Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Overnight the Prime Minister has announced a Senate Inquiry (two weeks only) into the changes to industrial relations, responding to the unease in the Government back-bench.

Surely he should do the same for the complex (and punitive) proposals for change (I really don't want to use the word 'reform') to the welfare system- so-called Welfare to Work.

The introduction of the legislation is delayed. We're hearing that field testing of the model for assessing the capacity of people with disabilities to work is hitting some rough patches- seems it's found that some disabilities, such as mental illness, aren't constant...have ebbs and flows...

Heaven knows how many more bugs there are in the proposed system, beyond the ones already identified of shockingly high Effective Marginal Tax Rates, capacity to force people into poverty, capacity to leave children without a needed parent, capacity to force people in rural communities to travel up to ninety minutes each way to a job for which they've had to negotiate an AWA which trades away wages levels and entitlements... We need an Inquiry to sort this out before it is put into practice. The social consequences are potentially quite horrific- even if there isn't future softening of the labour market.

Mardi Black, I was just amazed at the Centrelink file. They had cut my client off a number of times then re-instated her benefits when they realised it was their mistake. It seems to work in a completely totalitarian fashion. There was no way of correctly calculating the overpayment, they relied entirely on what they were told by the employer who was (a) wrong and (b) hadn't issued payslips. It just horrifies me. I'm trying to get the SMH to run a story on it.

Thank you for your kind words. Oh, and I was wrong about the top marginal rate - apparently it is 47%.

Malcolm, how nice to hear that there are people as generous as you out there generous in time, skill and heart, as you clearly were to your client.

You are right about the complicated nature of Centrelink. Ironically, it seems most complicated when you try to improve your lot, eg through interviews, part-time work etc.

Newstart clients have to constantly 'report'. A personal story - when I started to earn a fluctuating income, I had to 'report' my earnings, which entailed a fixed day once a fortnight (set by C'link) to sit on hold for ages and tell them how much I'd earned.

Fine. Unless you don't get your payslip till Thursday and you have to report on Monday. Or you aren't allowed to make personal calls from your work phone, even though you receive calls all day long. Or, there is one phone only for employee use. Or you have no mobile or internet access (oh! Centrelink is online, that's helpful).

Complicated to comply, but easy to incur punishment breach, docking, overpayment and debt, threats (letters telling you if you do not for example attend a Centrelink seminar or notify them of your circumstances or do this, that or the other you may be cut off), etc.

I am actually amazed anyone can rip Centrelink off at all!

Mardi Black "Malcolm, can you clarify your statement that the self-employed pay more tax? (Did I miss something? I thought being self-employed meant you paid a maximum tax rate of 30%, and that only on what remains after expenses which also includes your own wage?"

A couple of things Mardi. Tax gives me the willies. I hate accounting (bookkeeping was my worst subject at College of Law and I became a barrister partly so I wouldn't be able to handle other people's money - not that I want to steal it - I'm just hopeless at bookkeeping). I have to take a valium to do my BAS. So I don't know what the current top marginal rate is (I don't earn enough to pay it) but I think it's something like 60% and then there's the medicare levy on top.

There is a report in this morning's paper about Rowena Wallace being sentenced for social security fraud. The appeal period has not expired so it would be improper to comment on that particular case but I ran a similar one in front of the same Magistrate, a kind and compasionate woman, last year. My client was convicted too and the attitude of the prosecutor was a complete disgrace. He wanted an order that her fingerprints be taken - mindboggling. When asked "Why?" his reply was "We always ask for that." They didn't get it.

The point is, though, that I cross-examined someone from the DSS. The file was an appalling mess and they had done some truly horible things to my client. Nevertheless, I actually felt sorry for the woman (I don't usually feel sorry for people I cross-examine) and I made the submission that the legislation was so complicated that I did not see how anyone could be expected to administer it. I feel even sorrier for those who are on social security, often those who are the least intelligent, the least able to cope, the most stressed by poverty, privation and mental problems in our society. How on earth are such supposed to deal with the labarynthine complexities of this convoluted bureaucratic nightmare. I really think those of us who have never had to cope with it simply do not understand the challenge it must present to people. Then the Court of Criminal Appeal says that the proper sentence is custodial because it is a fraud on the revenue. I don't think many Supreme Court Judges have been on social security. I might add, (fortunately) my client did not go to gaol and, when she got over the shock of being convicted was kind enough to ring and thank me for helping her. That took some of the sting out of doing four days in Court for nothing.

The latest Marie Coleman post had this writer straightaway recalling the latest SBS Insight show, dealing with the deterioration of mental health services over the last couple of decades, including de-institutionalisation.Dear old economic rationalism. The tax payers both corporate and middle-class have had their numerous tax-cuts, but boy, the human toll associated with right-libertarian sado-economics abandonment of "nuanced" treatment of many troubled people suffering from illnesses with physical bases, hence not originally of their own making, amounted to literal carnage in some cases.

A subtext was an implicit truce held by State and federal politicians as to apportionment of blame, held almost to the end. As the friction finally became overt, one audience member was left to note the old buck-passing strategy that always operates to kill any appropriate response when any real problem arises. A beautiful default, but very sad given the harm going on for sufferers and bystanders alike.

Worse when you think mental health is only one component of the wider health/welfare system, paradigmatic also for nursing homes, old pensioners, welfare beneficieries, child care, domestic violence, child abuse etc.

Were I God, I wouldA. Cease tax cuts, redirecting the difference toward instead infrastructure repair;B. Force federal state and local authorities to (co)operate responsibly with each other, ending duplication and developing efficient policies relevant to the needs of sufferers, as a new end-game.

But, I suppose if I were God, I would actually cure the poor beggers, and that would obviate the point of this post.

This is the time to focus on the links between the WorkChoice material, and the Welfare to Work proposals. The PM effectively told us through the 7.30 report ( as was again agreed between Michele Grattan and Fran Kelly on the ABC Breakfast program) that individuals entering the workforce ( that poor unfortunate Billy of Canberra) ought accept below award conditions, just so they'd get a job.That's the future facing the sole parent currently on a pension whose child turns six on July 2 next year; that's the future facing the individual with a disability who applied for NewStart allowance on July 2 next year.Consider this case study below as an example of what the vision splendid will mean for one individual ( not real name). And remember, no more unfair dismissal protection after 1 July 2006.Case Study 1 - AndrewLives Alone Independently (Family Support supplies shortfall)

'My life is very finely balanced and cannot take any shocks. I desperately want to work and be independent but a lot of it is out of my control at present.'

Fortnightly Disposable Income = $ 970 (inadequate to meet his essential costs of living.

Expense Cost/fnRent $480Medication/modified diet $130Food and household expenses $220Car and fare expenses $155 Total Expenditure $985 Fortnightly shortfall - $15

Andrew has had Multiple Sclerosis for 12 years. As a result of cognitive impairment caused by his condition, Andrew cannot share accommodation with other people and so lives alone.

He used to work full time, but can now only manage 20 hours per week. Andrew works in the retail sector and earns around $600 per fortnight. He also receives a part pension (DSP) and rent assistance. Andrew is not eligible for the Mobility Allowance. to meet his essential costs of living.

Andrew relies on his family to meet the short fall in his income and to help him out with any unexpected costs.

Andrew has no way of earning extra income to meet this shortfall. He is already working to his maximum capacity and may soon be forced to reduce his hours further.

If Andrew were on Newstart instead of the DSP, his fortnightly disposable income would drop to $736, or only $368 a week.

