Essential Research records incremental movement away from the Coalition on its fortnightly rolling average, on which the Coalition and Labor are now both on 37% on the primary vote with the former down one on last week, although two-party preferred is unchanged at 53-47. The Greens are up a point to 11%, One Nation is steady at 6% and the Nick Xenophon Team is steady at 3%. Other findings:
• Contra a recent result from Morgan, Malcolm Turnbull retains the narrowest of leads over Julie Bishop as preferred Liberal leader, with Turnbull down nine since immediately after the election to 21%, Bishop up four to 20% and Tony Abbott up two to 11%. The same question for Labor finds Bill Shorten’s election campaign spike disappearing – he’s down ten to 17%, with Tanya Plibersek up two to 14% and Anthony Albanese up one to 12%.
• Forty-four per cent would sooner see the words “humiliate or intimidate” than “offend or insult” in section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, but only 17% think Australia’s racial discrimination laws too strict, against 26% for too weak and 40% for about right.
• There is strong support for a range of campaign finance reforms, including immediate disclosure, $5000 donations caps, and bans on foreign donations and donations by companies and unions. However, most oppose banning donations and having only public funding for party spending.
• Thirty-three per cent said they took more interest in the American election than the Australian, compared with 22% for vice-versa and 38% for the same amount.
• Sixty-three per cent say institutions involved in child sex abuse claims should pay compensation, 14% say the government should do so, and 7% say neither.
zoomster
We don’t have UBI. Its one payment to all citizens regardless of income. Thats why all the advantages of capitalism still work.
No enforcement. No make do Labour agencies forcing people to do mickey mouse training programmes so they are “job ready”. The real measure is getting a job so thats open to major rorting.
No hoops for disabled unemployed or pensioners to jump through just the one payment for all so no mental health or other worries regarding income being cut off.
Opposition to the ideas of BIG and Full Employment is founded on the proposition that some of us deserve to be poor and on the allied proposition – that the prevention of poverty is doomed to failure because of the inherent moral defects of the afflicted. This is the moralizing hypocrisy of the affluent. According to them, the worst thing we can do is to alleviate poverty. This will only make things worse both for the supplicants and their benefactors.
It is on this reasoning that the sick are turned away from hospitals in the US, that we have 100,000 homeless in this country, that we keep refugees as our political prisoners-cum-slaves, that guest workers are exploited, that we use 3-strikes provisions to arbitrarily incarcerate our young Aboriginal populations, that we use the tax system to create a large class of landless tenant-workers and that the poorest members of society are taxed more heavily than the wealthiest.
zoomster
So as you can see we have a partial basic income
confessions @ #3074 Sunday, November 20, 2016 at 12:12 pm
Thank you. Yes. Also CCCP calls for 50 comments whereas Crikey has reset to 25 comments per page.
We live in hope for better things. Bye 😎
zoomster
Sorry I have to have correct term here. We have Guaranteed minimum income.
Its partial because its below the poverty line.
zoomster @ #3069 Sunday, November 20, 2016 at 12:02 pm
Have you tried getting unemployment benefits recently? It’s almost impossible. A friend of mine was trying to do this for six months – unemployed all the while, applying for jobs themselves, but also looking for help from Centrelink. They would be referred by Centrelink to a job agency, but every time an interview came up, the job agency would cancel it again because Centrelink had rejected their claim again. After two appeals they were finally rejected for good because they owned two cars (both over 20 years old and virtually unsellable). Luckily, they ended up finding a job on their own – but now they have a massive credit card debt to pay off after being forced to live on them for months.
All my friend really wanted was help finding a job! Centrelink sucks.
kayjay @ #3104 Sunday, November 20, 2016 at 12:23 pm
Crikey has probably gone to 25 comments pagination to better suit smart phones and tablets.
.
BK
#3107 Sunday, November 20, 2016 at 12:28 pm
I expect that you may be right.
