I MUST take issue with your editorial of May 11 entitled ‘Encouraging the reluctant to make a contribution’. The title piqued my interest and I read further, hoping for some insight into how to encourage the rich to donate more to charity or the arts, or how to get multinationals to pay tax.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Sadly, I was disappointed to read an almost resigned agreement with the new government measures to further persecute, demean, and disenfranchise the least powerful sector of society, the unemployed.
As you correctly say, there are some people, a small proportion, on Newstart who would fit the title of ‘dole bludger’ in that they are not interested in working. You then agree to the measures proposed by the Government to financially penalise these people for not attending work interviews and then point out that they only need to ‘fail’ the interview to subvert the imposition of having to attend in the first place.
This is just a waste of time on the part of the welfare recipient and the potential employer. Let us face facts. There are many times more people looking for work than there are jobs, hence an unemployment rate of over five per cent. Forcing people to attend interviews for jobs that they have no intention of taking wastes everyone’s time, including genuine job seekers.
Newstart is a meagre payment, below the poverty line, and cutting this further is more likely to encourage crime than searches for non-existent jobs.
Is there a moral hazard in allowing people to live on welfare, below the poverty line, and not encouraging them to work? Certainly, but I contend that there is a greater moral hazard in punishing people, already in poverty, with measures that will drive them further into poverty.
I have no problem with my taxes providing a basic level of support for the unemployed, even if some choose not to look for work, if it means that people can maintain their shelter, nutrition, and dignity during that time of unemployment which, for most people, is only temporary.
I have been to the USA and in every city you see rough sleepers and beggars. They do not have the level of social security that we fought for and won in this country. We must not allow such a callous disregard for our fellow citizens to take root here.