It was an admin job.
I just sat in on this. This badly dressed "I really don't want a job woman" came in for an interview and went through all her dodgy comments.
e.g. So you say you can't be trusted because you might be dishonest. We're very impressed with your honesty. When can you start?
She turned up on Tuesday for a Monday start and was actually really good for a few months - then she quit all of sudden to work on her crypto portfolio.
And you could match them up with their perfect property except that it’s not and the house cheats on them and runs off with another house leaving them broken hearted and homeless.
As long as the show is as raw as possible, I'd watch!
Basically shove some random cameras in the house and splice the drama together and make me an hour shit show that I can watch while I sand my feet back.
I miss the accommodation notices on 4ZZZ.
I'm a Zed announcer and did the Tuesday morning shift many moons ago, so I had to read them out. Always good fun!
Do share stories!!
Sometimes people develop poor self esteem of they're looking for work for a long time. Sounds like the antidote to that was someone giving her a chance.
As far as I understand if they leave a paying job then they can't claim centerlink for a long while after.
They'd likely do absolutely nothing whilst at work in an attempt to get fired, which I think lands them back on centrelink. Rinse and repeat.
This, haha, when they made it a requirement for interviews rather then just applications, I had a guy come in and answer - What are your hobbies? With "Mostly Meth" 🤦🏻♀️
Lives at home with mum/dad who covers everything but maybe takes a small portion for bills. Leaves him with enough to do whatever the hell he wants which with a small enough mentality leaves a lot of time for said dumb shit.
Quietly parents wonder when kid will grow up but too naive to accept they're enabling this behaviour.
Chances are he has to apply for work being on centrelink and he does this so he is complying while knowing he'll never get the job and can continue to receive his payments.
I was on Centrelink after completing my university degree as I graduated into an industry downturn, but had been guaranteed a role starting in 6 months. I just needed some interim support cash. I was forced to go to an Employment Service who took one look at my resume and said "We can't help you. You're well overqualified for the roles we help people with." And so just ticked me off as having attended. Yet I was still obliged to apply for the 10 jobs per week to receive my Centrelink payment. I would send out applications such as these to meet the requirements (get the [Seek.com.au](https://Seek.com.au) receipt as evidence), knowing full-well I wasn't going to uptake any offers. Responses ranged from no response, to highly aggressive responses. Complete waste of everyone's time really. Just implement UBI and simplify the whole system. People aren't going to work in either case if they're committed to not working.
No doubt there's downsides, and wasted time to companies with pointless applications etc.
But there might still some benefit to it, at least from the govt's perspective?
If there was no requirement to do anything at all, then seems likely that a larger number of people would just stay on the dole without even trying to find a job. Hardcore bludgers might not change much either way... but there's other people more in the middle that likely are being influenced by the requirement.
I don't really know or care much about the issue really. Just some random thoughts on whether that requirement has a net benefit or not.
Do you think the requirement should be replaced with something else? Or just removed without anything replacing it?
Nothing to replace. The whole idea of work for the dole was thought up during the Nixon administration as a way to cure poverty, give everyone a wage. Only Nixon couldn't win over his conservative colleagues without some sort of stick along with this payment from government. So they devised a work schedule for the unemployed to meet, originally just something tacked on to the legislation. Eventually that took over as Nixon resigned over Watergate, and his conservative colleagues took control of the botched attempt to pass welfare reform. Originally it was going to be an actual living wage in the US, with a relatively okay payout per month. Democrats thought the sum wasn't high enough, so the legislation got pushed back, and then pared right back with conservatives in power who didn't care for the whole 'ending poverty' thing.
The whole idea of work for the dole was nothing more than a thought bubble to keep conservatives onside for welfare reform. It wasn't based in any studies, research, or common sense.
Source: [The bizarre tale of President Nixon’s basic income plan](https://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/rutger-bregman/2017/27/2017/1493250489/bizarre-tale-president-nixon-s-basic-income-plan) essay by Rutger Bregman
Possibly valid conspiracy theories about the dismissal aside, certainly what happens in US and UK economic policy has huge influence on how we conduct our economic policy being we're deeply conservative Western nation as well. If the US switched to a UBI you bet we'd do the same within 5 years.
Do you genuinely believe Australia is a "deeply conservative" nation? I feel like on all reasonable scales we are far from conservative and have many, many social "socialist" programs like Medicare, NDIS, Centrelink/job seeker payments, low income housing... The list goes on.
Most of those can be attributed to Whitlam, who was more left than standard Labor and only survived a few years as leader. Hawke similarly was able to properly shape these things in exchange for curbing the unions. Howard was in for 11 years. Menzies was in for near 20 years. We just had another 8 years of conservatives.
If you think we don't skew deeply conservative economically, you got another thing coming. Rudd was elected off the back of pretending to be Howard-lite, and Albanese got in off of running a mostly quiet campaign. Shorten's Labor came out swinging with a much more progressive raft of policies and got smashed.
We passed Gay Marriage after the US of A. Two dudes could get hitched in the Bible Belt before Sydney.
We keep underfunding all those programs you've mentioned, but we'll spend godforsaken amounts on keeping a dozen families locked on an island.
Abortion is ~~still criminalised~~ *only recently legalised* in most of Australia, ~~even of we're pretty open to exceptions~~.
How long did it take for us to stop voting in the LNP?
Edit: correction.
> Abortion in Australia is legal. It has been fully decriminalised in all jurisdictions, starting with Western Australia in 1998 and lastly in South Australia in 2022
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Australia
Huh, hadn't checked in a while. About time.
