Josh Gordon in The Age on Wayne Swan’s budget:
In 2005, the former academic and social justice campaigner published Postcode, a book that said Australia had become a “frayed patchwork of winners and losers from economic change”, and that there was an urgent need to tackle disadvantage…
True, which is why it might seem strange that the disadvantage experienced by the unemployed is about to become even more entrenched, thanks to this budget.
What is disadvantage? In Postcode, Swan quotes the great economist John Kenneth Galbraith: “People are poverty stricken when their income, even if adequate for survival, falls radically behind that of the community.” In other words, disadvantage (or poverty) is a relative concept, measured against acceptable social norms.
Pensioners are not well off by any stretch, with many living below the poverty line. But the $32 a week increase for single age pensioners means they will now take home $335 a week, including income supplements. And that means the relative lot of the unemployed is about to get worse.
How many middle-class unemployed is it going to take before we see action on this?
The unemployed tend to be forgotten by governments because they adjust action according to votes. The unemployed will never vote Liberal-National no matter what, so the Lib-Nats ignore them. And Labor feels secure with their vote. I mean, who else are they going to vote for?
That’s why the $900 handout went to the middle class – the swinging voters. If it were genuinely designed to be an economic stimulus, just ask yourself, who is more likely to spend a wad of cash they’re given, someone on $200 a week or someone on $1,000-$3,000 a week? Rises in unemployed and working class income lead to more economic growth than rises in middle and upper class income, simply because the unemployed and working classes have less discretionary income.
A ruling class is most truly in danger when they spend so much time thinking about how to get and keep power that they don’t actually do anything with the power. See for example the Empress Dowager in late Imperial China.
That’s why the $900 handout went to the middle class – the swinging voters. If it were genuinely designed to be an economic stimulus, just ask yourself, who is more likely to spend a wad of cash they’re given, someone on $200 a week or someone on $1,000-$3,000 a week?
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Well a lot of the time the person on $200 a week. Sorry but a lot of people who’re skint basically spend money like water. That’s why they’re skint all the time.
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What’s the basis for the assertion that the $900 just went to the middle class. Does Middle Class denote anyone with a job? So the working class are now the notworking class?
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Rudd picked a strategy to inject stimulation into the economy early. That is he threw a lot of money around. Now the country’s in debt for the next century and guess what we’ve got to cut back on the little things like the dole.
Kiashu, you make credible points but you may be forgetting the $900 pre-Xmas stimulus package which went to aged pensioners, those on Disability Support pensions and recipients of the myriad type of family benefits which i find too complex to comprehend, no longer being part of a ‘working family’ or sole parent demograph, as far as the bureaucracy is concerned.
But needless to say, the unemployed got stiffed in both stimulus rounds as well as in the budget. Casual earners should have lucked out in this round, would be interesting to hear from those who haven’t, in spite of some earnings last financial year. Personally i’m still dealing with a complex tax return, to be submitted forthwith, then we’ll see if Rudd coughs up.
But to respond to the policy issues which have yielded such an inequitable welfare system, i’d like to offer my evidence-based views :
The aged pension: There has been negligible commentary on the failure of Howard with his mega-surplus to boost the pension for senior citizens, yet suddenly under Rudd it became a major source of outrage from shockjocks and other opportunists, didn’t see Steve Fielding get part-naked during the conservatives’ reign. It’s not as if the global crunch created a sudden spike in the cost of living. Pensioners and other Centrelink clients have been struggling for decades, particularly those faced with shelling out half of their meagre income on inflated private rents, often in substandard digs which greedy landlords refuse to repair.
Yet Howard was let off the hook – and that’s largely the fault of the peak welfare bodies and the mega-charities who dared not upset the Libs lest they be severed from their funding drip-feed.
The munificience of the Xmas bonus and the recent success in the campaign to increase the aged pension demonstrates the power of collective activism – and that’s what’s needed to transform the plight of dole recipients. Only a grassroots campaign can articulate the many, many inequities faced by the welfare-dependent unemployed. The meagre handout, the hassles from the useless Job network agencies and the appalling ‘effective marginal tax rates’ which penalise those on casual earnings with an even more paltry rate of dole payments cry out for a vocal, sustained policy-based response.
And that’s the problem – the unemployed are understandably shy about broadcasting their situation and have historically been hopeless at mobilising, at least in this country. Perhaps the Age article is right – the middle class will be seriously traumatised at being rendered impotent and treated like Dickensian freaks or hamstrung cretins in the Stalinesque regime that is the Newstart treadmill(that’s not an exaggeration). The bourgeoisie do a nice line in outraged self-entitlement. But then again, from the leafy suburbs p.ov. being unemployed is so working class, so third world, so trailer trashy. Can’t see them marching in the streets on that one.
It may be impacting on thousands more now, but the Newstart scenario has been tough for a long time – and rarely does it help you find a job. Yet no grassroots representative body with any muscle has materialised. On the web there’s Centreflunk, which is culturally offensive, some have labelled it infantile.
