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[Tommy DJ]

Why would it piss him off unless he's hiding something serious? I can understand why he'd be pissed off if you ask him in the same manner you ask/state stuff in this thread.

The only people I knew who seriously rourted the system (i.e. living in dad's investment property and getting rent assist to help pay "rent" to dad) are basically those who already have money.

They're also the sort of people that find Tony appealing. Either way, you shouldn't throw a system under the bus because a small minority are abusing it.

 

[wonzo]

e: strayas most prominent racist at it again

 

[ConstructMe]

I dont get why politicians bother with stupid shit like that, no one gives a fuck.

 

[Arksy]

I went to a pretty bullshit uppity college during my final years of high school. We're talking about a pretty steep school fee, and a lot of my classmates who weren't on scholarships who were living at home and getting youth allowance. The system obviously wasn't built for helping 20+ year old unemployed people who live with their wealthy parents but there's no way of really distinguishing those people from those who have to move out of home or their parents charge them rent, or people with poorer circumstances. It sucks that some of my classmates got it, considering that people in poor neighbourhoods were paying taxes so that children to rich parents had more booze money to party with on the weekend, but I don't really see a workable solution.

 

[D.Lo]

Ask him? He may have circumstances you don't know about, it may well be legal anyway since the governments of recent years do love middle class welfare.

What used to happen back when I was studying was people would get their parents to put 20k or so in their name so they could qualify as independent students (by meeting an income criteria) who could then qualify for a much higher payment. Utter rort, but was really common. Fucking well off families getting help they didn't need while poor families don't. Same old same old.

When you launch into a rant like your post, it helps to provide some context if you don't want people to just take it at face value as a generalised rant.

Yeah that one was bullshit.

I had to take a year off uni to work full time to earn 15k and qualify as independent.

Rich kids at my college 'worked' for their dad's business for uni holidays for 2 months and 'made' 15k.
It was suggested by the rich kids' daddy's tax accountant. They also managed to minimise their tax since the kid's 'work' was all under the tax-free threshold, and it reduced daddy's taxable income too.

Kid used the money 'earned', as directed by daddy, to pay uni fees up front for a 30% discount, as well as plenty leftover for a car and clothes and Nintendo games and beer. Daddy continued to pay an allowance anyway, and all college fees/rent.

 

[Jintor]

Is the evidence that goes before a Grand Jury open to the public or is Andrew Bolt psychic

 

[A More Normal Bird]

Seeing as home/away from home status, parental income, personal income and study status are all taken into account when calculating youth allowance and that rent assistance is a separate payment, I 'd say that the person in the example in question wouldn't be receiving much more than $100/week unless they were rorting the system.

I was born overseas, I came to Australia when I was two months old. I came from a country that has no real historic links to Australia.

That's irrelevant. I call myself Australian, I can not call myself anything else. I take on the customs, the traditions and achievements of this identity. I'm proud to be Australian, we voted for our own constitution, we fought to defend liberty and democracy against tyranny in Europe. We have somehow managed to create a bastion of freedom, prosperity and equality in a harsh land. We are blessed with great weather, people and have an amazing culture of exploration and an appreciation of the good things in life.

Australia isn't perfect however, and the people that made this country what it is have done some terrible things. If I am to claim as my own, the great parts about this country then I have to also own and take responsibility for the terrible things we've done as well. Annihilation of the indigenous people, treating refugees with scorn. I, nor anyone in my family has ever done anything ill towards indigenous people, but that doesn't absolve me of anything.

There's no one who's ever stepped foot in Australia over the last hundred years, who hasn't benefited from the loss of their lands, the subjugation and forced migration out of their ancestral lands and the displacement that occurred thereafter.

To answer your question; for how long do we owe them? Simple. For as long as it takes for someone who is born an indigenous Australian not to be horribly disadvantaged by that simple fact.

Bit late with this but insert some sort of applause or clapping gif here. On this topic did anyone catch First Contact? It was a bit hard to know how to feel about some of the views expressed, seeing as they were equal parts depressing, gobsmacking and unsurprising.

 

[Fredescu]

Firstdog has entirely-too-many-words-for-a-comic to say about this subject. No system will be without it's cheats, and its much better than no system at all.

 

[ConstructMe]

Seeing as home/away from home status, parental income, personal income and study status are all taken into account when calculating youth allowance and that rent assistance is a separate payment, I 'd say that the person in the example in question wouldn't be receiving much more than $100/week unless they were rorting the system.

Thats still a game a week to of wasted taxpayer money. Hes getting about 8 weeks of wage handed to him on a platter when trust me he aint the sort who really needs support. Or even $5200 if i go by your figure.