This would leave Andrew short by $249 per fortnight.

Malcolm, your post made perfect sense to me. You've either a) had an outstanding day, b) had an abysmal day, or c) neither remember nor care whether you've had an outstanding or abysmal day, having administered substance of choice (the Evans & Tate sounds a treat, Fiona). Whatever in reality or altered-reality obtains, your post was quite entertaining in a Pythonesque kind of way, sincerely - if somewhat off-topic or even atopical, but bugger it, I've had an outstandingly abysmal day. Or perhaps, Malcolm, you've cunningly executed an off-beat, subliminal plug for hoped-for tax reform and/or political aspirations. By definition, we'll never know. If you were to publish, there could be a demographic. Sincerely.

Jack H Smit, 'tis but a port in a storm and I have pretty well cornered the market in Penfolds Club 1956 Port - magnificent drop - broach one every five years or so, as trained killers do. Ever killed anything? Claude (the diabetic cat) does.

Yet humour alone will not assuage Mardi's difficulties. I doubt we could even kill her pain. Wot we gunna do?

I've already suggested Merlot (with Cab), Jack H Smit. As for other possibilities, given Malcolm's ancestry, metheglin immediately springs to mind. Or, have some Madeira, m'dear. Whatever, enjoy.

Malcolm, looks like the fortification has hit a new level! But, hell, I'm no one to talk, having just imbibed one too many from mine cask of port. Hmmm... maybe we should all take a little drinks break here...

Bottoms up!

I am sorry Mardi that you live with so much fear and anguish. Unfortunately it is not uncommon in Australia to be living in fear. Hopefully things will improve in the future.

I actually blame what is happening on the Labor Government, more than Liberal, as they are the ones that have allowed State services to fall to such a level that there is no service. These services are imperative as without them communities fall apart.

I think that because so many families have to work so much more in order to afford “today’s lifestyle and children”, more often than not having to use the Private Sector services as the Public Sector is so appalling, a lot of the children are missing out on time with their parents. Children with too much spare time on their hands tend to get up to no good. We have a lot of children getting up to no good.

A parent's biggest concern is their children. It’s a vicious cycle. If they fixed up services and things ran smoothly everybody would be better off and people wouldn’t feel so abandoned, alone and afraid.

Malcolm B. Duncan "What was the question? I don’t remember. I think I was running in the America’s cup at the time. I was certainly in some sort of a cup at the time. I don’t remember."

"My glass always, or at least all too frequently, seems to be empty."

Malcolm, it seems that your Cup runneth over, as Tim Winton quipped about the media coverage of the last America's Cup when he was drowning in the bread and games - I was Tim's Bob the Builder at the time, hammering away at his first writing studio. No, I think it DOES run over. With humour and generosity. You're sprung, Your Honorable. What is it, Merlot or M, M, Muscat?

Malcolm Duncan, Sir, I will not endeavour to respond to your first three paragraphs. I suspect that to do so might incriminate someone. Instead I recommend a bottle or so of Evans & Tate Cab Merlot. Failing that, at least four Martinis. Particularly given the state of your glass.

As for Mardi, TARP will doubtless be a longterm solution. In the meantime - or in conjunction - how to get Andy Christy into parliament (preferably Federal)? And how to remove the current oligarchs, whose feet are inconveniencing our necks?

Well, exactly, Craig, wot? How do we organise a civil compassionate society? Shouldn't we all be putting our backs into it?

Craig R Ed. Not sure how exactly but convinced of a good plan I'd put my back into it, and the goal - a civil compassionate society - is one I think we should work together to achieve. About that plan ...

Fiona Reynolds, Michael Lines and others, thanks for your kindnesses, and good advice. Sometimes it's enough to know it's not just me up against it - 'it' sometimes seeming like life, the universe and everything!

Fiona Reynolds (10/10/2005 82249 PM)

I am a Sydney Barrister I know nothing about tax, I deny that I have ever known anything about tax. I have an accountant. I deny he knows anything about tax. I refuse to answer any other questions on the grounds that they may discriminate against me. I paid tax once, or twice, or I deny that on the grounds that it might incriminate me or include me under the new tendency rules under the Evidence Act. I never said that. They’re all bastards. No-one should pay income tax. I have formed the Taxation Reform Party and Malcolm Turnbull still hasn’t said he will join.

What was the question?

I don’t remember. I think I was running in the America’s cup at the time. I was certainly in some sort of a cup at the time. I don’t remember. Oh, my parole’s come through I’ve just remembered the PIN for an account styled Mickey Mouse. Mouse? I’ve never met anyone named Mouse, or if I did I don’t remember.

What was the question?

As to your original inquiry, madam, the book will be available from the publishers at the next full moon.

Oh, look another group of chooks – what was the question?

My glass always, or at least all too frequently, seems to be empty.Yes, Mardi’s “situation” is appalling. Wot we all going to do to fix it?

Craig R Ed.Wot?

Mardi Black, first my apologies if anything that I’ve Submitted on this thread has seemed to be unduly frivolous, and dismissive of your situation. Your position is shocking, and being made worse by our fearless, steely leader.

To deal with your taxation question, if I remember my taxation law correctly (remembering that I studied it back in 1977 when the ITAA was a slim little volume of about 600 pages) yes, if one can incorporate oneself and employ oneself, then one’s wages form a legitimate deduction for the company. (Malcolm, can you clarify this point? I am truly hazy – 1977 was a long time ago.)

On the parenting question, I am truly wary about offering any suggestions. The best I can offer is from my own experience with my only chick – a 17 year old daughter – who does indeed disappear for considerable portions of the day and night during the school holidays. All I can do is trust her she always has her mobile with her, and has undertaken to respond to all calls from me. I have to hope that whatever I’ve taught her about being “sensible” in all manner of things has sunk in. So far, I’m thankful to say, it seems to be working. And despite the fact that we are both stubborn and combative individuals, we seem to have kept lines of communication open, and can and do talk about anything and everything. She will never admit it, but I suspect that on the whole I shock her more than she does me.

Mardi, your situation is appalling, and it doesn’t help to know that you are not alone. “Life’s a shit, and then you die,” is one way of looking at it. Another is to try, no matter what it takes, to refuse to see the glass as half, or three-quarters, or almost empty. Resilience and endurance will win in the long run. In the meantime, don’t let the bastards grind you down.

Hi Jolanda, I may be mistaken but I understood that those with a company name, ie self-employed contractors and the like, are able to deduct wages as a legitimate expense. Perhaps this has changed now but my ex was in this very position - Optus would not give him a contract unless he was a 'company', and he did just that, which minimised his taxable income as I described.

Mardi Black. My husband and I have our own small business and we are self employed. Can you tell me exactly how we can go about claiming our income as a tax deduction because no accountant have ever told us how to do it and we pay taxes through our eyeballs.

Paul Walter, tetchiness at this point of the academic year is both natural and rife. The presence of two fraught Honours students in the space where I usually work is one of the reasons why I am hiding at home, since I too am under the hammer to finish some writing.

Like you, I doubt if Malcolm could ever be described as a misanthrope. Nevertheless, it’s probably not the misanthropes that are the real danger in high places. Keep your eyes peeled for the sociopaths and psychopaths. They are very, very charming and very, very dangerous, and there are far too many of them. A caveat the appearance of your name, Malcolm, in the same paragraph as a couple of psychopathological categories, is in no way whatsoever to be construed as guilt by association. Far from it.