However, the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS) is supposed to articulate and lobby on welfare inequities. Staffed by the meritocracy who have no passion for the injustices of which they have no first hand experience, they appear to have twiddled their thumbs for the entire Howard era. Rates of pension aside, they certainly should have pushed on the ‘effective marginal tax rates’ which create poverty traps for the working poor. Accountable only to their funding bodies, not to their constituents, for ACOSS it’s another glaring case of don’t bite the hand that feeds. It will continue everthus until there’s a populist rebellion to match the senior citz hissy fit. Where is the unemployed’s Steve Fielding?
But needless to say, the unemployed got stiffed in both stimulus rounds as well as in the budget.
Thank you.
I’m one of Lindsay Tanner’s 2% of people that didn’t get any stimulus package. And, being university educated, I’m apparently one of a “vanishingly small” number. Makes a girl feel special.
But that’s ok, because Centrelink said that I have 200,000 shares* and so don’t need any money. So that’s comforting at least. Few weeks ago Mr Rudd said I wasn’t allowed to have a civil union, either.
I feel so very special I might vote for someone who thinks I should be ordinary.
*I don’t actually have any shares. But now I get to live off my savings* while I try to convince Centrelink otherwise.
*What savings? I applied for Youth Allowance in Feburary, ffs, and they said 3 weeks. It’s been 3 months.
There seems to be quite a disconnect in public sympathy for people whose jobs are threatened and who indeed go on to lose those jobs and those who actually don’t have a job. The threat of unemployment seems to be a far greater evil in the eyes’ of government than actual unemployment. The latter which they blithely ignore other than to further bureacratise the process of getting welfare or by making the system more thoroughly punitive.
I guarantee that if the government raised the dole, it would be act as an ‘economic stimulus’, as every single cent would be instantaneously recycled back into the economy. Its not as though those of us trying to stay alive on $234 p/w manage to hoard money. Sure, money slips through our greasy little mits like water but the landlord and the shopkeeper think it a good thing.
Can someone remind me again, why it is that economies need to have a certain percentage of unemployed people in order to function effectively? What is that percentage again, and are we there yet?
The only person who seems to consistently give a toss about the unemployed is Bob Brown. I am definitely voting Greens next election.
OT. Kevin Rudd with his cowardly mean-spiritedness has lost both my vote and my confidence. Apparently he is a man with a great sense of humour. Apparently. Apparently he is a man with great Christian values. Apparently.
Kruddy I have stopped listening–you are a monumental bore.
Exactly as Howard did, every single statement made by either Rudd or his ministerial minions is followed by an attack on the Opposition. I find it mind-numbingly infantile and it serves absolutely no useful purpose for the people who they claim to be ‘serving’. It is patently only self-serving.
For me, the Defense White Paper was the confirmation I needed to know that Kevin Rudd is indeed the ‘cowardly lion’. That and the fact that his spouse made her millions almost exclusively from tax dollars via the snookering of the unemployed into useless ‘programs’, has left me feeling deeply cynical.
“The threat of unemployment seems to be a far greater evil in the eyes’ of government than actual unemployment.”
The unemployed votes are taken for granted. However people that might lose their jobs in swinging electorates…
“Can someone remind me again, why it is that economies need to have a certain percentage of unemployed people in order to function effectively?”
To stop the suppliers of labour from getting any more ideas about bargaining power?
Yeah that rings a bell, thanks. So does 6%.
I feel so very special I might vote for someone who thinks I should be ordinary.
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Heh
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Can someone remind me again, why it is that economies need to have a certain percentage of unemployed people in order to function effectively?
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Fear.
I guarantee that if the government raised the dole, it would be act as an ‘economic stimulus’, as every single cent would be instantaneously recycled back into the economy.
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True but the dole is other peoples’ money. So when someone’s getting the dole it’s coming from someone else.
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And the stimulus free for all has basically depleted the treasure. We’ve got billions of debt. Result: cutbacks. People who supported the stimulus shouldn’t really bitch about the belt-tightening because one led to the other.
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Talking of belt tightening. And of course: Sorry.
“True but the dole is other peoples’ money.”
Howz that? All people pay G.S.T. and various other taxes and charges. They are merely getting back some of what they have already paid out for.
Though that lie works really well for those who resent a proper safety net, it has to be said.
Though that lie works really well for those who resent a proper safety net, it has to be said.
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A. It’s not a lie. B. I don’t resent the safety net.
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When you’re working and paying tax some of what you pay goes to others who’re not working or paying tax. You are subsidizing them. That’s how it works. That doesn’t mean that, if you’re on the dole, you’re a mooching scumbag. It’s simply the truth. Generally people in this country support such welfare because they know they might need it.
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But my argument was that the notion that raising the dole will stimulate the economy is bogus because it’s simply transferring cash from one person to another. Also the mean regime we’re likely to see for the time being is a direct result of the billions being forked out for stimulus or projects or whatever.
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The government isn’t an endless source of revenue; its treasure is finite. And when they get into debt, that’s money we owe. It simply amazes me how simple minded most on the Left are about this stuff. Someone has to pay. So if you support a huge stimulus package then don’t bitch when the govt cuts spending. They have to.
