Income Control
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Sydney - Income control is the process of managing welfare recipients' money by governments. This includes not being allowed to purchase alcohol and tobacco, and withholding of money to pay rent and expenses.

The idea comes to you courtesy of an Australian billionaire called "Twiggy" Forrest. Twiggy apparently hasn't twigged to the fact that welfare payments aren't exactly luxurious and generally can't pay for real world costs.

No, a billionaire hasn't suddenly had an original idea, in case you were worrying about that. The idea is based on an income management scheme currently used to manage finances for Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders. The Australian government has said it won't be taking up the idea immediately, "in the next weeks or months."

The government, meanwhile, has imposed truly draconian requirements on Newstart (unemployment welfare) recipients, including going for 40 jobs a month. "Work for the dole" is also a required part of receiving unemployment welfare for those aged up to 59.

School leavers are unable to receive benefits for six months, and are required to apply for jobs anyway to be eligible for benefits. Critics have said that this is a case of the rich punishing the poor, but the poisonous element in the apparently endless tiers of hoops for welfare recipients to jump through has become a serious social issue.

From Ethical Jobs Australia:
Income management like that in place in the Northern Territory and beyond, means that part of a recipient's welfare payment is put aside and can only be spent on certain items like food, clothing and education - and in certain stores. Further to that, things like alcohol and tobacco are banned from being bought with that money.
Even Hitler, Stalin and Karl Marx didn't go that far. ...
Welfare groups have criticised income management in the past with Maree O'Halloran, President of the National Welfare Rights Network describing it as "counterproductive" and that it sends the message that "you're poor because there is something wrong with you."

As well as being ineffective, the current scheme is extremely expensive, costing tax-payers about $1 billion per year. That's $4,900-$7,500 per person, with the average Newstart allowance being just $13,273 per annum.
The howl of fury from the public all over Australian media, of course, has been duly ignored, as befits a Western democracy. This Liberal (conservative) government was elected to replace a truly lost Labor (pseudo- Democrat left) government.

Does this look like massive regulation from a side of politics which claims to be anti-regulation? Yep. The contradiction of a conservative government suddenly using regulation hasn't yet been noticed, apparently.

The theory of this process is that it will save money. In practice, administration of these schemes costs roughly 40 percent or 50 percent of each dollar paid in welfare of various kinds. This is a virtual bureaucracy factory.

Welfare basics

It's also an extremely stupid economic move. Most welfare money goes straight back in to the local economy. That was the original idea of the New Deal, which conservatives have been calling "socialism" for about 70+ years. Welfare was used to put cashflow back in to the Depression, and they're still complaining about it.

Talking about 70 years, the government is also considering lifting the retirement age to 70, because, miraculously, too many old people want pensions and don't have enough money to self-fund their retirements.

None of this was in the election promises. None of it was even party policy. This nauseating, self-righteous attack on the poor has simply appeared out of the shadows. Elsewhere in the news, Australian politicians are resigning all over the place as a result of corruption allegations, but their incomes aren't under any sort of governmental oversight, for some reason.

Australia needs to try something new. We have Dumb and Dumber, and it's really not working.

For many years, Australia has been called "a first rate country run by third rate people." Now, we're not even sure if they can be classified as people, because they certainly don't act like people, or even relate to people. Some of them apparently don't even know what people are, or what they're doing here.

We could achieve better government simply by electing actual people who aren't in a constant haze of assertion and denial. We could hire an unwashed old sock and do better, for that matter. We don't expect much from our politicians, for some reason, but occasional outbreaks of sanity are well regarded, for those intending to stay in office.

Don't be too surprised if this "idea" springs up in your country, and soon.