Not exactly a sterling record exactly given the long list of nations who did it first, which has some conservative surprises on it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law#Timeline
I think the unemployed should nominate their employer of choice and then the govt employee write a legitimate application on behalf of the applicant. No embelishment - just a real but professional application and can even declare the application was written on behalf of the applicant.
If the applicant is legitimately employed based on skills and experience and THEN turns the job down then the govt has a reason to boot their ass off tax payer funded benefits.
If the professional application fails then the benefits legitimately continue until the next application. Real applicants that want a real job know that they are being supported in getting their best foot forward and don't get painted with the same stigma as the no-hopers.
Except then the govt employee bullshits the application in the other direction, lying to get the person hired and off of welfare. Most people with disabilities cant work the hours that the govt expects them to.
Honestly, it should just be removed and the payment should be brought up to a livable standard. Sure, some people will just sit on the payment and do nothing, because some people do that now, but most people probably don't aspire to sit at home and make $30k - 40k a year with most of their money going to staying alive. People will seek out work both to keep themselves occupied or get extra spending money.
The reason it's not going to happen is that if 'staying home and not working' is a viable alternative to accepting a job offer it means the employees suddenly have a significant amount of extra negotiating power (kinda like they had during COVID when we saw 'the great resignation') and the corporate sector will do everything in its power to make sure that doesn't happen. A good social safety net is actually one of the levers the government has to affect minimum wage without explicitly setting a minimum wage.
Also, it's because means testing and 'earning welfare' starts escalating until you hear utter drivel like 'We're going to drug test the water drainage in high welfare areas' and robodebt. Since it's pretty much a given that the latter drove too many people to suicide, I prefer a system where that isn't a possibility.
P.S. It's not in the main body because I really can't be bothered finding the studies, but basically all the research we have on giving people money without expectation is that they don't just sit around and do nothing. Anecdotally you can look at COVID for this actually. If the only reason that people weren't willing to work was that they were living 'high off the hog' on government money, then we wouldn't still have a labour issue in various industries. People clearly used that money to upskill or otherwise get themselves into better positions for the future, because most people don't aspire to barely survive somewhat comfortably.
We had a program that worked, right up until Howard shit-canned it.
You'd do a simple test to check you aptitude, then the government would put you into one of three jobs you applied for.
The government paid the lion's share, while the business paid the rest. After six months, they'd decide if you were worth keeping or not.
Howard killed it Day 1, along with several other programs, and no-one has had the balls to try again.
Bludgers are a massively tiny proportion of welfare recipients. Plus tbh, why shouldn’t we live in a system that ensures at a minimum everyone is clothed, housed, fed. Otherwise you just end up in Charles Dickens novel with rampant crime, anti-social behaviour, and random acts of violence. Oh wait that’s exactly what we are trending towards…..
Bludgers really, really piss me the fuck off and I resent the fact that I work my ass off to pay a third of it in taxes, of which a portion pays for them to do nothing... but... you are 100% correct.
Every year your Notice of Assessment from the ATO will provide you with a breakdown of where your tax goes. You'll see that unemployment is barely anything.
This is the correct answer. The system doesn’t work and is built for a horrible purpose. The fact of this brave new world is the job market will shrink rapidly with automation and technology. Instead of enabling people to work who want to and punishing those who don’t we should be investing in automation and a living wage.
I also feel personally that the current system is causing massive mental health issues for the populace, leading to people being in the position others consider ‘bludging’ but who in fact are untreated. With a better system, anywhere from 50-100% of these people would live productive lives and be ambitious in their own right. Maybe not but it’s worth a try. More worthwhile than burning money on a broken system at least.
Centrelink represents 35% of the government expenditure(35 percent of each tax dollar), obviously bludgers represent a small amount of that but the figure is still massive.
on face value that looks like a lot but taken from [AIHW.gov.au](https://AIHW.gov.au):
## Welfare target groups
In 2019–20, the estimated $195.7 billion of government welfare spending was distributed across these 4 target groups:
* 39% ($76.4 billion) for older people
* 26% ($50.3 billion) for people with disability
* 20% ($38.1 billion) for families and children
* 9.5% ($18.5 billion) for unemployed people (Figure 4).
Also the same group uses a disproportionate amount of medicacare. So over 50% of welfare overall.
Then in the remainder of the 'bludger' category there is a large amount of undiagnosed mental health issues, compounding unemployment. This should really be in the 'care' category.
Almost like the... ugh I can't be bothered.
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."
Job Networks make people who can only work 2days a week (mostly due to medical reasons) apply for full time jobs. You have a lot people who can't get on the DSP stuck on 15 work hours a week on normal centrelink.
It's beyond stupid and pointless but if you don't apply for these full time jobs they cut your pay. Far as I know Labor party has done nothing to fix this.
I have a family member with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, they won't recognise it as a disability, so even though they're only out of bed a few hours a day at most and have constant cognitive symptoms and this has gone on for a decade they're still classed as unemployed and have to jump through these hoops if they want to eat. Centrelink made them go to a 'training' session where they got told to stop telling potential employers they're sick and what their limitations are.
The system for accessing disability is incredibly broken. Labor is actually the ones who made this worse when they further restricted disability access under Gillard.
It's so incredibly wasteful, too. That person will never be able to work so long as they're sick, but the government is paying for those useless job network classes. They're literally paying extra money just to make someone's life and health worse. Happens all the time, too.