Why would any unemployed person ever vote Labor? Unemployment always goes up under Labor and the real value of the dole decreases. Under Howard, the unemployed were given jobs, not handouts. Besides, most of the people who have been unemployed over the past ten years would not even vote, as they were too drunk, too stoned, stuck at the pokie machine, or just having a “lie in” that month.
Under Howard, the unemployed were given jobs, not handouts.
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Or not handouts anyway. Under Howard a huge number of people became homeless. When he got elected begging was rare in Australia. Now it’s a daily occurance.
No they don’t. They could raise taxes on the better-off over time to pay for the spending. I’m fully aware of this, and support it.
No they don’t. They could raise taxes on the better-off over time to pay for the spending. I’m fully aware of this, and support it.
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FFS That is simply not true. And the whole tax the rich thing is the standard riff. What will happen if you do that is that wealthy people will transfer their assets offshore or even their arses.
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Simple minded nonsense. Just spend money and get the rich to pay. That’s it. That the only idea about economics the Left has. And they wonder why they’re not taken seriously.
“Besides, most of the people who have been unemployed over the past ten years would not even vote, as they were too drunk, too stoned, stuck at the pokie machine, or just having a “lie in” that month.”
Milton@12, John Howard drove a lot of people to addiction but they weren’t just the unemployed.
John Howard drove a lot of people to addiction
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Okay. Name one.
From The Age:
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Michael West tells us that Kevvie stimulation will only increase “the nation’s net debt by little more than 1%.” Well that’s not too bad is it? West’s article is pro-Labor more or less. In it, Mark Beavan reminds us that under the Howard govt “the nation’s total debt soared from a mere $700 billion in 1997 up to $3.2 trillion by the close of their term. An increase of 387%”. Um-ah. I wonder if that’s the reason they don’t discuss Current Account Deficits over at Catallaxy. They don’t seem to think they matter.
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But I reckon they do. Australia debt is still ours whether it is personal or public and the CAD is breaking new ground. Our debt is “$2.32 trillion ($3.4 trillion including equity) as of September last year – and growing”.
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And yet that doesn’t matter. We shouldn’t bother about tightening our belts. We should just let it all fly. Our credit cards are maxed out. The wave of sackings hasn’t really started yet. And when it does people are gonna stop paying off their mortgage in larger numbers.
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That has not happened – yet.
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Now there’s a lot of optimism that says maybe it won’t. Mmmmm. We’ll see. But the debt situation remains. And remains unspoken by all of us. Instead of discussing this very real situation we’ve got two sides of the debate. On we want to punish people for being poor. On the other to punish them for being rich.
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Egad!
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This is the weakness of democracies. People are free. They get sloppy and start indulging themselves. And governments are required to help them or they face the boot.
http://business.theage.com.au/business/dont-mention-the-debt-20090219-8c6e.html?page=1
“What will happen if you do that is that wealthy people will transfer their assets offshore or even their arses.”
You’re right, Adrien. That is the standard riff. There’s also no (Australia specific, that I know of) evidence for it whatsoever.
It kinda sounds like simple-minded nonsense, especially given the *worldwide* financial climate right now.
Howard wanted to perescute people on disability pensions. btw, disabled pensioners get the pension rise too. Funny how Rudd is trying to pretend they don’t exist. Is he fearful of a wave of Howard like meanness from the electorate?
There’s also no (Australia specific, that I know of) evidence for it whatsoever.
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How does one supply evidence for the behaviour of people in response to something that hasn’t happened yet. However if you look at situations where there is a high tax on high incomes this is exactly what happens.
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It kinda sounds like simple-minded nonsense, especially given the *worldwide* financial climate right now.
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The global crisis has not removed the world’s tax havens from the face of the planet nor has it rendered every bank in the world defunct. There are places to go.
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Not that it matters anyway.
Single mothers were on the Howard radar, as well, Paul@20. It was a holy right for some mums to stay at home and look after their kids but not if they were poor and potential lowly paid fodder for the service industries.
Adrien@17 I have no intention of naming even one person whose mental health was compromised during the Howard years. That would be both insensitive and silly. But I can assure you that the damage that many of his mean spirited policies did, and are still doing, to already vulnerable people, will be with us for many years to come.
That was a rhetorical question Joe. I don’t think you could possibly substantiate it. You might talk about the downward spiral of someone affected by Howard’s welfare policies but I fail to see how John Howard could really get someone hooked on smack or some such.
“Under Howard a huge number of people became homeless. When he got elected begging was rare in Australia. Now it’s a daily occurance.”
Your own words Adrien from 13. As if addiction might not result from punishing treatment.
Howard was malicious. There’s no point defending him.
Adrien, pick up the phone, right now. Dial 000. Tell the operator you need emergency remedial macro-economics.
The quantity of fail you’re spouting is potentially lethal.
Yes, but the point is that you’re transferring from someone with a low marginal propensity to spend (the rich bugger) to someone with a high propensity to spend (the poor bloke). That’s what you want to do in a recession.
In the non-recessionary part of the business cycle, you need to keep a lid on welfare, because (a) you want to promote saving and investment, and (b) you want to push unemployed into the labour market.
