I write this post as someone with a disability that isn’t going to go away. (A missing leg isn’t gonna grow back). I also write this post as someone who works. And I write this post as someone who would have more and more problems doing certain types of work as she ages because of the compounding consequences of … disability and ageing (including muscular-skeletal problems, you know, A BAD BACK!).
This nonsense about people on the DSP being “work shy” or whatever (“Idleness!”), pushed constantly now by the media, the business and employer lobby and the Canberra policy dead heads (and pushed so easily because it coheres so well with prejudicial stereotypes), is just that.
The Disability Support Benefit is not the same thing as the Sickness Benefit (which is paid at the same miserly rate as Newstart). Nor is it paid at the same rate as the Aged Pension.
To get the DSP, you have to be pretty much unable to work. As work is defined right now (bearing in mind employer stereotypes and the failure to make adjustments for people with disabilities). And the regime people are put through is already horrendous. Eligibility for the DSP has *already* been “toughened up”, several times, such that medical opinion is routinely and aggressively interrogated and challenged, that people are put through depersonalising and humiliating hurdles that even the people holding the hurdles often resile from.
There is no huge reserve army of the under-employed lolling about on the DSP.
The *actual* issue is that a lot of the “impediments” to work are directly correlated with:
(a) employer bias reflecting social and class judgements (and often gender judgements too);
(b) the fact that people scraping to survive on the pathetic rates of welfare have that as a major cause of various other things which are supposed to render them not “job ready”;
(c) fundamental and structural social inequalities that the Gillard Labor party has absolutely given up challenging, and in fact seemingly denies.
Basically, we now have pretty much all of Fightback! by stealth after a decade and a half of the Howard/Gillard era (with a brief Rudd intermission).
NB: See also this comment from Derrida Derider on the previous thread on the PM’s mean-spirited work-ism, going directly to the policy and economic fallacies in the DSP recipient pile-on.
What Kim says.
What Eric said.
Hmm…raspberries to the Groggygillaphant too.
“What’s your point, Vanessa?”
My hope is that Gillard and Abbott will recognize the strength of their shared values and run off into the sunset together. Second hope is that they will be replaced with competent adults with some real compassion.
Ahem, I think you will find if you read Grog’s blog during the Election Campaign that he has a daughter with Downs Syndrome.
Well said. I was on the Sickness benefit (because cancer gets better!) and the only reason it was liveable was that I was so sick I stayed in bed for 48 hours at a time, left the house only for medical appointments and barely ate. My bills were very low!
If you want to have disabled people in jobs – and many disabled people want very much to work in ways and places that they are able – those jobs aren’t magically going to appear in a culture of “disabled people are lying dole-bludgers”. It’s going to happen in a culture of supporting people to work – including paying them or employers enough to afford the adaptive technology or environments necessary – and flexible employment rather than punitive regulation.
My word. One of my closest friends has suffered from a severe chronic psychological disorder for decades. Despite having provided Centrelink written opinions to this effect from several psychiatrists, my friend has had to further endure assertions from completely unqualified Centrelink admin staff that there is nothing wrong with her, & that all she needs to do is to ‘get a grip’.
And this is not the only case of which I am aware. Another acquaintance had a similar experience with a different admin staff member at the same Centrelink branch.
I am astonished that any Centrelink counter staff should feel that it is in any way appropriate to offer medical advice contrary to the opinions offered by medical specialists. It is simply utterly unprofessional, and more than likely sadistic.
It certainly is an illness, this fascination with poverty.
I dunno what to say Kim.
Thank you for your post.
Grog and other similar quality bloggers endeavour to be fair handed and subjective. However I think sometimes normalcy bias raises its ugly head and leads a blogger on the path of rationalising and making acceptable something they know is unacceptable. They are making the statement that Julia couldn’t really mean what she says.
Grog finds it necessary to create a scenario where Gillard’s position isn’t as awful as it sounds. Gillard is really just playing a strategic game of cat and mouse. A game it seems she has been playing since day one.
You see Ms Gillard isn’t really espousing Conservative narrative and policy,its just a means to keep the Libs off the same playing field. We should recall we would not have any policy on Carbon if it were not for the Greens. Gillard’s ‘answer’ to that issue was a group of local Aussies sitting around having a chat about it.
Eventually the old smells like cheese, tastes like cheese, looks like cheese scientific analysis will need to be applied.
Hopefully enough in her party will feel the same way. And lets face it, the best time to deal with systemic internal problems is when the Opposition to have control of the Senate.
Is Paul Howes a Liberal party mole? He sure acts like one.
The direct, relevent quotes from the speech.
“The social and economic reality of our country is that there are people who can work who do not. We know there are 230,000 people who have been unemployed for more than two years. That there are 250,000 families where no adult has been working for at least one year. And that the youth unemployment rate is still double the overall unemployment rate. The Government’s approach to this is practical and realistic. We know that not everyone on a welfare benefit can work. Some bear disabilities or caring responsibilities that mean paid work is impossible. These Australians deserve our greatest respect and ongoing support. Others on a benefit can work but not right away. Some need practical help to overcome ill-health or meet family responsibilities. Some should take up obligations which may not involve working now but will prepare them for work in the future.”
