Tony Abbott has a plan which would end skills shortages in the resources sector:
TONY Abbott has proposed banning the dole for people under 30 in a bid to entice the unemployed to head west and fill massive skill shortages in the booming resources sector.
This is yet another thought bubble, not yet policy, but an idea Abbott threw on the table at a meeting with business representatives.
It sums up Abbott’s reflexes – punitive populism in the service of capital.
It also sums up Abbott’s gender lens – I wonder if he stopped for an instant to consider how many young women are employed in the mining industry.
Elsewhere: John Quiggin.
Update: Hoyden About Town.
If Abbott is looking for an effective method to force young 20-something women into prostitution, and young 20-something men into theft and violent crime, he’s found it. Another socially compassionate winner from the Liberal Party – when’s that election again?
The disturbing thing is that if (Goddess forbid) the Coalition ever finds itself in a position to implement such a policy, the subsequent Labor Government’s Caught In The Crowd Right and Caught In The Cabinet Left will almost certainly not have the bottle to reverse it.
Tony Abbott should have suggested that young people be given the opportunity to to national service and train for a job whilst doing it. More plausable than working in the mines at a dead end job for some. At least training will put them on the right track for work purposes and future working life.
No doubt this will go down a treat with the comment-on-the News Ltd-blogs crowd, and hang-on-every-word-of-Alan Jones-crowd, but they are already going to vote for Abbott.
Anyway, I’m sure he knows what he is doing.
Next: conscription for the long term unemployed. Put ‘em in the army. That’ll learn ‘em.
What’s really disturbing about this latest piece of Liberal cruelty is that Rudd doesn’t appear to have had the guts to condemn it outreight, or rule it out as Labor policy.
I know we supposedly missed the GFC, but that doesn’t mean some people weren’t thrown on the industrial/call centre scrap heap. Its about time people showed a bit of compassion for the unemployed.
I immediately thought about how this would affect young women.
Following on about the comment about prostitution, how about this? Prostitution has been decriminalised in some circumstances, so how about young women have to take jobs as prostitutes, if they can’t find anything else.
Honestly, what will bubble up next?
Comrades, your lack of imagination and historical perspective is showing. We in the Motherland of Actually Existing Socialism could never have built Norilsk, Magadan or the White Sea Canal without the kind of creative policy thinking which Comrade Abbott is bringing to this issue.
John Quiggin on why this is a silly idea.
Paul Burns @ 5
“Its about time people showed a bit of compassion for the unemployed.”
Indeed.
Perhaps the realisation that, generally speaking, they are the “leisure class” displaced through casualisation, mechanisation and computerisation of their previous workplaces, currently branded as “parasites” (by both of the major parties and much of the MSM), are more accurately described as “victims” of the rapid changes in society over the last 50 or so years would help.
I’m not holding my breath though.
If I recall correctly, the Fraser Government tried something like this. Young men in Armidale were being sent to Whyalla to work, but it fizzled out. The social and practical difficulties of separating people from their social and family ties and in some cases from family oblogations – looking after sick parents/siblings etc may have had something to do with bringing it to an end. Mr Abbott probably doesn’t care less about such an impact, obviously.
I know one guy that got his revenge, though. Instead of going to Whyalla, he was forced into a job in Social Security, (being very bright, where, for months he signed every document that came his way Pedro the Goldfish. It was ages before anybody woke up to what was going on. Needless to say, he lost his job, which was the point of the whole exercise.
Its time for the unemployed to indulge in creative anarchy.
Even Andrew Bolt thinks it’s a bad idea.
There are not enough jobs in the resource industry to make much of a difference to unemployment amongst young people anyway, despite the hype. Compared to nearly every other industry, resources/mining is amongst the least labour intensive.
Thanks Kim.
I was going to do a post about the Coalition’s companion proposal – to reduce the aged and disability pension burden, all recipients of those payments under 75 and living in areas with expensive housing should be forced to sell their houses and move to Gagebrook, Tasmania.
I mean – helping working families to own their own homes, and reducing wasteful government expenditure. I’m waiting with delirious anticipation for Bronwyn to announce this modest proposal.
Oh, yeah, right. I forgot. The oldies vote Liberal and kicking them for fun doesn’t go down well with the right-wing cheer squad.
Abbott doesn’t seem to realise that many unemployed young people are unemployed for a good reason -in my experience the mines aren’t interested in taking people that are lower-skilled or who may be substance users (very stringent drug/alcohol testing). I work in an area with lots of mining jobs around and Abbott clearly has no idea what’s involved. I agree that this is yet another of his ‘thought-bubbles’ and that the mining giants themselves would much prefer to poach highly-skilled immigrants to do these jobs.
He should cut their ears off next. Evil, evil, young unemployed people. The Devil makes work for idle hands, don’t you know?
Sorry, but I agree with Abbot. It may be something to do with the fact that I see the effects and choices of the chronically unemplyed (and the generationally unemployed) everyday. It’s about time that something is done. More than 3 months unemployment and then you *should* be directed into the gaps in the labour market. The unemployment benefit is not a lifestyle choice, it’s not an entitlement, it is a safety net designed to catch you and then help you get back into the labour market. I agree – send them west where they can make a mint in mining, then they can live off their own earnings and not on our taxes. And if they don’t have skills? Teach them the skills they need for a position – any position – and build from there. Move those with aptitude and caring skills into training programs to be AIN’s for aged care, or on training paths to be nurses. And make it clear that there is only another bite at the dole if they lose their jobs for reasons that are out of their control – like businesses closing etc. Social contracts require 2 parties & there is a responsibility on the part of those who recieve unemployment to become contributing members of society.
