Drug tests for People trying to get the dole

[thestudent14]

^ Thats an interesting idea to which I've never thought of, and I have spent my fair share of time thinking of a better system.

It would however get more difficult because there are people with special needs, new parents etc.
However compared to the amount of people on the dole, this would be minimal and centrelink could run with a much a much smaller staff.

I think it's a good idea, as you stated there is stigma attached and people still have great incentive to get a job as they would still be getting the 250/wk up until 40k. Although it does get a bit confusing around that point, as 250/wk is 13,000 a year. Which would mean you have no incentive to go for a $40k job over a $27,000-$39,999 job. However this could be easily fixed with a bit of work into it. An example would be that the 250 goes down by 10 a week for every $1,000 annual after the first $15,000 therefore when you get upto 40k it would be at 0/ fort night.

Say a standard centrelink employee is on 55k a year (wild guess, but sounds reasonable). If they sacked 17,000 job thats 935 million annual dollars in revenue that could be put back into the dole.
But sure there is well over a million people in australia with less then 40k a year. At that rate it would only take one month for the 250 dollars paid out to stamp out the revenue from sacking the jobs.

In principal though I love this idea, I think it would need some tweaking but it's a damn shame to see it be thrown out. Idea's as innovative and radical but with serious potential like this should always get a chance to have trials periods and see how well it could work. A damn shame.

 

[webbykevin]

he reckoned the whole thing would run on 2 old pentuim 1's running linux, the rest is all a big wank to keep beaurocrats and IT people employed

 

[nin015]

I had a friend in canberra a few years ago who was a professor, he was commissioned by the federal gov (then john howards mob) to do a study into the centerlink system, His recommendation was that they scrap the whole welfare system and replace it with a radically different approach.

Everyone on under 40k a year would get 250 bucks a week regardless if they were working or not, it just automatically hit your account every week, then if you were unemployed there was no stigma attached to it and it gave you agreat incentive to find some work and top up this amount, if you left the country for any reason it stopped, but the moment you returned then it just automatically started again.

how would we pay for this ? by sacking the 17000 centerlink staff and saving all they money spent on their wages, super etc.. not to mention the money saved in the cost of running the offices (electricity, cleaning blah blah...), he worked out they would actually SAVE money by adopting this idea.

needless to say it went down with the gov like a lead balloon and the whole thing was shelved and never heard of again.

I can't see how earning $250 a week is an incentive to work....

 

[webbykevin]

because if you earn an extra 250 your first 250 isn't touched, you still get it.

 

[Methadonia2010]

In principal though I love this idea, I think it would need some tweaking but it's a damn shame to see it be thrown out. Idea's as innovative and radical but with serious potential like this should always get a chance to have trials periods and see how well it could work. A damn shame.[/QUOTE]


I think its not a bad idea either, long as it gets rid of stigma, i would say about $350 a week though, CPI indexed. One of the better ideas I have heard, I mean i guess we all should have some $$ at the end of day to live. The centrelink thing mostly is done online now days, so really is there any need for loads of staff?.

 

[thestudent14]

^currently the dole is like 485/fortnight.
So 250 would be an improvement anyway, 350 would most likely cost millions to keep up and running.

I can't see how earning $250 a week is an incentive to work....

Maybe not for some people, but I think it would be the minimal, and atm we have plenty of people doing this anyway who aren't going to look for a job reguardless.
By giving it to everyone who earns less than 40k you're getting money to the people who are legitimately looking for a job without all the hastle.

Having said that, I do know people who if they weren't forced to look for a job probably wouldn't have. 250/wk is enough to live off, but enough to get ahead. By retaining this 250 even if you find work I think you would see more people look for work.

I know as someone who is on youth allowance ($260/ft night) is only 130 a week. But heres where it gets interesting, if I earn over 400 a fortnight I get penalised 50 cents off my youth allowance for every dollar I earn. and if I get earn over roughly 600 in the fortnight I get penalised 70cents for every dollar I earn off my youth allowance. This means opposed to earning my factory wage of 28.50/hr, it gets smashed to 8.55/hr. This is not an incentive for me to work more. Because it's simply not worth busting my ass moving moving 25kilo blocks around all day for 8.55 an hour. It push's people into finding second jobs which are paid cash in hand (this is exactly what I have done). So now I get paid 12 dollars an hour from another job cash in hand, which is well below minimum wage, but it's more profitable to me. I have no doubt that this sort of thing happens all across the country.

