This was the Minister for Human Services and Liberal MP for Ashton, Hon. Alan Edward Tudge, speaking to $300-a-head luncheon guests on 26 May 2017 as they dined on slow-braised osso bucco and blueberry fruit tart washed down with wine courtesy of their host, the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) and Multinational sponsor Serco:
“welfare has become a destination, not a safety net”
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, four weeks earlier, in April 2017, 728,500 people were unemployed and looking for work across the nation.
Of these 508,200 were looking for full-time work and 220,300 were looking for part-time work.
Half of all these people will be off unemployment benefits in 4 months or less and only 18.33% of the total number had been unemployed for 12 months or more.
That’s not a bad achievement in a marketplace where the ratio of unemployed people to job vacancies stands at roughly four to one.
Somehow this doesn’t look as though Australians think of living on Centrelink unemployment benefits as a desirable destination rather than as a short-term, below the poverty line safety net.
Which begs the question – just how stupid does Alan Tudge think voters are that he continually spouts such nonsense and expects to be believed.
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