Stop trying to make austerity happen.

Is butter GST applicable?

Drug tests if you’re on the dole

Samantha Maiden
The Sunday Telegraph
June 01, 2014 12:00AM

The Abbott government has confirmed it is also looking closely at New Zealand’s “simpler, more coherent” system of streamlining payments. Source: News Corp Australia


DRUG testing for the unemployed and the suspension of payments to people with outstanding arrest warrants are two options to be debated in a major overhaul of welfare.

The Abbott Government has confirmed it is looking closely at New Zealand’s welfare system, which includes a hardline approach to drug use.

The New Zealand model strips welfare recipients of half their payments if they fail a job-required drug test or refuse to submit to one.

They are then given 30 days to get clean. Those who continue to use drugs or refuse to take a job that requires testing are required to pay back their welfare payments.

Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews last night said: “We won’t rule this in or out.”

But the testing has been attacked as a waste of money by critics in New Zealand with low rates of positive results.

Of the 8001 jobseekers sent for drug testing, only 22 had tested positive to drug use or had refused to take tests.

Mr Andrews yesterday cautioned it would be more difficult to introduce in Australia because it would require the support of the states.

“While Australia’s welfare system is different from New Zealand, its reforms provide a guide as to the government’s thinking on simplifying our welfare system,” he said.

The Abbott government has confirmed it is also looking closely at New Zealand’s “simpler, more coherent” system of streamlining payments.

“Australia’s welfare system is complex and expensive,” Mr Andrews said.

“This review will look at welfare reforms overseas, including New Zealand where they have simplified their welfare system by introducing five new payments that replaced eleven old payments.”

The streamlined New Zealand payment system now includes a new Jobseeker Support payment for those actively seeking work, Sole Parent Support for single parents with children aged under 14 years, and Supported Living Payments for people significantly restricted by sickness, injury or disability.

A report by Patrick McClure into options for reforms to Australia’s welfare system will be released shortly.

“There are around 20 different payments (in Australia) that are topped up with around 50 different supplements, including Family Tax Benefits and Carer Allowance, costing taxpayers around $100 billion annually,” Mr Andrews said.

“To make this work requires more than 3500 pages of legislation and more than 640 pages of endnotes to administer the social security system.”

Labor’s Jenny Macklin said welfare simplification was code for more cuts.

“Tony Abbott needs to explain to low-income Australians — already reeling from the Budget — exactly what his next round of cuts will mean for them,” she said.

“This year’s Budget has already ripped billions of dollars out of the pockets of low-income Australians.

“It will leave millions of vulnerable people worse off.

“Yet the government is already looking to its next round of cuts.”

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/drug-tests-if-youre-on-the-dole/story-e6frf7jo-1226938400218

Gold. :lol:

Anyone watch Utopia on SBS tonight? Thoughts?

Millions spent to employ spin doctors in Immigration Department

DateJune 1, 2014

Fergus Hunter, Jonathan Swan

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison's portfolios employ more than 95 communications staff and spin doctors, costing taxpayers at least $8 million a year.

Details released to the Senate show the departments of Immigration, Border Protection and Australian Customs have 85 ongoing and 10 non-ongoing staff responsible for media monitoring, internal communication and public relations.

This is estimated to cost between $8 million and $9.2 million a year in salaries alone, not including superannuation, leave, allowances and other associated costs. The details were released by the Immigration Department in response to questions from Labor senator Joe Ludwig.

Mr Morrison, who regularly uses the adjectives ''on water'' and ''operational'' to describe matters that cannot be discussed, said through a spokeswoman that ''any suggestion these staff are all working on the minister's liaising with the media is completely untrue''.

''These are large organisations which require a significant amount of internal and corporate communication work on behalf of these agencies,'' the spokeswoman added.

Fairfax Media reported in March that there were at least 66 spin doctors working in the department under Mr Morrison.

The minister made a statement rejecting the report. He said he had only 37.9 people in communications, whereas the previous Labor government employed 44 people in this area.

Asked to explain the difference between the figure, the spokeswoman said: ''The minister was referring [in March] to the National Communications Branch of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.

''It is important to note that of the 37.9 staff (including two seconded to Operation Sovereign Borders) in that branch as at April 30, 2014, only a third of those staff were working in the media section of the branch.

''The rest of the branch undertakes other communications work, such as campaigns and marketing, internal communications, social media, graphic design and broadcast production.''

Mr Morrison has employed a deliberately secretive approach to Operation Sovereign Borders and says doing so has contributed to the program's success in ''stopping the boats''


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/millions-spent-to-employ-spin-doctors-in-immigration-department-20140531-39azn.html#ixzz33J4vZWjr

Liberal Party taps older supporters for bequests

DateJune 1, 2014

Kirsty Needham

With Liberal Party fund-raising under scrutiny in the Independent Commission Against Corruption, the party's NSW head office has turned creative to drive donations before the March election.

Dead political supporters, it emerges, are exempt from donation caps and bans under NSW law.

The Liberals' NSW website is urging older voters to bequest cash, shares, property or paintings to the party in their will.

A sample document is provided on the website to print off and sign. Images of greying retirees playing with their grandchildren accompany the message: ''Leaving a bequest in your will helps secure the future for generations to come.''


Three types of Liberal Party bequest are recommended.

Leaving a ''scholarship'' could provide a prize for a party member to join the campaign team during an election, or recognise ''outstanding fund-raising'' by a member. A ''research'' bequest would finance research - on electorate demographics, redistribution impacts or swinging voter key issues. Then there is the ''Future Fund'', a special trust established to provide emergency funding for the party in exceptional circumstances, or a fund-raising downturn.

