Australian Labor Party Poverty Trap

The Newstart Allowance for an unemployed single man living in a tent and looking for work from a fixed address on Crown Land in Victoria at the time of his application for assistance was approximately $303.00 per week at 26th March 2012.

Centrelink staff advised at the same time, upon this man’s point that he fully intended to travel from town to town until someone would give him a job, that a single man living in a tent (or sleeping in his car) at no fixed address (i.e., one of the State’s free campsites) would not be able to receive the allowance, since they needed somewhere to send urgent demands for attendance at “one” of the State’s two participating jobsearch centres of his choice.

Centrelink staff advised at the time that he could not choose two.

This man would still have to wait until June or July of the year for assistance, since he’d been keeping a budget and therefore had planned in advance of crossing the border into the next State and still being unemployed, looking for work. He’d have to have less than 3 Grand in the bank, after they’d taken the dollars he could live from off the sale of all of his assets (including his car) into account.

He chose one from two, and committed to paying out $132 a week to live in a tent with shower and laundry facilities, and a fixed address that the Crown Land Law would require him out of a month before the first Newstart payment was due.

Centrelink advised at the time (upon this man’s mention of their State’s Crown Law) he could nevertheless expect to have payments withheld for up to 26 weeks if he moved – provided he give them 14 days notice. If he didn’t, they’d be permanently stopped.

The Newstart Allowance for an unemployed single man forced to remain in a town with no work available on the immediate horizon while looking for work was reduced from approximately $303.00 per week by the Australian Labor Party to approximately $245.00 per week at the beginning of April 2012; payable from June or July 2012.

There are said to be feeling voices inside the Australian Labor Party today who think the Newstart Allowance should be increased by about $50.

Whoop-de-do.

Mitchell Gardens – Bairnsdale

IMG_2134_2.jpg: Yo Pop.

I don’t know much at all about Grandpa Frederiksen. If Jeff Sparrow is right about Bobby Sands, my Grandpa could be Omid Sorousheh for all I know.

No-one ever talked about him, but (or maybe so) I’m fascinated enough by the concept of him to occasionally try to learn something about him. I think it’s connected mostly to the feeling that neither Australia or Canada feel like my home, as much as I love them both. Maybe that’s why I’m not a conservative? Need to keep my options open? I imagine Denmark, Norway or Germany could just as much serve the same role – but I don’t want to go there

for anything more than a holiday (and maybe to track down part of my family).

I don’t want to diss my Grandpa Robinson though, after he went and fought so hard to keep Australia free for me. So maybe I am a bit Tory? I’m getting a bit fed up with being my age and still wavering.

If I was a pearl
I’d want to grow up
to be the first Father
of Pearl to be used
in an inlay.

Thank you, Val :) People who include, including and like (but not necessarily like) you are a blessing.

p.s. I’m going to put this Blackadder link to Pitt the Younger here just because it came to mind while I was trying to figure out what is a Tory, and my spirits lifted when it did.

Imbibed reflection on Tampa affair: The second iteration

You know how that last reflection of mine on the Tampa affair went missing today? The one that was called “Imbibed reflection on Tampa affair”? I’ve been rationalising why I deleted it today and I’ve decided the act of deleting it represents my original point.

I’m not sure how to present a rational argument for a point that’s been actively deleted other than to make two points on either side of the curve it was sitting on and then produce a mathematically precise rule that states the disposition of the curve when plugged in to a threat of flippancy on the one hand and the algorithm of a third-person shooter on the other so as the curve goes through it.

Yes. I think that should just about do it.

~~~

“Every word is a symphony. Won’t you believe me?”