I can’t believe Abbott thinks for a moment that this is a serious proposition. He’s trying to attract attention, which is pretty hard for a bloke who’s been in the news since the days of the Keating Government. If it steals media time from the hospitals deal I guess he thinks it’s worthwhile. But why he would choose such a stupid idea is beyond me. Maybe he’s convinced all the One Nation types have drifted to Labor and all he needs to win government is to get them back again.
The cumulative effect of the AGW is a lot of crap/get tougher on refugees/dole bludgers! stuff is that he has learnt absolutely nothing from 2007. Fortunately there are no real signs that voters are interested.
aw, c’mon there’s other jobs in Port Hedland beside mining. These would be the low paid ones that they can’t fill as no one can afford rents of $2000 per week unless their employer subsidises it.
Thought bubble? More like dribbling fatuity.
Abbott’s visionary proposal provides the perfect opportunity for establishing a soylent green industry in WA.
Abbott’s visionary proposal provides the perfect opportunity for establishing a soylent green industry in WA.
Abbott’s visionary proposal provides the perfect opportunity for establishing a soylent green industry in WA.
Abbott’s visionary proposal provides the perfect opportunity for establishing a soylent green industry in WA.
Well, that’s weird.
It’s like people think being on the dole is the life of Riley. I was on the dole on and off for a couple of years (add two more if you want to count AusStudy and reading some of the comments on the Bolt thread that should count as leaching) and I still remember those days as bleak. And that was 16 years ago, the memories don’t fade with time.
Neither does the stigma. A mother of one of my mates a couple of years ago asked if I was still “bludging off her tax money.”
More proof of his unfitness to govern. That’s an easy story to draw.
He may want to raise the voting age, the parents of people not receiving Newstart or whatever may be in their mid-sixties or older.
Paul #25, whilst Abbott may well want to raise the voting age, the Coalition is more likely to favour making enrolment to vote more difficult, ostensibly in the name of eliminating the possibility of electoral fraud, but principally in order to discourage enrolment by demographics such as younger people who tend not to be Coalition supporters.
Just how experienced would these people really be
I wonder how parents feel about having GenY move back in?
Forget asylum seekers, The next great fear campaign in Australian politics could also be it’s funniest.
“We decide who moves back into the spare bedroom, and the manner in which they raid the fridge”
Yes, if he were to up the voting age to thirty-one that would fit in nicely with dole denial till age thirty.
The sheer stupidity and shallowness of Abbott’s thought bubbles makes me wonder how the Coalition has the support it does. Cannot people see through this man??
What a great idea! Put them into National Service, teach them to become skilled killers!
That’s just what this warring world needs are more people that think: KILL, KILL, KILL!
P.S. The U.S. would fully support this brilliant move!
Katz, why are you stammering?
Mr Denmore it is also a scary mystery to me also. Crazy has currency.
and also and also
Well, a creative solution to the skills shortage that encourages people to find and train in useful skills is always welcome, but this? No surely not.
Might be worth looking at what the French do in this area, where they cut people from welfare after X years and offer retraining and employment in a skill that’s in demand. Well, I think that’s how it works, I’ve only ever heard this in passing.
PinkyOz
Why this? Why now?
Yes, older people are the Coalition’s core constituency. The one issue that will make them change their vote is health, and for all the flaws in Rudd’s policy at least he has one, whereas Abbott and Dutton are too lazy to develop one and assert what you’d imagine would be an inherent advantage in this area. He needs to change the narrative, and fast: a dollar given to an unemployed person is a dollar not given to an old-age pensioner, there is not a lot of solidarity among welfare recipients.
As I said on Quiggin’s blog, it’s a
liemyth that there is a huge demand for unskilled labour in the mines. Abbott is ignorant for suggesting there is. The last thing those areas want is some influx of unskilled people like the wallaby track of the 1930s.The fact that the policy hasn’t been costed and that the narrative on it is spiralling out of Abbott’s control is yet another sign of this man’s ineptitude.
The problem that Abbott faces, apart from the fact that he’s an idiot, is that every mention of health reform carries the implicit assumption that the system is broken, and guess who was responsible for it before the current government decided to fix it?
So as much as the Libs want to bang on about how Rudd’s reforms won’t work, all they are doing is acknowledging that their leader was responsible for a broken health system and did nothing about it.
If they had any sense they’d agree to pass the legislation and as much as is possible get the issue off the front pages. Which is why Rudd was challenging Abbott to say he would oppose the legislation this morning.
Creating ridiculous diversions only exacerbates the problem.
Really, you wonder who on earth is advising this mob. Sarah Palin?
PinkyOz as long as there is the capacity to understand what skills are actually needed. This recent scouting for hairdressers and cooks from o/s was a sure sign that the Howard government, in that case, had no idea of what was necessary.
They were bringing in people and spilling them, and locals, out of Tafes in huge numbers creating a mess that will take years to fix up.
How long would Abbott last in the ‘real world’? His work experience outside of politics is slim: a few years in his youth in a Catholic seminary praying and reading the Bible all day. A few years as a “journalist” writing right-wing polemics for The Bulletin.
I can just imagine him working for private enterprise. Going to the boss to ask for time off for “training”, plus the odd nine days here and there so he can go bike-riding. And then fronting back at work all buggered and performing sub-optimally because he near killed himself in extreme leisure pursuits.