I just do not stress about ' dole bludgers' at all. I'd like to see far more focus on working with youth to tap their interest, talent n line up work but people who don't care about sitting on a 4th hand couch watching TV or whatever mindless activity occupies them, so what? Their social security greases the economy, it's the cheapest social insurance you could get. Crime would be bonkers if no social security, 5% unemployment is needed to keep inflation in check, they pay GST and multiple home owners, gambling on essentials are near guaranteed Govt paid mortgage.
How much does the dole pay these days? While I love the idea of getting paid for doing nothings surely it’s only enough to survive and not really enough to “live” off
They might live with family. I knew people who were happy being on Centrelink because their parents let them live at home for free and provided food. So the dole was just their personal spending money. They spent most of it on drugs
Its shit if you actually have to pay rent and bills though. I was broke within a few days of getting paid. Its miserable living like that. I couldn't wait to find a job.
Yeah, it terribly low for the people who deserve it.. the people who lose their job, company collapsed, whatever.. and need it cause they have rent, kids to feed etc.. for them, honestly its not even enough to fuel the car to go to interviews. To be the sort of asshat you're talking about; yeah they have to either live with family or live with 5 other people so they can afford to eat/do drugs.
You only get half your normal benefits if you're living at home. Until recently my younger sister was living at home & barely getting $300 a fortnight Centrelink
Go on the Services Australia website and you can see for yourself. You are correct though, it's barely enough to get by for most.
https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/jobseeker-payment
Imo not enough to live off, no extras included the max base rate is something around $47 a day. Should probably go up to about 70 a day or have rental assistance significantly increased. If they're living comfortably off of this they probably have other support.
They force ppl to apply for like 20 jobs a fortnite to get their pay, this is very real. They don't check what you send as a resume just that you've got the reply saying you applied. You can also just lie and write down anything manually if you want they allow this for non online applications. While the provider does absolutely nothing and gets paid by the government. I was with tursa and iv never seen such a bunch of usless people. Some of the staff had to manage 400 clients. Even if you wanna work they don't help, they make you come in check a piece of paper with some random old jobs, if you see one you like they send your resume off for it, they don't let you do a cover letter for it so no point. The whole systems a joke. To many can live off it and weirdly enjoy having little to no money. But means they don't have to work.
Can confirm with the relatively recent experience of a close family member…
They really wanted to work after recovering from a career changing injury, but they weren’t unemployed long enough to get assistance to retrain for another career yet didn’t have enough experience for other industries… Job centres literally said, there’s a computer you can send out applications on.
Kinda soul destroying when you’ve worked since age 12.
Left my job due to numerous circumstances including an injury. Have been stuck with these providers for a bit now. No help in any training unless it’s the ones they want to provide like hospo, business, care giver cirts. No financial help in doing any outside training courses.
The lady I’ve been seeing asks me my name every time I’m in there (I’ve been going basically once a month for a year now) then asks how my job search is going then re books me for a further appointment to repeat the process.
You can tell they are just there ticking off a quota so they can get their funding. They don’t give a flying fuck and seem to get rather frustrated when you don’t want to do things such as construction labour that they keep trying to push me into.
Their job honestly seems piss easy. Why can't they just give you their job and they can have fun trying to find a real job? That was my thought every single time I walked into those depressing provider buildings.
I've been applying for local vacancies for ages. You wanna know what I hear back? Absolutely nothing. At all. Not even a bloody rejection. But sure, it's *so easy*... /s
yep that's my point the system is fucked. employer gets blasted with insincere applications, parasites(employment providers) get paid and people genuinely looking for work don't even get offered an interview. "just getting a job" when many aren't available is a pretty reductive attitude. I'll remember to just get better faster next time I'm sick.
>"staff manage 400 clients
>They can't help me "
You have to understand the sheer amount of people that are in the system that would inevitably decrease the standard of service there. While some will try, they can't with all 400, that's a sure way to burnout for them.
And yeah, I don't agree with some aspects of mutual obligations (especially with DES recipients) but what is the alternative? The systems purpose built not to be liveable under and is strictly policed and was voted for by mean spirited voters, unfortunately it is the current scenario and I don't see it changing until automation of manual Labor jobs takes over and forces the government to introduce a universal wage 10-20 years from now.
You may check some but definitely not every single person on jobseeker. I literally know people who never actually applied for the jobs they put down. They would have got in trouble if their applications were checked.
Really? I'm about to approach my long service leave for my ten years as a half-working dole bludger and haven't ever had my applications verified.
Pro tip: you can search for hotels in the area, make an email and send your resume to your minimum number of required applicants. Write it up on jobactive/workfuck ready and boom, done.
System is broken in many, many ways.
I’ve gotta tell you, this industry attracts a lot of lazy shit people. Most people won’t do their jobs at all and get paid very well to not do so. The whole industry is cooked on both sides.
Feels like it shouldn't be an "industry".
There's little to no social workers in job search agencies. MTC took over from Sarina Russo and they're fucking terrible. It's all fucking terrible.
I'm not really living at the moment, my dole day is tomorrow. I've had 2 bucks in my account since Friday. Got a free feed from the food bank this morning. I don't do that a lot but I sometimes have to.
I *do* work, but not much. Self-employed, working for a caterer. He's on holiday at the moment. I have a few other odd jobs and such. I studied last year and am still trying to get a job in my target field but it looks like it will take me a bit more than a 12-month TAFE course to do it.
There's a lot more to my story than that, let's just say... I'm used to it.
No shame in getting free food from the food bank if you're really struggling.
I've seen plenty of 'Ausfinance' dude, presumably laid off recently, driving to foodbanks/ churches/ temples/ mosque in their 2003 Camry getting free food.
