many country's around the world.
 
Last edited:
Isn't that discrimination? It almost like saying: "If we prove you use drugs you are no human" If they really want to go through with this they should have to offer a rehab space or at least counselling. Stupid idea. How about offering bonus payments for those who get a job and stay in it for 12 months? That'd be much smarter.
 
I have no problem with my taxes being spent on welfare, education, healthcare, infrastructure or anything except the military.
Im happy to pay for people to be helped out if that means they don't have to steal/rob/scam out of necessity. That is just one of the benefits of the welfare state. The dole is impossible for most people to survive off these days, so these sorts of restrictive measures are ridiculous anyway.
The more people you force off the dole, the more property crime results. The more property crime, the more these conservative nutjob politicians are able to sell their visions of a repressive police state to the population.
Fuck them, don't fall for it. The dole is an institution, part of Australian life and it needs to be dramatically increased.
 
laugh said:
I can't believe pigs are not subject to random or not drug tests. How many weapons do they posses and all the ridiculously dangerous driving etc etc. all ways hearing about them razor ing or shooting someone dead not to mention all their car accidents car chase crashes etc etc
Click to expand...
I agree that they should do random drug testing. However, if your point is that they crash cars and shoot people and aren't tested to see if substances are involved, you're wrong. If cops wreck city property, including cars and K9s, or shoot someone (dead or alive) they are required to drug test immediately. I would imagine they don't spend the resources drug testing at other times is bc so many cops are on benzos for anxiety and opiates for injuries that it makes it irrelevant unless it effects their performance, just like most workplaces. If I take my percs at night and my boss had me drug test, I would obviously be dirty, but that doesn't mean (or prove) I take em at work.
 
Yeah, I tend to agree. People need drugs.
Nobody should be drug tested, unless they are putting people's lives at risk by working drug-affected.
The mining industry has begun the process of normalising this gross invasion of our rights/bodies/urine by testing employees across the board - whether you operate heavy machinery or work in the records department of their city headquarters. We mustn't let this process continue. I say don't stand for it - don't apply for any job that wants your piss or hair or whatever for drug testing.
Workplace drug testing has become so widespread in Sweden that unknown research chems have become the norm - to the point that the majority (or at least an over representative number) of reported RC deaths seem to be from that country.
It's a slippery slope.
 
Actually, this minister is ignorant uninformed and irelevant.

As the law stands because you cannot use drugs and work legally speaking you are as a drug user classified as disabled. So no drug user who admits to centerlink they use drugs are actually on newstart but generally on disability payments. Therefore, drug testing dole receps would merely increase disability receps.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top