I've seen stupid in my life but...

[Setsuna]

I don't generally talk about my non im@s hobbies here, but well sometimes some things are really that stupid. As in 'Do they like living past the end of this week?' stupid.

Read over this, and see if you can figure out what could possibly go wrong if they go ahead with it.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/commission-of-audit-major-recommendations-20140501-zr2jc.html

If you can figure the problems with the audit report and the recommendations, then you're well read.

If you haven't QUITE figured it out, this requires a little context.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/audit-commission-attacks-idea-of-minimum-wage-20140501-zr2lc.html

And more importantly, this:

The minimum wage is now $622.20 a week, which is 56 per cent of average weekly earnings.

But the commission wants to cut the minimum wage to about $488.90 a week, which is 44 per cent of average weekly earnings.

It wants to phase the change in over 10 years.

Source: SMH

It sounds bad enough, telling all the people on minimum wage (there's a lot of them, about 4-6 mill in the country) that they have to take a 20% cut.

The thing is, that doesn't actually include inflation, which is (currently) at 2% a year.

So in short? They lose about 20% (it's 21.42% and a lot of fractions, if you want to be precise) of their earnings directly, and what they have left is eroded by 2% a year compounding for 10 years (which is roughly 25%, just say. I don't have the compound interest formula on me right now).

Or in laymen's terms, they'll have roughly half their buying power in real terms come 10 years time. All mandated by the government.


... Am I the only person who's thinking 'If they pass this, we're going to see a lynch mob knocking on the door of Parliament House the moment they figure out what's going to happen to them?'

I'm not entirely sure what their defense is going to be. I mean, we are talking about the lower classes, young people and working poor, who as a collective group generally pick violence as an option historically, and have collectively lost it over a LOT less.

Maybe our government is hoping they're all collectively stupid enough they won't figure out what that one thing is going to mean to them? I mean, it only takes five minutes and a calculator...

But yeah, I generally don't bring much up (as most of my work has always been im@s related) but sometimes you see something so frightfully scary you have to bring it up. If they go ahead with this, it'll be one for the record books, for a variety of reasons.

(I don't even object on it on any other basis other than 'I'm surprised that anyone hasn't pointed out to them that actually implementing this isn't just career suicide (because those people can and WILL vote you out) but literal suicide (Because when you lose -50% purchasing power and you're being paid not enough to cover all your expenses to begin with, prison time would probably be preferable considering that it's going to be a lot cheaper to live INSIDE a prison, than outside it!)

[Virgofall]

...if it would become less expensive to live in prison in Australia as a result of these changes, that's just beyond saddening.
Some of these things alone just seem utterly ridiculous in my eyes as it stands, for example...

Single people aged 22-30 without dependents must relocate to high employment areas or lose access to unemployment benefits after 12 months

I would be in such a category, and I'm in the lower class so far as income lies. Moving locations is not cheap. You can relocate as much as you want, but if you can't actually get a job (which probably isn't going to make you a whole lot more money, judging upon these articles), you're just digging yourself deeper, not because you want to but because you're forced to.
Seems that a lot of pollers on the bottom of the article's page agree to some extent, though, and I'd consider this a very good thing.

I'll say this much, the government should not count on said lower class being that stupid. A lot of people are in the lower class because of pure chance, things that wouldn't have been impacted because of their personal skills. The logic is sound, but the methods are beyond questionable...

[Setsuna]

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/unemployed-youth-must-apply-for-40-jobs-a-month-20140612-39yq8.html

Well, I thought I'd give a bit of an update on this, because I'm convinced some people will figure some scary things out:

Baseline stats you might want to know:

- Minimum wage is $622.50 a week.
- Poverty line is roughly $400 a week.

Right now for an umemployed 20 year old male who just left high school/technical school/uni and can't find a job:

- is given roughly 150 a week from newstart arrangements. (They get an extra 75-100 a week if they're independent and living alone)
- Is required to search and prove they tried to find 5 jobs a week (10 a fortnight) for 3 months. You must attend all interviews, and must meet with various people to track your process and other things.
- Is required to do work for the dole (basically government sponsored work) for 6 months, 15 hours a week, while searching with the above requirements.

If they're not employed at that point, cycle back to the first and repeat.

Under the proposed system if you're unemployed 20 and just left education:

- You get paid nothing for the first six months. You are required to search for 40 jobs per month (10 a week) and prove it
Failure to do so means you will get paid nothing for SEVEN months, not six.
- Once you qualify to be paid, you will be paid 125 a week (the budget includes a reduction), and you must work for the dole for 30 hours a week, while completing the first requirement.

If you fail to find employment at this point, you will fall back to the waiting period again.


For extra credit - If you are imprisoned at a prison (medium or high security. High security would include murder, of course):

- You will be required to work for at least 16 hours at a state sponsored job, being paid the minimum wage for those hours (15.50 an hour).
- The state will take away roughly 80% of that, but the remainder is kept for when you are released. You effectively earn about $50-75 a week when it's all said and done.
- All meals, all food, and all equipment is paid for. They might be guarding you, but they've got the declaration of Human Rights to obey if absolutely nothing else.

It doesn't seem like much, until you remember what I said above. The poverty line is $400 a week, which is basically considered the reasonable minimum to cover everything including housing expenses and what have you. You can get by on less than that (Unemployment benefits make people do that of course) but the general consensus is that a lot of people can't.

(It also means that the cost of living in Australia is stupidly high. But that's another topic.)


The above changes will apply if the budget is passed. They've got until the end of this month to try pull it off.

Needless to say, I've been working part time trying to explain the concepts of self preservation to my representative. I just hope someone ELSE doesn't decide to demonstrate the point with live ammunition.