Commenting using my not so/smart phone is hopeless. I note that Lizzie has said a word or two about this.
I also have a mini tablet Samsung. 25 comments per page certainly is more suitable and saves endless flicking the page up or down.
Bye 🙂
P1
‘Have you tried getting unemployment benefits recently?’
Did you read the bit where I said I have had periods of long term unemployment?
A very tiresome part of my life has been that the typical one term teacher replacement contract runs for 10 weeks. So does the period where Centrelink ditches you, even if you keep reporting. So going off Centrelink payments for 10 weeks work and having to reapply for Centrelink payments basically the day after they ditched me was (for a time) an annual process.
Lizzie
I’ve often wondered if it would be cheaper to pay just enough to people who really don’t want to work.
It would ‘unclog’ the system.
‘After two appeals they were finally rejected for good because they owned two cars (both over 20 years old and virtually unsellable)’
Oh, and bollocks. Centrelink values everything a fire sale value – so if something is worth $10 k but you would only get $2k if you put it on ebay tomorrow, then $2k is the valuation.
The second car would have to be a Lambo or Ferrari before you ran into trouble – and even then, it would have to be your second Lambo or Ferrari.
Has he come down with rabies ? Seems to be biting at anything that moves and definite frothing at the mouth.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/dutton-slams-human-rights-commissions-handling-of-complaints/news-story/216cb0ca062e4af15b6a4c8f2ec75bfb
Demand management is extremely important but by itself it is not sufficient to ensure interesting, relevant, socially useful paid jobs for people with very limited skills, experience, and education, and people with disabilities. A Job Guarantee is a necessity for these groups. A Job Guarantee is very helpful across the board because it creates lots of entry level jobs of many kinds, and impels private sector employers to lift their game in this regard or else fail to attract and retain workers.
zoomster @ #3112 Sunday, November 20, 2016 at 12:55 pm
Not so, I’m afraid. I have seen (but do not have) the various rejection letters from Centrelink. Each one with a completely different justification, but the final one was because of their assets outside the home, at the time of the original application (most of these assets were gone by the end, of course, except the cars). It’s true that the cars were not their only assets, but they put my friend over the limit (from memory, something like $23,000?) to receive any benefits. At the very first meeting with Centrelink, my friend was told to sell one of the cars, but for various reasons that was impractical (only one was actually operational). After that, Centrelink got stroppy and rejected the application twice for unrelated reasons (which they appealed) and then finally because of the assets.
But what was really annoying is that because they would not accept the claim, they would not help my friend find a job. Foolishly, we thought that was their job!
P1
And I have actually sat through numerous asset evaluations by actual Centrelink staff and heard (first hand) their instructions…and you already seem to be changing the story slightly!
Yes, if you have humongous assets outside of the essentials (house, enough cars for the household) they will ask you to sell them if the FIRESALE price still puts you over the asset limit. That said, I owned a herd of horses for the entire time I was playing games with Centrelink and it was never suggested I sell one of them.
It’s quite reasonable, if you own a Picasso or two or have a Lambo you’re not driving sitting in the shed for the taxpayer to suggest that it might be a good idea to flog them off before you ask non Picasso owners for a dime, but the idea that you have to absolutely strip yourself of all or even most assets before you qualify is ridiculous (I think there also might be an out – working from memory here, so might be wrong – that you can offset not selling such assets for a period of not receiving payments – I had a payout and had to wait a set number of weeks before I could apply, even though I didn’t draw down on that payout in the interim – so I had exactly the same non compliant asset but was eligible all the same).
…I will also add, the car example is a lived experience thing too, as when we were receiving payments we did have a Lotus Elite and a Range Rover under restoration, which were declared, plus my herd of pure Arabians, and never had a problem.
Player One
“First, let’s accept that there are jobs that require training, commitment, consistency and talent, that these jobs will generally be highly sought after and will generally pay way above average wages in a largely demand-driven jobs market-place.”