As for educated and/or successful people “retain(ing) a social conscience and shar(ing) insights with others”, for my money (of which I have very little), Paul, if you don’t do so you deserve neither the education nor the success. As I suggested in what I hope is not my last response to Solomon, the interconnectedness of everything on this precious planet means that if we are to survive in any meaningful way we must co-operate with and treat everybody with concern and civility.

OK, back to my writing, and I promise not to look at WD for another hour…

Fiona Reynolds, re your pacific response to any untoward cavilling on my part, I will assume the response of the Sentimental Bloke, in that, "I dips me lid".

Was it you suggesting elsewhere that things can get "techy" as to folk finishing off academic subjects? Never mind, my problems are all of my own making, as ever.

Besides which, I am impressed when educated or self made successful people retain a social conscience and share insights with others. Too many misanthropes in high places, but I don't include Malcolm in that category. When I said I was impressed with the depth of his summary re proposed new asylum-seeker appeals laws, I meant it sincerely.

But I also understand where Mardi Black comes from. On welfare you get not much better than three hundred a fortnight, not an hour, and sometimes one has to think hard to remember how hard many professional people have had to work on their skills to be able to earn well, be they more naturally talented or otherwise.

As per Malcolm's own response to me here, I will take his advice on abeyance, cheerfully admitting that the world doesn't owe me a living, either.

Malcolm, can you clarify your statement that the self-employed pay more tax? (Did I miss something? I thought being self-employed meant you paid a maximum tax rate of 30%, and that only on what remains after expenses which also includes your own wage? I believe Father's Groups advocate it as a way to minimise Child Support liability).

Also, has anyone else noticed that everything to do with welfare now has a sanitised name? "Centrelink" instead of Social Security, "Newstart" for Unemployment Benefit, "Payment" instead of Benefit or Endowment. And don't get me started on 'Mutual Obligation".

Paul Walter, I accept your chiding. And John Henry Calvinist, thank you for your recommendations of Dickinson and Doody. I shall pursue both as soon as the welter of work slides off my back.

And now this is seriously on topic. On my first visit to the USA 'way back in 2000, I travelled a lot of long distances on Amtrak with the deliberate aim of (1) seeing lots of country, and (2) meeting lots of people.

I think that even in my somewhat brief time I saw and met a lot. First, and to precede the Amtrak experience, there was a week in NY. I did all the touristy things apart from the viewing platform on the WTC - for some reason I thought that the Empire State was more appealing. The thing that really struck me about NY - and continued, I suppose, to strike me about the US as a whole - was that incredible contrast between the haves and the have nots. So one day I went to the Frick Museum. Beautiful, exquisite. Yet, as I walked through those magnificent rooms, I felt myself becoming more and more sickened by the wealth that was able to acquire almost anything. A few days later, and quite by chance, I visited the Lower East Side Tenement Museum - an exemplar of the lives of so many many people who made it to the US - seeing it as a beacon of liberty - from the 1850s through to the 1930s. It was an experience even more moving than that of visiting Ellis Island.

OK, now for the train trips. DC to Chicago through Virginia, past all those beautifully landscaped golf courses. Into West Virginia, and once into relatively populated areas, seeing all those trailer homes in what I don't even think could be called trailer parks. Just tossed down anywhere, in the drabbest environments, no obvious facilities, and miles from anything that most WDiarists might consider as reflecting the basic amenities of life. Then Chicago-N'Orleans. Well, that was a real eye-opener. Particularly from southern Tennessee onwards, through Mississippi and into Louisiana. If I'd thought West Virginia was bad, Mississippi was worse. (Yes, yes, I understand that they are the two poorest states in the Union.)

Now, I have lived (and from time to time continue to live) in outback communities here in Oz. I have some appreciation of the deprivation of those who live there. And I readily and ashamedly accept that life there is not good. Nevertheless, I don't think that in Australia there is anything like the same proportion of sub-optimal third world conditions as I saw five years ago in the world's allegedly richest nation.

Despite all JWH's reassurances, I find it difficult to believe that his IR "reforms" won't send us down precisely the same path so that a Walmart-equivalent worker won't need a second paying job PLUS food stamps in order to keep the family approximately fed, clothed, and housed.

What sort of conditions did your grandparents (or parents) endure during the 1930s?

Is this what we really want for ourselves and our children?

Dee Bayliss, perhaps you could let us have your views on how you think Labor is managing Health, Education and Transport in NSW.

How about the new tunnel they have just dug under the city, that nobody is using.

Craig R Ed. Hello Greg. For the benefit of all readers you're talking about this tunnel under the Sydney CBD yes? It was dug by a private consortium that says it owns it (actually it owns a concession to design, build and operate the tunnel for the next 30 years).

Wrong, Paul Walter. If they were a "right" they couldn't be varied.

If I want to talk to Julia, I shall do so next time we see one another or email.

I note you don't quibble with anything else in my post.

Yours aye,

High income earners will naturally be tempted to understate or otherwise hide income and it is up to the rest of us to ensure that when they decide they are fed up with paying taxes, they get a reduction to encourage them to keep going. For the rest of us, work makes free, and if some recalcitrant bludging no hoper refuses to properly state every last penny of her income to Centrelink, well then she can cop a fine amounting to 20% of her income over six months. Fair enough.

Some people just have to be taught a lesson, otherwise they will rob us blind. Others just need a bit of incentive to ensure they realise just how appreciative we all are of their efforts, and because we understand it is simply human nature to hide income from the taxman. Good grief, what next-treating the rich and worthy in the same manner as the poor and worthless. Give us a break you socialist bleeding hearts.

No Malcolm, welfare benefits are NOT "hand-outs", they are a bloody right!

They are in fact extremely INadequate form of compensation for those whose lives are interfered with by the clumsiness and selfishness of the arrogant, powerful and greedy (cites Ansett).

Secondly there is no "welfare dependence" prior to the removal of high unemployment (sigh, "under-employment", since we have to keep using these sanitised stupid euphemisms to obscure reality).

People are "welfare dependent" when they need to eat and work is denied them through shortages created through the neglect of the selfish and arrogant $million a year t-ds who run this benighted, god-forsaken idiot of a society.

Malcolm, go back and read Marnie's post again, since you might have missed it first time around. Also Julia Perry.

The time has come. While, as I have said elsewhere, those of my profession are chary about the subject at the moment, let me explain why practically no-one but the self-employed punter pays any income tax at all.

For those on benefits, they are handouts (nothing inherently wrong with that - we have to have a floor through which people cannot drop). Earn something and the handout gets reduced (there may be something wrong with that but it is just a question of how far off the ground you build the floor).

Now for all you "wage slaves", Company directors, politicians and the like, it is time for the real world you don't pay any income tax at all.

What you do is engage in a legal fiction. You have a "notional" or gross salary from which your employer is obliged to deduct a sliding rate of "tax". The reality is that what you get paid in your hand (or the amount credited to your bank account) is your actual wage. It contains no tax - that has been "notionally deducted" and I say "notionally" because it is quite common for employers to deduct group tax from wages on the books and go belly-up without paying the tax at all. When that happens, you, the employee, don't get chased for the bill, the Commonwealth just writes it off.

If you have other investments or interests which generate income from which tax has not been notionally deducted, or deductions to which you are entitled (like Union fees, trade journals, professional expenses, conferences, legitimately deductible travel etc) when you put your tax return in, the ATO adjusts the total and either issues a refund or an assessment saying what you owe. You then challenge the assessment and most often you lose. But you don't pay income tax.

On those rare occasions when I have an assessable income, I do.