Who’s really the bludger here, living off the taxpayers?
Adrian: only partisans blame one side for causing problems in the health system, but only Rudd is coming through with solutions. Abbott doesn’t look culpable, he just looks lost – a bit like Kim Beazley (as former defence minister) dealing with Tampa and September 11, his own side think he’s strong in that area but when it comes down to it he isn’t.
Going back to the thread title, look at these lyrics: isn’t this everyone’s idea of happy workers singing merrily as they do what they’re told? (note particularly the “learn and teach” reference re skills) -
joe2 @ 36 -
Yeah, but that was a pretty dopey political decision by a PM looking to score points. You would imagine that a well run system would invite business to lodge requests for skilled labor in return for having training costs covered by the government, hopefully for less than the cost of paying the dole.
But like I sad, speculative. I still say we should be looking at all ideas, but I don’t think declaring everyone under the age of 30 as a dole bludger and taking away money used for living is a good idea, either in policy or electoral terms (This is a party that is desperately loosing young members and young support, how does this policy help?).
PinkyOz
Abbott’s other objective is an initiative that will play well with the same knockabout miners and similar workers themselves, those already working in the WA mines (or the Wilson Tuckey types that champion them). But Abbott’s no doubt got that ass about too. Perhaps he should actually ask a few of them how they feel about a mass of people from the other side of the country who are used to living on a lot less money each week competing with them for their jobs, making their labour suddenly a lot more disposable.
Andrew #38, I must say that the melody is excellent too.
So the states and feds reached agreement on health all without needing Tony’s ‘help’. In an attempt to distract us all from this he comes out with another blinding piece of nonsense that will keep people chattering until the next distraction is needed.
Watch him walk away from what he’s said over the next few days. After Friday, we’ll never hear about this again.
Oh, the cynicism of some of you people on LP.
He was so close, yet so far … istead of blurting, if he’d just let the germ of his idea roll around his skull a few more thousand dozen times while completing a solo bicycle through marginal electorates of australia tour, he might have come up with the answer for mass uni-generational unemployment, preventative health spending (for any tory readers, that’s preventing spending, not preventing health), lycra and other bicyle paraphenalia futures investment and spending lead recovery, and a way to impress Julia with the size of his big swinging ideas on her own turf, and greening Australia’s power supply, all with one simple, cheap as chips, project design plan: Great Big Sheds with hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands, of stationary bicycles with the drive wheels connected to dynamos, all feeding bio-power into the grid.
Able bodied, (well, ones whose legs, or some limb, work will do) unemployed can be put on drips with optimised muscle maintanence and growth fluids, ( a few drugs and hormones to make it feel fun?) strapped into the seat, have muscle jump-start electric leads attached in case they are non-compliant, and let ‘em rip. If he gets them early enough, they’re bodies should be good for a decade, (or the length of his policy-deciding career, whichever goes first) before burning out.
Of course we don’t want to waste these precious resources on network transmission wastage… the Great Big New Bike Sheds should be placed adjacent to where they provide power to the most liberal policy friendly use-case sites.
I’m thinking Roxby Downs, Ranger, Beverley, and other extractive industry locations: it’s important that we make, and be seen to make, especially uranium, but also coal and the other minerals industries undeniably Clean and Green.
Great… Big….New….BikeSheds …. brought to youse, courtesy of the
B(icycle)E(enhanced)R(e-ducation) program …. Tone Up or Ship Out.
The Lib’s tightened up the registration periods for enrolling to vote. A good move on the surface for fighting electoral flaw, but it also had the (I’m sure) unintended consequence of locking out the young and highly mobile from reregistering. I know because we almost missed out reenrolling to vote. Of course what the Lib’s and the right wing really need to do to carve up the vote is not demonise the unemployed but do the following.
1. Make voting non-compulsory.
2. Hold voting mid week.
3. Create new classes of non-voters. A return to land owners only might be a bit too transparent, however maybe ‘working or contributing’ citizens only. That way you could class prisoners, the mentally ill and the unemployed together!
Result!
Im curently (for one more month) working as a paramedic on a nickel mine in WA, reasonably remote area.
Theres a big, huge, gaping flaw in this plan no-one here has touched on.
If you go to a place like Port Hedland/Karratha/ (and to a lesser extent) Kalgoorlie you will notice one thing.
You cant afford a job that earns less than $80k, preferably with accomodation supplied.
Karratha is terrible, there are no “little shops” around unless they charge 3 times what youd pay elsewhere.
Eg: My father brought kids meals for his 3 grandkids and one for himself, chips, chicken nuggets, that sort of thing, all kids sized servings. Nearly $100.00.
Yes there are a lot of low level entry type jobs in these areas, but it is impossible to live on a low wage unless (at a minimum) accomodation is provided.
Heres what 500 a week gets you
http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-wa-bulgarra-404522484
I sold my property in Wickhan to my sister after she couldnt afford the prices, that was 10 years ago. A similar property now would cost $900k.
Until they sort out housing there (Kals is not to bad) then Abbots idea is fools gold.
Surely there is a better way to get people to move west? Maybe Tax credits or continuation of Newstart for the first pay period or two for long term unemployed.
I don’t really understand why Abbott suggested under 30′s. What happens if you’re 25 and have a kid or two to support?
I believe in raising the dole during recessions. However, I would be more than happy if after 3 months of unemployment if part of the Newstart Allowance is put into a HECS style loan. Basically a stick to get people working again.
Update: Hoyden About Town.