Course that comments true but i live in a scummy town we have a high concentrate of the scummy sort knocking about town.

 

[markot]

"Over two years, the CSIRO is losing 21.5 per cent of its workforce, or one in five jobs

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-25/nrn-csiro-cuts/5916092

 

[wonzo]

would smoke a bowl with gordon

 

[Dryk]

"Over two years, the CSIRO is losing 21.5 per cent of its workforce, or one in five jobs

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-25/nrn-csiro-cuts/5916092

Losing Parkes cuts deep

 

[markot]

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2014-...ubmarine-corporation-to-build-a-canoe/5917502

Hey guys. We can't trust this company to build stuff for us. I mean, they ask have cost overruns.


Let's buy more of those American planes that came in on time and on budget.

 

[Fredescu]

Abbott plans to finally address their poor polling by abandoning some of their unpopular policies.

In the day to day of politics that seems a little late in coming, but I think it's early enough for them to scrape in a second term. People will have forgotten about this in a couple of years.

 

[markot]

"The ABC under Labor just got more money every year," he told Sky News.

"I think there was, in effect, a political bargain between the Labor government and the ABC: We'll keep sending you more money and you just have peace at the industrial front at the ABC."

Asked if he was suggesting such a bargain affected editorial content of the ABC, Mr Turnbull replied: "I'm not suggesting that. Others can infer that."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-25/turnbull-suggests-abc-had-political-bargain-with-labor/5914988

 

[Fredescu]

Another conspiracy theory from the conspiracy theory wing of politics.

 

[Fredescu]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-26/bryan-brown-campaigns-against-children-detention/5918110?

Australian actor Bryan Brown launches campaign against holding asylum seeker children in detention

A group of prominent Australians are lending their voices to a campaign to end the practice of holding children in detention centres.

The We're Better Than This movement includes well known Australian sportspeople, business people and actors such as Ita Buttrose, Ian Chappell, Claudia Karvan and George Gregan.

Kind of annoying that the focus is specifically on children rather than people, but it's a start. And it's a song, so I'm cringing already, and I won't seek it out. But hey, there are some names in there that will cut through.

 

[ConstructMe]

Hmmm that campaign convinced me that its bad, now what?

 

[markot]

Hmmm that campaign convinced me that its bad, now what?

Contact your local member.

 

[bobnowhere]

"Over two years, the CSIRO is losing 21.5 per cent of its workforce, or one in five jobs

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-25/nrn-csiro-cuts/5916092

Amazing! And think in 3-5 years CSIRO will have clean coal technology and we'll be able to burn all that delicious brown coal and still make our meager carbon targets. Greg Hunt said it so it must be true.

A friend of mine works for the CSIRO in improving building designs in bushfire prone areas. They are all scared of being completely cut or just being reduced to the point where they can't actually do their job. Maybe Greg Hunt has solved bush fires as well, it's not like there's an El Nino is on it's way...

 

[Fredescu]

Hmmm that campaign convinced me that its bad, now what?

Write to your local MP. Snail mail is best, but if you'd rather email, make sure you put a full name and address at the top of the email. It will carry more weight and you will actually get response more often than not. It will be boilerplate, but hey, someone had to click mail merge because of you, so you've done a good thing.

 

[Dryk]

The problem with that campaign is that we're really not better than this

 

[markot]

If only Freya Newman could have tipped off ICAC
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-...eya-newman-could-have-tipped-off-icac/5918514

Interesting point.

I feel like had this been in NSW Abboot would have had to resign.

 

[Dead Man]

Which is one more reason we need a Federal ICAC. Abbott should have to resign for that fucking rort.

 

[Fredescu]

Federal ICAC seems even less likely than electoral reform.

 

[Arksy]

Why what's he done? Why should he resign? Even if you guys assume the worst about the case, I'm still not seeing anything corrupt about it.

 

[Fredescu]

Canoe bloke resigned.

 

[wonzo]

Canoe bloke resigned.

good. now the rest of em need to follow suit!

makes that article in the saturday paper about him a couple weeks back all the more hilarious honestly

 

[bobnowhere]

Canoe bloke resigned.

Haha, just watched Shorten wondering if was still in charge!

Oh well, here comes Rear Admiral Morrison to the rescue.

 

[ConstructMe]

I dont feel so bad for the abc anymore.

 

[Jintor]

That does speak ill. Is it widespread? Contained to RN?