The real tax you pay is indirect tax GST, Water Rates, Council Rates, Stamp Duty, land tax, payroll tax (if you are an employer and you actually pay it), fines etc etc.

Face it kiddies, that's how the system actually works.

Christine Farmer, Costello is in fact holding back the NSW share of GST revenues despite the record Budget surplus to force the states to ease the pain for the Coalition's business mates.

I assume Greg Downes the "we" whom you can't wait to have running NSW is the same faction-ridden Liberal Party which has managed to send its former leader to hospital after a suicide attempt, and to bully and intimidate its moderates? No thanks.

Christine Farmer "And meanwhile the infrastructure of public schools, public hospitals, public transport declines. What happened to all this lovely money which was supposed to be available from the GST? Was it instead of, rather than in addition to, the money which was being allocated to these areas previously? Peter Costello insists that “Every dollar of GST goes to the states!” How do we know this? There’s not much evidence of it."

I don’t know where you live Christine, but here in NSW the Labor government is mismanaging every dollar they get.

The Education system is chaotic, with parents preferring to send their kids to Private schools. The Teachers Union is still managing to run things with their usual mismanagement.

The Health system is appalling with the Waiting Lists getting longer and longer, instead of more beds they are closing wards.

The Transport system is a joke, billions have been spent on trains that do not work, some of the stations are not even manned half the time. Again the Unions are in full control, except on the questions of safety and service. It is safer to walk down the centre of the tracks than actually ride on them. They are filthy, but then I suppose someone actually has to work to keep them clean.

I think the IR Legislation is going to put the Unions out of business then we can get on with running the State.

I suspect all of the above applies to all the other States.

I absolutely agree with Michael de Angelos when he says“The true scandal of tax cuts and the higher income earners is not the amount of tax they pay but the ideology that they should be treated as a privileged section that must be induced to pay their correct share and not as the criminal tax rorters they are.”

What continually amazes me is that anyone can believe lower taxes will be paid by high income earners just because they are, say 5 or 10% lower than the current rate? And it continues to infuriate me that, whenever anyone receiving a Centrelink payment earns a tiny amount of money, at least 40 cents in every dollar is taken from their payment. And should they fail to report this fact they are penalised - immediately. Yet somehow, those at the top of the pile, whose tax rate for their earnings over - is it $70,000?- think they are hard done by when paying 40% on these extra dollars. How that can be considered fair escapes me.

It will be interesting to see how the government structures this massive planned advertising campaign to persuade those most likely to be disadvantaged by the proposed IR legislation that the changes will benefit them. How will they go about convincing those who are likely to become “just in time” employees for “as long as it takes” that they are still going to be able to pay the rent (forget about the mortgage), and feed the family, if they can be sacked at the employer’s whim?

It puzzles me that those who propose these changes are the same people who bemoan the disinclination of young people to have families. Do they seriously not put the two facts together? That maybe it’s not possible to raise a family if you don’t have a secure job? And that it’s totally irresponsible to try?

And meanwhile the infrastructure of public schools, public hospitals, public transport declines. What happened to all this lovely money which was supposed to be available from the GST? Was it instead of, rather than in addition to, the money which was being allocated to these areas previously? Peter Costello insists that “Every dollar of GST goes to the states!” How do we know this? There’s not much evidence of it.

Mardi and others will express thanks to J.H. Calvinist for his compassionate salvaging of this thread dealing with the vicious treatment dealt welfare beneficiaries in this country.

John Henry makes an astute observation concerning mindset that would surely have Kant Hegel Nietzsche Weber Jung Heidegger and Arendt smiling in their graves involving creativity and individuation; the blessing and curse of deriving of "Western Culture" and of course the "human condition" itself.

Depression is such sweet sorrow!

Fiona & Malcolm...not a Calvinist, merely a 'Calvinist'. This...as I explained to Margo when first entering this forum, is my long-term label for my intellectual/musical activities (over ten years, now), rather than any indication of theological commitments. Its use in music came first and, in fact, was originally a tip of the wig to that great Memphis producer/musician/eccentric James Luther Dickinson (Sam Phillips' truest heir)...as well as an ironical gesture toward my personal combination of a strong work ethic with perfectionism - a sure-fire recipe for depression if not fulfilled in any meaningful way...

Besides, as I subsequently found, an unreal surname makes for easy web searching.And, no colour Malcolm...like you, I have no real time for ideologies/ideologues of any stripe. Methinks I just call 'em as I see 'em.

By the way, Fiona, have you read Margaret Anne Doody's "The True Story of the Novel" (Fontana 1998)? Apuleius is at the centre of this fascinating (and readable) study, and - apart from the excessive trope-mongering of the final section - its argument, linking novelistic form with the characteristic narratives of mystery religions, is both eye-opening, and well-supported.

Now...on to some substance re the thread! Perhaps the most insightful piece I've yet read about the marked disjunction between our official 'facts' re employment security and the contrary intuitions of most job market sufferers is this

link here piece by Jacob Hacker. Although over a year old - and about the USA rather than Australia - it genuinely explains why even underemployment figures fail to fully capture the experience that Mardi so graphically describes...and does so using the hard evidence we so infrequently get in this area. I strongly recommend anyone reading this thread to take a good at it (sorry I didn't post it before, but I'd mislaid the link), because it truly helps to make sense of many aspects of our current labour markets...

all the bestJohn Henry Calvinist

Difficult though it is for me to admit to any linguistic lapse, Malcolm, I confess that I omitted to insert "presumed" before "progenitress". Furthermore, while in a mea culpa mood, I will concede Defoe's primacy so far as the English novel is concerned. But if we venture into other genres, well, there's Webster, Jonson, Shakespeare (aka Neville, according to some), Chaucer (I reread the Reeve's tale the other night with much amusement) - and that's without straying into other tongues and to my own particular favourite, Apueleius.

And I greet your Sterne interjection with enthusiasm, John Henry Calvinist! As for masks, you are in the best position to advise Malcolm. Nevertheless, I'd suggest that any colour other than deepest black would clash with your namesake - in both appearance and character (sorry, JHC, he has never been one of my favourite theologians).

Alors, mes amis, fay ce que vouldras!

Mardi, I'll bet John Howard and his supporters are very pleased that you are so "relaxed and comfortable" in our thriving economy.

Good luck, hope it works out for you.

So, my fellow hellraiser, Fiona Reynolds, we have a Calvinist in our ranks. Not for the first time, I'm sure. Yet, m'dear art wrong - the bodice ripper was Defoe spurred on by the Newgate Calendar.

Bodes it well? What colour do you think hs mask?

Gosh one has to keep an eye on these threads doesn't one?

I am a sole parent. I have three children, all school age. I am living in constant fear - for my children, my job, my future. I also fear that Mr Howard wants me to be constantly fearful. I have tried working part-time - casual in a cll centre and house cleaning. Never worth it financially, or worth the family upheaval with constant hours changing etc. I am halfway through a uni degree. I have just, through a family connection, got a lowly public service job - temporary non ongoing, and have put my degree on hold for six months. I am marginally better off, but HECS is being deducted at $80 per fortnight and my public housing rent is now going up. This will eat up the increase. Some say I should not be entitled to public housing once I am working. I say, they have NO IDEA, as there is little job security even if I have a job, and it seems to be clawed back faster than anything I earn.

It is school holidays. My teenage son is out and about, god knows where, all day and half the night. My parents have the two girls. I am lucky I have not had to book holiday care. I get home at 6pm and have cooking, washing and housework waiting. I have no life, I hardly see my children and have no spare cash.

