This is what that arch-nanny Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Jenny Macklin had to say today:
Joint Media Release with Warren Snowdon MP, Member for Lingiar
As part of major reforms to the welfare system, the Australian Government will introduce a new income management scheme to protect children and families and help disengaged individuals.
The Government is committed to progressively reforming the welfare and family payment system to foster responsibility and to provide a platform for people to move up and out of welfare dependence.
The reforms will help fight passive welfare and mean that more money goes to food, clothes, rent and less money goes to buying alcohol and gambling.
These reforms deliver on the Government's commitment to a welfare system based on the principles of engagement, participation and responsibility.
Income management is a key tool in the Government's broader welfare reforms to promote responsibility and strengthen families by ensuring that welfare is spent where it is intended - on the essentials of life and in the interests of children.
Income management is delivering key benefits. People are spending more on food, including fresh fruit and vegetables.
From 1 July 2010, a new income management scheme will begin to be rolled out in vulnerable regions, targeted at individuals at risk.
The new scheme will commence across the Northern Territory - in urban, regional and remote areas - as a first step in a national roll out of income management in disadvantaged regions. The Northern Territory has the highest proportion of severely disadvantaged locations in Australia.
The changes are part of a range of welfare conditionality reforms that the Government has already implemented, including the Cape York Welfare Reform trial, child protection income management in Western Australia, 'Learn or Earn'- Youth Participation Requirements, and the School Enrolment and Attendance Measure in Queensland and the Northern Territory.
Participants of the new income management scheme will include:
* people aged 15 to 24 who have been in receipt of specified welfare payments for more than three of the last 6 months;
* people aged 25 and above on specified welfare payments such as Newstart Allowance and Parenting Payment for more than one year in the last two years;
* people referred for income management by child protection authorities; and
* people assessed by Centrelink social workers as requiring income management due to vulnerability to financial crisis, domestic violence or economic abuse.
The new scheme will apply to any individual who meets one of these criteria. It is expected that the roll out across the NT will take around six months.
A person will have 50 per cent of their regular payments, and 100 per cent of lump sum payments, income managed. These funds will be able to be spent on priority items by using the BasicsCard, Centrepay or similar arrangements through Centrelink.
Around 20,000 individuals are expected to be covered by income management in the Northern Territory when it is fully implemented.
The scheme will promote personal responsibility and positive social norms by providing for evidence-based special exemptions.
Requests for exemptions will be assessed on the individual's demonstrated record of responsible parenting, or participation in employment or study, including for example:
* A young person - if they are in full time study or training, or engaging in paid work;
* A parent - who demonstrates responsibility as shown by their children attending school regularly and are up to date with immunisation; or
* A long term Newstart recipient - who has a history of engaging in work, even if this is not permanent.
Individuals will also be able to voluntarily participate in income management, and will be eligible for an incentive of $250 every six months that they remain on voluntary income management.
New matched savings incentives will also be introduced for those on compulsory income management to help them budget and save.
An individual on compulsory income management, who completes an approved money management course and has a pattern of savings over at least 13 weeks, will receive a matched saving contribution from the Government of up to $500 and no more than 50% of the costs of household items, such as whitegoods.
This new scheme of income management will be supported with financial counselling and money management services, totalling $53 million over four years.
Existing provisions for income management in prescribed Northern Territory Indigenous communities will be repealed.
The operation of the new scheme of income management will be carefully evaluated. The first evaluation progress report is expected in 2011/12.
The other income management trials currently underway in Western Australia and Queensland will also continue to be evaluated.
Future roll out elsewhere in Australia will be informed by the evidence gained from this evaluation activity.
Future implementation will also be informed by other criteria including evidence of disadvantage in Australia and consideration of where income management could benefit individuals and families.
The new scheme of income management in the Northern Territory will cost $350 million over four years.