I have to say, the LP reaction to this speech is unbelievable and inconsistent with any fair reading of the speech. It is simply making the rather reasonable claim that increasing activation, where possible, is a good thing. She does not bash people on DSP. She does not say there is a huge reserve army of work ready people on DSP. Nowhere does she say that low activation amongst some groups is wholly the fault and responsibility of the individuals that find themselves in that position.
Kim. Go back and look at Fightback in detail and you will see how ridiculous your comment is. It is lazy blogging, and that is being generous.
Hewson proposed deep cuts to minimum wages. Hewson proposed to gut medicare. Hewson proposed far more radical changes to welfare payments, including time limited unemployment benefits.
No. Actually I just watched her speech and read her words, and thought, well that sounds like every Labor leader I;ve heard since I was about 10 .
Centerlink payments are so low, approximately $250 dollars a week, that it is impossible to find affordable rental accommodation. Anyone on centerlink payments either owns a house or is sharing a house or is living in the house of someone else. On $250 dollars a week it is virtually impossible to feed oneself, buy medication and transport oneself to all the interviews and examinations that are required to receive centerlink payments. It is not reasonable to raise the question of work shy centerlink payment recipients. If they are work shy it is because the work environment is even more painful and bewildering than the welfare environment. Gillard offers no remedy to this except more pain, humiliation and bewilderment. I defy you to point to any realistic help she is offering. That you lavratus for providing this forum. I feel very frightened.
Julia Gillard said; ‘We know that not everyone on a welfare benefit can work. Some bear disabilities or caring responsibilities that mean paid work is impossible. These Australians deserve our greatest respect and ongoing support.’
Can someone tell me how this translates as a savage attack on people with genuine disabilities and a refuation of everything Labor has stood for?
@15 – residual safety net, deserving poor, etc. The Fin Review has been full of (government sourced) stories about the push to sort out all the undeserving poor on the DSP. For weeks and weeks.
Well. Perhaps you weren’t listening with full understanding when you were 10. She might be deliberately attempting to inscribe herself into “Labor tradition” (in case you’ve missed it, and I’m sure you haven’t, she’s been doing that for some weeks now, reaching a bit of a crescendo around NSW election time). But, I’m afraid, all you’re demonstrating is that you have a tin ear. Because – as was discussed and outlined earlier on previous threads, previous ALP PMs didn’t rant and rail about “idleness”, always saw “the dignity of work” as having a broader social meaning, and I could go on.
A ton of other people read her speech too, dude. You’re not the only person out there who did, and the implication made by a lot of people that you are some authorised interpreter of her words because you read all of them is wrong – there’s some sort of false dichotomy you’re setting up where “the media” didn’t read her entire speech, and therefore your reading, and partial and I’d argue, partisan, interpretation of same somehow attains the status of truth because … you know, you read the whole thing… well… I read it too. So have a lot of other people who’ve commented on it.
I will repeat what was said on the other thread. There might be superficial rhetorical similarities between Gillard’s rhetoric and Keating. But Keating put a shit load of money – in the middle of an actual recession – into creating very expensive, but evidence based, schemes for six month placements for unemployed people on award wages. This rubbish and mean spirited crap about “mutual responsibilities” wasn’t on the agenda. Still less the appalling shit that people with disabilities have to go through to get onto the DSP. That came with Howard. Gillard is continuing that. And she wants applause for it.
In my book, she stands bloody condemned.
@5 –
I haven’t read that. It makes no difference to my claim that Grog hasn’t got a clue about what adult people who have to claim the DSP go through. I don’t write this stuff with any personal aspersion to cast. The fact that Grog may have a daughter with a disability gives him no more automatic cred than I have in writing this post as a person with a disability. It is relevant to my lived experience, but I also – and primarily – justify what I say with arguments and evidence. I find his wanting, and I’ve explained why, as have many others – with arguments and evidence.
I do say that Grog’s very strongly implied support for Gillard’s perspective on the DSP, and on the lived experience of people who depend on a safety net, and ought to be accorded the dignity that belongs to citizens of this country as of right, is very lacking.
I wouldn’t have mentioned his post at all had every single partisan ALP commenter and her dog not seized upon it to say “hey, lefties, Gillard isn’t that bad!”. Well – whatevs. I call bullshit on this.
@15 –
Just to reiterate – the implication of what you write is that there are those without “genuine” disabilities who are on the DSP. I want to underline that. Now please go and read the OP.
No Kim, the implication is that more people with disabilities can work than currently do and that government should do more to help them.
Just like this Labor govt is going to do more to help the unemployed, LO?
http://www.smh.com.au/national/gillard-to-push-on-with-dole-proposals-20110322-1c5al.html
So Kim what exactly would you like the government to do for you ?
I think that the problem is very complicated — which isn’t going to stop me from making some simple polemical points:
1. Work should be a productive activity. It is not just an occupation.
2. As a concept “productive” is difficult. Especially in a world dominated by things that can be measured. Social sciences and economic studies are based on quantitative measurements: Number of hours worked, hourly pay rate, employment rate, ratio of men to women etc. etc.
3. Labour-force econometrics, as described above, has, in the name of rigorous and rational scientific study(!) defined what productive work means. Now just stop and think about that for a moment, because this is a significant point: We create hypothesis based on studies of measurable things and use the results to prove the hypothesis. Now consider the set of potential hypothesis possible under this circumstance..?