Will my contract be extended? I don't know. The area I work in is so stretched it's not funny. I am in tears in the car on the way home practically every night as I am so ridiculously busy and stressed I rarely get a lunch break. This is so-called pen-pusher land. The phrase, 'productivity gains' is Orwellian.

I am grateful for the as-yet-intact conditions of the job - if I am made permanent. If I am 'let go', I am a candidate for the new welfare-to-work rules. lucky me, this is my life. I miss my kids.

ed Hamish Alcorn Welcome to Webdiary Mardi and thanks for your comment. We do require a full name however, or a negotiated non de plume. See Webdiary's Ethics for details.

Solomon, yep, that's the Oblomov, alright. On the other hand, the Russian phenomenon of the 'superfluous man' was considerably more complicated than you remember. The guts of it wasn't "the kind of useless upper class person that contributes nothing, talks a lot of waffle and is supported by the serfdom" - although that was Oblomov himself... but he was an extreme negative parody of whole generations of educated Russians (not all aristocrats, by any means) who found no way to effectively contribute to their society. And certainly none that paid.

Like many Australians today...

I cited Oblomov re myself, with a jaundiced eye - since learning in the absence of any real outlet is pretty much as futile as anything else. I'm sure you get the picture.

By the way, Fiona, may I interject on behalf of Sterne? At least then, we might not have to put up with know-nothing 'postmodernists' making an ahistorical hash of fictional devices that go way, way back!

All the best.

Firstly, thank you Dr Perry for your expositionary remarks. Had become seriously alarmed as to what it was others were missing that seemed so obvious to others, myself included.

Sean, you say people applying for benefits who are rejected will gain relief through a later appeal to the system. Well, that may be fine from the viewpoint of a detached and untouched observer, but your comments, however technically accurate, hardly begin to describe the humiliation and suffering of many needy and innocent folk who have had to endure the Kafka-esque process at the hands of their fellow-citizens.

The parallel movements involving unfair dismissal and IR generally (let alone media dumbing down and security laws), should be viewed as a SUITE of measures, which together begin to acheive the goal of inducing upon a free society the beginnings of a form of medievalism.

This writer's favourite fantasy is to live in a society where all arrogant neo-liberals and Murdochists are, by a fortuitous turn of events, forced to endure precisely the conditions they seek so eagerly to impose on others. Not quite "Candide", but "Sufficient unto the moment"!

Malcolm B Duncan, granted that Jane Austen's supremely ironical take on her society seems to have escaped the attention of some analysts, can you not at least concede that her 'status' as progenitress of the bodice-ripper is acknowledged by many? Not, of course, that I applaud that nevertheless, it is pleasing to see decent prose being read in whatever circumstance. And better, of course, if people ventured further back to Fielding, Richardson...

Malcolm,Righto I'll confess, you had me reaching for the dictionary that time - "desuetude" wasn’t in the Macquarie, so I had to go to Wikipedia!Lets hope the Howard Terrorism laws suffer this fate.I'm pleased you can spot irony - can you define it though? I'll bet you can.By the way, Jane who?

There is a huge unnecessary tax that we are all paying at the moment and will continue to pay for years into the future. This blog exemplifies one small way in which it is gathered. And the root cause? The whole welfare/tax/superannuation system is just far too complex to be understood by anybody.

What other ways is this tax imposed? In no rational order we have

1. Governments must employ many thousands of people to explain the system to ordinary people, check that people aren't getting too much in payment, shift money to the states and back again, have overlapping bureaucracies.

2. We, the people, must spend hours of our time trying to understand how the system works or else pay professionals to try to interpret it for us. And the various fights we get in the courts, with split judgements, indicate that even lawyers and judges have difficulty.

3. Even slight tinkering leads to all sorts of unintended consequences and new layers of complexity.

4. The worst injustices, such as expropriatory rates of effective taxation, are imposed on the members of society who are least able to recognise exactly what is going on, but who know enough to see that it is inherently unfair. This sense of unfairness leads to the unravelling of the social fabric. I'm not getting into a "blood on the wattle" frame of mind, but if we want a civic community then the sense of fairness needs to be felt by all.

We need root and branch reform of the whole system, which won't be any day soon. It was looked at in the last couple of years by government and put well down the bottom of the too-hard basket. One absolutely essential part of the reform is to have no grandfathering of benefits. If designed properly then very few people would be worse off unless their current level of benefit is already unfairly high. Most of these worse off people would be in the upper 50% of the economic strata and if they start complaining they should be told to just stop their whinging (I'd most probably be one of them with a net economic loss, but as I'd be compensated by a huge psychic gain I wouldn't be complaining). The government (not this one) would be amazed, I hope, at the support it would receive if they sold this properly.

The desuetude into which the study of Jane Austen has fallen, Michael Lines and Julia Perry (is it really you?) is regrettable almost to the point of constituting irony.

Julia Perry - thanks for your post but I can assure you that I have not missed the subject of discussion - rather was merely making comments on the various statements that Jane Doe has made. BTW the disability support pension has always had two entry hurdles as such being 20 impairment points and (currently) unable to work 30hrs pw on a sustained basis within two years - the latter hurdle is of course to be made higher. Furthermore, from what I understand a high proportion of applicants who are rejected for DSP grant initially - are able to obtain it upon appeal when different criteria are then brought to bear (i.e. individual discretion as opposed to legislation). Whether this changes or not after July 2006 will possibly depend on what "cultural" changes take place at Centrelink.

Sean Hefferon, From your contributions, you appear to have missed the subject of the discussion - the Government's budget announcement that parenting payment would be limited to sole (and partnered) parents whose youngest child is under six. Not 16 as at present. Disability Support Pension will be limited to those who cannot work at least 15 hours a week, not 30 hours as at present.

People who would have been able to claim those pensions will now have to claim Newstart (or some other payment). On Newstart parents with a child aged 6-15 and people with disabilities not eligible for DSP will be required to look for work of at least 15 hours a week. Newstart pays significantly less than the pension, and has a harsher means test, so those who do not succeed in getting employment or have other barriers to participation will have less income than at present, and those with part-work-part payment will have much less than they would on a pension with the same earnings.

You're right - it is not all welfare recipients, but it is a large number of them. And there have certainly been enthusiasts in Government for making Newstart the standard payment for all income support.As for Peter Saunders - the financial penalty for not meeting the harsh job search rules of Newstart is higher than a casual worker docked a day's pay. The time and effort involved in applying for ten jobs a fortnight is very substantial - and counter-productive. To get a job you should spend more than a day preparing for applying and being interviewed.

Malcolm Duncan Re your comment that 'Work makes free' (from 'arbeit macht frei' written over concentration camp gates in the Nazi holocaust. It didn't make them free - might have saved them from the gas chambers for another day) Work doesn't make you free, money does.This crap from elitists with nicely paid, stable, high status employment that any work is good for you and makes you happy - no matter how low-status, gruelling, under-paid, casual. Some work is very enjoyable, some is awful.If any job whatever unequivocally made a people happier and freer, then we wouldn't have to impose harsh penalties to force them to seek work. That is the basic rule of economic rationalism isn't it?So this neo-con rhetoric about cutting income support for recipients' own good might make neo-cons feel better but it is irrational. The reason we need people to be employed is economic.(And since when did mothers not work - unpaid work is still work. Look at time use statistics). Being in paid work removes the social stigma of welfare - but society shouldn't stigmatise people legitimately claiming income support.Finally, Paul Walter Yes I don't see why increasing public sector employment in socially worthwhile activities isn't more desirable than giving tax cuts to create private sector jobs. I don't like the direction we are heading - private wealth and public squalor. The tax cuts increase inequality and much of the money goes on consuming imports or unproductive speculative investments. I think some eminent economists have suggested this.

