Help A Fellow Australian To Stay Drunk

[beerdrinkingbob]

For what it's worth it is no longer compulsory it's voluntary, about 50% dropped off (men) when the change occurred and the rest (woman) stayed on to ensure the blokes couldn't spend the kids grocerry money on piss...

All that said, i'm not sure if their new idea is volunatary or not for families!

 

[drew9242]

Well, if the government is giving able-bodied adults free money to sit on their arse and do nothing, then it's only fair that the government should be able to have a say in how they spend that money. Dont like it? Then get a job, earn your own money and spend it as you wish

During the second world war ration coupons were restricted to tea, sugar, butter, meat & clothing.

I aggree with you. It is the same with any money you recieve for nothing, there is always conditions.

Maybe manticle will care to enlighten us on what we misunderstood?

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

I like the idea that that those on welfare should be restricted as to where they can spend our money.

I have seen way to many parents blow their dole/pension on piss and gambling


And as for the bloody liberal parties baby bonus..... dont get me started :angry:

 

[[email protected]]

I can see a lot of k&k brewers resorting to making mead.

 

[manticle]

I aggree with you. It is the same with any money you recieve for nothing, there is always conditions.

Maybe manticle will care to enlighten us on what we misunderstood?

Put simply, welfare recipients include many more people than the long term unemployed and unemployable.

You've lumped in aged pensioners and the disabled, students and single mothers with your stereotype.

I won't go into what a demotivational poverty trap the current system can be for people. Here try living on $200 a week and feel ashamed of yourself while doing it. If you try and work to supplement that and give yourself a bit of pride we'll cut that amount in half.

Some people are unemployable and addicts of various types. To suggest that's all welfare recipients displays an eagerness to demonise people you don't know due to stereotypes.

 

[Bribie G]

FTWCIL I'm a part pensioner (carer) and I would love to get off my arse more than I do, to pay my way. However I'm limited to 25 hours a week away from my caree otherwise I have to go full time and Centrelink would then have to pay someone else to be the carer. Or put the caree in a home for $90,000 a year. So they are getting a really good deal from hundreds of thousands of carers who are juggling work and caring responsibilities and collecting a much reduced rate from the government. Centrelink actually hold seminars around the country entitled "keeping it all together" to encourage carers to work part time etc.

One good thing to come out of the budget is Disability Pensions - up till Peter Costello / Amanda Vanstone pulled the rug out from under them, disso pensioners could work up to 30 hours and have their pensions tapered off, until they were back in the workforce (I know two people who did just that - a rellie who went and got a degree and works as a manager for a Queensland Nursing Organisation, and my good mate who also went to Uni, is now a phD and programming for a big Pharma in Sydney on about 100k. Some AHB members have actually had a drink with him and you wouldn't have recognised him 15 years ago.

Then Captain Smirk and Amanda Fatstone cut the allowed hours back to 15. Half an hour over and you were chucked off the pension with no support at all. Nobody can live on 15 hours work so nearly all disso pensioners just stopped working and sat back to collect welfare. Now you can expect to see a heap of them back in the workforce even if it's just picking pineapples or working at Maccas, a job gives dignity and with more modern treatments many of them will get out of the clutches of Centrelink and become independent humans, like my two friends above.

So yes there's more to welfare recipients than tattooed pierced single mothers fare evading on trains and collecting baby bonuses.

 

[Josh]

Pollux you'd love the very underrated (at the time) but now fairly cult movie "Idiotocracy"

oops Idiocracy. I cant spel eny mor since PaulH slipped me that mickey at the BABs meting ... dur

I've tried and failed to watch that movie twice. Very irritating.

Dax Shepard was born for that role.

 

[TSMill]

Buy clothes and have a garage sale. Get money to buy beer kits.

problem solved!

 

[Steve@PMF82]

A Big + 1 from me, great post, people are so quick to judge and stick everyone in a single box without knowing anything of the history/story associated with an individuals life situation.