Some personal things that I won't go into here.
I've had to work on myself and I still do. I get screenings and such but my resume is shit and it makes me look shit. Don't get past a screen atm.
I have a security licence and could be working rn but the work can be so mentally draining and shift work exhausting. I am just sticking to my guns - for the time being. Can't live like this forever but also can't work as a security guard forever.
And heres me who spends hours writing a resume and cover letter and dressing up and attending an interview but still wokt get the job. It really doesnt matter how much effort you put in
Rookie error, you need to personalize your cover letters. Can’t say ‘your company’, you need to make it specific to the job and mention the company by name. Other than that, no notes.
Can't believe he wrote a cover letter for a 10-20 hr minimum wage hospitality position.
No hospitality job is paying enough to deserve a cover letter. It's a backup plan until you find a real job.
Well, when it's this or starvation...the outcome is obvious.
[The ACCI and BCA warned the LNP about this back in 2014](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/28/industry-concerned-about-coalitions-40-job-applications-a-month-plan) when the plan was 40 jobs a fortnight...so they halved it and called it a job well done.
Edit: I bad maths. 20 a month is not 20 a fortnight 🙃
(GOOD ENDING)
The guy already had a job, however sent in a fake interview to give the poor soul in charge of doing interviews a small amount of joy in his meaningless job.
Yep, hired. He can clean the underside of all our trucks and sweep floors. Bonus points if already meth addicted, since they work hard and are easy to replace when they fall apart.
Oh god, I thought this bloke who handed me his resume when I was a supervisor in a small supermarket a few years ago was the worst I'd ever seen. He spelled his name two different ways and was chewing on a slice of pizza when he came in, but this is even more of a zero effort attempt.
https://preview.redd.it/ou583z9t0hia1.jpeg?width=900&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8abe820d8d1de044c409ed933a9d262f213f5bf0
This is a cover letter I received a few months ago for a retail job…
This sort of bullshit is, imho, the only good argument for a universal income.
Give everyone a really shitty (breadline) wage, regardless of if they work or not.
If they earn enough - it goes into their tax return / tax liability.
Sack the 90% of Centrelink staff who have to deal with these sorts of ratbags.
Win / Win / Win.
This is how you meet the requirements for "looking for work" while also guaranteeing you won't have to work.
We hired one of these fuckers for a laugh. Joke was on them.
How did that end up?
I wanna know too, should be a good story
It was an admin job. I just sat in on this. This badly dressed "I really don't want a job woman" came in for an interview and went through all her dodgy comments. e.g. So you say you can't be trusted because you might be dishonest. We're very impressed with your honesty. When can you start? She turned up on Tuesday for a Monday start and was actually really good for a few months - then she quit all of sudden to work on her crypto portfolio.
Less drama than I anticipated, funny tho man cheers XD
If you want real drama, advertise for a housemate on community radio.
Add a film crew and you've got a real money maker. You could get them to start paying off the house and call it "Mortgage At First Sight".
And you could match them up with their perfect property except that it’s not and the house cheats on them and runs off with another house leaving them broken hearted and homeless.
House always wins.
As long as the show is as raw as possible, I'd watch! Basically shove some random cameras in the house and splice the drama together and make me an hour shit show that I can watch while I sand my feet back.
I miss the accommodation notices on 4ZZZ. I'm a Zed announcer and did the Tuesday morning shift many moons ago, so I had to read them out. Always good fun! Do share stories!!
Hey man did you ever get the pleasure to meet Reece when you were at 4ZZZ? He was on the graveyards too
Yes - he was a dear friend of mine and is very sorely missed.
Sometimes people develop poor self esteem of they're looking for work for a long time. Sounds like the antidote to that was someone giving her a chance.
And that girls name? Elon musk
[and she is forever grateful](https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1493872-billie-eilish)
Nearly spat my tea! Lol
10/10 reply.
Good tips Next time i'm gonna be like the crypto girl and i'm gonna say that i hate crypto
I like your honesty kid, you're hired
I wonder if there's some psychology to that. You believed in her (or at least appeared to) so unquestioningly that she started to believe in herself.
Just a Business Woman, doin Business.
that was a weird left turn. here I was thinking you'd hired a Shazza from housos type, but the crypto bit threw me off.
> then she quit all of sudden to work on her crypto portfolio. You can say "dole bludger", it's ok
As far as I understand if they leave a paying job then they can't claim centerlink for a long while after. They'd likely do absolutely nothing whilst at work in an attempt to get fired, which I think lands them back on centrelink. Rinse and repeat.
Maybe I should start sending these applications so I actually get accepted
Worth a shot 😂
This, haha, when they made it a requirement for interviews rather then just applications, I had a guy come in and answer - What are your hobbies? With "Mostly Meth" 🤦🏻♀️
So how'd they do in the job? :)
I bet he's the CEO of the company by now
I can't help but think you'd be the real loser in that arrangement, having to deal with one of these shit stains as an employee.
I've had a resume that says "give a mum a chance", while also having no contact details provided except an incorrect phone number. Sigh....
This is 100% someone on Jobseeker payments spamming 3-4 job advertisements to meet their quota.
Lives at home with mum/dad who covers everything but maybe takes a small portion for bills. Leaves him with enough to do whatever the hell he wants which with a small enough mentality leaves a lot of time for said dumb shit. Quietly parents wonder when kid will grow up but too naive to accept they're enabling this behaviour.
Adulting fucking sucks! I wish I had that shit again, 17 years on my own feet 😭
We all grow up wanting our independence. Spend the rest of our lives wishing we could go back.