Malcolm B. Duncan,The phrase "Work Makes you free" translates into German as "Arbeit Macht Frei"Did you know there was a sign over the main gate at Auschwitz with that on it? As matter of fact I've never actually seen or heard that expression used anywhere else.

Are you trying to tell us (surreptitiously of course) what you think the Government’s real intent is with the IR reforms?

The Government should indeed look to give tax cuts whenever the chance is available. I don’t actually know if these cuts will be going to the "wealthy" because as of yet nobody seems to be able to describe what rates as "wealthy".

I do know by allowing more money to stay in the pockets of those that "earn" it this gives incentive to those people to spend as well as to save. Further helping the economy.I read some complete nonsense on here from time to time but the attempt to link this Government to wanting a country of slaves is laughable. If you wish for a true example of a slave look no further than the workers paradise of Cuba.

Australians do have it easy compared to almost any other nation on earth. Obviously to easy because some people are beginning to believe their own bull####.

John, is that a reference to Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov? I read half of it, a long time ago, so I think I missed out on the moral of the story. From what I recall, it seemed to be in the vein of the school of Russian literature dealing with the phenomenon of the "Superfluous man", meaning the kind of useless upper class person that contributes nothing, talks a lot of waffle and is supported by the serfdom.

The Bolsheviks obviously had a problem with this sort of person and so they killed them, imprisoned them and stole their possessions. What on Earth does this have to do with anything? Beazley has stated recently that it's necessary that Australia train less lawyers and more tradesmen, on which he has my total agreement, even if he is playing catch up with John "Lenin's corpse" Howard.

Jane Doe, thanks for your post. Although I thought you originally chose not to comment on Saunders views as per your statement, "One could write volumes about this misleading and dishonest comparison, but we shouldn't be distracted by wedging on these issues".

The points you make certainly clarify your earlier post on 3/10/05. I do accept that there are many difficulties in the example you raise of a single parent with two children moving from welfare to work. However, I would also suggest that if one is given forewarning of work requirements (in the example above the the individual would have literally years to clarify work goals, obtain training, etc) then work prospects could be enhanced. I agree however, that opportunities for genuine and affordable retraining and employment assistance have to be even more freely available. Much more also needs to be done in changing employer attitudes - certainly government announcements are vague on this issue.

You raise in your post the high marginal tax rates that people moving from welfare to work face. I agree - an issue ripe for reform - otherwise where is the financial incentive? Vary the tax rates - but will Costello listen to the likes of Emerson and Turnbull?

Finally, you do state

"What is the link between the current tax debate, and the proposals to push all welfare recipients (poor ones of course, not the recipients of Family Tax Payment B), onto the Newstart allowance which is less than the current payments for single parents and the disabled?"

And I asked you on what basis you have made this assertion as I am unaware of a push to move ALL welfare recipients (poor ones of course) onto Newstart. There are clear moves to 'tighten' up eligibility for the Disability Support Pension but this is not to say that nobody will be eligible. Indeed if one wishes to focus on inequities you could look at how many hoops (so to speak) new applicants for DSP from next 1/7/06 will have to jump through compared to those already on DSP.

Sean, the reason I did not go into detail as to why the comparisons Saunders draws are invidious was for reasons of space rather than an unwillingness to join in debate with him and his ilk.

First let me say, I support encouraging people to work rather than relying on welfare payments as their sole means of support. However, let's look at the difficulties involved in a single parent with two children moving from wefare to work (15 hours a week is the period stipulated by the current proposals). What if she/he can't find child care? It is simply not good enough to argue as Saunders does, that because the partnered employed are able to do it, it is a problem that policy makers need not concern themselves with. Parents have an absolute obligation to ensure the well being and safety of their child. The whole society has an interest in ensuring that parents attend to this moral and legal obligation. It is absolutely outrageous for Saunders and others to claim that these issues are simply beside the point. These issues are dealt with by much more generous provision of child care and other supports by countries where women's labour market participation and their fertility rates are much higher than Australia's. Why is it that in this country with its supposedly second to none economic performance, we can't find a way to deal with these issus in a decent and proper way?

The other problem concerns the additional costs entailed in working, such as fares, clothes and the like. The study commissioned by Marie Colman has dealt with these issues at length, as well as the issues raised by the outrageous taxation levels imposed on people moving from 'welfare to work'. In effect, from memory I understand that the NATSEM study showed the real after tax income of single parents in this position will amount around $2.20 an hour for the additional effort they expend on paid employment. These proposals amount to an effective subsidy to those employing labour at this end of the labout market. The subsidies will be paid by the usual suspects, the PAYE taxpayers. Hold ready for an onslaught on the problems of the battling highly taxed worker, vis a vis the shirking welfare mum, and lazy unmotivated teenage drug bum.

There is a great need to step up adequate training and retraining for people with few or rusty skills, to ensure that they can obtain paid employment, and that society benefits from higher labour market activity of skilled and job ready people. What we do not need, and what we are going to get, is a pool of people competing at the bottom of the labour market for low paid, low skill jobs, forced to take jobs where the pay and remuneration will be well below the curent award minimum (the proposed new legislated minimum for AWAs which these people will be generally forced to accept are five basic provisions). The abolition of unfair dismissal provisions mean that there will be a great temptation to dismiss people who are covered by the existing award minima (20 allowable matters, or a certified agreement), in favour of applicants who front up and must accept employment under any circumstances for any pay on offer, or lose their supporting benefit. It will be a race to the bottom, particularly in those industries where labour costs are the major or sole cost of doing business. These kinds of jobs are overwhelmingly in industries and occupations where women predominate.

Those kinds of businesses will be forced to compete with each other on labour price. That is the point of these 'reforms'. It is their very essence. The intent or the desires of the individual employers are beside the point. The logic of the market is clear. If you can't compete, a business goes out of business. When the price of labour becomes the basis of comparative advantage or disadvantage, then the race to the bottom is inevitable. It is not rocket science. The philosophy is simple if beathtaking in its sheer social bastardry. Labour power is a commodity like anything else. It's 'real' value can only be properly assessed by a free market where supply and demand are in a state of 'natural equilibrium'. A free market in labour means a market free of the distortions of unions, legislated minima, or any concerted action to create a 'floor'. A free market in labour will solve unemployment because in the free and frictionless fantasy world of the neo liberals, the cost of employing labour will fall to the level established by the market, and thus absent welfare support, and other 'distortions', labour slack will be cleared by higher demand as the price falls. That in a nutshell, forms one part of the 'reforms'. The other part is of course the need to boost participation rates in order to ensure increased supply of labour at a time of labour shortage. The problem is of course that the real bottle necks are in areas of trade and related skills (with the exception of rural industries relying on seasonal labour). I can also do you an essay on that if you like, but I suspect that this is not the forum.

To sum up, I repeat my earlier point that Saunders and the people who pay his wages are locking us into regressive social and economic policies whose net efect is to deepen the problem we already have of a growing class of 'working poor' whose wages such as they are, will increasingly be required to be subsidised by the general taxpayer, in the absence of any corresponding mutual obligation on the part of employers to deepen the value of the subsidised commodity, by training properly and in skills which will actually boost both incomes and productivity.