That’s why we try to include in the data measurements of things like sentiment, job satisfaction, etc. etc. But these measurements, ie. the attempt to measure the quality of work, are being constantly influenced by the inherent bias in the quantitative nature of econometrics.
4. The powers of production, to use one of Marx’s turn of phrase, mean that much of the day to day production of life’s necessities requires increasingly relatively less of the workforce. Employment itself is a critical problem.
5. Especially, when Macro-economic developments threaten advanced economies. Production has and continues to relocate to China etc. (Interestingly, a trend which is easy to prove through econometric study is often disputed based on wild peripheral data.)
6. Anecdotally, I believe that workplaces in general are not healthy environments: There is a lack of interest in the well-being of workers. This issue, which has, historically at different times, been seen by societies as more important needs to be considered as more important again.
7. The products of work, wrt the cultural lives of workers, as alluded to by Mark in the other thread are also not captured in work-force studies. This is to the detriment of society as a whole.
8. It is not the sole job of the government to maximise unemployment and economic growth, especially when it has very little agency in these areas. Governments are there to represent the collective interests of their citizens.
I think I sit between this post and Labor Outsider on this — I think there are people on welfare that are cheating the system via movement of categories. The reason for this is that if you compare the disability rate of Australia with that of Hong Kong, you’ll find that 6 times as many people are classified as disabled in Australia. Alternatively, I think that for most of those that are on these hand-outs, there simply arn’t jobs they could do, so I don’t especially care about them being there (I think the pittance they get is probably more than enough encouragement to work if they could). Given this, I think that whinging about them or putting the political boot in has no point apart from political gain.
There, fixed that for you.
One of the key points Kim was getting at, and what few perceive readily, is that if we really want to see fewer people languishing on DSP, we need to get busy making workplaces more inclusive — and that means employers will need to adjust aspects of the workplace — some adjustments will be physical, some sociocultural — but there ARE adjustments needed in many workplaces (and it would not be unreasonable for government to pay some of the associated costs to the employers in many cases…)
One thing it is easy to forget is that many of the accommodations made already for people with (physicial, visible) disabilities — eg. ramps, accessible toilets — were pressaged with shrieks that the sky would fall in, that it was too expensive etc. (employers shrieked the same about letting women into workplaces — who will pay for the toilets!?)
Remember, local ratepayers around Australia have been “saddled” with the cost of local councils fixing every single corner of gutter kerbing, adjusting it into a gentle slope instead of a sharp edge — so that people with mobility impairments can, you know, take a stroll around their neighbourhood. I doubt anybody would begrudge this “expense” — and it is a significant
expense when you’re talking about re-sculpting every single gutter-corner in the country!
But the benefits of becoming a more inclusive society (and, yes, economy) through all this retro-fitting of workplaces and public environments far outweigh the costs. Often a failure of imagination is the most significant hurdle between us and creating a more inclusive work environment, through some thoughtful design.
Perhaps the last frontier will be adjustments that address disabilities which are not visible, and not directly physical — and this will challenge some notions that many businesses see as “fundamental” to operations — including living and dying by the clock. With some imagination and goodwill, adjustments can be made that will see more people included in socially-additive practice. The question is whether and to what extent we as a society (including all the people with disabilities) are willing to walk the talk of helping people with disabilities…
Jacques de Molay, #21, who were the three ministers who backed Arbib and Dullard on this pointless sado attack on the unemployed (yet again)?
Three cheers for Dougie though, this on top on his dismissal, contra Gillard, on the efficacy of the wretched AUSFTA.
Hey, but let’s be honest.
It’s just a diversion away from the recent weak capitulations to big business on “balancing the budget”, and carbon schemes compensation for the big end; after yesterday’s disgusting effort from Arbib’s fellow traveller, Howes.
I have been suffering from depression and anxiety for a long time. I worked and worked even though I knew I was getting sicker and sicker. I pushed myself, because I knew if I quit work (and that was my only option, since I was on contract), then I’d have to deal with Centrelink, and the way everyone looks down on people without jobs.
My mental illness got so bad that I ended up spending quite a good part of last year in psychiatric hospitals. For a few months, I wasn’t able to do anything, let alone look for a job.
At the start of this year, I was starting to feel better, so I began to look for work.
So begins the vicious cycle.
I can’t find any jobs in the area I’m qualified in. Okay. That sucks but I’m dealing with it.
I can’t find any other jobs, because people look at my resume, see my experience and qualifications, and think I’ll just coast until I find a job in my industry. I’ve been told this to my face, so this isn’t just paranoia. Trust me. I even applied to a job counting tram passengers, but not even an interview.
The amount Centrelink pays me isn’t enough to cover my living expenses- rent, food, and bills. My family aren’t well off. I’m living in the cheapest rental I could find (sharing, of course). I’m getting into debt, borrowing money, just to get by.
My anxiety is through the roof, and I keep looking, hoping someone will give me a chance and I can get out of this nightmare. I’m getting quite sick again. I can feel my mental health lowering with each week I have to deal with this.