But now, in recession, those factors don’t apply. We want people to spend money, not save it. And there’s no problem with labour supply right now. So we can and should expand welfare.
Yes. They need to cut spending once we come out of recession. This is a temporal thing. The government smooths out the business cycle by running up surpluses in boom years, and going into debt in recession. Obviously, there’s a limit as to how much debt the nation can take on. But we’re nowhere near that limit, and nowhere near the debt/GDP ratio of many other developed countries.
Even if the government didn’t want to raise Newstart permanently, there is absolutely no justification for cutting the unemployed out of the $900 stimulus payment. This really stinks.
Yeah, I hear Lehman Brothers is hiring heavily at the moment.
This comment of yours, like the ones above, would be perfectly valid in 2005. If the global economy were booming, then there would indeed be many opportunities for smart young wunderkinder to find a more congenial tax regime. But now the Aussie expat lawyers working in London, the investment bankers in NY, and the architects in Dubai, are returning home in droves (God help us). In this environment, we can ramp up taxes a bit (without going overboard).
Remember one of Howard’s non-core promises was that he would never bring in Work For The Dole. He did. I thought we had a minimum wage in this country or maybe there’s something in the fine print about the poorest of the poor not having the same rights as everyone else?
It was former Prime Minister Menzies who stated that unemployment of six percent was required for an economy to function properly.
Paulus – Thanks for the abstract of Keynes For Dummies.
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No-one is arguing that welfare won’t or shouldn’t expand. It will because, like, heaps of people will be on the dole. I don’t know what you get on the dole these days but I do remember the business papers saying last year that it was too low and it should be bumnped up. However the govt does not have an endless supply of cash and is going very heavily into debt to fund this stimululus so the question remains whether or no they’re being restrained where they can because they need to be or because it’s expedient or because they’re just nasty meanies.
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I would say that the splurge does send off certain alarm bells. We might’ve escaped the total meltdown scenarios we see in the US and UK but that does not mean we’re not vulnerable. We, like the US, are maxed out on credit. If a certain critical number of people lose their jobs this will produce a feedback loop and we’ll all be in the shit. I wonder if we’ll regret the current spending then. Rudd says, and I suppose you agree, that early stimulus will stave off such a meltdown. I don’t know we’ll see.
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But the idea that one should just punish the wealthy is possibly rooted in resentiment. Your references to the architects, lawyers and bankers returning home reeks of ‘there goes the neighbourhood’. Are these people really all that bad? Why? Because successful? To what extent is the advocacy of ‘make the rich pay’ sensible policy and to what extent is it simply grounded in the hatred of the wealthy?
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BTW what I mean when I say wealthy doesn’t refer to the higher end of the intelligentsia but rather the haughty bourgeoisie. People who have large assets and lots of power and can transfer those assets about the planet. People who don’t need a job.
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Of course it’s reasonable to expect banks that’re getting propped up by govts to return the favour. But our banks, I’m constantly told, are healthy. What shall we do then? Charge Goldman Sachs and Lehmann Brothers? And let’s not forget Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac either.
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All I’m saying is that there is a limit to spending and that even when govt spending is warranted that still obtains. This country has a chronic CAD problem and sooner or later that bill will arrive.
Remember one of Howard’s non-core promises…
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Hamlet by John Howard:
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Quoth she before you tumbled me you promised me to wed, and he replied I woulda done by yonder sun but the fiscal policy restraints of the post-September quarter have made it necessary to dispense with this non-core promise.
That was a rhetorical question Joe. I don’t think you could possibly substantiate it. You might talk about the downward spiral of someone affected by Howard’s welfare policies but I fail to see how John Howard could really get someone hooked on smack or some such.
Adrien it seems a bit inconsistent of you to demand concrete proof of Joe’s assertion while making an untested assertion of your own, i.e. that more progressive taxes will cause a mass exodus of richer people (Galt!!?) Both are unproven assertions.
Joe2 I don’t know what State you came from but here in Victoria many people suffered greatly under Jeff Kennett who gutted social services and other aspects of the social wage and then went on to be CEO of the Beyond Blue psychiatric health foundation. The irony of this was not lost on many of us. Anecdotally, I know at least one person who is on the point of mental breakdown due to the Howard government’s policies on single parents.
“Adrien it seems a bit inconsistent of you to demand concrete proof of Joe’s assertion while making an untested assertion of your own”
You are a very kind person, Helen.
I don’t know what you get on the dole these days
It depends on the rent you pay. Payment comes in two sections: unemployment benefits and rent assistance.
When I was on Newstart and paying $100 in rent my payment was $215 per week, in total. Not sure how much of that was rent assistance – maybe $40?
On Youth Allowance: $168 per week. I don’t pay enough in rent to receive rent assistance.
I don’t know if the government are meanies, but the people at Centrelink certainly are.
Adrien it seems a bit inconsistent of you to demand concrete proof of Joe’s assertion while making an untested assertion of your own, i.e. that more progressive taxes will cause a mass exodus of richer people (Galt!!?) Both are unproven assertions.