And before anybody get angry at my use of terms like 'commodity' to describe actual people, let me say, that concept is precisely the underpinning rationale for these policies. It is not my position, nor is it the position of most people once they properly understand the links between these various strands of the latest 'deform' agenda being run by these palukas.

Once again, read the material carefully that they put out, be alert to jihads against those on welfare especially where the low paid are invited to wax indignant aganist the 'bludgers' on welfare, and be alarmed about the social engineering underway, which has little to do with real productivity growth, and everything to do with transferring ever more of the surprulus into the pockets of the managers and shareholders. Whether they benefit you individually, depends on where you stand. But in my opinion, the test of good policy is not whether Hugh Morgan and Peter Hendy approve of its outcomes, rather, it is whether the policy has sustainable benefits for the society as a whole, now and in the future. These policies fail the laugh test on those grounds.

I really must side with the hardliners against the bleeding hearts here. As we all know, "Work makes free" is a proven Industrial maxim. Presumably that applies to even an hour a week. Accordingly, we live in a society where nearly everyone is free. (I've a nagging suspicion there might be something wrong with that argument but I'm sure someone will point it out if there is.)

Paul Walter | 04/10/2005 122526 AM – Paul thank you for your considered post.

You do however appear to misrepresent the points I have made (I may have misread your post – you know having one of those not so intelligent mood swings, and if so that is not the intent). Any reference that I have made to the link with the tax debate is in reference to Jane Doe alleging there is a push to have all welfare recipients moved onto Newstart. I asked where is the evidence for this assertion as I am unaware of any proposals to move ALL onto Newstart. IMHO it is just such assertions that can undermine otherwise good argument.

However Paul, given you have suggested that (in reference to the assertion that all welfare recipients are proposed to be moved onto Newstart “The money saved is then wasted on tax cuts for the rich” – how much money would be saved? Who are the rich?

The other point that I made is that it is precisely because the CIS (through Saunders) raises so called “wedge issues” that may well appeal to many people, that these same issues need to be tackled and as appropriate countered with opposing argument – not just merely dismissed w/o constructive argument.

The posts here are interesting. Jane Doe makes an intelligent summation bringing together most of what the rest of us also interested in the subject have also pondered over, as per the Coleman article. The sole exception seems to be the usually-intelligent Sean Heffernan, who astoundingly can't make the link between pushing people onto Newstart off DSP and the simple linkage, in turn, with the tax "debate".

Their most simple point to make is that kicking people off of DSP reduces the amount of money, already a pittance, that people receive, as well as therefore removing any sense of security as per the lives they lead. The money saved is then wasted on tax cuts for the rich. Simple!

Of course, Sean may have been duped by the B-s-t turning up regularly as bogus propaganda on the news that "unemployment" is low.

But I would have felt sure as a long term WD enthusiast Sean would have recalled that many previous threads exploded the myth of low unemployment. The UP figures are basically rigged, for ideological reasons which include the scapegoating of people on welfare to draw attention away from government unwillingness to take on neo-liberalism's doctrine of refusal of help for disabled older and unemployed and others against "market forces".

The more accurate concept of "underemployment", with its swelling double-digit percentage of working poor soon to be deprived of even basic rights through IR "reform" parallels more closely the "old" unemployment figures, but mysteriously is ignored, both by government and media.

When neo-lib zealots start braying about welfare to work, as if were just that easy, they are willingly obscuring a great truth. This is, that people of the sort that people like Dr Coleman work with are denied, precisely that "level playing field" that neo-libs boast of as the centre-piece of the voodoo economics they try to flog to the unwary.

The truth of the matter is that most people on welfare are arguably victims of both government-encouraged prejudice, long term and the obscured realities of times that are much harder than the neo-libs and their media flacks would admit.

Why should people on low working, or even lower welfare benefits, be forced to have subsistence incomes slashed even further to enable yet more tax cuts pandering to the mortgage-belt; let alone the rich?

Jane Doe| 03/10/2005 12915 PM “The welfare changes and the IR proposals are legislative initiatives designed to produce a pool of low wage, low skilled, vulnerable and disorganised workers at the bottom of the social heap. Opposition to these changes will be met by appeals to people in the workforce to be aggrieved by the 'unfairness' of the ways in which people dependent of welfare are treated compared to those in work. This has started already, in an article by Peter Saunders in the Australian today, drawing invidious comparisons between Centrelink's treatment of 'recalcitrant' and disobedient welfare recipients compared to the trusty and self reliant workforce, who know they will be sacked if they miss work. One could write volumes about this misleading and dishonest comparison, but we shouldn't be distracted by wedging on these issues.”

Jane, you make some interesting points in your post but I suspect that there is already “a pool of low wage, low skilled, vulnerable and disorganized workers at the bottom of the social heap” – and that this almost seems an inevitable product of a market economy (although I hasten to add that doesn’t make it right).

Peter Saunders is also incorrect in that he states sole parents can remain on welfare benefits until their child turns 15 – it is actually 16. He is correct however in stating that often by that time the parent is unemployable if they haven’t taken proactive steps to improve their skills and general employability.

You indicate that one shouldn’t be distracted by wedging on these issues – thus allowing you to ignore constructively commenting on Saunders statements – whilst still providing you leeway to dismiss them. In my view however, he does make some valid comments that many people will consider require debating. For example, do you agree with him that lower expectations are being applied to sole parents on welfare than normally applies to those who are working? If an employee fails to attend work w/o legitimate reason they may not be paid and depending on specific circumstances may lose their employment – isn’t that merely a statement of the obvious from Saunders?

On the face of it the government push to encourage sole parents to move toward part-time work (at least) upon a child starting school would be something many would support. The take-up rate of employment by sole parents in Australia at present is low compared to many European countries. Where is the difficulty in stating (years ahead of the requirement) to a person on a sole parent payment that once their child turns school age they are expected to obtain p/t work? At present sole parents are generally advised of pending changes to their allowance several months before their sole or last child turns 16yoa – Centrelink does try to give advance notice. Such allowances do not just disappear overnight – the recipient is given ample notice of changes – how many employees get the same notice when their employer goes bankrupt?

You also state “What is the link between the current tax debate, and the proposals to push all welfare recipients (poor ones of course, not the recipients of Family Tax Payment B), onto the Newstart allowance which is less than the current payments for single parents and the disabled?”

I was unaware that there is a push to have “all” welfare recipients moved onto Newstart allowance – where did you hear about this? Yes – eligibility for the DSP (for example) is being tightened – but I would be surprised if nil applicants were granted the disability pension.

Am a little puzzled here. Marie Coleman reckons tax cuts whether for the wealthy or the poor are "affordable", on the basis of recent budget surpluses.Well, picking up on an issue that this writer unsuccessfully attempted to raise with a finance commentator recently, why not just redirect the surplus into social and general infrastructure spending. Tax cuts and the inefficient and subjective reallocation of capital redirection by the ignorant away from productive investment, to subjective consumerist wasting is avoided.

Money remains directed to CSIRO, say, or improvements to health and education, rather than squandered pandering to a subjective mortgage-belt pathology of conspicuous consumption. "Economy of Plenty",(Bonfire of the Vanities) as was suggested once to this writer.One supposes the answer lies yet again in the peculiar pathology of the government and its hard-core supporters, also. They are susceptible to, and "high" on the (ab)use of power. It's their "drug”. It finds expression through the schoolyard-bully syndrome, with sado overtones equivalencing the terrorisation of victims, as to a cat tormenting a bird or mouse.