And then the Government and the Opposition enter into a dance to see who can treat me the worst, who can imply that I’ m lazy and useless, a drain on society, and if I just tried, I’d find work. I’m panicking just thinking about these reforms. Every online and print outlet is full of people talking about how lazy I am, and how I need to be punished to find work.
You know how I spend my week? Looking for work, applying for jobs, preparing for interviews, attending interviews, going to therapy, going to more therapy, and stopping myself from breaking down. Juggling all my commitments. I’m worn out and exhausted.
I hate it, so much. The sad part is, if the government and society didn’t treat those who received benefits so badly, I wouldn’t have ended up getting as sick, as I’d have been able to quit.
Oh, and before anyone starts pointing fingers- yes, I do volunteer work and yes, I would be happy to do Work for the Dole.
Kim @ 17
‘ … schemes for six month placements for unemployed people on award wages.
Which schemes were the ones that paid award wages? The one I participated in paid the same as the dole. Oh and I got a clothing allowance of $100 maybe $200.
It occurs to me this tack from Gillard is all reminiscent of (and related to) the treatment of mental illness by governments. You get a kind of perfect storm where treasury and shock jock advice combine into a toxic brew. Treasury departments throw up welfare crackdowns as an option to get some budget savings. Unlike all the other options, the crackdown option is supported by all the important lobby groups and talkback radio callers. A bit of ideological sophistry to make it appear like it’s the kind of thing Ben Chifley would have done, and there you have it.
With mental illness, the vogue psychiatry of the 1960s demanded the closure of institutions for the benefit of the patients. Governments saw an opportunity for major savings to be dressed up as patient welfare. Funding was simply withdrawn from the field. The support services to allow patients to exist outside institutions were, unlike the institutions themselves, invisible and thus easily moved down the priority list. Prisons picked up many of those who couldn’t cope, and that meshed nicely with laura norder policies. Unlike the costs of running institutions, the costs of the human misery such policies generate are difficult to measure and so – again – may be safely ignored.
Meanwhile, as polcies are rolled out to withdraw payments to the least well off as an incentive to participate in economic life, we have a debate about how many truckloads of public dosh to stuff into the well-lined pockets of major polluters, to provide them with an incentive not to withdraw from economic life.
The multiple readings show that Gillard did not present a clear message. Either unintentional (poor communication skills), or intentional (dog whistling), it’s not good.
Everyone knows dog whistles shift the debate more than words. This leaves me in little doubt as to the direction she wants the debate to move.
Pity there are no dog whistles happening about the idle rich, pity we have no leaders who can make clear arguments, appealling to the better angels in the nature of everyone, and actually lead.
Conrad I would suggest a slight hesitation comparing HK rates and those in Australia.
Completely different cultural backgrounds apart the diagnosis of what constitutes a mental illness in either place is quite varied and could easily account for the difference you mention.
The politics of this campaign are pretty crude – other media today are mentioning that Paul Howes is applying pressure regarding export exposed industries and compensation and the carbon tax is looking too complicted so lets wheel out the welfare recipients for a public booting to distract the punters!
Oh and the Greens are giving a good elbow in the face just in case!
Of course the ALP doesn’t actually attack welfare recipients – just suggests that a review would be a good idea and lets the less charitable among us whet their senses of grievance and raise a lot of meaningless noise.
All disabilities and our approach to it should be a defining standard for the quality of our government but it’s minority status is strangling this government.
Hal 9000, Thomas Paine and others have the right idea but I’d like to have the originators of this campaign publicly identified- talking about the ALP as if it is a monolithic identity fails to show those repsonsible.
Conrad I don’t think you can necessarily compare rates of people with disabilities between here and Hong Kong. Without knowing how Hong Kong compares I would suggest that further lack of support is likely to move people with disabilities into the black economy, crime, the prison system and possibly death. What choices do people have with a plainly inadequate income and no option to escape. It’s not as if they can just waltz into a better lifestyle.
I faced 6 months of this under the Unsworth workers comp system where I was on significantly less than the dole (after the first 6 months at full pay) but not medically allowed to work – fortunately friends and family helped out and I recovered but I could see the abyss ahead – at least when you’re unemployed things might be better tomorrow, there’s some hope of a job.
Cracking down on eligibility does reduce numbers but at great cost to both individuals and to society.
Good one, Kim/
I don’t think there’s much more I could add that I haven’t said on other threads.
I wondered what would happen in the Labor Caucys. Now we know. Still, its no longer news that Gillard and her cronies are Liberal party moles.
Mercurius@25. Yes. Well put.
There are many disabled who would work if employers let them. There are many disabled who cannot work, as a matter of fact. Some people can work sometimes but at other times can’t, meaning they ‘fail’ the rigid conventions surrounding what is problematically termed ‘employability’.
Business groups always argue for tax reduction and against tax increases on the same grounds: that the economic impact of such measures on business affect social wellbeing. They whinge about government spending on welfare, but business has not accepted responsibility for people who currently receive Centrelink allowances, especially the disabled.
From what she said, I’m not sure what Gillard has in mind.
IF she means to turn their own arguments back on them, and argue employers’ obligation to contribute actively to social well-being, then I support her.
Just as importantly, those who don’t fit an updated paradigm of ‘employability’ should not lack self-determination and live in poverty and fear. This mean more money and resources for them.