Geez mole, that real estate link is certainly an eye-opener. I thought Sydney was bad. No wonder they don’t allow pets – no room!
WORKING ON THE PEDALLING GANG
(the ballad of Allan & Tony)
(apologies to: Sam Cooke/Charles Cooke)
I hear somethin’ sayin’
(Umh! aah!) (Umh! aah!)
(hooh! aah!) (hooh! aah!)
(Well, don’t you know)
Let’s hear the sound of the budgies working on the pedalling ga-a-ang
whilst we hear the sound of the bludgers working on the mining gang
All day long they’ll be singin’
(hooh! aah!) (hooh! aah!)
(hooh! aah!) (hooh! aah!)
(Well, don’t you know)
Let’s hear the sound of the budgies working on the pedalling ga-a-ang
whilst we hear the sound of the bludgers working on the mining gang
All day long Alan works so hard
Till the Rudd is goin’ down
Working on the airways and byways
And wearing, wearing a frown
You hear them moanin’ their lives away
Then you hear my little Tony sa-ay
Let’s hear the sound of the budgies working on the pedalling ga-a-ang
whilst we hear the sound of the bludgers working on the mining gang
Can’t wait to hear them singin’
Mm, I’m pedalling home one of these days
I’m goin’ home see my woman
Whom I love so dear
But meanwhile I got to whistle right he-ere
(Well, don’t you know)
Let’s hear the sound of the budgies working on the pedalling ga-a-ang
whilst we hear the sound of the bludgers working on the mining gang
All day long they’re singin’, mm
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my work is so hard
Give me water, I’m thirsty
FADE
My work is so hard
adrian
Theres the perverse thing of having 4 seperate groups of couples living in a 4 bedroom house. All on good money, but living like a student share house.
Between incompitent state governments of all stripes, native title (a lot of inter-tribal group disagreements mean nothing is done, if it was just money it would be paid.), and enviros, its nearly impossible to release land up there to build on.
I worked on the last sub-division of residential land in Karratha, tiny, inner city sized blocks which were sold long before the siteworks were completed.
That was about 13 years ago….
Port Hedland is no better, they released a heap of blocks, 3/4 were sold to BHP before they hit the market.
Annie, the problem with Abbott’s proposal is that there isn’t a shortage of labour in Australia, skilled or unskilled. I agree that long term unemployment is disastrous for those affected.
There are real problems training enough skilled labour in technical areas and this is unlikely to change unless there are fundamental changes to TAFE and apprenticeship systems.
If Australia said the unemployment rate was 20% then a national priority would be to develop policies to encourage full employment. If Australia has a stated unemployment rate of 5% then clearly the individuals who are unemployed are at fault. The problem is that Australia understates its unemployment rate because the definition of unemployed is “working less than 1 hour a week – paid or unpaid, not studying or in a Labour market or other program and available to start work tomorrow.
My US based son tells me that Howard would be considered left wing in the US. Looks like he would belong to the extreme left in the new Liberal party.
One wonders how many mine managers have just swung to Labor? Who would want to be legally responsible for safety when the long term unemployed are suddenly forced to be under your care?
One wonders too what the older generation would think of doleless under thirties doing, as Abbot would say, what it takes to live with no (legal) income?
“I wonder if he stopped for an instant to consider how many young women are employed in the mining industry.”
Never mind prostitution. I have it on good authority that some mining companies prefer to have women driving their expensive tonka toys. Yep. Women!!!
Who’d a thunk it?!! Turns out the women drive more carefully, have less accidents, and take better care of their tonka toys.
Guess what else? Driving tonka toys probably pays rather more than prostitution, has better hours, and has less health risks too.
Go west, young women, and seek your fortunes!!!
Elise, I processed the weekly payroll for a mining company in a previous mining boom. It was surprising the number of technical assistants who worked 3 days a fortnight, word was they were drunks.
In another mining company used to see potential workers visit the personnel department and miners who had run out of money heading to personnel to ask for an advance. The dress for success code seemed to be thongs, stubbies, and Marlboro tucked in the sleeve of T-Shirt.
So if you want to work in mining, get your tickets and get your employer to pay your transport to the west.
Elise the mining industry has known for a long time that women tend to look after the Tonka toys better than men for a long time. We started employing women truck drivers at Groote in the seventies for social reasons and then found that they were better drivers. White males needed to do stupid stunts to satisfy their status needs while women and Aborigines tended to see their status linked to being a good operator. I heard at the same time that women tended to be better excavator operators because of their lighter touch.
Having said this the percentage of women in the mines where I have worked has stayed quite low. The main exception is mineral processing engineers. Men are at risk of being outnumbered by women in this area. (Worse still, the sort of women who have the desire and persistence to finish engineering are very good at their job.)
Elise
Just on the QT, thats pretty well right. The ladies arent as ‘bored” with driving the same route over and over as the blokes tend to be.
They still tend not to do as well in the more demanding parts of the job…so far.
Out of our day shift crew of around 25 about 3 on any day are female. However most of out rocklickers (geos) are female.
This reminds me of Peter Costello’s ridiculous “thought bubble” whereby workers would be paid less in regional areas because the cost of living was lower. I remember one Liberal MP saying it was a dopey idea because he was already embarrassed by how little he and other employees paid their workers in regional areas….what a thoughtful boss and perfect representative of the modern Liberal Party.
This is so silly it’s hard to know where to start. First, there are very few “unskilled jobs” nowadays. There are even fewer in the resources industry.