Coleman's description of the infantile responses of Dutton and Andrews as demonstrated through their responses to concerns raised involving the policy and its implementation demonstrates the unresolved pathologies involved- sheer immaturity, lack of reflexivity and empathy in the make-up.

There is rather a sense of the ritual slaughters of the Aztecs in the resultant performance re welfare in our culture. Irresolvable guilt is transferred from the internally- conflicted psyches of the "elect" through the performance of atonement through a medium of designated proxy "lapsed"/scapegoat, eg welfare recipients.(recall Jane Doe explicating on this somewhere).The real and pressing problems of the age are subservant to this strange apparition of the internal dysfunction of the ignorant and arrogant the real is not tended to because of the jammed decision-making capabilities of those in power and a resultant "un-policy" and harm is done the innocent.

Any way, the current thread concerning neo-con thinking relates the reality that much of their inspiration derives of the neo-con in feed to neolib, as derived from the "Laws" and "Republic" of Plato, where it is necessary and worthy for the self-ordained elite to deny the truth and lie as a matter of course. Such chilling, ugly thinking from a man who could conceive of "Symposium", a work of great beauty.By the way, loved the Dee Bayliss story concerning the general in charge of US military parapsychology research arranging for the murder of the goat by telepathy. Shouldn't laugh, should I?

Like John Henry Calvinist I'm concerned that nowhere in this piece, nor or is there any talk amongst politicians of any party about the deception being practised by the government of including people on as low as two or three hours work a week as being "employed" and thus giving a totally dishonest view of Australia's true employment figures.

It must be women who occupy the majority of these involuntary part-time jobs and I have no doubt this fraudulent "reform' is aimed at pushing more genuinely unemployed and the disabled into as few hours as possible in order to cut the social security bill purely for ideological reasons by a nasty Coalition government that is out to punish anyone who hasn't "pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps". Nor do I believe a Labor government would be any less harsh, given that Mark Latham thought similarly, even whilst he sits at home on a substantial taxpayer index linked pension for life.

Everyone in this country deserves a 'social wage' whether they are employed or not, that gives them access to a least an ability to survive and allof these so-called reforms should be treated as what they are-the chance to create an underclass of cheap worker who will be paid what they are given, never able to negotiate anything better whether it's a survival wage or not. The US is the example we are following where the lowest paid often need two jobs just to survive.

The rich can look after themselves and Turnbull's recipe for creating jobs is another furphy. It simply gives them more to spend on imported goods or inflate housing prices.Since when have tax cuts ever led to the creation of more jobs ?. The true scandal of tax cuts and the higher income earners is not the amount of tax they pay but the ideology that they should be treated as a privileged section that must be induced to pay their correct share and not as the criminal tax rorters they are. Turnbull would be better off putting his attention to blatant rorts like "negative gearing" and other genuine tax reforms.

Once again congratulations on your work Marie. You have done a great service, not only to those who are being lined up as the objects of this experiment in social engineering mendaciously described as 'welfare reform' by its supporters, but to the general need in this country for decent, evidence based public policy, which is designed and implemented in order to improve the outcomes for the whole polity, rather than for those who seek to externalise every cost they incur onto the community, including it would seem, the cost of paying any actual wages at all.

Current welfare and IR proposals need to be seen as a whole, not as separate pieces of government activity. If you don't agree with me, perhaps people might like to read the journals and policy prescriptions emanating from the Centre for Independent Studies, the writings of their employee Peter Saunders, the IPA journal, and the research and prescriptions coming from the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Australian Industry Group.

Among other things, my job requires that I have to, but, why should I get all the fun?

It is vitally important that everyone get involved in the debate and that people interest themselves in the discussions being held by the real elites of this country. The outcomes of these neo liberal prescriptions will be with this country for a long time. Make no mistake, we are being socially and economically reengineered in ways which would gob smack a 1960s Maoist.

It is important that everyone, and I mean everyone, gets their heads around the links described here by Marie.

The welfare changes and the IR proposals are legislative initiatives designed to produce a pool of low wage, low skilled, vulnerable and disorganised workers at the bottom of the social heap. Opposition to these changes will be met by appeals to people in the workforce to be aggrieved by the 'unfairness' of the ways in which people dependent of welfare are treated compared to those in work. This has started already, in an article by Peter Saunders in the Australian today, drawing invidious comparisons between Centrelink's treatment of 'recalcitrant' and disobedient welfare recipients compared to the trusty and self reliant workforce, who know they will be sacked if they miss work. One could write volumes about this misleading and dishonest comparison, but we shouldn't be distracted by wedging on these issues.

Ask yourself this. What is the link between the belief that Australia’s minimum wage is too high, and the proposals to create the Orwellian 'Fair Pay Commission'?

What is the link between calls for a greater supply of labour in order to relieve 'bottlenecks' and the views of the CIS that work, no matter how low paid and arduous, is the best form of welfare and training? What is the link between the current tax debate, and the proposals to push all welfare recipients (poor ones of course, not the recipients of Family Tax Payment B), onto the Newstart allowance which is less than the current payments for single parents and the disabled?What is the link between the collapse of the internal training effort by firms, and the calls from ACCI and the Farmer's Federation for 'guest workers' and by News Ltd for schools to take on apprenticeship and traineeship education and training?

What is the link between the IR laws and their clear rationale to abolish forever, real collective bargaining rights as well as the destruction of the award system safety net and its replacement by individual contracts based on five very low minimum standards, legislated by government using the constitutional powers conferred by the Corporations power?

We need to start putting the jigsaw together, and work to assist people like Marie and her organisation by demanding the government hold a full inquiry into the whole lot-everything, the good, the bad and the ugly. Not one Australian other than the tiny elite that I wrote about above, had the foggiest idea about the real future that the government had in mind for this country at the last election. I know, because I talk to working Australians every day about the changes and the links between them. They are shocked, even though I know around 30% voted for the government at the last election (interest rates of course). They are absolutely uncomprehending at the sheer social bastardry of it all. They are very clear that the changes are designed to assist the 'big end of town' (their words not mine). They are absolutely opposed to the changes, and they are pissed off about the way they were taken for a ride. I happen to believe that Howard's boast about how he is the 'best friend that the Australian worker ever had' is about to turn around and bite him very hard indeed. Let's make sure it happens.

Marie Coleman, yes, the taxation system is (sadly) in need of drastic reform - and the tax-free threshold (enormously eroded by decades of 'bipartisan' negelect) is clearly one necessary place to start.

But, what I miss here - as I do everywhere in so-called 'policy' debates in this nation - is that, contra your claims that "both skilled and unskilled labour shortages have emerged", the genuine TRUTH of the matter is that underemployment - not 'unemployment' - figures have steadily (and markedly) increased, and that many of us without helpful connections (however well-educated) have little chance of tapping-in to the "gangbusters" economy that you so blithely accept as a fact.

Because, the fact is that, for those citizens underemployed, said "gangbusters" economy is a myth... and, one that leaves a very bitter taste in our mouths.

Any Webdiarist who'd like to debate me on this... please - make my day! BUT, I'll fully expect you to first have a real look at the 'underemployment' figures - gathered by the ABS, but rarely publicicised in our oh-so-'free' press - and attempt to understand what they really mean in terms of blighted hopes, insecure futures, and (in some cases) mental illness, before you respond to this challenge.

Because - personally - I feel somewhat akin to an Oblomov... and, if you don't understand that particular reference (and its relation to the disastrous phenomenon of Bolshevism), then you don't really know much about modern history.

All the best.