Trigger payments - individuals need to be receiving one of these payments to be subject to income management
Disengaged youth ('under 25s')
* Youth Allowance
* Newstart Allowance
* Special Benefit
* Parenting Payment (Single)
* Parenting Payment (Partnered)
Long-term welfare payment recipient ('over 25s')
* Youth Allowance
* Newstart Allowance
* Special Benefit
* Parenting Payment (Single)
* Parenting Payment (Partnered)
Child Protection and social worker referral
* Youth Allowance
* Newstart Allowance
* Parenting Payment (Partnered)
* Parenting Payment (Single)
* Sickness Allowance
* Special Benefit
* Partner Allowance
* Austudy Payment
* Mature age Allowance
* Parenting Allowance
* Widow Allowance
* Widow B Pension
* ABSTUDY that includes an amount identified as Living Allowance
* Age Pension
* Disability Support Pension
* Wife pension
* Carer Payment
* Bereavement Allowance
* Special Needs Pension
* DVA Service Pension or Income Support Supplement
Defence Force Income Support Allowance (DFISA)
Payments to be income managed - once a person is subject to income management, the following payments will be subject to income management:
* All trigger payments listed above
* Family Tax Benefit
* Baby Bonus
* Maternity Immunisation Allowance
* Carer Allowance
* Child Disability Allowance
* Mobility Allowance
* Pensioner Education Supplement
* Double Orphan Pension
* Social Security Telephone Allowance
* Telephone Allowance
* Utilities Allowance
* a payment under the Assistance for Isolated Children Scheme relating to Homelands Learning Centre students
* ABSTUDY that includes an amount identified as Pensioner Education Supplement
* Bereavement Payment
* NT CDEP transition Payment
* Advance payments of most social security benefits, pensions and allowances, and some DVA service or income support payments and supplements.
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Rudd Government's right-wing paternalism writ large with new income management scheme for Australian welfare recipients
Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Amendments: want to see how polluting industries, climate change deniers and weak politicians are doing you over?
The Australian Labor Party most helpfully posted DETAILS OF PROPOSED CPRS CHANGES on its website yesterday.
Download PDF file
If for some reason this political document becomes so embarrassing that it disappears from the ALP site at some future date, never fear, Peter Martin has uploaded a copy to Scribd here.
I got me a bull bar and I'm a racist git, hee hee hee
Sadly, this letter to the editor in The Daily Examiner on 19 November 2009 recounts an incident which demonstrates that racism is alive and well on the NSW North Coast.
Click on letter to enlarge
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
CPRS major beneficiaries: "rent-seekers, opportunists and blackmailers"
I'm utterly speechless after Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull showed me that I'm totally powerless and about to be 'penniless' in my unwilling support of the big greenhouse gas polluters.Post title quote:Bernard Keane writing in Crikey about who benefits from the Rudd Government's amended Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme
Cartoon: Google Images
What the casual punters think according to The Australian tonight:
While Clarence Valley Council remains silent on latest climate change report, local newspaper spells it out
The Daily Examiner,24 November 2009
In the face of Clarence Valley Council's silence on the Rudd Government's recent report Climate Change Risks to Australia's Coasts, The Daily Examiner's Erin Brady lays the facts before Clarence Valley communities in Sea level rise threatens our homes:
IF sea levels rise 1.1 metres by 2100, large parts of the Clarence Valley could be under water and towns may have to be relocated.
It sounds like a doomsday prediction, but according to a report released this month by the Department of Climate Change titled Climate Change Risks to Australia’s Coast, this warning is based on credible science and is a scenario we should all be preparing for.
The report’s worst case scenario for the Clarence Valley is that up to 900 homes will be at risk of inundation from sea level rise by the end of the century.
At best, about 400 homes will be at risk and that is not including homes to be built in the future.
The report lays the cause of rising sea levels squarely on climate change.
It suggests extreme weather events will also be likely to become more intense, with larger and more damaging storm surges and the possible extension of cyclones further south.
“The current 1-in-100 year event could occur several times a year,” the national report said.
According to computerised modelling based on a 1.1 metre sea level rise, homes near the coast and in low-lying parts of the Valley could be under water or prone to inundation.
This includes large areas of west Yamba, islands in the Clarence River, west of Lawrence, Shark Creek, Lower Coldstream, Tucabia through to Sandy Crossing, Southgate, Ulmarra, Great Marlow and Alumy Creek.
Populated villages along the Clarence Coast would also be prone to inundation, including Iluka, Yamba, Brooms Head, Sandon and Wooli.......
Previous posts on North Coast Voices:
Even the ABC gets sloppy when it goes online
On November 18 ABC Radio's AM program online record for that morning ran with this headline "Australia still highest per capita carbon emitter".