So Abbott is willing for taxpayers to fork out roughly $75,000 to pay for maternity leave for the well-paid, but for someone subsisting on Newstart allowance there is no end to the pain he is willing to inflict.
…I meant employers.
.
You are onto something there billie but you leave out the problem of the closed shops maintained by trade organisations.
Plumbers, for instance, are scarce not because people are unwilling to join their ranks. Rather, those in the industry make it as difficult as possible for those entering the industry to get a foot in the door.
Ginja
Our mine (smaller one) regularly employs unskilled/new starters. Theres still a high turnover of staff, we have 2 dedicated full time trainers on every day skilling people up.
There hasnt been an easier time to go from unskilled/untrained to earning high 80′s income within a year. The problem is getting your foot in the door, either by a mate or getting yourself to the location and being shameless in your chase for the job.
Also i wouldnt reccomend underground mining, its more dangerous and the pay premium that used to be there between surface/underground has largely evaporated.
The absolute best thing to do (elect me dictator for life!) would be to ban fly in/ fly out. It lets governments and companies recruit in the cities and ignore the locals/indigenous and kills towns.
Mole @60: “They still tend not to do as well in the more demanding parts of the job…so far.”
Yeah, I’ve had that line used on me once too. I was working afternoon shift at a printing factory, to earn some holiday money while I was doing my Masters degree in engineering. This big hairy bloke had commandered the binding machine for the magazines, which was a press-button operation, because it was “too hard for the ladies to understand…” I asked when he was going to let some of the rest of us have a turn. “Nope, it would be too hard for you luv…”
“Out of our day shift crew of around 25 about 3 on any day are female.”
Perhaps it is the negative atmosphere created by blokes like yourself that puts some women off? Until a few brave souls break the ice and change the social dynamics, then most will not consider it.
Times are changing Mole. Your argument doesn’t hold much water.
Abbott claimed on the 7.30 Report that Labor had gone soft on benefit recipients by not even requiring them to front up to Centrelink once a fortnight.
He is either purposely lying or is so badly uninformed that he has no right to comment.
Oesn’t seem to be much of an end to Rudd’s silence about this either, apart from saying its a thought bubble. Mr. Rudd, how about you rule this stupidity out comepletely.
Elise
That so far was the hint that what I said wasnt meanrt seriously. Im mean for gods sake i just praised the ladies for driving machinery well, but its usualy a 4-5 year process before an UG miner gets on the big ticket items like boggers (2-3 years) or Jumbos (5 years plus). Thats bugger all to do with sexism and much more to do with mining experience.
Its not just operating the machinery its reading the ground as well. A new starter can put themselves in serious crap if they are allowed to “learn by themselves”. So there is very little “just push a button on a binder” type work. Our Geos as mentioned are nearly all female, the finder ogf the ore body that more than doubled the lifespan of out mine was a female, the ore body named after her.
The turnover isnt the female staff, its all staff working underground, its a deeply unpleasant job for anybody.
Much of the service crew work isnt handled by our female staff, its not a sexist thing, we have blokes injure themselves on a regular basis with muscle strains etc. If we get a lady who is fit and strong enough to handle service crew work (or get smarter and mechanise more of it) then she will do it.
The mono pumps, 70-90kg, drill rods 25+kg, mesh, 25+kg, and the footing and lighting are terrible. Thats service crew work, get me a lady who can do it and shes on. None of our current ladies can (some light framed, some 40+ years old), we cant wish the weight away.
I shore next to a lady shearer for 2 years and never beat her by the end of the day, there are women who could do the job, I just havent seen one here yet.
I think Abbott has it all sussed out, clearly there is a lack of pipe layers in the mining industry, but those guys need to lay some pipes at all hours (in the middle of nowhere) which leads to some social (and religious prohibited) evils, shanty-towns etc while also creating employment opportunities for young unemployed women.
So his drafters undoubtedly have come up with the all inclusive but rather cunning bill covering all the angles, so to speak:
The Western Employment, Mining, Pipe Layers Rubber Coating (Prohibition) and Prostitution Bill Cth 2010
Short Description:
A Bill to Amend Newstart, Promote Employment and Legitimate Pipe Laying in Designated Western Mining Areas and for Other Purposes.
Statutory Definitions in this Bill:
“Pipe”: Defined as any item where the inside diameter is less than the outside diameter as determined from time to time by the Inspector of Pipes in the Gazetted area and may be fabricated from organic compounds.
“Rubber coatings”: Any protective coating whether sprayed on or rolled, with or without a heating process. As determined by the Inspector of Pipes in the Gazetted area.
@16
“More than 3 months unemployment and then you *should* be directed into the gaps in the labour market.”
How do you propose to *force* employers to employ these people. Dear dog the thought bubble disease is catching.
I love our crackpot Opposition Leader.
Papally-aware, Half-Naked, brimming with lunacy as he circumnavigates the continent in lycra dog whistles on Population Policy, his vocabulary maxing out at ‘great big new’ and now, direct from his reptilian brain stem: ‘no dole under 30′. This bloke is a walking, cycling ROFLMAO. Forestville’s greatest export product since…errmmmm…(get back to you)
PLUS the supporting cast of Dutton, Morrison, Joyce, Abetz, Pyne, Hockey AND the invisible but not forgotten Andrews and Bishop. They are a sublime comedic travesty and farce of Westminster Parliamentary Opposition.
LONG LIVE TONE”S OPPOSITION !! Unending larfs for the nation.