Its always people who have never experienced real hardship that get up on their high horse and feel the need to push people down lower, why? it must make them feel good and reinforce there postion in society.

FTWCIL I'm a part pensioner (carer) and I would love to get off my arse more than I do, to pay my way. However I'm limited to 25 hours a week away from my caree otherwise I have to go full time and Centrelink would then have to pay someone else to be the carer. Or put the caree in a home for $90,000 a year. So they are getting a really good deal from hundreds of thousands of carers who are juggling work and caring responsibilities and collecting a much reduced rate from the government. Centrelink actually hold seminars around the country entitled "keeping it all together" to encourage carers to work part time etc.

One good thing to come out of the budget is Disability Pensions - up till Peter Costello / Amanda Vanstone pulled the rug out from under them, disso pensioners could work up to 30 hours and have their pensions tapered off, until they were back in the workforce (I know two people who did just that - a rellie who went and got a degree and works as a manager for a Queensland Nursing Organisation, and my good mate who also went to Uni, is now a phD and programming for a big Pharma in Sydney on about 100k. Some AHB members have actually had a drink with him and you wouldn't have recognised him 15 years ago.

Then Captain Smirk and Amanda Fatstone cut the allowed hours back to 15. Half an hour over and you were chucked off the pension with no support at all. Nobody can live on 15 hours work so nearly all disso pensioners just stopped working and sat back to collect welfare. Now you can expect to see a heap of them back in the workforce even if it's just picking pineapples or working at Maccas, a job gives dignity and with more modern treatments many of them will get out of the clutches of Centrelink and become independent humans, like my two friends above.

So yes there's more to welfare recipients than tattooed pierced single mothers fare evading on trains and collecting baby bonuses.

 

[drew9242]

Put simply, welfare recipients include many more people than the long term unemployed and unemployable.

You've lumped in aged pensioners and the disabled, students and single mothers with your stereotype.

I won't go into what a demotivational poverty trap the current system can be for people. Here try living on $200 a week and feel ashamed of yourself while doing it. If you try and work to supplement that and give yourself a bit of pride we'll cut that amount in half.

Some people are unemployable and addicts of various types. To suggest that's all welfare recipients displays an eagerness to demonise people you don't know due to stereotypes.

I would have thought pensioners, disabled, students and single mothers would not come under "abled body adults".

Anyway i can see your point to a degree, but like it that there are some restrictions. A lot of dole bludgers work under me for a couple of months and then get bored so they go back on the dole. That is why i group dole people a bit too much. Maybe i'm being harsh to the rest.

 

[manticle]

I would have thought pensioners, disabled, students and single mothers would not come under "abled body adults".

Anyway i can see your point to a degree, but like it that there are some restrictions. A lot of dole bludgers work under me for a couple of months and then get bored so they go back on the dole. That is why i group dole people a bit too much. Maybe i'm being harsh to the rest.

It's a fair distinction (able bodied) in most respects I guess (although many pensioners, carers, single mothers, students etc are certainly able bodied) and I'll admit I read a bit too quickly the first time around. However people often do seem to view welfare recipients as layabouts without thinking of who receives welfare. Some are - I would argue a small proportion since the actual amount of welfare is so pissy and very difficult to live on. I even know a wheelchair bound cerebal palsy sufferer who can literally move his eyes, head and the fingers on his hands who was trying to find work to supplement his meagre income and give him something to do.

I'd like to see a welfare system that stops focussing so closely on the minority who want/will remain unemployable and actually, properly assist those who use the system as it should be used.

 

[Bribie G]

The concept of State welfare is interesting - I did a couple of years of Philosophy at UNE in the fairly recent past and really got to understand how modern society came to be what it is. The whole rise of Industrial society centred around the end of the extended family, and the new "nuclear" family of Dad, Mum and the 2.8 kids who were mobile economic units and could move in a flash from rural Herefordshire to work in the Potteries or the steelworks. Along with all that, vast Victorian systems were created to control the population such as the police force, prisons, schools, etc. None of which existed even 60 years before (no there were very few prisons in the early 19th century which is why they transported so many people to here in particular. ) It was a remarkable transformation that still underlies our society today.