The more I think about the dole be handled in this way the better I feel about it. Also it will make people wait for jobs that they're actually interested in, opposed to people getting jobs purely because they need the cash. 1st year apprentices commonly get as low as 6.50/hr atm. They work they're ass off, often doing the shitty jobs but they know it will pay off in the end. People would be more keen to do this however if they were still getting a reasonable government paid wage in the end.

I'm still sceptical though that this system would save the economy cash. My maths was not flawed previously stated, and therefore all the money you would save from the 17,000 jobs cut would pail in comparison to the million/s and would be used up within 1 month (not an exageration check my figures), of people who would recieve this benefit. It simply doesn't add up. To reitterate though, I think this is a much better system but it definitely needs tweaking to make it viable. It's the sort of thing that 1st world country's should work towards as it helps everyone who earns less than 40k and the ones who earn over would be no different from the current system.

I hate when the good of a country/world gets hindered in the name of saving people jobs. THEY'LL FIND NEW JOBS AND IF NOT THEY'D AT LEAST GET 250/wk UNTIL THEY CAN FIND A NEW ONE GAHHHHHHHHHH!!!! >.<

The centrelink thing mostly is done online now days, so really is there any need for loads of staff?.

True but trust me the staff are always flat out anytime you go in so I would whole heartadly say yes that there is need at the moment. Remember alot of people who recieve allowances come from family's of poverty and even the homeless. Whilst 95%+ of the population may have access to the internet the remaining few % is more then enough to keep Centrelink busy.

Additionally, when I was on the dole (and working part time) I had to go in once every 2 months to prove my earnings which I submitted online. This was a quick task of seeing someone and showing my payslips to prove I wasn't saying I earned less to recieve a higher payment, aswell as showing that I had applied for the required 10jobs/fortnight (this is too high and makes people apply for jobs they never want and will turn down, which I believe is a strain on the econom and a waste of employers time but that's a different rant). Or any changes of circustances generally have to be proven in person with proofs of I.D, e.g, a child born, moving house, new job etc.

 

[webbykevin]

It;s not just the wage component of the centerlink staff you save, think of all the other associated costs involved in running it the way they do at the moment, the bloody paperwork they post out for a start is huge, then there all the pensions, health benefits and all the other perks public servants get, this way the whole think is digitally linked to paye and the tax dept who could handle the whole thing.

Also they could legalize and tax cannabis, the money they waste on this stupid, anal, fear based war on consciousness would easily support a fairer system that balances the gap between the haves and have nots, also they could take seriously the tax rate reform of the mega rich and the mining companies, End the incentives given to people who own 4 or 5 investment properties who just feed at the trough of laziness, its fine to complain about the small percent of people who would just take the 250 and do nothing but we have that problem anyways and we waste millions trying to coax them into training for jobs that don't exist and no one is interested in, it means radically changing the way people think about australian society and their participation in it, it is a total change to the capitalist ideals of greed and hoarding.

The people who are living off the poverty of others by sitting back owning 4 negatively geared investment houses and taking huge rents from people, are they any better than the people who don't want to work for their dole, it seems that neither group is contributing very much to the community.

Australia could easily close this wealth gap and make it a more balanced and vibrant place for all it's citizens.

 

[Foreigner]

I don't support it for one major reason.

Drug tests don't pick up on alcohol use, which is what the majority of addicts use their welfare for. If they can't test all drugs then the system is not fair.

Also... it's fucked up to let the government intrude into personal medical issues in order for people to obtain money that is, for the majority of people on welfare, a matter of survival. If they qualify, then they get the dough, simple as that. If they want to piss it away on drugs and then starve that's their problem.

Whenever the economy is shit the poor get attacked, but it's the rich that caused the current recession not the poor.

 

[nin015]

because if you earn an extra 250 your first 250 isn't touched, you still get it.

I got it the first time.... what is the incentive to work for $500 (what even the amounts is just under $50k) for 40 hours work when you can earn $250 for 20 hours and get $250 for nothing.

 

[nin015]

Whenever the economy is shit the poor get attacked, but it's the rich that caused the current recession not the poor.

Recessions are part of normal business cycles.... People who are losing their jobs at the moment are actually mostly middle class.

The GFC of course you could argue was caused by the rich but it was also caused by bad government policy...

By the way Australia hasn't been in technical recession since 1992.