In the modern world this assumption is false. Supply and demand is rarely unfettered. Complex jobs in the public sector get paid less. Period. Complex jobs in the private sector get paid more if they have real bargaining power and/or an effective negotiator, and the price for their services is not regulated. Otherwise no more than average.
In a globalised world even when all that is true, skilled immigration may still prevent highly skilled jobs paying above average. A huge surge in skilled migration during the mining boom ensured that outcome in branches of engineering outside of mining. Others are worse off, notably academics without tenure. Xanthippe has more degrees than me, better marks and works longer hours, yet still gets paid a little over half what I do, even after more than ten years at Adelaide Uni.
In the modern world the “skilled” occupations that earn above average are not the highly skilled, but those who control entry to their field. Whether financial planners, barristers or train drivers, the effect is the same. More money for them, and fewer jobs for others.
There is a lot more to wage justice than only considering those on low incomes. But speaking of them, I say again, that a UBI, while I agree it may be good in theory, needs to be paid for in practice. that means the rich need to pay more tax. Team Blue will never do that. I hope Team Red will do it next time in office.
I have had exactly the same thought. In the days when rules were not so strict there were many happy dropouts.
guytaur @ #3108 Sunday, November 20, 2016 at 12:49 pm
Your best post ever! 😆
On being on the dole I only had a couple of very short term experiences of dealing with the Department of Social Security or its now emanation ‘Centrelink’ (the last a bit funny in retrospect).
But I had a school friend who had, after doing Year 12, had no interest in working. He was a keen sportsman and had a reputation being able to plug ‘gaps’ in teams by organising who did what when they were playing other particular teams.
About 3 years after he left school he got himself to the position that he was forced to take a job with the Post Office as a mail sorter. It suited him because it was early morning work and over by lunchtime.
At the time the PO had lots of Vietnamese who could just speak enough English to get the job done. It frustrated him that while the ‘work’ language was English the social language was not. So he asked his co-workers to teach him so he could take part.
Their response was OK but ‘we’ need better English so they ‘swapped’ langauges.
About 4 years later he was proficient in Vietnamese, OK in Cambodian and could get by very well in two Chinese dialects.
Meanwhile his ability to pick and organise a team had been noticed by management so he scored some pay rises and a promotion to ‘shift manager’.
When the PO started closing the local sorting centres for he was offered a job at one of the International Mail Centres with a couple of promotion steps and allowances for moving.
About then he realised he had skills that were valuable and he enjoyed using.
He resigned at that point and went on to find very much better paying jobs where he fitted in but his connections to the Vietnamese, Cambodian and Chinese communities hasn’t faded.
Lizzie
The idea of paying them not to participate has some things going for it.
Those who just want to eat survive and them that want to do better get a clearer run.
zoomster @ #3116 Sunday, November 20, 2016 at 1:27 pm
I don’t think I am, but if I did it was only to more fully explain the circumstances. Total assets outside the home were a few thousand over the limit, which as I said is something like $23,000 (?). For arguments sake, let’s say the total value of assets was $28,000, including two cars whose ‘book’ value was around $6000. These figures aren’t really correct, but they are in the right ballpark. Selling either car would have got them under the limit. Hardly the same as owning a Picasso or a Lamborghini is it? My friend thought (as you apparently do) that all this meant was that any benefits would be delayed by some waiting period.
Not so. Centrelink rejected the claim on completely unrelated grounds, and we then went through various appeals that stretched out over about six months. I think as time went on they got more and more annoyed because my friend kept persisting. Centrelink even acknowledged that the grounds for their first rejection was incorrect, so they found another spurious justification to reject it. That was also incorrect, so after another appeal they then rejected it on the grounds I have said – too many assets outside the home, at the time of the original application. Which had now of course mostly gone.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/from-senator-to-saw-mill-owner-the-rise-and-rise-of-ricky-muir-20161115-gsq55w.html
Ricky Muir.
