Maybe someone will at least come up with a good, considered argument as to why it is a terrible idea unworthy of consideration, instead of just ignoring it into non-existence.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/new-law-to-quarantine-all-welfare-payments/story-e6frgczf-1225803474284

My point with roughly half the Australian population is that roughly half the Australian population is in the labour force.

I doubt that half the population of Australia is unemployed, though perhaps you are looking to the future, post the institution of the CPRS and when the Kevin Rudd memorial debt comes home to roost.

The question is whether that rise is better put to supporting an unemployment insurance scheme, or to a zillion other potential uses.

Which, I think, was my point.

By the way, describing roughly half of the Australian population as “rent-seekers” is in this context kind of harsh…

No-one disputes that GDP will continue to rise. The question is whether that rise is better put to supporting an unemployment insurance scheme, or to a zillion other potential uses. The fact that GDP will rise per se says absolutely nothing about the merits of the proposal.

You’ve got the money, please bung it at a scheme subsidising my constituency is the immemorial cry of rent-seekers everywher.

This is simply a proposition that some of those wage rises should be diverted into an unemployment insurance scheme.

Should this be done by shop floor ballot, or management discretion?

Does no-one except me have a problem with the potential employment impact of another 3% of salary impost for employers?

In short, no.

In long, the economy continues to grow and is likely to continue to do so over the medium to long term. The question is then what that growth gets used for. Unemployment insurance is one potential thing that could be done with it.

Also what others have said re costs. A blithe assurance from the ACTU of its self-funding capacity is not convincing. Level of compulsion comes into it too. I note that “opt out” is envisaged – and personally I would prefer if super contributions go up 3% to have that all go to super, not to employment insurance – but mass opt outs would affect the figures, and we have an authoritarian, control-freak Government from which one suspects that an everybody in directive would be more likely in any event.

Of course, if people with any imagination really took the implementation of this thing seriously, you might find that you are not simply assigned a crappy job but have an array of dozens of crappy jobs to choose from. In speaking to local governments around the country, Bill Mitchell and his team concluded that there was unmet demand for hundreds of thousands of jobs that would provide great benefit to society but will never be fulfilled by the private sector because it simply isn’t lucrative to do so.

Many unemployed people might actually find a sense of worth in say, tending to the gardens or houses of the elderly who are otherwise forced into nursing homes because they are too frail to continue doing it for themselves (I have actually done such a job). It might be civic or environment beautification or restoration – it’s really only limited by the imagination.

Furthermore, a person who has been working in a job gaurantee position for say, two years is probably more likely to secure employment in the private sector than one who has been unemployed for two years. Employers tend to sniff at the longer term unemployed. I think it might provide a better stepping stone into a “non-crappy” job than dole. Or some people might be happy to stay there.

The thing is, the private sector almost NEVER desires to use all available, willing labour – it fluctuates with the economic cycle but typically about 10% (unemployment and underemployment) of willing labour goes unutilized. This creates both a wastage of valuable resources and more importantly, creates social disadvantage and hardship by creating a permanent underclass of long-term unemployed.

It is a naturally occuring defect of the capitalist system but one that I think an approach such as this could help to overcome.

The alternative is that we all continue to accept the existence of a permanent underclass. Since most people here consider themselves progressives in some way, shape or form, I had thought that this idea might have found slightly more acceptence.

Like others have said this would just create a two-tier system and like Paul said once the Liberal Party get back into power (given it’s a generation away) the dole would disappear quick smart. That’s what we need more slums and abject poverty just like the US and there is a big enough gap between the have’s & have not’s here already.

I’ve got a project lined up for early next year which will see me cease to be a parasite on society.

In the meantime, I really wouldn’t want to be assigned to some crappy job by a Federal bureaucrat, so I for one am very happy there is no such compulsory ‘Job Guarantee’.

As opposed to the requirement the unemployed already have to continually jump through hoops or face being breached for an income significantly less than the minimum wage?

“The Job Guarantee sounds (on the surface) work for the dole by another name.”

It’s not a work for the dole scheme Steve – it’s a gaurantee of employment for the minimum wage.

While membership of the labour force would remain voluntary, the abolition of unemployment benefits would require persons who are able to work to enter the labour force in order to acquire a subsistence income.