 

[webbykevin]

I got it the first time.... what is the incentive to work for $500 (what even the amounts is just under $50k) for 40 hours work when you can earn $250 for 20 hours and get $250 for nothing.

500 a week is 25k a year.

 

[nin015]

500 a week is 25k a year.

Yes which means you pay $0 tax anyway under the current tax system.

 

[thestudent14]

^ thats not true, I thought it was getting increased to about $18,000 to be tax free.

I don't mean to be arrogant nin015, but I really don't see or even quite understand your argument here.

 

[webbykevin]

the insane part is when you get to a million a year you can afford the right accountants to not pay any tax either, it's the middle class that keeps the whole mediocracy afloat, it has to change or the flame is just worth the candle imo.

 

[nin015]

^ thats not true, I thought it was getting increased to about $18,000 to be tax free.

I don't mean to be arrogant nin015, but I really don't see or even quite understand your argument here.

Hi thestudent14. The effective tax free thereshold is actually $25k due to the low income rebate.

My argument is that I don't understand why people expect something for nothing. Why does someone earning $49k a year deserve $250 a week for nothing extra when someone earning $50,001 doesn't... surely there should be an incentive to better ourselves and not depend on the government.

 

[thestudent14]

^Now you're making some sense.
As I said in one of my posts though, the best way to combat this would be that from 15K up to 40k, you lose 10/wk of the 250 for every $1,000 you earn in a year.

An Expecting something for nothing approach as you put it, is as webbykevin first stated a radical idea. But that doesn't mean it can't be tweaked to benefit society more then the current system. And if webbykevins friends maths are correct that it would save the government jobs and be handing out to more people then I think it deserves to be explored further then rejected at the starting stage.

 

[nin015]

^Now you're making some sense.
As I said in one of my posts though, the best way to combat this would be that from 15K up to 40k, you lose 10/wk of the 250 for every $1,000 you earn in a year.

An Expecting something for nothing approach as you put it, is as webbykevin first stated a radical idea. But that doesn't mean it can't be tweaked to benefit society more then the current system. And if webbykevins friends maths are correct that it would save the government jobs and be handing out to more people then I think it deserves to be explored further then rejected at the starting stage.

Fine but I'd rather see the money go to pensioners and the rest a reduction in everyone's tax rates.

 

[webbykevin]

^in an ideal world I would agree with you, but we don't live in an ideal world, so one of the consequences of the capitalist model we are currently using is that there is an imbalance with wealth tending to concentrate at the top, not saying the people at the top with the money are bad guys its just they way the system works, so given that as a proven fact then it also follows that a certain amount of citizens slip through the cracks and end up with very little , in a different model of society where community and ethical values were in use these people would be less likely to suffer so much but the wealth does not tend to clump at the top in that model so the rich people have to be content with a fairer share.

But as I said, thats not the model we have chosen so we have to deal with the unsightly problem of people with nothing that can get left out on lots of levels, so the question is what do we do with them, how do we address this failing part of the system with integrity, decency and intelligence ?

None of us want to see dead bodies piling up in the street, so what do we do with people who don't want to conform to a particular model, I think we must make room for them out of pure decency.

Stigmatizing them and labeling them low life's and choosing to avert our gaze hoping the government will sweep it away is what we seem be be doing and I'm suggesting we could do better, trying to force everyone to be a success in an system that only supports partial success is crazy, why not toss around a few radically different ideas and see if we can't tweak this model so that we extend to all our fellow beings some courtesy and respect, choosing not to judge them but to intelligently understand the model and realize that compassion and ethics are also a commodity to be valued.

if the capitalist model cannot make these allowances then fuck it, i for one don't support it, it's dumb, inhumane and I want no part of it, surely we can reach a compromise that melds 2 radically different models that define success in there own ways and find a way of sharing the planet and it's resources that we can be proud of.

just my 10 cents worth anyways.

 

[laugh]

Very well said good Sir...Bravo!!!

 

[Valiumpirate]

If this hasnt already been said, I propose drug tests for everyone (teachers, cops, secretaries, doctors, hair dressers, fast-food workers, bus drivers, accountants, lawyers, tradies, stay at home mums, everyone), and I really want a politician to read this and try to submit it to the government. The absurdity of any type of widespread mandatory drug tests is unbelievable.
He'll be laughed out of the room and no one will ever bring up mandatory drug testing again.