If Gillard doesn’t move in these directions, she’s party to a sham that brutalises the vulnerable.
The Productivity Commission is currently taking further submissions for its final Disability Care and Support Report. This will have an impact, for better or for worse. This is such a vast area, and many submissions have a limited agenda.
http://www.pc.gov.au/projects/inquiry/disability-support/submissions
Her bizarre speech does not lend itself to this reading. This is scapegoating.
Good on you, Kim. Some of the responses here are so ignorant. I don’t want to be negative – but – if you live with a physical disability, life is very difficult. Just the aging process is one problem. Julia Gillard is like all the rest of the pollies; they don’t know or understand any of it. National insurance scheme, that’ll be the day. When I think of the heartbreak of my parents all those years ago, I could cry – because as you get older you realize how life was for them. I am the youngest of three. After polio, one of the doctors told them to put me in an institution and forget about me. Much to their love for me, they didn’t do that. I would also like to say there was little help for them in those days just as there is little damn help for others now. If I couldn’t struggle uphill living in my own house, where would I go? To a nursing home? That, too, will be the day.
And as for the local council aged and disability services: I like the people who come to my home; however, the services are now totally compromised by a lack of money and utterly ridiculous managerial decisions.
I cannot usually find the words for all this – I like all you guys. Love to read the posts on LP. And I did end up institutionalized, in a lot of ways, from all the “special” services when I was a kid. Sorta better now.
Who in that bloody party is not a so-called Liberal party mole? We know what happens to left-wing recalcitrants don’t we?
My heart goes out to Dperessed and unemployed. I know your pain, but I am fortunate that I have loving partner to help.
It seems to me that if such differing ideas can be gained from the one speech, somthing is very wrong. What Dave Bath says @ 31, maybe.
I want to apologise to Grog for the personalised comment at the end of my post. I’m sorry, I was very angry about this whole issue, but I ought not to have got personal. I’m deleting that portion of the post.
I still think he’s wrong, but I shouldn’t have got so angry.
Kim,
You mean that you shouldn’t have been so embarrassingly rude. Ah, well- history now rewritten- all is good again…
“Conrad I don’t think you can necessarily compare rates of people with disabilities between here and Hong Kong. ”
I don’t think you can compare them directly either. Alternatively, I still find it hard to imagine that disabilities are causing us to get 6 times more disabled people per head of population on pensions, no matter how you want to count them. (note that they even use two categories in HK. One is permanent disability, which 18401 people are on, and one is ill health, which is not permanent, which 25253 people are on. They have about 1/3 the population as here).
Obviously a lot of this is definitional, and the differences can be huge. For example in France, some 39% of people say they have some form disability (being disabled is obviously becoming the norm there), but Austrians only claim it 20.2% of the time. Alternatively, Estonians claim this only 7.8% of the time and the Spanish claim it 8.5% of the time.
That link doesn’t seem to work, so here it is: http://www.disability-europe.net/en/countries/Spain, and the other countries are easy to find from it.
Thanks Kim – no offense taken from my part – all part of the rough and tumble of the blogosphere.
As Frank pointed out I do have a daughter with DS so disability is a big issue with me. But you’re right – my focus is different at the moment – I’m more looking at child support and early intervention things rather than the DSP (though I know it is ever on my horizon, along with all the other things I worry about with her).
Actually on disability I am looking at writing a post next week on this case http://m.theage.com.au/national/wordless-workers-lose-wages-20110412-1dcnp.html which sure as hell has me pretty angry.
cheers
@12 – LO, I think the reason for different readings of the speech is that some are attending to what they see as the economic and social policy claims, and others are (rightly imho) very concerned about the rhetoric and language in which Gillard couches her discussion.
It was interesting, in that context, to read in the Fin today, that a number of Labor MPs are very concerned about Gillard’s consistent tilt towards conservatism. It may be that the idea is to force Abbott even more out to the right, but actually he doesn’t need to go there, because there’s a legitimate suspicion that either Gillard doesn’t mean what she says, or that a lot of Labor people don’t share her “values”. In the meantime, she loses even more people who are progressives.
The focus on the DSP has been repeatedly discussed in the context of a “crack down”. To reply here to the comment you made on the other thread, yes, it is true that it is possible for some people on the DSP to work. But, as Kim and Mercurius and others rightly point out, that possibility is dependent on very significant shifts in culture and expenditures by employers. The lack of real willingness to do this is evidenced by the poor record even the public sector has in employing, and making adjustments for, workers with disabilities. The gist of what’s being touted now implies an adjustment, Howard style, of definitions of ability and disability, and – possibly – financial “sticks”. If that is what eventuates, it will not work and it will only serve to exacerbate social exclusion and suffering.
Um Conrad my point was that if you starve people their numbers reduce – odd that. And that we are dealing with people, not numbers, and these people have no real choices.
It’s possible that in Hong Kong you can get work with a major disability, but here no honest employer can afford to employ someone who is clearly unfit for work – there’s OH&S and obligations to workers comp insurers to worry about. In Australia you can do drug dealing, I imagine maybe being a cockatoo for other illegal activities, fraud and other crime – no worries with OH&S in these industries. There’s also begging and charity. Removing benefits from people with no chance of legitimate employment will force people in these directions.