A result of this has been the new relationship between the individual and the State, where the individual stands naked under the constant Gaze of the State - Centrelink being a prime example in the Western World. In return for this "control" the State has to give welfare as part of this new "social contract" with the individual.

However go to somewhere like the Philippines and there is no welfare as such. And you know what there are NO old folks homes, they don't have any concept of them. Individuals are all enmeshed within an extended family who looks after them. Rosy specs I know as there is obviously a lot of poverty.

If we had retained the extended family in the same was as PI or India then I'm sure we wouldn't need welfare to any where near the same extent.

Quick edit: PHIL 101 was great and really ripped my socks off - if you hopped in your time machine and went back say 300 years and collared Mr Average in the street and asked him what was important, he'd probably say " to honour the King and Country, to serve the Lord Jesus Christ and attend Church every Sunday (compulsory) so that I may not rot in Hell, to provide for my family, and to follow my trade and know my place in the world."

Grab anyone nowadays off the street and it would be more like "Oh, get a good job, buy a house then a bigger house, a really nice SUV, look after SWMBO and the kids, get ripped at the gym, buy a couple of investment properties.. go to the Broncos every game...."

Hang on, what happened? It's an interesting journey to read about.

 

[Lecterfan]

Nothing like a bit of Foucault to stir the pot hey? Welcome to the Panopticon where we know what you are brewing.

 

[Bribie G]

Nothing like a bit of Foucault to stir the pot hey? Welcome to the Panopticon where we know what you are brewing.

Never really got into him, it's such a shame for him that his name is pronounced "Fucko" :lol: :lol:

 

[Lecterfan]

vast Victorian systems were created to control the population such as the police force, prisons, schools, etc. None of which existed even 60 years before (no there were very few prisons in the early 19th century which is why they transported so many people to here in particular. ) It was a remarkable transformation that still underlies our society today.

A result of this has been the new relationship between the individual and the State, where the individual stands naked under the constant Gaze of the State

That is Fucko. The threads you have tied together had not been linked genealogically and anthropologically (in the sociological way you've presented it) until his "Truth and Juridical Forms" (prior to that only in an historic, chronological, non-connotative way). Moving from punishment for an act committed to confinement for the liklihood of further acts that you might commit. Scary, and as you say incredibly interesting.

Sorry, I'll butt out.

 

[Bribie G]

You have inspired me to have a serious look at Foucault

 

[outbreak]

You two are giving me flashbacks to the continental philosophy unit I did at UWA..... It did wonders for me in terms of employment!

 

[Mayor of Mildura]

what the bloody hell are you guys banging on about? my head hurts. Maybe i need some of your midnight train bribie?

 

[Lecterfan]

You two are giving me flashbacks to the continental philosophy unit I did at UWA..... It did wonders for me in terms of employment!

:lol:

what the bloody hell are you guys banging on about? my head hurts. Maybe i need some of your midnight train bribie?

...I think anything will do, I've used up the last of mesa99's porter and am nearing the end of batch 1 of my "better red than dead".

I also FINALLY bottled my mead today so am pretty sure that I'll have a tipple of that before bed. It took 11 months and two rackings to get it nice and clear, but there you go. One of my oldest friends sent me a text an hour or so ago letting me know his 2nd child (this one's a boy) has entered the world...so I HAD to have a drink...and that (of course) led me to comment on this post (which I had vowed to otherwise stay away from - but happily it didn't become all gloomy and political).

So if anyone out there is wondering whether or not to have another beer tonight...you now have an excuse...my mate has had his second kid, a son. Huzzah!

 

[manticle]

Bad time to bring up various philosophies on population growth then?