Wow, mole, that real estate link is crazy. 80k salary wouldn’t go very far in those conditions…
Of course Tony’s thought bubble is designed to draw attention back to him on the premise that all publicity is good publicity and some voters will vote for names they recognise without regard to their policies.
I think we’ve found where Tone’s got the idea for the latest round of dole bashing. It’s from the latest from the Tories election posters!
Have a look at the article here http://wosblog.podgamer.com/2010/04/21/knives-out/
The new Tory poster campaign states
A statirical comeback points out
Meow!
yeah, but tssk, dole bludgers and welfare queens are stealing from the public purse to bankroll an unsustainable lifestyle at public expense, whereas tax cheats are entrepreneurs and proud, hard-working sons of the soil, entitled to every cent they can steal from the public purse. Or something. I’m sure I could make this coherent if I thought about it for a bit longer.
$462.80
The maximum amount a single person on the dole (Newstart) is paid per fortnight.
Interesting timing though. SUrely Tone isn’t nicking policy ideas from the Tories before assessing wether or not it was popular up there is he?
Paul @67 proposed:
No problem with the sentiment Paul. It is malign and stupid and I’d prefer that he say so explicitly. That said, you can see why he wouldn’t. One of the rules of winning politics is never saying or doing anything that doesn’t get you a measurable advantage greater than simply saying and doing nothing.
Were Rudd to act as you propose, he would violate this rule.
1. Hardly anyone in a marginal seat is going to switch votes to the coalition over this. If they like this policy, then they are already rusted Liberals on and Rudd condemning it will make a total of zero difference. The faithful on both sides stay where they are and it’s even likely that some leaning to voting Liberal will now recoil in disgust (see next)
2. Some people in marginal seats will hear this and remember workchoices — so it’s a kind of own goal dogwhistle. Rudd can say nothing and get all that advantage because few associate Rudd either with workchoices or eliminating the dole for under 30s.
3. Few people think the coalition is going to win and still less implement such a policy, so the argument is moot. It’s like a troll from Rudd’s POV … which leads us to …
4. It’s an attempt to disrupt Rudd’s victory parade over health by getting him involved in a totally pointless back and forth that can take up change what is dominate the mediascape. Rudd doesn’t want anything subverting his “I have reformed health care delivery and ended the blame game” message and so he’s not the least bit interested in adding fuel to this troll. He wants to sound prime ministerial and leave Tony sounding like some ratbag muttering in the corner. Saying nothing but “it’s a thought bubble” does this very effectively. Rudd continues to win the media newscycle game this way.
Hollow man stuff I know, Paul, but that is how it is played and tactically, ity makes lots of sense.
I notice Tone Loc has now changed/added to the message by saying “oh, and no dole after six months either.”
What’s in the Funky Cold Medina he’s drinking?
He also seems to have forgotten that a lot of the voters he is targetting may have children or grandchildren under 30. When it is a general thing it works, but when people can see how if would directly affect their family they aren’t so keen.
Who’s going to pay for the travel costs involved in going West? The training needed? The accommodation?
It’s such rubbish. But Abbott is relying on the idea that you can’t lose bashing a dole bludger.
Oh goody ! what a great idea
wein the west get all the unemployable from the east to play in the mines
and we then have a great excuse to send you ours to run the county
and be doctors lawyers judges and politicians.
That way everything will be fixed in a month. The mines will shut down.
The country will go broke, Woolworths and Coles will have to drop prices to offload the uneatable produce they toss at us, people will die faster from livers being cut out by mistakes . The boat people will slide in by tankers instead of wooden boats. And we can them all bow down in homage that the liberal party really fixed Australia.
lets do it!
FB @ 78,
Silly me! Still expecting the Labor Party to have worthwhile principles. How long will it take to remove the stench of Howardism from this country?
Paul, you give John Howard too much credit. The stench has always been there – he was just more skilled than most at exploiting it.
Regrettably, Adrian is right. Howard did not author the attitudes that we associate with rightwing moralistic angst. Along with xenophobia, the tradition goes a long way back and is reiterated in every generation. The dole bludger thing was a tool that was ready to hand and it should be noted that Fraser used it before him. It’s also very UK although there they are called “scroungers”.
And of course the irony is that Fraser is now disowned by the current batch of Lib’s as being too left wing.
Actually, the dole-bludger tag was created by the Minister for Labour and National Service under Whitlam. He also coined the term ‘fat-cats.’ His name escapes me. (Sometimes I feel like that old guy from As you Like it. Jacques, wasn;t it?)
Apparently fat-cats was first used in the 1920s in the States to describe political donors.
The term dole bludger made its first appearance in the Bulletin in 1976 (http://www.anu.edu.au/andc/ozwords/December%202001/Bludger.html)
Clyde Cameron?
Mole, you make my point: you train people at your workplace – and good on your workplace for not shirking its obligations! Sure, there are plenty of entry-level jobs that require no particular qualifications to start, but there aren’t many unskilled jobs around. It often takes about two years for an employee to become truly efficient – in just about any job. What would happen to a young person who took up a job in a mine out west – at great expense to themselves – and then found they really weren’t suited for such a job?
With this and other half-baked ideas it’s clear Abbott would spend billions creating a “Great Big New Bureaucracy” to micromanage the lives of people on welfare. Wouldn’t that money be better spent on training places or providing a few more carrots for people to enter training and employment? Do incentives only work for rich people? Or is it just more fun to make their lives a misery?
