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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| David wrote: | | Mugwump wrote: | | David wrote: | | Which ignores the fact that some of the most vulnerable long-term unemployed people are in fact drug addicts. Let's test them and cut their pension so they turn to crime to survive! Good thinking! |
As thinking goes, it's not quite as good as paying them for their lifestyle choices because of their implicit threat of criminal behaviour. God forbid that they should be expected to take some responsibility for their lives and their obligations to society. It's not like we have anything better to spend the money on. |
Honestly, what difference does it make whether an unemployed person is having a bong hit three times a week or sitting around watching TV all day? It's just a populist exercise in dividing the "worthy" and "unworthy" poor a bit of red meat for the tabloids who are pissed off about their rich mates not getting a tax cut this time. |
As always using the minor end of the stick. 
Having a bong hit 3 times per week would mean you'd be unlikely to not show up for centrelink appointments or job interviews because you were too pissed or stoned.
I take Culprit's point, the people in this category are a minority, but cracking down on them has good symbolism and has no adverse impact on the majority.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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Morrigu 
Joined: 11 Aug 2001
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| David wrote: | | Mugwump wrote: | | David wrote: | | Which ignores the fact that some of the most vulnerable long-term unemployed people are in fact drug addicts. Let's test them and cut their pension so they turn to crime to survive! Good thinking! |
As thinking goes, it's not quite as good as paying them for their lifestyle choices because of their implicit threat of criminal behaviour. God forbid that they should be expected to take some responsibility for their lives and their obligations to society. It's not like we have anything better to spend the money on. |
Honestly, what difference does it make whether an unemployed person is having a bong hit three times a week or sitting around watching TV all day? It's just a populist exercise in dividing the "worthy" and "unworthy" poor a bit of red meat for the tabloids who are pissed off about their rich mates not getting a tax cut this time. |
Lots of people employed regularly partake of drugs but it is worth remembering that many many are subject to random drug testing as part of their employment conditions and yes David it does make a difference if an unemployed person on taxpayer funded welfare payments is sitting around watching TV all day - if they are capable of work they should be or at least actively be looking for work or engaging in training that will enhance their opportunities to find employment!!
I don't think as taxpayer that's a lot to ask surely- oh and no surprise all we got from the Budget was an increase in the Medicare levy!
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“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
Last edited by Morrigu on Wed May 10, 2017 10:29 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| David wrote: | | Mugwump wrote: | | David wrote: | | Which ignores the fact that some of the most vulnerable long-term unemployed people are in fact drug addicts. Let's test them and cut their pension so they turn to crime to survive! Good thinking! |
As thinking goes, it's not quite as good as paying them for their lifestyle choices because of their implicit threat of criminal behaviour. God forbid that they should be expected to take some responsibility for their lives and their obligations to society. It's not like we have anything better to spend the money on. |
Honestly, what difference does it make whether an unemployed person is having a bong hit three times a week or sitting around watching TV all day? It's just a populist exercise in dividing the "worthy" and "unworthy" poor a bit of red meat for the tabloids who are pissed off about their rich mates not getting a tax cut this time. |
Not much difference in practical terms, but breaking the law while living off the state compounds the wrongheadedness of this way of life.
I would not be paying people to sit around watching TV all day either, but after a few months of unemployment I would make continued benefits conditional on work for the community, and I would resource that as required. If you want to destroy someone's life, give them something for nothing and then do nothing to ensure that they acquire the dignity, resourcefulness and skills that come from working. The dole was invented, thankfully, as a brief insurance to help people who wished to work hard but temporarily suffered unemployment because capitalism is often volatile and people are damaged by economic cycles. It was progressively turned into a dumping ground for people who we, as a society, ceased to really care about. During the 1930s my grandfather laid tram tracks on Victoria Parade while he was "on the susso". A proud working-class, Labour-voting man who cared about the community he lived in, he would never have lived with the shame of lying around the house smoking dope while living off the state.
Not caring whether people smoke dope all day while on welfare is the surest way to abandon them, while pretending to care for their welfare.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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Pies4shaw 
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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| stui magpie wrote: | | Pies4shaw wrote: | | But it helps us as a society to dehumanise the rich and blame them for our lot. |
Amended to provide a counter point. |
Telling the rich that displays some degree of irony, Stui. But thanks for looking after me. |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| Oh don't mention it. |
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ronrat
Joined: 22 May 2006
Location: Thailand
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And they bump up the price of rollies. That will only encourage more home grown pot and or moonshine. Or tobacco plants. And who is going to conduct these tests for drugs. The bozos at places like WISE are near useless. You are going to have people turning up to take tests for other people all over the place.WISE rold me they were not interested in me because I didn't fit the profile for special treatment because I was a white single male without a disability.