But I guess that’s ok, we can then lock them up and feel good about law and order. So what if it costs more, for government, for society, for insurance premiums. All so the unworthy will suffer for what we give them and the aspirational classes won’t have to feel envious of these lucky disabled people!
@12
“there are people who can work who do not”
Interesting choice of words would,’t you say? To me that sentence means “there are people who choose not to work, they choose to accept welfare rather than work”. As to the rest of the quote, I can’t see anything substantive about how the government plans to rectify the situation. They did once have an idea about taxing highly profitable mining companies and using that money to develop industries that might be more environmentally and economically sustainable, but well we know what happened there.
Your appear surprised that many commenters here are shocked that the PMs speech only talks about employment problems in terms of a failure of labour rather than as a failure of capital. You don’t seem to be able to accept that capital is lazy, not interested in the long term, very poor at innovation and quite happy to let working conditions sink to a very low level for certain categories of workers.
I’m surprised, given your familiarity with the politics and economics, that you aren’t be able to see that forcing people back into work is costly, difficult and futile whereas forcing business to make a fair contribution to the training of the workforce and the development of industries beyond the extractive would be cheap, easier to implement and durable. And of course it would mean you wouldn’t need to punish the unemployed because of all the well paid and fulfilling jobs that would be created.
However it’s not surprising, lately economics appears to able to endure any theoretical contortion to avoid advocating that capital make a greater contribution to the good order of society.
Actually it would be bloody interesting if Graham Edwards was alive and still in parliament. Might make the PMs GBH on the disabled a little harder from a personal perspective.
There doesn’t seem to be any content in this post to support the title. What is this lie that Gillard is being accused of? Would some quotes or a link be too much to ask for
Apparently, Chris@49, it is all written in the Fin Review that Mark and Kim read.
Here you go:
http://www.news.com.au/money/benefits-tighten-to-get-more-working/story-fn84fgcm-1226034444566
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/tony-abbott-takes-aim-at-dole-and-disability-pensions/story-e6frea6u-1226031116739
http://www.smh.com.au/national/pm-shares-frustration-of-2m-who-crave-more-work-20110201-1acgw.html
Do government agencies or health service providers measure disabilities that have been caused by injuries sustained by people working in specific industries, from office or administration type jobs to manufacturing, agricultural production, mining, transport or elsewhere?
How many people currently on the DSP have been injured by their previous work? And what’s the breakdown?
I don’t like Ms Gillard’s attitude to the unemployed, it is so very . . .plebian. She clearly thinks, as many do, that people on the dole are scum. Despising the poor is nothing new under the sun, and we shouldn’t be surprised that she shares an LCD view. What is surprising is that she is giving speeches at the Sydney Institute. Who are funded by?
I think to pacify big business while taxing big polluters (hopefully out of business) Gillard has caved into pressure from Ridout and Co.to beat up on welfare recipients. A sort of trade off (if only psychological), to the big end of town.
Lefty E @11 (re Paul Howes). I was thinking more along the lines that he’d been ‘got at’. He was certainly terribly cheerful making his announcement on the news yesterday, like he had suddenly found a whole lot of backing for this crazybrave idea that cannae work for anyone.
Mutual (reciprocal or whatever) obligation has always been controversial in the party. The left have never liked it on principle. I remember quite a few conference and other stoushes over the issue. One thing I find funny and even a bit odd is that when I was in AYL in the mid-1990s most on the left hated the Working Nation package because it put more conditions on the long-term unemployed. Now the package is being eulogised….
And I dare say there are many thousands of individuals on the disability support pension who may have some capacity to fly.
It would be nice if she could cite the research.
The ABC ran a Centrelink shlock horror story almost word for word from whoever gave them the press release. It is actually about criminals who knowingly defraud Centrelink but somehow managed to be about DSP recipients who could get a job if they just could get a grip. Managing to associate disability pensioners with problem gambling is, admittedly, a nice touch. It rather weakens the claim that Ambiguous Julia is just being badly misunderstood by evil lefties.
Revenue lost through middle and upper-class tax evasion is ten times what is spent supporting so-called ‘DSP recipients who can work but do not’.
But god forbid we ever push to implement a ‘dob in a tax evader’ scheme.
Or review how the GST allows companies to shift literally hundreds of billions of dollars of revenue a year into overseas tax-haven based subsidiaries at a tax rate of just 10%.
Nope. Let’s be politically clear on what’s really dragging productivity down – the sheer laziness of disabled people.
@Mark 51. I get it now. News Limited says…..Fairfax says…. There are bloody good reasons why I don’t get my news from those sources
I for one won’t condemn Gillard for enacting the Labor platform.
The reality since the early seventies is that there has been more people willing and able to work than there have been jobs.* Under these circumstances I would have thought that people who are happy to live on the dole or disabled pensions were social gold. For example, there is no social prize for using subsidies to replace family bread earners with people who are willing not to work.
I would also have thought that it is desirable to encourage those that have the ability to benefit themselves and the country by doing serious courses full-time. Ditto, people who are willing to live on the dole while trying to set up business. Both these are particularly true when the person with the necessary aptitude is holding down a job that could be done by someone who is much less physically or intellectually able.