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It would be if it was but it’s not. For example in the EU high taxing nations like Italy, Germany and Norway are attempting to put pressure on low taxing nations like the UK and Ireland because they are losing investment and personelle to them. It’s called the wage theory of migration.
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But that aside again what I’m thinking is not the highly skilled or well remunerated workers. I’m thinking of the transfer of large amnounts of capital out of the country to tax havens. Do I really need to substantiate this? Why not let Richard Gordon do it?
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Of course what obtains here is the idea that I’m some kind of meanie. What’s missing is the consideration of unintended consequences. Economies over the next stretch are going to teeter between inflationary escallation and deflationary slump – a razor’s edge. And foolhardy simplemindedness like ‘just make the rich pay’ without any attention paid to the fact that the rich have resources and will use them in their own interests possibly to the detriment of the body politic will not help. I think the govt is prudent enough to realize this.
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That all said $215 a week is too low. But how long’s it been? I was on the dole a decade ago and it was about the same. If it’s the still atbthat level it should’ve been raised a long time ago.
The reason we no longer have tax rates that are outright confiscation (especially at the upper end of the tax scale) is the existence of tax havens. Andorra, Luxembourg, Monaco, Caymans etc etc.
Prior to the tax haven nations up & marketing themselves, rates of 90% & higher common.
In Australia provisional tax already requies successful businessmen to pay 99% tax (if their first year in business is lucrative enough) Gee, wonder why people set up offshore accounts, migrate their citizenship to Luxembourg, move corporate HQ to Singapore etc?
I prefer to take the word of Ross Gittings about this:
In the context of tax cuts to the top quarter of income earners during the Howard years, the hysterical over-reaction of those claiming dire consequences if said tax rates were actually increased, is exposed as the nonsense it is.
Well you’ve convinced me Adrian. Here’s the solution to unemployment and those pesky people with too much cash.
BTW Do you have a link for that? I’m assuming the ‘he’ in the para is John Howard. It’s true.
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One of The Monthly’s commentors on Rudd’s diatribe on the death of neoliberalism (I forget which) pointed out that neoliberal rhetoric did not match its agency which did deploy govt intervention to redistribute wealth up. Defenders of that move will point out that often the wealthy make a vastly disproportional contribution to the state.
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I take a dim view of governments acting as if the wealthy were privileged as citizens. Of course they are. But they shouldn’t be. However if the wealthy are expected to foot to huge a part of the state then they will feel some justifiable entitlement to that state.
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This of course is part of the millenia long struggle against tyranny. But tyranny works both ways. Sometimes it’s the rich that are tyrannized. I don’t believe people should have political privileges because they’re worth so much. I’m strongly opposed to that idea. I don’t think they should be punished either.
“But tyranny works both ways”
Very funny, Adrien, but I doubt if you actually believe it.
I must say that your idea of punishment is rather quaint. Were those on the top 10% of incomes required to pay, say 5% more tax, punishment is not exactly what is being inflicted on them, especially considering that you and I effectively subsidise their lifestyle choices, such as sending their offspring to expensive private schools.
Once again your hyperbole sounds increasingly hysterical to me.
Adrian – For hysterical hyperbole please see Joe’s Howard turned my friends into junkies riff.
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Were those on the top 10% of incomes required to pay, say 5% more tax, punishment is not exactly what is being inflicted on them especially considering that you and I effectively subsidise their lifestyle choices, such as sending their offspring to expensive private schools.
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In my view the rich shouldn’t be ‘special’ that means that we should neither especially expect them to prop things up nor should we subsidize them. Again what obtains here is resentiment. There’s animosity toward the wealthy and it fogs the head. That, of course, is complimented by its mutual correlery – the acquisition and maintenence of special privilege by the wealthy. Like getting th whole country to fund their schools.
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If the public education budget was distributed in vouchers and absolutely equal. This mightn’t happen.
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Very funny, Adrien, but I doubt if you actually believe it.
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Yes most amusing. And you’ve caught me out…
There’s not one shred of evidence ever that the rich have been terrorized. It simply doesn’t happen.
Helen @30 I am a Victorian, and like you, very aware of the damage Jeff’s reign imparted on the most vulnerable workers in the state before Howard compounded it, in the name of further “reform”. While Kennett would never admit it, you have to wonder whether his association with Beyond Blue came about, out of some sense of guilt.
Mental health issues, with symptoms like addictions, are obviously the likely outcome of extremely poor working conditions. Effectively forced labor, in the case of many single mothers, is bound to have had poor outcomes, not just for those women but their children. Sadly, I am not surprised by difficulties the person you mentioned is having.
Clearly nothing will convince Adrien, who attempts to derail a thread about the failures of fair policy for the unemployed to tears for the wealthy.
This thread seems to have become Adrien speaking to himself (i stopped reading a while back). Someone seems to have a lot of time on their hands! As i don’t think Adrien’s politics are indicative of someone who’s had to rely on the dole, perhaps he’s one of the idle rich!