Paul, Labor needs to play it’s cards very carefully. Media games around asylum seekers and dole bludgers are best left well alone, if they can, because the morons are always ready to pounce on any word. It is a very sad state but apparently Kev does not hold back when he is given the opportunity, in private, which still seems to get reported, anyway.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/rudd-roasts-editors-at-diner-20100421-szze.html
Indeed Joe. I read it elsewhere and on a shallow read at first thought he had yelled at service staff again. I had to read to a deeper level to see what it was about.
Ginja
I forgot to mention there are 2 main streams for the unskilled to enter the mining game. Theres machinery operation/ie: trucks. or theres service crew, so part of the lower prevalence of females is due to most being physicaly unsuited for the service crew stream.
Until mechanization takes care of that imbalance or women are deliberately targeted for the trucks then the numbers wont reach 50/50.
There are a tonne of other jobs though, supporting the actual mines, I got into mining for a start by being a kitchenhand at Telfer mine (pay was way better than normal kitchenhand work as well). So being at the location is a huge part of getting a foot in the door. Abbot is correct in only that part of his assumption. As for the rest such as accommodation etc, thats not realistic.
As someone pointed out to me somewhere else a lot of people who Abbott are appealing to with this tack are the sort of people who just want those on welfare to either get nothing or at the very least have their lives made more miserable.
FB, joe2,
True. One should never forget about the morons. They do vote.
Mole, someone at work used to work in the resource industry out west. He told me that though people were getting big bucks most were pretty miserable. Does that fit with your experience?
In the cold war days, many Liberals like to boast – correctly – that in the free world you could at least choose your own job and choose where you want to live (many on the Left would point out that those things usually depended on how much money you had and how prudent you had been in choosing parents). It’s just delicious to see Tories going down the Soviet road. Do they have salt mines in WA?
I wonder if young people will be forced to move away from their religious congregation, or girlfriend, or sick relative. What if a wife or partner refuses to go? Is Tony Abbott encouraging divorce?
The Liberal Party is lurching so far to the Right they probably won’t sit on the Treasury benches for a generation.
..I should have said liked to boast.
Can I just add one more thing. What I don’t like is the idea that people should be forced to join the gold rush. Not everyone has dollar signs in their eyes and thinks like a money-grubbing Lib – an average-paying job in the local-ish area would do most unemployed people fine.
Ginja
The gold mine next to us is built on a salt lake, is that close enough to a salt mine lol.
Theres a lot of family problems and just plain old people not handleing fly in/out lifestyles.
If they were to go back to residential accomodation (townsite living) and 8 hour shifts it would be much better (IMHO).
My particular minesite tries to single itself out by offering a week on/week off roster instead of the more conventional 2/1 or 3/2 offered by most others.
Pays not as good in the hand, but it leaves a lot more time for family.
Does your mine have fairly low staff turn-over for the industry? People really earn their money in many of those places.
My sociologist son Peter who has spent years in the US researching drug overdose deaths and needle transmitted disease has spent a lot of time seeing how the underclass survives in the US after their dole has been cut out. His comment was:
Hardly an enthusiastic endorsement.
Is Tony Abbott peddling ideas, or just recycling them?
How else to break monotony
With only thoughts for company?
Wheels whirl out ideas for me.
They roll out like a litany.
How can we win a lot more votes?
Keep a count on asylum boats!
That’ll get lots of headline quotes
And keep the Greens at Labor throats.
Unemployed should be down the mines.
Get bludgers off their fat behinds.
Objectors should pay heavy fines.
That’s bound to win some hearts and minds.
So what about the nation’s health?
For that I’ll need a bit more stealth.
They should be active like myself.
I don’t rely on the Commonwealth!
Nearly there, another twenty miles!
Media will be waiting in the aisles
To grab my latest for their files.
My party men will be all smiles.
The press they seek me everywhere.
They seek me here, they seek me there
Like that Pom – no, not Tony Blair,
The one who gave the French a scare.
That’s me – ‘the scarlet – bloody hell!
That’s too red for a Liberal sell.
The man who’ll sound that Rudd’s death knell,
Is – ‘Abbott – True Blue Pimpernel!’
Footnote
They can be blue or red, you see,
He really knows his botany.
All those years in seminary
He learned much more than casuistry.
Ginja
Actually ours is quite mixed. We keep a lot of older more experienced blokes who like the chance at a bit more time home and have made the big dollars allready. Many of the older blokes are on the big ticket machines, so the drop in pay from 2/1 across to 1/1 is easier for them to take.
But we do tend to lose more of our trainees, as they are chasing the money once they get a bit of experience they go for longer shifts at other sites, more money rather than a relaxed lifestyle.
about 2 years back was extremely hazardous, about 50% of our underground staff had less than a years experience. Thats a criticaly low level of experience, not enough vets to watch out for people making mistakes. Id normaly be concerned when it hit 25%. Everyone in the industry was in the same state, but not much could be done but try and increase training and supervision as much as possible.
Ive only had to attend one fatality at my site, I worked on the bloke for an hour but couldnt get a pulse back. Its my terror I have to do it to a mate (its callous but the bloke had only been with us a couple of weeks). Of the 5 people involved in the incident theres only one left in mining I know of. Most older (50plus) miners have lost workmates at some stage.
Heres an example of how easily lack of experience will get you killed.
A new chumwas sent to wash down a heading after a blast, a number of things went wrong.
1: The shift boss at the time didnt carry out his gas monitoing well enough.
2: The vent bag had been blown down the drive and was also damaged futher back meaning blast fumes hadnt dissapated properly.
3: The area was choked with dust, if hed been experienced he would have known that meant bad vent.