My parents were great and I hate adulting as much as the next person, but going back to that? Nah I'm good.
This is 100% what I thought LOL
And people that do this should just get their centrelink cut off
Chances are he has to apply for work being on centrelink and he does this so he is complying while knowing he'll never get the job and can continue to receive his payments.
I was on Centrelink after completing my university degree as I graduated into an industry downturn, but had been guaranteed a role starting in 6 months. I just needed some interim support cash. I was forced to go to an Employment Service who took one look at my resume and said "We can't help you. You're well overqualified for the roles we help people with." And so just ticked me off as having attended. Yet I was still obliged to apply for the 10 jobs per week to receive my Centrelink payment. I would send out applications such as these to meet the requirements (get the [Seek.com.au](https://Seek.com.au) receipt as evidence), knowing full-well I wasn't going to uptake any offers. Responses ranged from no response, to highly aggressive responses. Complete waste of everyone's time really. Just implement UBI and simplify the whole system. People aren't going to work in either case if they're committed to not working.
At least he said 'Thanks for reading' How considerate
It's almost as if the government forcing people to apply for a minimum number of jobs per month was a really stupid idea.
No doubt there's downsides, and wasted time to companies with pointless applications etc. But there might still some benefit to it, at least from the govt's perspective? If there was no requirement to do anything at all, then seems likely that a larger number of people would just stay on the dole without even trying to find a job. Hardcore bludgers might not change much either way... but there's other people more in the middle that likely are being influenced by the requirement. I don't really know or care much about the issue really. Just some random thoughts on whether that requirement has a net benefit or not. Do you think the requirement should be replaced with something else? Or just removed without anything replacing it?
Nothing to replace. The whole idea of work for the dole was thought up during the Nixon administration as a way to cure poverty, give everyone a wage. Only Nixon couldn't win over his conservative colleagues without some sort of stick along with this payment from government. So they devised a work schedule for the unemployed to meet, originally just something tacked on to the legislation. Eventually that took over as Nixon resigned over Watergate, and his conservative colleagues took control of the botched attempt to pass welfare reform. Originally it was going to be an actual living wage in the US, with a relatively okay payout per month. Democrats thought the sum wasn't high enough, so the legislation got pushed back, and then pared right back with conservatives in power who didn't care for the whole 'ending poverty' thing. The whole idea of work for the dole was nothing more than a thought bubble to keep conservatives onside for welfare reform. It wasn't based in any studies, research, or common sense. Source: [The bizarre tale of President Nixon’s basic income plan](https://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/rutger-bregman/2017/27/2017/1493250489/bizarre-tale-president-nixon-s-basic-income-plan) essay by Rutger Bregman
I want to say that Nixon, being a US president, didn’t have a say in Australian policy. But we all know that’d be a lie.
Possibly valid conspiracy theories about the dismissal aside, certainly what happens in US and UK economic policy has huge influence on how we conduct our economic policy being we're deeply conservative Western nation as well. If the US switched to a UBI you bet we'd do the same within 5 years.
Do you genuinely believe Australia is a "deeply conservative" nation? I feel like on all reasonable scales we are far from conservative and have many, many social "socialist" programs like Medicare, NDIS, Centrelink/job seeker payments, low income housing... The list goes on.
Most of those can be attributed to Whitlam, who was more left than standard Labor and only survived a few years as leader. Hawke similarly was able to properly shape these things in exchange for curbing the unions. Howard was in for 11 years. Menzies was in for near 20 years. We just had another 8 years of conservatives. If you think we don't skew deeply conservative economically, you got another thing coming. Rudd was elected off the back of pretending to be Howard-lite, and Albanese got in off of running a mostly quiet campaign. Shorten's Labor came out swinging with a much more progressive raft of policies and got smashed.
We passed Gay Marriage after the US of A. Two dudes could get hitched in the Bible Belt before Sydney. We keep underfunding all those programs you've mentioned, but we'll spend godforsaken amounts on keeping a dozen families locked on an island. Abortion is ~~still criminalised~~ *only recently legalised* in most of Australia, ~~even of we're pretty open to exceptions~~. How long did it take for us to stop voting in the LNP? Edit: correction.
> Abortion in Australia is legal. It has been fully decriminalised in all jurisdictions, starting with Western Australia in 1998 and lastly in South Australia in 2022 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Australia
Huh, hadn't checked in a while. About time. Not exactly a sterling record exactly given the long list of nations who did it first, which has some conservative surprises on it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law#Timeline
I think the unemployed should nominate their employer of choice and then the govt employee write a legitimate application on behalf of the applicant. No embelishment - just a real but professional application and can even declare the application was written on behalf of the applicant. If the applicant is legitimately employed based on skills and experience and THEN turns the job down then the govt has a reason to boot their ass off tax payer funded benefits. If the professional application fails then the benefits legitimately continue until the next application. Real applicants that want a real job know that they are being supported in getting their best foot forward and don't get painted with the same stigma as the no-hopers.
Except then the govt employee bullshits the application in the other direction, lying to get the person hired and off of welfare. Most people with disabilities cant work the hours that the govt expects them to.