Anyhow, Paul, ‘Howard wanted to perescute people on disability pensions’, where on earth do you get that idea? There’s simply no evidence to support it. DSP recipients are doing very nicely, and if they’re paying public housing rents, they’re a lot better off than the working poor. But like the aged pensioners, they’re also very noisy and accomplished at agitating and self-advocacy, unlike the unemployed.
Whoops! Being tired and just a little sloshed, i misread Howard for Rudd in the above quote from Paul. But who hasn’t mistaken one Magoo clone for the other? So there is some truth in what you say, but nothing ever really came of it under Howard. I encounter a lot of DSP recipients in my work and some would be quite capable of participating in society. Those with substance or alcohol habits seem to have idle lives stretched out before them. It’s not really their fault. But the demograph of which i speak would be better off with a bit of gainful employment, volunteer work or creative pursuits.
“I encounter a lot of DSP recipients in my work and some would be quite capable of participating in society. ”
Matilda, exactly what are your qualifications for making such determinations? I ask because several DSP friends of mine – genuine cases with severe problems of many many years standing – have repeatedly had to counter excruciatingly ill-informed medical/psychological assessments by entirely unqualified Centrelink staff. Do you wish to support a system in which untrained admin staff take it upon themselves to directly contradict advice from medical specialists? And to offer DSP applicants medical advice along the lines of ‘Get a grip, there’s nothing wrong with you’?
Further, it should be clear to you from numerous posts on this blog that Paul Burns is speaking from first-hand experience when he comments on DSP issues. And that he doesn’t fit your characterisation of DSP recipients as being “very noisy and accomplished at agitating and self-advocacy”.
I’ve been lucky as a DSP recipient. Having mild cerebral palsy makes it sometimes obvious there’s something wrong with me as does CPD or whatever you call it. (In any case Centrelink gave up picking on me even when I was on the dole, as I’d scream hell and highwater at my local member.) Also I was grandfathered from Howard’s heinous changes a couple of years ago from Howard’s cut to DSP. I have no idea how DSP recipients after that date can get it together to just have the physical strength, let alone anything else, to jump through the Government hoops. I know if I want to do anything in town without ending up utterly physically exhausted for up to two days,, which is only 2kms away one way, with very little public transport, I have to rely on friends or get a cab both ways. If friends are working or I have no money for cabs I generally don’t go up town, except when I’m determined to get some exercise even if it does take at least two and a half to three hours out of my day. And generally stuffs me over for a while.
Jusat sayin’.
Joe and Matilda -
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Clearly nothing will convince Adrien, who attempts to derail a thread about the failures of fair policy for the unemployed to tears for the wealthy.
As i don’t think Adrien’s politics are indicative of someone who’s had to rely on the dole, perhaps he’s one of the idle rich!
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I did have to rely on the dole when I graduated in the midst of a recession. I know exactly how it feels to be on the skids thru no fault of your own and be made to feel like it is your fault. I also, at the time, calculated that considering the number of people on the dole the country was bleeding billions.
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Your caricature of my politics is underpinned by the fact that you have no idea what my politics are. Here I’m simply advocating a perspective that eludes most of you: this stuff costs us and we have limited options. The Left never ask that question. Like 5 year old children they think the govt is daddy and daddy has all the money in the universe.
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And of course what happens when I raise an inconvenient fact? You instantaneously resort to labeling and distortion.
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I tend to put up inconvenient facts on a regular basis, regardless the ideology of those who’d rather not hear them. My politics are, to borrow a phrase used by Hobsbawm recently, are post-theological. And citing Vaclev Havel, I think it’s absurd to classify one’s self topographically.
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It’s no wonder that the Left is a marginalized joke in the consciousness of ordinary people. You have yourselves to blame – entirely.
“It’s no wonder that the Left is a marginalized joke in the consciousness of ordinary people. You have yourselves to blame – entirely.”
Another funny one Adrien. Thanks for brightening up my day.
Three Adriens walk into a bar. First Adrien asks for an orange juice with ice. Barman says, ‘OK you wanker here it is.’
Second Adrien says ‘don’t call my friend Adrien a wanker’. Barman says ‘Sorry, but I’m just an ordinary person, and he looks like a wanker to me’.
Third Adrien (a Kiwi) says ‘I’ll have a bloody mary please, and what do you think of the left?’
‘It’s a marginalised joke, mate’ replies the barman, ‘it’s never worked properly.’
Cheers Adrian.
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I was thinking it wouldn’t be possible to have a stimulating, rational discussion in which different points of view were welcomed. Your comment has demonstrated clearly that the Left is capable of facing inconvenient facts and doing the hard work it takes to develop their ideas taking such into account.
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I’m absolutely and completely wrong. I concede defeat without reservation. There is absolutely no downside to boosting spending will he nil he and the wealthy won’t resist any move to tax them dry.
“That all said $215 a week is too low. But how long’s it been? I was on the dole a decade ago and it was about the same. If it’s the still atbthat level it should’ve been raised a long time ago.”
Adrien, you said this way upthread. I think that you’ve summed up what’s being argued for. That people on the dole have been left way behind. So, I’m not sure what your arguing against in pragmatic terms.
