Welfare card will stop wasters
FAR too many Australians use welfare to support illegal drug habits when instead they should be busy looking for jobs.
This has to stop. Like millions of hardworking taxpayers, I’m sick of my money being wasted – via the dole – on the weakness of others.
If you’re genuinely struggling to find work, Australia’s welfare state will support you.
While the dole is by no means a large sum of money, the $535.60 per fortnight received by unemployed singles allows them to scrape by until better times hopefully emerge.
The purpose of these payments is not to replace work, rather it exists as a temporary stopgap during periods of joblessness. I have no problem with it. People lose their jobs for all sorts of reasons including recessions, employer bankruptcy, structural shifts in the economy and changes in government policy.
The unemployment caused by such factors is rarely the fault of individual workers and a compassionate society like ours tries to help fellow citizens down on their luck.
What irks me, however, are jobless people who (a) make no real effort to find work and (b) use the welfare they receive to maintain drug addictions – which in turn lessen the chances of securing employment.
First, let’s ensure dole recipients genuinely try to obtain work. Many employers complain about alleged job seekers who fail to turn up for interviews. And when some do appear, they portray an air of indifference about the job on offer.
This lackadaisical attitude towards welfare has to stop. More employers should dob in potential job seekers who make no effort to succeed.
Second, it’s unacceptable for welfare payments to finance substance abuse.
For a couple of years now the federal government has been trialling cashless welfare in areas like Ceduna, South Australia, and East Kimberley, Western Australia, whose residents experience high levels of unemployment, drug addiction, alcoholism and family breakdown.
Instead of receiving cash payments from Centrelink, welfare recipients in those areas have instead been given debit cards to pay for things like food, non-alcoholic drinks, utilities, medicine and rent.
Importantly, the cards cannot be used for either gambling or to buy alcohol. And because of their cashless nature, it’s difficult (albeit not impossible) to convert them into illegal drugs like marijuana, ice or heroin.
Does this limitation reduce the freedom of welfare recipients? Undoubtedly. But is it acceptable for society to demand that welfare not be spent on social evils like drugs, alcohol and gambling? Of course it is.
Although it’s only early days, the cashless welfare trial appears to be producing positive results. According to federal Human Services Minister Alan Tudge, an independent evaluation suggests that a quarter of recipients reduced their binge drinking, while the same proportion lowered their consumption of illegal drugs.
Similarly, a third gambled less, another third reported better interaction with their children and the same percentage felt the debit card improved their ability to handle money.
Perhaps most tellingly, since cashless welfare was introduced in Ceduna, the main poker machine venue there has reported a 30 per cent drop in takings.
The use of cashless debit cards should be rolled out across the country. All welfare recipients should be tested for illegal drugs. If they return a positive result, then cash payments into their bank accounts should be ceased and replaced with the cards.
If they continue to test positive then compulsory rehabilitation – subsidised by the government – must become the mutual obligation for welfare to continue.
Years ago I was drug-tested before being offered a finance job. My then employer felt that illegal substance use was incompatible with managing other people’s money. He who pays the piper calls the tune.
I work hard for my money. Most people do. A big chunk of what we earn disappears in the form of tax, much of which finances our welfare state.
Those funds are hard to come by. They should not be emptied into the pokies, sunk into the pub or used to fill the pockets of the local drug dealer.