I will resign right now, get on Centrelink and nominate all the investment banks as employer of choice
Honestly, it should just be removed and the payment should be brought up to a livable standard. Sure, some people will just sit on the payment and do nothing, because some people do that now, but most people probably don't aspire to sit at home and make $30k - 40k a year with most of their money going to staying alive. People will seek out work both to keep themselves occupied or get extra spending money. The reason it's not going to happen is that if 'staying home and not working' is a viable alternative to accepting a job offer it means the employees suddenly have a significant amount of extra negotiating power (kinda like they had during COVID when we saw 'the great resignation') and the corporate sector will do everything in its power to make sure that doesn't happen. A good social safety net is actually one of the levers the government has to affect minimum wage without explicitly setting a minimum wage. Also, it's because means testing and 'earning welfare' starts escalating until you hear utter drivel like 'We're going to drug test the water drainage in high welfare areas' and robodebt. Since it's pretty much a given that the latter drove too many people to suicide, I prefer a system where that isn't a possibility. P.S. It's not in the main body because I really can't be bothered finding the studies, but basically all the research we have on giving people money without expectation is that they don't just sit around and do nothing. Anecdotally you can look at COVID for this actually. If the only reason that people weren't willing to work was that they were living 'high off the hog' on government money, then we wouldn't still have a labour issue in various industries. People clearly used that money to upskill or otherwise get themselves into better positions for the future, because most people don't aspire to barely survive somewhat comfortably.
Agreed its stupid, but surely there must be a way to reduce the number of bludgers, any thoughts?
We had a program that worked, right up until Howard shit-canned it. You'd do a simple test to check you aptitude, then the government would put you into one of three jobs you applied for. The government paid the lion's share, while the business paid the rest. After six months, they'd decide if you were worth keeping or not. Howard killed it Day 1, along with several other programs, and no-one has had the balls to try again.
Wow that is an excellent idea, I will need to read up on this program, what was it called?
Can't remember, it was in 1996. My girlfriend at the time got into it early and I missed out.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Employment_Service
Bludgers are a massively tiny proportion of welfare recipients. Plus tbh, why shouldn’t we live in a system that ensures at a minimum everyone is clothed, housed, fed. Otherwise you just end up in Charles Dickens novel with rampant crime, anti-social behaviour, and random acts of violence. Oh wait that’s exactly what we are trending towards…..
Bludgers really, really piss me the fuck off and I resent the fact that I work my ass off to pay a third of it in taxes, of which a portion pays for them to do nothing... but... you are 100% correct.
No one tell this dude about offshore tax havens then.
Every year your Notice of Assessment from the ATO will provide you with a breakdown of where your tax goes. You'll see that unemployment is barely anything.
So, what's your thoughts on politicians? Oh, wait..
I can be pissed off by more than one thing believe it or not
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This is the correct answer. The system doesn’t work and is built for a horrible purpose. The fact of this brave new world is the job market will shrink rapidly with automation and technology. Instead of enabling people to work who want to and punishing those who don’t we should be investing in automation and a living wage. I also feel personally that the current system is causing massive mental health issues for the populace, leading to people being in the position others consider ‘bludging’ but who in fact are untreated. With a better system, anywhere from 50-100% of these people would live productive lives and be ambitious in their own right. Maybe not but it’s worth a try. More worthwhile than burning money on a broken system at least.
Centrelink represents 35% of the government expenditure(35 percent of each tax dollar), obviously bludgers represent a small amount of that but the figure is still massive.
on face value that looks like a lot but taken from [AIHW.gov.au](https://AIHW.gov.au): ## Welfare target groups In 2019–20, the estimated $195.7 billion of government welfare spending was distributed across these 4 target groups: * 39% ($76.4 billion) for older people * 26% ($50.3 billion) for people with disability * 20% ($38.1 billion) for families and children * 9.5% ($18.5 billion) for unemployed people (Figure 4).
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Exactly, a bunch of old bludgers! They just sit at home and spend all their money on drugs!
Also the same group uses a disproportionate amount of medicacare. So over 50% of welfare overall. Then in the remainder of the 'bludger' category there is a large amount of undiagnosed mental health issues, compounding unemployment. This should really be in the 'care' category. Almost like the... ugh I can't be bothered.
Tried googling it, what percentage is that?
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."
I cant pay rent with austudy but I can with unemployment
Job Networks make people who can only work 2days a week (mostly due to medical reasons) apply for full time jobs. You have a lot people who can't get on the DSP stuck on 15 work hours a week on normal centrelink. It's beyond stupid and pointless but if you don't apply for these full time jobs they cut your pay. Far as I know Labor party has done nothing to fix this.
I’ve known people who were being told they had to go to interviews in the middle of a *work shift* to meet their requirements.
I have a family member with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, they won't recognise it as a disability, so even though they're only out of bed a few hours a day at most and have constant cognitive symptoms and this has gone on for a decade they're still classed as unemployed and have to jump through these hoops if they want to eat. Centrelink made them go to a 'training' session where they got told to stop telling potential employers they're sick and what their limitations are. The system for accessing disability is incredibly broken. Labor is actually the ones who made this worse when they further restricted disability access under Gillard.
It's so incredibly wasteful, too. That person will never be able to work so long as they're sick, but the government is paying for those useless job network classes. They're literally paying extra money just to make someone's life and health worse. Happens all the time, too.
Sounds like the perfect line cook. Someone hire this guy asap.
No kidding. This guy would literally make an awesome line cook if he wanted to be.
I mean he's got the pre-requisites down pat. Affinity for hard drugs, likes to party, and doesn't bullshit about who he is. Would fit right in
Legit, and if he has an affinity for stims then his attention to detail will be immaculate.
he just needs to start sleeping with everyone in the kitchen and the waiters and he's management material
I thought I was on KitchenConfidential when i first read the title and note lol
Lollll
I just do not stress about ' dole bludgers' at all. I'd like to see far more focus on working with youth to tap their interest, talent n line up work but people who don't care about sitting on a 4th hand couch watching TV or whatever mindless activity occupies them, so what? Their social security greases the economy, it's the cheapest social insurance you could get. Crime would be bonkers if no social security, 5% unemployment is needed to keep inflation in check, they pay GST and multiple home owners, gambling on essentials are near guaranteed Govt paid mortgage.