I can remember geting about $340 per fortnight on the dole in the early ’80s when I left uni. My rent was $40 per week. I could actually just live on this, especially with a little bit of cash in hand. You can’t live on the dole for very long now.
The characterisation of the unemployed as shiftless layabouts has been the stock-in-trade of governments since Malcolm Fraser came to power and threw several hundred thousand people out of work. It was far easier to blame the poor powerless schmucks who were the victims of government policy, than to be honest.
Ever since, they’ve been convenient whipping boys when there aren’t other poor sods like asylum seekers and Aborigines to direct attention away from shit government policies or scandals.
I was very disappointed that the dole wasn’t increased, particularly now. I hope the government will see fit to make life on the dole a little easier.
No doubt this is true Jane, but I think attitudes towards the lowest economic strata of society predate Malcolm Fraser. People living in poverty have always been regarded by Australian society in much the same light as 18th Century English society regarded them, i.e, as the criminal class. An attitude which says a lot more about the person who tends to subscribe to such a view, than it does about the recipient of it.
Fine – Adrien, you said this way upthread. I think that you’ve summed up what’s being argued for. That people on the dole have been left way behind. So, I’m not sure what your arguing against in pragmatic terms.
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Thanks for noticing.
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I’m not really arguing against a hike. Altho’ I reckon the spend-a-thon makes it more difficult. I think people here are pretty right that the unemployed are being shafted because it’s expedient. And $215.00 a week is too low. It’s not much higher than it was when I was on it last years ago and I found it a struggle even tho’ I didn’t have a rent bill.
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I like to play devil’s advocate in economic arguments because I want to see how deep the thinking goes and what’s not being considered.
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It’s where you hit the hard wall of doctrine.
People living in poverty have always been regarded by Australian society in much the same light as 18th Century English society regarded them, i.e, as the criminal class.
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True what irony considering where we came from.
Adrien, are you over your bout of straw-Left fever? Good
Ignoring that Norway is not an EU member, and can’t attempt to exert any pressure upon UK tax rates, that’s why I asked for some Australia-specific evidence. Issues that certain EU or US states may have with interstate migration of labour and capital, are not Australia’s.
However: Taxes Not Seen as Making the Rich Flee New York
But a study by Professor Massey and two colleagues, published in September, estimated that the previous tax increase cost New Jersey only 50 to 350 existing “half-millionaire” households — a relatively small number against the total of 44,000 such households in the state.
While those departures cost the state about $38 million a year in revenue, the study estimates, the higher taxes levied on those who stayed have brought in an average of $895 million a year.
“The global crisis has not removed the world’s tax havens from the face of the planet nor has it rendered every bank in the world defunct. There are places to go.”
“But that aside again what I’m thinking is not the highly skilled or well remunerated workers. I’m thinking of the transfer of large amnounts of capital out of the country to tax havens. Do I really need to substantiate this?”
No, because *tax havens* not the issue. Not one word of Gordon’s report is relevant – though his criticisms of the policies implemented by the Australian Government to attempt to prevent the funneling of capital into tax havens, are interesting in their own right.
If individuals (your super-wealthy ‘people who don’t need a job’) or companies want to transfer their capital or themselves from Australia to a tax haven (legally or otherwise), even Hong Kong, they’ll do that already – not as a result of the top marginal personal income tax rate being raised from (say) 45% to 47%.
BTW, on the other thread, Katz mentioned the flight of grey wealth interstate to Qld after they abolished Inheritance Tax. That was a 100% tax cut.
Adrien, are you over your bout of straw-Left fever?
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Yes but it keeps coming back.
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Ignoring that Norway is not an EU member, and can’t attempt to exert any pressure upon UK tax rates,
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Touche you got me.
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that’s why I asked for some Australia-specific evidence. Issues that certain EU or US states may have with interstate migration of labour and capital, are not Australia’s.
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True. A lot of good points I’ll sit on ‘em for a while and come back.
btw = the term dole-bludger was coined by Clyde Cameron when he was Minister for Labour and National Service in the Whitlam Government.
Sally – Not one word of Gordon’s report is relevant
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Really>? Why not? There seems to be an assumption present that Australians are somehow a band apart. That human behaviour in other countries doesn’t apply here. Norway for example has a high tax rate and it therefore has a problem with high earners splitting the country.
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If individuals (your super-wealthy ‘people who don’t need a job’) or companies want to transfer their capital or themselves from Australia to a tax haven (legally or otherwise), even Hong Kong, they’ll do that already – not as a result of the top marginal personal income tax rate being raised from (say) 45% to 47%.
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Perhaps, perhaps not. It depends where the last straw is. The example of New Yorkers not fleeing the scene has a diminished relevance because New York is a particularly special place. It’s the world’s first city. There are good reason to put up with the expense of living there that don’t apply to Melbourne or Sydney which are now amongst the world’s most expensive cities. (Thank you Mr Howard).
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And in any event despite the assertions in that link high flyers have been fleeing Manhattan for a while now. To Greenwich Conn..