P Duddy sure is consistent. It’s all Labor’s fault.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/dutton-ramps-up-border-protection-attack-against-shorten/news-story/3cab32817be11fa4962df913b72dc747
Socrates
I don’t think this invalidates my assumption. Whether private or public, complex jobs tend to earn above average wages, while other jobs – e.g. a cleaner or a ditch digger – earn substantially below average wages.
That’s all you need to make the ‘pool’ concept viable.
CTar1
Quality in many areas would certainly improve. The totally disinterested and only going through the motions demographic would have zero concern for QA/QC stuff.
CTar1
There’s plenty of room in Australia for the lotus eaters.
“Turnbull needs to take a lesson from Angela Merkel. Stand up for your beliefs, don’t crawl to bullies. I’m ashamed of him.”
That’s a bit hard on Malcolm. How can he stand up for his beliefs when he does have any to start with?
Lizzie
Got ya, But do you remember the BBC series?
CTar1
No, I don’t.
bemused
😆
Glad I could bring a smile to your face 🙂
P1
1. Centrelink doesn’t go by book value. They go by ‘if you had to sell this asset right now, in the next few hours, what would you get for it?’ — which is well below this.
2. If your friend reached a time when their assets – however valued – dropped below the threshold, then they would have then become eligible.
3. Your ‘explanation’ makes it clear that things were more complex than you originally stated. Yes, Centrelink sometimes makes mistakes (I’ve been the victim of a few and outlined my son’s difficulties earlier this year). However, I’ve never struck a case where they didn’t make recompense for this.
There are bad eggs in Centrelink, but when you go over their heads it’s usually clear sailing. Believe me, I’ve taken them on enough times to know!
Poroti
Yep. There’s a certain attraction in letting those who want to ‘do’ do and not making others do it in an indifferent way.
Different Subject: It’s going to be warm for a while tonight so I’ll be off in a while to haul an auxiliary bin for Wheat harvesting around (If anyone feels the need for dust let me know – I can supply). Mobile comms a little OK here so I may be able to read and respond.
Govt estimates over 28 million metric tonnes of Wheat here this year.
So gross is up but the Iranians have 15m of low glucose Wheat to sell (they need 1m tonnes of high quality to mix for baking use). And, of course, the price is down.
The M-E market not very good since we helped invade Iraq.
lizzie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lotus_Eaters_(TV_series)
So ‘serpentine’. I don’t remember who was good or bad.
Saying it was set in Greece rather than Crete was likely unacceptable.
CTar1
Funny that about that eh ? Russia may be one to watch. See below from FAO. They are to make a big push in agriculture. Bad Vlad’s aim is to make Russia the world’s largest supplier of non GMO food .
http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/csdb/en/
In my mind, when an articulate person can’t articulate their argument then either they don’t understand what they’re talking about or their position is wrong. Stutchbury is the editor of the AFR so I would expect him to be an articulate person. Yet, when Murphy and Cassidy asked a few simple questions about the purported merits of corporate tax cuts he floundered.
They also left the big question unanswered: how do you pay for it?
zoomster @ #3158 Sunday, November 20, 2016 at 2:20 pm
Centrelink used my friend’s (realistic) valuation. What should my friend have done? Lied?
Perhaps foolishly, my friend chose to appeal the rejection, as the reasons for rejection made no sense (recall that the original rejection was not on the basis of assets outside the home, nor was the second rejection – only the final one). Perhaps my friend should have just put in another application instead. But this was already their second shot – the first one was rejected without Centrelink even telling them. My friend only found out when they went to the job agency assigned to them for their first interview, only to be sent home again. They never found out the reason for that rejection. Some computer glitch was the nearest we ever got to an explanation.