4: the 2 experinced chaps he was with droped him off to do that job without checking it themselves.
5: the drive was on an upward slope, which meant gases lighter than normal air hadnt dissapated (carbon monoxide in this case)
He was fortunate that he stopped washing down when he began to feel a bit sick, by the time he got back to the main decilne he was in a state of collapse. 5 more minutes of “toughing it out” probably would have killed him.
Theres nothing more dangerous than unsupervised, inexperienced miners.
In Australia there is a lot of generational unemployment, unfortunately for these people they will never work unless we develop full employment policies like rebuilding manufacturing or using pick and shovel on road gangs and down mines.
If a family is destined for the unskilled, unemployment, social housing pile perhaps we should sterilise their children in high school (all pupils in schools with a social assets index under 950 on the MySchools website with below average NAPLAN results). It’s ludicrous to pay a baby bonus to families who don’t have the wherewithal to rear children with enough skills to get employment in our service economy. Unfortunately I think single mothers would be over represented in the numbers of families rearing their children to live in poverty.
I would like to see a coherent integrated population, employment and social welfare policy from Tony Abbott – it’s impossible.
Well he’d better get his act into gear since he’s about to be made caretaker PM.
Unfortunately, this person does not appear to be joking.
Fran #89, Paul #87, it could be Clyde Cameron or it could be Jim McClelland. Both were Ministers for Labour but I’m not sure either were also Ministers for National Service (which Whitlam abolished on taking office).
I heard Dr Karl on the radio yesterday say that this bright shiny world of tomorrow has resulted in this odd thing where most of the workforce are working at least 10% more hours than they used to while at the same time there is 10% unemployment.
Do the math.
No hang on…let’s blame the unemployed for being scroungers. That’s easier.
PN @ 106,
And he was the inventor of the term ‘dole-bludger’ in Oz. I distinctly remember seeing it in the Tele or some such journalistic trash on the front page. And being shocked a Labor Minister could talk that way, especially one from the Depression era.
Helen I was firmly-tongue-in-cheek but it’s a logical conclusion of Tony Abbott’s dole bashing. In a recent episode of Dr Who the Prime Minister suggested that the lowest scoring Naplan schools be offered as hostages for the evil aliens.
We have entrenched intergenerational unemployment.
Are we going to pay Baby Bonus to all or only the deserving middle class tax payer?
What level of social support are we going to provide?
Do middle class people want to live in fear of being robbed by people selling your laptop to cash converters for $20 so they can eat?
Do you want live in fear of being mugged for $20 or know you will have your pocket picked at every public event like Brazilians do?
Are we happy that the working poor starve to death as they did in Manchester in 1862?
OR
are we going to build job creation programs
are we going to create punitive or dangerous job creation programs
are we going to invest in effective technical skills training
are we going to pay all our workers a living wage
Of course we could pay people not to work, pay the unemployed benefits at a level they could live in frugal comfort.
Stop Centrelink punishing their clients through the punitive micro management processes that are so poorly administered that people have payments withheld as a result Centrelink process errors
Billie – apologies for my cloth eared-ness!
Yeah, it had the footprints of “A Modest Proposal” all over it, Helen.
Paul Burns the term dole bludger was first used in The Bulletin in 1976.
If my memory serves me, it was Malcolm Fraser who was the first politician to use the term, after unemployment rose sharply as a result of Liberal policies. To take the heat off themselves, they foisted the blame onto the tens of thousands of people who lost their jobs by calling them dole bludgers.
I think the Cameron you remember was Don Cameron, a former deputy whip in the Fraser government who successfully accused frontbencher Eric Robinson of manipulating an electoral redistribution.
Jane @ 113,
Not at all. It was used before 1976, by Labor, and most likely by Clyde Cameron as this article infers, a little bit into it.
http://www.historycooperative.org/proceedings/asslh2/archer.html
I found that really interesting Mole, thanks.
Paul @114: that’s a very interesting article, particularly since I have always blamed Hayden for coining the term “dole bludger” when he was treasurer. (I could swear it was used in one of his budget speeches.)
“Blamed” for coining such a concise and appropriate term? I bring news to the many on this thread who seem to lack situational awareness of the world around them: There actually ARE persons for whom the most apt descriptive term would be “Dole Bludger”
Tony Abbott isn’t that far off the mark. It seems (from reading this thread) that there are indeed those who sit expectantly for someone else to up & make a job (of their desired discipline) next to where they choose to live.
So a job is long distance away? So accommodation has to be shared? Poor little preciouses. And we are supposed to sustain them just because they lack the get up & go to move to an area where there are jobs? My sympathy isn’t forthcoming.
This may or may not be relevant as it’s based around the UK election and the concept of work for the dole being pushed about but some of it is interesting.
http://wosblog.podgamer.com/2010/04/26/why-the-unemployed-are-the-new-paedophiles/
The stats are the meat of this and it would be interesting to see someone run with this in Oz.
SATP can’t resist a good ol’ Dole Bludger bash. I think it makes people like him feel superior.
I can understand Steve if it’s been a long time since he’s been unemployed. Even more so if he’s a small business owner. When I was on the dole I met a lot of other people in the same boat.
Out of about 200 that I met two were avowed bludgers who just wanted to stay at home and smoke pot. All the rest were desperate to find work.
It’s just that the bludgers are more visible. I’m also guessing that if Steve runs a pub he’d see an awful lot of them wereas those still trying to find work are hitting the streets and not sitting in the local.