They may as well appoint Stephen Dank to head this mob for what it is worth
Centrelnk staff are not medically trained. The cost of increasing their pay and upslilling them would cost more than they save.If they send them off to GPs themedicare costs will blow out. ANd as I said the recepient can simply send a proxy to a busy bulk billing clinic to piss in the bottle for them.
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Annoying opposition supporters since 1967. |
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Culprit 
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Location: Port Melbourne
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All these welfare crackdowns and at the same time staff have been cutback. I know where the jobs will come from. Extra security to keep the peasants calm whilst they wait for hours and a plethora of portaloo's outside each one as the peasants can't use the internal facilities. I have an idea, portaloo with an access code that is linked to your social security number and when you enter there is someone waiting to take your sample for the said drugs tests (more jobs). Hang on we are on a winner here.   We can spend millions to save thousands. |
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Skids
Quitting drinking will be one of the best choices you make in your life.
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
Location: Joined 3/6/02 . Member #175
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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If Shorten had an IQ 10 points higher he'd qualify to be an imbecile.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Skids
Quitting drinking will be one of the best choices you make in your life.
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
Location: Joined 3/6/02 . Member #175
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| stui magpie wrote: | | If Shorten had an IQ 10 points higher he'd qualify to be an imbecile. |
Yep, certainly get a gig as a muppet. 🐸
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Don't count the days, make the days count. |
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Culprit
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Location: Port Melbourne
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You know how bad things are in Australian Politics when Shorten is the clear alternative.  |
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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To be more accurate, Albanese is the clear alternative. Shorten is just the one we're stuck with. 
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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A good article by Richard Di Natale about some of the problems with this drug-testing proposal:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/11/when-i-heard-about-welfare-drug-testing-i-thought-of-a-young-mother-i-once-treated?CMP=share_btn_tw
| Quote: | When I heard about welfare drug testing, I thought of a young mother I once treated
Richard Di Natale
Of the hundreds of people I treated when I was an addiction medicine specialist, one really stands out in my memory. She was a young mother with two energetic children, who used to turn my office into a jungle gym. By the time we met, her heroin addiction had already robbed her of so much. About the only things she had left were her kids and the government support that helped her to take care of them while she received treatment at our clinic.
Im grateful that after a long and difficult recovery, with many stumbles along the way, she is now able to hold down full-time employment and give her kids the kind of loving, stable home that they deserve. It was her face that flashed in my mind this week when I heard the governments proposal to randomly drug test people on income support and tie their benefits to their drug use. If this policy was in place then, this young mother might not have turned her life around.
Frankly, she might be dead.
There are some people who will look at the governments proposal to subject 5,000 recipients of income support to random drug testing as nothing more than a cynical dog whistle to the far-right of the Coalition and their tough-on-crime surrogates on talkback radio. I prefer to believe that most people who support a law-and-order approach to substance abuse actually do so out of a genuine desire to help people. The problem is, it doesnt work and often just makes things worse. As a doctor working in the field for years, Ive had the experiences to prove it.
Addiction is, by definition, a process in which people struggle and relapse. Imagine all of the things people have lost by the time they find themselves in treatment. Like many people struggling with addiction, my patient had contracted serious health problems like hepatitis C. She was unable to hold down a job and her relationships with her family and partner had broken down. If she had been randomly drug tested during one of the relapses that dotted her recovery, she would have lost the ability to care for her children. As a result she may well have lost custody over the single biggest motivating factor she had to continue her treatment.
Thinking back on the patients I successfully treated, Im pretty sure that not a single one succeeded without at least one relapse. Relapse is a natural part of treating someone for addiction, which is exactly why this proposal is so insidious.
If we take away support payments at exactly the time when those people need it most, were writing a recipe for disaster. Those people wont give up heroin or ice, but many will turn to illegal methods to support their habit, from dealing drugs to prostitution or theft. Far from addressing the social ill of addiction, this proposal will compound it.
And lets not kid ourselves: this isnt just about addicts. If we open this gateway to government applying a morality test for government support, were setting a very dangerous precedent that could one day be applied to anyone receiving government assistance. Imagine failing a drug test because you took a pinger at a festival on the weekend and losing your Hecs funding as a result. What if you got caught smoking a joint and lost access to Medicare? Is that really so far-fetched once we start down this Orwellian road?
The bottom line is that addiction is a public health issue, not a criminal justice issue. Most of the world seems to understand this and many countries, particularly in Europe, have been making great strides forward by treating it as the health issue it is. Unfortunately, as in so many other things, this government seems intent on taking us backwards.
It might feel good to punish someone for breaking our outdated drug laws, but we have to ask ourselves if it actually does anything positive. If were honest, the answer is no and we will all stand up against this dangerous policy before its ever enacted. |
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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partypie
Joined: 01 Oct 2010
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| Young people are already adapting to the drug testing regimes in the workplace and on the roads by abusing prescription drugs, which are cheaper, in fact subsidised, with alcohol thrown in |
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