Of course they are more complicated! It took six months to go through two completely spurious appeal processes (with a ‘complex case’ officer assigned, and an external valuer engaged. We tried to find out the outcome of that ‘valuation’ but they refused to disclose it). Each of which came to absolutely nothing, and had nothing to do with the final rejection. Not even mentioned in the final rejection letter, which only mentioned the original assets outside the home.
I believe that Centrelink made an immediate decision to reject the application. But when they were required to justify it, they tried to make up some reason, and got it wrong. After that, they had to keep coming up with more and more ridiculous reasons to reject it. I have no explanation as to why this should have been the case.
Eggs? I think the place is a whole bad nest!
Hi y’all
29 degrees C in downtown Motown
I’ve just serviced all my fans (electric ones, that is).
Here’s a tip. They’re so much cheaper to run than aircon.
Hi Kezza2,
We got a mighty fine fan yesterday at a garage sale. Blows a gale. We only use the Air Con in extremis.
Poroti
There’s been since the 50’s all sorts of stuff about Wheat Crops that only deals with the the amounts …
The amount of high quality is decreasing in the Nth Hemisphere. It’s also been so because to growing season is shorter (there is no mystery about it).
The down-side is that moving south has its limits.
Back to the bottom of bins – slightly moist. I remember I should blast heat them?
To which I might add a hearty and grateful in extremis ‘thank you’ to all on PB who helped make the Air Con happen at my place. : )
Which reminds me, I haven’t seen Greensborough Growler round these parts since Hillary lost to The Don. I hope he’s coping okay!
Ajm and your rant about Macca some time back……….rest assured that his name and efforts have passed through PB more than once over the years.
Many here have seen him as some kind of well-meaning, God, Queen and Country yokel (Ben Bowyang?) who has his Sunday sessions to keep those in the bush happy. Actually, I find him a total phoney and you can almost hear the contempt in his voice when he gets, “Hi Macca, this is Jacko from Bullamakangka and I just rang to let you know it is raining here. (Macca) ‘ Where is BMK? (Listener) “Aw, about 10 miles north of Bendyang, near Hicksville.” (Macca) ‘So, you are getting a bit or rain out there……..?
This kind of stuff goes on, has gone on for years and will probably do so for years to come. I think his program is the complete rejoinder to those that think that the ABC is a hot bed of Latte-drinking Lefties…..Macca’s pitch is straight at the Nationals/Hanson heartland. However, I think it is okay for Macca to have this lot as he and they deserve one another.
Lizzie
Don’t worry about how you spell the Sutchablerry bloke’s name. Not worth the effort.
C@t
But is it noisy? And what range of colours?
CTar1
Indeed they have had grand plans before. Plans that became grand failures. The touch of global warming might help them this time around. Time will, as they say, tell.
C@t
If that comment seemed obscure, I was channeling Diana Fisher, Inventors, ABC.
You know, what the ladies really want to know about fandangled contraptions.
Bemused, I think you are right, the term was one termed by aboriginal people concerned with unearned income being a disincentive. It might have been the more rightwing Lib voting elements of that community but I do not really know. I do know that the scheme where (to broadly describe) all dole payments were pooled and paid out for work done in the community was popular in some areas and not just rural. The scheme was active in the Northern suburbs of Adelaide when I was in the CES. There was dismay in some communities when the Libs ditched it, as the scheme was the only employer in rempte areas. I think it was done in to make way for the Basics Card.
I personally do not use the term, as what is ok for someone to describe themselves can become problematical when used by others to describe that person.
One of my friends who uses a wheelchair once described the section for wheelchairs at a main Adelaide oval as the “Cripple Bin” (now seating is arranged so wheelies sit with their family or partner in the main stand. I doubt as an able-bod that term would have sounded the same coming from me.
Kezza
Yes, I got it. I thought it was rather cruel.
The Lotus eaters – I think I was going classic.
I really recommend this…
Handel
Giulio Cesare ‘V’ adoro, pupile, Elly Ameling , soprano/ Gewandhaus Orchstra, Leipzig.