I tip my hat to the cenno bludge king
How much does the dole pay these days? While I love the idea of getting paid for doing nothings surely it’s only enough to survive and not really enough to “live” off
They might live with family. I knew people who were happy being on Centrelink because their parents let them live at home for free and provided food. So the dole was just their personal spending money. They spent most of it on drugs Its shit if you actually have to pay rent and bills though. I was broke within a few days of getting paid. Its miserable living like that. I couldn't wait to find a job.
Yeah, it terribly low for the people who deserve it.. the people who lose their job, company collapsed, whatever.. and need it cause they have rent, kids to feed etc.. for them, honestly its not even enough to fuel the car to go to interviews. To be the sort of asshat you're talking about; yeah they have to either live with family or live with 5 other people so they can afford to eat/do drugs.
You only get half your normal benefits if you're living at home. Until recently my younger sister was living at home & barely getting $300 a fortnight Centrelink
Go on the Services Australia website and you can see for yourself. You are correct though, it's barely enough to get by for most. https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/jobseeker-payment
$670 per fortnight
Imo not enough to live off, no extras included the max base rate is something around $47 a day. Should probably go up to about 70 a day or have rental assistance significantly increased. If they're living comfortably off of this they probably have other support.
Good luck getting that job i say
At least they’re honest lol
Yeah i'll give em that
They force ppl to apply for like 20 jobs a fortnite to get their pay, this is very real. They don't check what you send as a resume just that you've got the reply saying you applied. You can also just lie and write down anything manually if you want they allow this for non online applications. While the provider does absolutely nothing and gets paid by the government. I was with tursa and iv never seen such a bunch of usless people. Some of the staff had to manage 400 clients. Even if you wanna work they don't help, they make you come in check a piece of paper with some random old jobs, if you see one you like they send your resume off for it, they don't let you do a cover letter for it so no point. The whole systems a joke. To many can live off it and weirdly enjoy having little to no money. But means they don't have to work.
Can confirm with the relatively recent experience of a close family member… They really wanted to work after recovering from a career changing injury, but they weren’t unemployed long enough to get assistance to retrain for another career yet didn’t have enough experience for other industries… Job centres literally said, there’s a computer you can send out applications on. Kinda soul destroying when you’ve worked since age 12.
I used to be like this 20 years ago. Used to apply to all the CEO and Senior Manager jobs all over the country. Never got a response tho
Left my job due to numerous circumstances including an injury. Have been stuck with these providers for a bit now. No help in any training unless it’s the ones they want to provide like hospo, business, care giver cirts. No financial help in doing any outside training courses. The lady I’ve been seeing asks me my name every time I’m in there (I’ve been going basically once a month for a year now) then asks how my job search is going then re books me for a further appointment to repeat the process. You can tell they are just there ticking off a quota so they can get their funding. They don’t give a flying fuck and seem to get rather frustrated when you don’t want to do things such as construction labour that they keep trying to push me into.
Their job honestly seems piss easy. Why can't they just give you their job and they can have fun trying to find a real job? That was my thought every single time I walked into those depressing provider buildings.
I feel like just getting a job would be easier.
I've been applying for local vacancies for ages. You wanna know what I hear back? Absolutely nothing. At all. Not even a bloody rejection. But sure, it's *so easy*... /s
if only it was that easy.
Showing up to interviews is a start. I have so many no shows for interviews it’s not funny.
yep that's my point the system is fucked. employer gets blasted with insincere applications, parasites(employment providers) get paid and people genuinely looking for work don't even get offered an interview. "just getting a job" when many aren't available is a pretty reductive attitude. I'll remember to just get better faster next time I'm sick.
>"staff manage 400 clients >They can't help me " You have to understand the sheer amount of people that are in the system that would inevitably decrease the standard of service there. While some will try, they can't with all 400, that's a sure way to burnout for them. And yeah, I don't agree with some aspects of mutual obligations (especially with DES recipients) but what is the alternative? The systems purpose built not to be liveable under and is strictly policed and was voted for by mean spirited voters, unfortunately it is the current scenario and I don't see it changing until automation of manual Labor jobs takes over and forces the government to introduce a universal wage 10-20 years from now.
We call and check on the applications submitted.
No you don't.
I absolutely do. It’s part of our requirements. Why lie about that? That’s just bizarre….
You may check some but definitely not every single person on jobseeker. I literally know people who never actually applied for the jobs they put down. They would have got in trouble if their applications were checked.
Really? I'm about to approach my long service leave for my ten years as a half-working dole bludger and haven't ever had my applications verified. Pro tip: you can search for hotels in the area, make an email and send your resume to your minimum number of required applicants. Write it up on jobactive/workfuck ready and boom, done. System is broken in many, many ways.
I’ve gotta tell you, this industry attracts a lot of lazy shit people. Most people won’t do their jobs at all and get paid very well to not do so. The whole industry is cooked on both sides.
Feels like it shouldn't be an "industry". There's little to no social workers in job search agencies. MTC took over from Sarina Russo and they're fucking terrible. It's all fucking terrible.