I don’t seriously believe that if a modest tax hike such as the one you envisage were to be emplaced that every entrepreneur would move to Chicago. As has been said by many people the rest of the world is fubar right now. But wait? Doesn’t that spell an opportunity to actually attract talent here? Hey guys come here. It’s easy to do business, clean air, modern tech and it’s relatively cheap to live here…
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Oh wait. D’oh!
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The high rents that’ve manifested in Australian cities over the last decade are not Rudd’s fault they’re Howard’s. And it’s one of the most single damning bits of evidence against Howard’s credentials as an economic ‘manager’. For ‘family values sentimentality (and I’d wager a little latent ethnocentricity) he drove up the price of property artificially and, besides making home ownership unaffordable, he’s made it more expensive for people to establish enterprises here.
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This crisis is an opportunity for us because we’re structurally sound. I don’t believe that the social security of the citizenry should be sacrificed to make it nice for investors. But I don’t think that investors, or the wealthy should be regarded as fodder for providing that security either. The balance between the interests of the rich and poor is a razor’s edge that’s been at the heart of democratic governance since at least Aristotle.
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To redistribute wealth, you need wealth in the first place.
Feral Abacus, I was making an observation based on my work in the community sector over a few years – not a determination. However, I wrote about participation in a broad sense, not necessarily with the Centrelink connotation of that word. I did not state or imply that anyone shouldn’t be on the DSP but merely that for some it can become a bit of a dead end path. DSP recipients constitute a huge continuum of people with a vast range of health issues. Clearly, a great many people with mental or physical health issues need to stay on that benefit for life – and I wasn’t suggesting otherwise. I specifically mentioned substance or alcohol issues because, subject to the underlying causes of self-medication, that is one subset that may be ripe for rehabilitation, should they choose that option and subsequently find a realistic treatment plan and support mechanisms. Likewise, those with mild mental health conditions seem to have few options to broaden their horizons, should they be desirous of doing so, apart from art classes and occasional musical events – which are all good as far as they go. I meet guys who disclose that they are in a rut, but there are virtually no training options for them – not that I’d wish the Stalinesque rigours of the Job Network on anyone!
Noisy self-advocacy may sound pejorative but it was intended to distinguish the lobbying that occurs from the many support organisations (so perhaps ‘self’ should replaced with ‘collective advocacy) when Government threatens to prune eligibility criteria and thereby cut some recipients off the DSP, from the historical lack of strong, publicly expressed advocacy for dole recipients. Hence, you end up with the ‘deserving poor’ and the ‘undeserving poor’ as enacted through the pre-Xmas bonus and budget increases for the aged and DSP recipients, whilst neglecting Newstart whose beneficiaries have to expend a lot of $$$ on their search for employment.
Regarding Paul Burns, my comments were clearly of a general nature, based on anecdotal evidence yielded from my tangible, not virtual, reality. I wasn’t commenting on anyone’s specific eligibility for the DSP, yet you have again distorted my words. While I wasn’t aware of his specific condition, and his cogency and courage are amazing, why would that have changed my observation? But clearly, as there’s a vast continuum of DSP recipients, to make an observation (even a benign one) about one subset is to open a huge, highly emotive can of worms – as it is assumed that I’m generalising about the entire DSP demograph, which would be as absurd as labelling all the unemployed as ‘dole bludgers’. You also assume that to comment on one topic, one should have an omniscient awareness of the entire magnum opus of LP and the life situations of its regular contributors. That is unrealistic, this is a public forum, not a private club. That particular criticism of me does bring to mind a reflection made on a thread last year, that LP ‘commenters’ tended to hunt in a pack.
I acknowledge that your point about the treatment DSP applicants may receive from some Centrelink staff is a valid one.
Matilda
It’s not my desire to distort your words, but rather to challenge your statements. When you make claims such as..
“DSP recipients are doing very nicely, and if they’re paying public housing rents, they’re a lot better off than the working poor. But like the aged pensioners, they’re also very noisy and accomplished at agitating and self-advocacy, unlike the unemployed.”
… there’s no need for any distortion: with all due respect its very difficult to see your rhetoric as anything other envious, if not mean-spirited.
As for…
“You also assume that to comment on one topic, one should have an omniscient awareness of the entire magnum opus of LP and the life situations of its regular contributors. … That particular criticism of me does bring to mind a reflection made on a thread last year, that LP ‘commenters’ tended to hunt in a pack”
…well, if you can recall a single comment made some 6 months ago, and claim not to be aware of the circumstances of someone who comments here daily, I’d be inclined to conclude that your reading of this blog is highly selective.
Moreover, I’m bemused by your implication that a single critical response from someone who rarely comments here somehow constitutes pack behaviour by LP commenters. Its not. I speak for myself and for my friends and family, not for LP or any collective/organization.
There are points you make at #58 with which I would wholeheartedly agree: for instance, there’s no question in my mind that many DSP recipients would benefit from greater support. But in posts #41 and 42 you express some of your arguments in such emotive and pejorative terms that I wonder whether you are advocating an ideological position of social ‘efficiency’, rather than expressing any trace of empathy for a group of people who have difficult lives.
Matilda @ 58,
Yep. That’s me.