The ICAC is examining the use of Liberal Party slush funds to avoid a 2009 ban on donations from property developers and donation caps, and the financing of candidates in the 2011 election. An expert panel will report to Premier Mike Baird on donations reform by December 31.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/liberal-party-taps-older-supporters-for-bequests-20140531-39azl.html#ixzz33J70Hfr9

Just listened to Christopher "Whiney" Pyne on Insiders.

Has there ever been a more smug, smarmy, born-to -rule, up himself dickhead to walk the halls of parliament?

Besides Alexander Downer I can't think of anyone that even comes close.

Rude and arrogant and deliberately so.

Even if you agree with his policies surely he must annoy Liberal voters?

He has a punchable face.

But politics is full of wankers.

Yeah he's a karnt

It grates on me even more because he's my local member :oops:

He's a smarmy bastard . He reminds me the Simpsons episode where burns runs for governor . He and abott are exactly burns

At least your local member can string a few sentences together, my member is the shadow health minister and unless she has a script in front of her she can't say anything remotely coherent...and it is her portfolio that could win the Labs government, bit of a screw up on their behalf giving her the job.

My local member was Julia .. now its a former principal of my daughter's school

If I may borrow a line from Paul Keating, watching and hearing Pyne go on a rant is like being flogged with a warm lettuce

Asylum-seekers sew lips shut in Australia protest: activists

SYDNEY, June 01, 2014 (AFP) - Seven asylum-seekers sewed their lips shut Sunday as part of a mass hunger strike protest involving hundreds of detainees in an Australian immigration detention centre, activists said.

Refugee activists said seven Iranian men had stitched their lips to protest their detention on Australia's remote Christmas Island for almost a year under punitive policies aimed at deterring people-smuggling voyages.

Almost 400 asylum-seekers at the Christmas Island compound, about 2,600 kilometres from the west coast capital Perth, were refusing food, Ian Rintoul from the Refugee Action Coalition said.

The protest as part of a demonstration against the death of Iranian asylum-seeker Reza Barati.

"Hundreds are into their fourth day of hunger strike as the anger and frustration grows," said Rintoul.

"Seven Iranians in Gold and Green compound have also stitched their lips."

Barati was killed in wild riots at an Australian refugee camp on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island in February, which also left 69 others injured.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said the situation on Christmas Island was "under control", adding that "it is not uncommon for peaceful protests to occur in detention facilities".

He refused to confirm or comment on the lip-stitching claims.

"It is not helpful for refugee activists, I think, to dramatise these events and seek to whip them up in the public mind," he said.

"Because frankly, that is the purpose of these protests, to do just that," the minister told reporters.

"The purpose of engaging in such activity is to gain media attention and... where there are those sorts of allegations of people's behaviour I am not about to encourage others to engage in it either by giving it publicity."

An official Australian review released on Monday found Barati was beaten to death in an assault led by a Salvation Army worker at the centre. This has been denied by PNG police, who have described the Australian probe as "stink(ing) of a major cover-up".

Rintoul said the protesters wanted the media and United Nations inspectors to be allowed inside the Christmas Island facility to see how conditions were "deteriorating badly" among detainees.

"Their mental health is already declining, yet they face many more months, and perhaps years, in detention," he said.

Asylum-seekers who arrive in Australia on people-smuggling boats face a "no advantage" offshore detention policy, designed as a deterrent.

The policy places no limits on the length of time they can be locked up on Christmas Island, PNG or the far-flung Pacific outpost of Nauru.

http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Regional/2014/06/01/Asylumseekers-sew-lips-shut-in-Australia-protest-activists/

Every political party uses spin doctors....Labor, Greens, Libs, whoever....

If no party uses spin doctors then the show Spin City would've never existed.

The article doesn't allege or infer otherwise.....

Greens don't need spin doctors when they have their hoarde of Gen Y Lefty Communists.

-PB

http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/prime-minister-tony-abbott-under-fire-for-commemorating-dday-landings-then-plugging-business/story-fnjfzpyk-1226939537185

-PB

That would almost be acceptable if it were in a television interview with prompts from an interviewer, but for it to be a carefully choreographed youtube video? That's pathetic. What are his advisors thinking?

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight has just ripped right into Tony.

[youtube]F4carpZWlVU[/youtube]

Okay I take this back, she was actually quite good on Q&A tonight, apart from laughing at questioners she did have thought out and measured responses.

That journo was a douche . Cory bernadi was just his typical smary self.

Gold =d> =d> =d>

Q&A was awful last night.

I don't mind a conservative viewpoint, but so many false things on debt, economy, secularity and climate change went unanswered last night from Bernardi and the awful conservative pundit who I had never heard of before. Seems like the ABC are trying to take the attention off them by skewing things too far to the right.

Just on the goings on down in Victoria I think the ALP is in a sticky situation. They could go for an election now and make the most of the current angst against all things Liberal, but this will tie them to the idiot Shaw. Or they can team up with the govt and kick Shaw out, most likely giving them the numbers to call an election anyway (but by then who know what will happen).

Shaw has to go. There's really no need for anyone to get in bed with him with the election so close.

Yeah I think there needs to be an agreement that for the good of whoever may hold government by the end of the year, the two parties need to kick the grub out. Would do the reputation of everyone in parliament good if they got rid of a lunatic instead of jumping at a political opportunity.