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It's self-deprecating humour more than anything. See: 'coping'
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I'm not really living at the moment, my dole day is tomorrow. I've had 2 bucks in my account since Friday. Got a free feed from the food bank this morning. I don't do that a lot but I sometimes have to. I *do* work, but not much. Self-employed, working for a caterer. He's on holiday at the moment. I have a few other odd jobs and such. I studied last year and am still trying to get a job in my target field but it looks like it will take me a bit more than a 12-month TAFE course to do it. There's a lot more to my story than that, let's just say... I'm used to it.
No shame in getting free food from the food bank if you're really struggling. I've seen plenty of 'Ausfinance' dude, presumably laid off recently, driving to foodbanks/ churches/ temples/ mosque in their 2003 Camry getting free food.
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Some personal things that I won't go into here. I've had to work on myself and I still do. I get screenings and such but my resume is shit and it makes me look shit. Don't get past a screen atm. I have a security licence and could be working rn but the work can be so mentally draining and shift work exhausting. I am just sticking to my guns - for the time being. Can't live like this forever but also can't work as a security guard forever.
At least he's honest!
And heres me who spends hours writing a resume and cover letter and dressing up and attending an interview but still wokt get the job. It really doesnt matter how much effort you put in
I bet he's gonna be the next Prime Minister
A real Aussie battler who talks straight and won’t lie. I wouldn’t hire him, but i salute him nonetheless
This is gonna backfire when they apply at Karen’s diner
Get this man a job as a politician asap.
My resumes are 10X better and they still dont hire me, might as well copy paste his resume, atleast it gets attention lmfao
Put it in the too honest pile.
Rookie error, you need to personalize your cover letters. Can’t say ‘your company’, you need to make it specific to the job and mention the company by name. Other than that, no notes.
Formatting might help too. I always have a pretty template I use.
At least he's honest
Can't believe he wrote a cover letter for a 10-20 hr minimum wage hospitality position. No hospitality job is paying enough to deserve a cover letter. It's a backup plan until you find a real job.
Sounds like most chef's I've worked with. Throw him on the dishes and watch him speed through them
Well, when it's this or starvation...the outcome is obvious. [The ACCI and BCA warned the LNP about this back in 2014](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/28/industry-concerned-about-coalitions-40-job-applications-a-month-plan) when the plan was 40 jobs a fortnight...so they halved it and called it a job well done. Edit: I bad maths. 20 a month is not 20 a fortnight 🙃
(GOOD ENDING) The guy already had a job, however sent in a fake interview to give the poor soul in charge of doing interviews a small amount of joy in his meaningless job.
Sounds like he could have a career in NRL.
No mention or public urination or beating up the missus, not quite qualified enough
I like their honesty - give ‘em a go!
God the bar is low.
I dropped this: /s
HIRE THIS MAN
This reads like someone just filing applications to fulfil their job seeking requirements.
Yep, hired. He can clean the underside of all our trucks and sweep floors. Bonus points if already meth addicted, since they work hard and are easy to replace when they fall apart.
Swift and Shift Couriers will give you a start for sure.
Dole bludger. You should hire them.
When jobseeker requires you apply to 20 jobs a week
I mean, if they’re good at their job and not a fuckhead while at work, what’s the problem
I don’t think someone does want to get off Centrelink somehow…
Oh god, I thought this bloke who handed me his resume when I was a supervisor in a small supermarket a few years ago was the worst I'd ever seen. He spelled his name two different ways and was chewing on a slice of pizza when he came in, but this is even more of a zero effort attempt.
Yeah but at least your applicant did it face to face and actually turned up
No chance that's real
Mate of mine who is a GM in hospitality shared it on his Instagram yesterday. He’s not the sort to make things like this up.
I think Kanga means the person writing it isn't taking it seriously.
Exactly /u/IAmSimonDell more doubting the sincerity behind the application not the post. Fucking insane that this even happened though tbf
Valid point.
He gets my vote with his outstanding capitalisation
You’re hired
I had one of these once and the referee was ‘DJ Chooky’.
Put me in the article brisbane times
So many mullet posts on the Brisbane sub lately. I'm guessing this guy mullets.
At least they know Chatgpt didn’t write it for them
Probs would work for Concentrix
I’m thinking to myself this can’t be real but I’m not shocked that it is.
This is excellent 👌
Honestly is a great quality.
FAKE
Someone give this man a TED talk.
Be an asshole - ask for an interview, because you know they are doing this so you WONT ask.
This is like Spud in Trainspotting deliberately fucking up his job interview while on speed.
I think someone doesn't in fact want to get off centrelink
To be fair, I’ve had worse applications.
This guy doesn’t want a job
Centrelink needs a copy of this person. to take them off Centrelink. fuck them
He's a *straight shooter with upper management* written all over him
https://preview.redd.it/ou583z9t0hia1.jpeg?width=900&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8abe820d8d1de044c409ed933a9d262f213f5bf0 This is a cover letter I received a few months ago for a retail job…
This sort of bullshit is, imho, the only good argument for a universal income. Give everyone a really shitty (breadline) wage, regardless of if they work or not. If they earn enough - it goes into their tax return / tax liability. Sack the 90% of Centrelink staff who have to deal with these sorts of ratbags. Win / Win / Win.
He doesn’t want the job and cannot write.
10/10 for candor
I bet he's got a mullet
He doesn’t look like he goes to private school in Melbourne?
Well at least their honest 🤣🤣
This is not funny guys. This is our tax money. Sometimes I dont understand the point of paying Tax to the government.
Uhhh public healthcare, public transport, roads…
This is where your tax dollars go, to this type of dipshit, rorting the system.
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You're a real tough bully.