Posts by Lilith __
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: What about that Welfare…, in reply to Petra,
Oh, no worries, Petra, the info's the part that matters ;-)
-
And since it's Friday, perhaps we need a novelty song as well?
For all the tea aficionados. I think it might be steampunk hip-hop. Or something.
-
I rather liked this, which is available for free download for a limited time:
I particularly dig the dancing. :-)
-
Hard News: What about that Welfare…, in reply to Petra,
On the subject of doctors’ opinions and their reliability, I remember in the mid-1990s there was a WINZ initiative to send all sickness beneficiaries to see a second, “designated”, doctor in order to get their benefits renewed. The numbers on the SB at that time were in the high tens-of-thousands (80,000? Something like that.) Imagine the cost for WINZ paying for that many extra doctors’ visits, plus their own administration costs, plus the stress to all those vulnerable sick people. And the net result was that SB numbers went down by about 300, which was probably a random fluctuation in any case. Result: project was abandoned as costly and pointless.
-
Hard News: What about that Welfare…, in reply to Andrew C,
As an FYI, the 3 friends I refered to earlier all have found doctors who are prepared to sign medical statements saying they are unfit for work. None are unfit, and, and this in my friends’ views, the doc’s all know this and are aware of the true reason for the requests and are simply playing along. Just sayin.
Andrew are you absolutely sure your 3 friends are fit to work? Doctors are not only highly trained, but by and large quite canny at figuring people out. And I find it really hard to believe that the (3!) doctors would knowingly be submitting fraudulent medical certificates. Doctors are in a highly responsible position and their jobs depend on their being trustworthy and reliable.
Oh and Petra, I love the paperclip analogy! And I couldn't agree more.
-
Hard News: What about that Welfare…, in reply to vangam,
For those reading this thread who haven’t seen the relevant stuff on t’other thread, the “50 billion” cost of benefits cited by the WWG is the cost of supporting those currently on benefits for the rest of their lives. Hardly anybody receiving a benefit does so for life, the vast majority are on a benefit for a short time. You can get the full fisking from Gordon Campbell.
In that article he also notes that the percentage of working-age adults currently on a benefit is 13%, predicted to rise to 16% in 2050. The actual facts are just not that alarming.
-
Hard News: What about that Welfare…, in reply to rodgerd,
There's that very instructive pie chart from Danyl, which certainly puts unemployment benefit spending in context: it's absolutely dwarfed by Superannuation, Working for Families and a lot of other stuff, including the "landlord subsidy", the Accomodation Supplement.
-
Up Front: The Up Front Guides: How to Be…, in reply to Sacha,
I imagine someone may start a new thread here for the topic
Yeah, sorry Emma, didn’t mean to threadjack, just can’t believe that social policy might be written in that same punitive factless rage….
-
You could always focus your rage and turn it into a submission. You have time until December 24th.
Good advice in many situations; but in this case I do wonder if rational action is pointless. These are the people still spouting:
“If changes were not made, the 356,000 working-age adults on a benefit would eventually cost the country $50 billion.”
which is not just inaccurate, not just speculative, not just misleading, but the WWG must know, an actual lie: it assumes every person receiving a benefit will do so for the rest of their life, which is almost never the case.
More from Gordon Campbell in that same article:
"The reality is far less dramatic. Elsewhere within the working paper, the level of those reliant on welfare is predicted to rise from 13% now to 16% in 2050. That’s only a three per cent rise spread over 40 years, in the context of an ageing population that will inevitably generate more people on sickness and invalids benefits. So, where’s the crisis? In that sense, there isn’t one. ‘Crisis’ is a word that I would reserve for the health system, under Tony Ryall. A ruckus over welfare is merely a political diversion from the debacle unfolding in health.
If we truly want to get people off welfare and into jobs, here’s a revolutionary notion – let’s create some jobs ! At present, as Sue Bradford has pointed out, there are 255,000 people in this country who are wanting work, but who currently can’t find it. We don’t have a welfare crisis, we have a jobs crisis. Why on earth would the working party – or the government – think that it is a good and timely priority to add to the numbers already seeking work, by pushing more people out to look for non-existent jobs?"
-
Do op-ed columnists dream of being allowed on a Government Working Group? They might as well be.