 

[ConstructMe]

That sorta rubbish whether its widespread or not is why people look down at abc and the public service on a whole. Gives them an image issue

 

[Arksy]

I just assumed that's how the entirety of the public service operated.

 

[Aarglefarg]

That sorta rubbish whether its widespread or not is why people look down at abc and the public service on a whole. Gives them an image issue

Here's this idea that people look down at the ABC again.

 

[ConstructMe]

I just assumed that's how the entirety of the public service operated.

Yeah probably "aint there money they are wasting"

 

[Fredescu]

I just assumed that's how the entirety of the public service operated.

Public or private, this happens in large bureaucracies.I hear a lot of stories from my wife about the lifers in the ASX200 company she works for. It's probably harder to weed out in the public service though, to be fair.

Big companies make some unbelievably stupid and wasteful decisions.

 

[Mr. Tone]

Reckon this will go anywhere?
Also: lolonhjelm

Leyonhjelm said his libertarian constituency would prefer “to remove the government from marriage entirely by repealing the Marriage Act and leaving it to the law of contract” but such a task was “not as simple to achieve as it sounds”.

 

[Quasar]

I dont feel so bad for the abc anymore.

Funny how seeing that she has Oz connections has me distrust her.

http://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/andrew-ford/2014/25/2014/1416874017/aunty-flexible-not-flabby

 

[Quasar]

Reckon this will go anywhere?
Also: lolonhjelm

Nope. I don't see LNP people even given a vote. They'll just have to toe the Abbott line.

 

[wonzo]

Funny how seeing that she has Oz connections has me distrust her.

http://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/an...ble-not-flabby

louise evans sounds like a real piece of work

 

[Jintor]

That sorta rubbish whether its widespread or not is why people look down at abc and the public service on a whole. Gives them an image issue

I just assumed that's how the entirety of the public service operated.

My anecdotal evidence about the public sector tends towards the "overworked and underfunded" end of the spectrum

On a side note, the private media's reputation is absolutely sterling in Australia \o/

 

[Quasar]

My anecdotal evidence about the public sector tends towards the "overworked and underfunded" end of the spectrum

Mine too.

 

[bomma_man]

Mine too.

Thirded

 

[D.Lo]

My anecdotal evidence about the public sector tends towards the "overworked and underfunded" end of the spectrum

Not mine. I've worked with Employment, Human Services, Social Services in all their permutations over the last 6 years, and there is certainly a lot of dead weight. Though also a lot of hard working 'vision' people.

IT in government is particularly bad in my experience. Huge teams that achieve almost nothing.

 

[wonzo]

I've met some shockingly useless IT peeps in the various NSW hospitals I worked in but they're not any different than the useless bums I've had to deal with in various companies tbh.

 

[markot]

Why would there be an incentive to work harder if you are being paid from the public purse or from the private one?

Does your personal performance at your job depend on knowledge of who is paying your salary? Does knowing that your company is listed on the stock exchange put a little more pep in your step at work?

 

[ConstructMe]

Why would there be an incentive to work harder if you are being paid from the public purse or from the private one?

Does your personal performance at your job depend on knowledge of who is paying your salary? Does knowing that your company is listed on the stock exchange put a little more pep in your step at work?

I think its more as the article says that there is less pressure and zero accountability at a public company. Even if you fuck up, its the the business "losing" money.

 

[Arksy]

Public or private, this happens in large bureaucracies.I hear a lot of stories from my wife about the lifers in the ASX200 company she works for. It's probably harder to weed out in the public service though, to be fair.

Big companies make some unbelievably stupid and wasteful decisions.

No doubt, two things make this different though.

1) Wasting public money is an ill, because it's expropriated out of people through taxation. Wasting private money is wasting money you earned legitimately and can therefore do what you want with it. If you wish to waste it then it's on you.

2) There are market consequences for such behaviour. If company X is wasteful and makes dumb decisions than company Y which doesn't should destroy company X and send them bankrupt. What happens when the Department of Transport is running incredibly efficiency? Where's the transparency, the accountability? Where's the drive to do better than others similar services?

 

[wonzo]

Why would there be an incentive to work harder if you are being paid from the public purse or from the private one?

Does your personal performance at your job depend on knowledge of who is paying your salary? Does knowing that your company is listed on the stock exchange put a little more pep in your step at work?

bubububut taxpayer dollars!!!!1 *shits self*

 

[Jintor]

I do have to agree those are legit reasons to be more irritated at public institutions which have 'fat to trim'.

Of course, the deal with an efficiency dividend is a bit like in proper Corporate when you underspend on your budget so they slash your budget. That's right, the more efficient you are, the less you get!