This does not mean that there should be no effort to help the disabled and long term unemployed. However, it should be about helping people live better lives, not harassing people who are not like Julia Abbott.
* Sure there are some jobs that are difficult to fill. It would make sense to try and understand why. For example, dole and disability rules tend to discourage people from doing casual work.
The Age has been talking to people on welfare:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/the-people-in-gillards-sights-20110416-1dive.html
“why did you leave your last job?”
“Because I couldn’t do it any more”
What have you been doing the last 2 years since leaving your last job?”
“Looking after my health. I’m a lot better now”
No, no, no, it just doesn’t scan well at job interviews. I just don’t know how to break that barrier.
Unemployed and lazy: this is a title that I tie to myself with a lot of shame. I don’t spend nearly as much time as I should looking for work – I used to look much harder, but nobody really wants to take the sort of risk required to take on a person like me, and it is so mentally draining. I got fired a couple of months ago, I think rather unfairly, but I don’t have the energy to fight that. That job was the first job I had had for quiet a long while. I have had a history of mental health issues, and there has been times that I have been on sickness benefits. For my mental health it really isn’t the best for me to continually prove how useless I am to the government, I want to be able to talk about what I can do, not what I can not. I only receive around $0- $20 a fortnight from the dole, as my wife is in the lucrative career of being a child assistant. I have fucked up my life trying to get an education and then failing all of my courses, leaving me very under-skilled with very little work experience. The shame of living off my wife is unbearable.
I don’t want to go on to the DSP, I see it as falling into an inescapable pit. All the jobs I have had have been very horrible experiences of being either bullied or feeling utterly useless doing what should be done by a machine, or simply not done at all.
If Gillard is talking about creating jobs (or activities) that will help make people like me feel purposeful to society, than I would support her. However, I think she is just out to make my miserable life even worse, but at least throwing ridiculous amounts employing all these otherwise useless compliance staff a sense of self worth!
I believe that the human condition leads all but the sociopathic to want to be useful. An unconditional base wage plus direct government employment for people that aren’t very attractive to the private sector would be a better program! I would love a Work the Dole like program that was more like an optional Work for Award Wages!
child assistant = child care assistant.
James @62: I think you are right – the government should be directly employing people who are “not very attractive to the private sector.” That may be doing things for the government or the government acting as a people hire company to the private sector. However, it has to something where the effort is taken to understand people’s strengths and weaknesses and where part of the effort goes into building on strengths as well as trying to overcome weakness.
Best of luck with your endeavors.
“But god forbid we ever push to implement a ‘dob in a tax evader’ scheme.”
Here you go:
https://olt.ato.gov.au/terc/default.asp?sid=15122020051803
Will you look at that…thanks, Geoff. Some more info:
http://www.taxpayersassociation.com.au/investment/tax-evasion.html
It’s a natural expectation that the Tax Office would be keen to stamp out attempts by people and businesses to dodge their tax obligations. And chasing down the perpetrators can be worth the effort. Since the 2006 financial year for example, the Tax Office says its crime investigation activities raised liabilities of $1 billion and brought 62 prosecution cases before the courts, of which 16 successfully resulted in convictions.
Its Project Wickenby activity (which is basically a financial crimes taskforce involving the Tax Office and seven other federal agencies) collected $40 million in cash in 2008-09, and $240 million since inception in February 2006, plus a further windfall of $306 million ‘compliance dividend’ from tax collections from people subject to Wickenby action.
Imagine if it had a dedicated hotline, tens of millions spent on advertising campaigns, and a Government willing to acknowledge its true extent and how it stacks up against the costs of ‘DSP recipients who can work but do not’?
Who saw tax evasion as important and costly enough to center an entire speech around at the Sydney Institute.
Greg Barns: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/56844.html
On top of everything else this is another fail for the unions givn how many people acquire disabilities subsequent to OH+S incidents. I’m still looking for a link to up to date data; would be nice if Howes spoke up and declared disability a union matter under such circumstances.
When union’s vote on the acceptance of new workplace agreements the only people who get a vote are those who are already in a job. So productivity agreements tend to be about retrenchment payments to those who want to leave and better conditions for those who stay. There is usually no objection to changes that mean the available work will be shared by fewer people. There is rarely any support for changes that might give unemployed kids or the disabled job opportunities that would reduce overtime levels. The unions are about the workers, not about those who used to be part of the working class.
That’s a very strong argument by Greg Barns; a barrister for whom I have a great deal of respect. One of my concerns is for people like these. They don’t qualify for the DSP, but they’re not capable of holding a job down for very long. Where are the programmes for these people? Has there been any government that has been serious about supporting them? Why is paid employment seen to be the goal they must reach for? Surviving on an even keel, keeping out of trouble and becoming full members of the community are also worthwhile goals and extremely hard for some people to attain.
Well, I agree John D but think it a harsh call to disenfranchise members who have occupationally acquired disabilities.
Get to walk a mile in my shoes! There may be a few bad apples out there, what these tyrants are planning, is likely gonna make life much harder for those genuine ones who are already struggling to survice on the DSP!
Don’t judge a person, till you walk a mile in their shoes!
Protect the genuine ones pls!
i think that the gov should leave the people on disability pension alone and help the people that can work get jobs also pay people who work for the dole a proper wage give them something to get out there and work for. and stop calling them dole bluggers. no one is going to hire someone with a mental illness people who don’t have a mental illness find it hard getting employment no one wants to hire a sick person. julia gillard treat people with a bit of respect and don’t look down on the unemployed and the people with a mental illness
Gillard is a liar or at best she is misleading us (see article) http://www.smh.com.au/national/unemployed-tangled-in-rubbery-figures-20110501-1e37u.html
That said; It’s also extremely distressing knowing the fact that Gillard who barely got elected would soon after attempt to hand down a very controversial budget, a budget squarely aimed at the most disadvantaged, a soft easy target.
Labor under Gillard leadership has become an evil and coldhearted leader or as Andrew Wilkie correctly said; “demonizing” yes that is rightly quoted. (See article) http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/mp-wont-allow-demonising-welfare-changes-20110506-1ebn3.html
Let’s put this all into perspective, into actual fact, reality… in the USA (for example) there are approximately 12 million unemployed and depending on the rate of the unemployed there are up to 4 tiers of benefit payments, first tier last approx’ 18 months but the payments are far more generous (above the poverty level) and with NO punitive policies and NO work/slave for the dole, there is also the rent and utilities assistance (payments), there is also the Food-Share ‘Quest Card’ a special ‘additional benefit’ paid approx’ $350 monthly in the form of an E-Card that can be use to purchase food only items at most supermarkets, and not to forget ‘Community Care’ free health care for ‘all’ low income earners including of course the unemployed.
For decades both the Labor and Liberal parties have been misleading and treating the disadvantage in a very cruel, uncaring and particularly “punitive’ manner. The end results speaks for itself; the “working poor” and those on welfare (including age and disability pensioners) living in poverty, hardship, stress (all of which puts a further burden on areas such as the health system). It’s about time for Australians to have complete change of government leadership, possibly combined IND and Greens policies founded strictly on; ‘compassion’, caring for disadvantage’, ‘fair-go’, ‘workplace reforms (anti-discrimination and anti-bullying).
Australia has a dark history (example; stolen generation) of abusing the most vulnerable in society. It’s very sad that to this day such atrocities linger on…..
For everyone of us there is only one life, and sometimes life can be way too short. It’s absolutely barbaric to know that in reality for decades to this day most Australians battle to stay a hairline above the poverty level and continue to live a very stressful life. How very sad!
‘Punitive Policies’ are never the answer, should never had and nor continue to be part of the reforms on welfare because the very meaning of ‘welfare’ is suppose to be about ‘well-being’ and ‘aid’.
That said; for far too long most Australians have endured hardship (poverty) under both Labor and Liberal policies. It’s about time Australia voted in new leadership, a leader who truly knows the importance that all Australians deserve a lot better.
The sad fact is that such ‘punitive’ and cruel policies have proven without doubt to cause more stress followed by depression, hardship and the cost of living to go up for most Australians. The fact that stress can also add further burden on the health system and it can also add to the crime stats.
Both Gillard and Abbott are taking the easy road, OK for them since they both have no idea of the reality that most Australians struggle to pay bills on basic essential needs such as; rent, utilities and transport. Oh and did I forget to mention that thousands of employed Australians are actually ‘working poor’. Congratulations Labor and Liberal, this is the legacy that will forever be burned in history.
If there was one true Aussie alive today to lead Australia into ‘true’ prosperity for all, that would be Dame Mary Gilmore.
Meanwhile, Gillard is probably the most arrogant leader of all, and may not have any compassion nor humane qualities in her heart to begin to understand. She will never read this, she will neither care to. How very sad!
NOTE: Reposted because of links/Html code errors.
I’m a newstart recipient judged as having a 8-15 hr/wk capacity to work due to mental illness (‘temporary’, despite one of my issues being avoidant personality disorder, and my other issues having existed since my primary school days in hindsight).
The ‘help’ I get involves me having to take a trip into town and get asked somewhat irrelevant questions for half an hour every fortnight, and despite my issues with people I’m on my third agency and sixth caseworker of the last 12 months, and seeking medical assistance is in my participation agreement despite the fact my meds are making me more disabled and I’d really like to stop.
I would actually like to do some work, to a certain extent my illnesses impede the search for work more than the performance of it, but I feel like Sisyphus, with the efforts to help me having become part of my burden.
I might have made it onto the DSP, free to recover in peace at my own pace, if Centrelink had noticed my illness before the latest reforms. How many more will the next reforms make feel like this?
Both liberal and labor are nothing more than the administrative arm for big business, that are getting so brazen and desperate that Gillard was installed without a vote within the labor party, or god forbid the “people themselves’.
They will use all sorts of lies and vilifications to justify slashing social spending and forcing people with disabilities into low paid slave labor which has the effect of helping drive down wages etc.
All the rhetoric about law and order and the vilification of our youth, is about supressing the discontented disollusioned youth that see no future and fed a continual diet of abysmal retrograde propaganda to further confuse them.
Every department has had funds cut over the past 10 years except for the police, AFP and ASIO, that have doubled in personel.
Supression and attacks on our democratic rights are the order of the day as they trandfer billions to those that caused this crisis and attempt to make us pay for it