However when you open the link what is actually said is; "MICHAEL RAUPACH: In the basket of developed countries we compare obviously with the US whose emissions are almost flat at the moment, countries like Canada, with the European Union. And in almost all of those cases we exceed the emissions rates of those countries."
So the ABC is insisting that Australia is still highest while one of the authors of the report in question is cleverly ducking giving a direct reply to the radio interviewer's incorrect statement by switching the focus to growth rates.
What is really happening here?
The interviewer is being told that Australia is not the highest carbon dioxide emitter in terms of growth rates, isn't the highest carbon dioxide emitter on a per capita basis and isn't the leading developed nation carbon dioxide emitter on the same per capita basis.
Everyone else seems to know that this country is very slowly falling down the ranks of carbon dioxide gas producers per head of population (now behind the United States if the very thorough International Energy Agency 2009 figures compute), so why on earth is the ABC indulging in sensationalist headlines that reek of The Telegraph's haphazard approach?
Why did Sarah Clarke insist that Australia's CO2 emissions were still rising according to the Carbon Budget 2008 when anyone reading this report and number sets can see that the nation's Co2 was down by 4,918 units last year.
Is the ABC making a bid to be accepted into the University of East Bumcrack School of Journalism?
Smart Aleck
Woolgoolga
These are the decade's 10 most influential moments on the Internet?
The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences thinks these are the moments that really mattered on the Internet. What do you think?
The Ten Most Influential Internet Moments of the Decade
Craigslist expands outside San Francisco (2000)
In 2000, the free classifieds site broadened its reach outside of San Francisco into nine additional U.S. cities, sending chills down the spines of newspaper publishers everywhere. Today Craigslist serves free listings in more than 500 cities in 50 countries, serving as a model for no-frills business and community success and the catalyst for countless jobs, apartments, and just about anything else you can think of.
Google AdWords launches (2000)
With the launch of AdWords in October 2000, Google turned advertising on its head. The self-service ad program opened up the marketplace to any business, no matter how big or small, and allowed advertisers to target their customers with laser-sharp precision.
Wikipedia launches (2001)
Containing 20,000 articles in 18 languages by the end of its first year online, Wikipedia today boasts more than 14 million articles in 271 different languages. The free open-source encyclopedia epitomizes the Internet's power to bring strangers from around the world together to collaborate on projects both big and small.
Napster Shut Down (2001)
Although Napster was shut down in 2001, it opened the file-sharing floodgates. Its demise sparked a wave of innovations that forever changed how we obtain and experience music and video - from Hulu to iTunes to Radiohead famously dropping its label and self-distributing their "In Rainbows" CD online for free.
Google IPO (2004)
Google's IPO, one of the largest in history, put the six year old search engine on the path to becoming the most dominant and influential company of the decade. From gmail and YouTube to Google Earth, Google Maps, and Google Android, the Internet giant and constant innovator is the engine that powers countless aspects of our everyday lives.
Online video revolution (2006)
In 2006, a perfect storm of faster bandwidth, cheaper camcorders, and the groundbreaking use of Adobe's Flash 9 video player by YouTube combined to launch the online video revolution. The trifecta led to a boom in homemade and professional content - the Diet Coke and Mentos guys, lonelygirl15, SNL's Lazy Sunday, and Senator George Allen's "macacagate" - that has reshaped everything from pop culture to politics.
Facebook opens to non-college students and Twitter takes off (2006)
In September 2006, a social networking site for college students changed its user qualifications to include anyone 13 and older with a valid e-mail address. Facebook struck an immediate chord -- and almost overnight, social media went mainstream. Less than a month later, the creators of Twitter acquired the company and its assets from its investors, paving the way for the service to take off in 2007. Both companies took social media mainstream, radically changing the way we connect, collaborate, and communicate with everyone from friends to colleagues to customers.
The iPhone debuts (2007)
The iPhone was released on June 29, 2007. By the end of the weekend, half a million had been sold, and smartphones had gone from a luxury item to a necessity. The iPhone inspired the development of operating systems like Google Android, as well as an app for just about every aspect of modern life. Over the next decade, it's estimated that a billion new users will come to the Internet for the first time through mobile devices.
U.S. Presidential Campaign (2008)
The Internet altered presidential politicking in 2008 much as television had forty years earlier during the Kennedy/Nixon race. From videos like "Obama Girl" and the Reverend Wright clip shaping the debate, to social media mobilizing voters, to record-breaking online fundraising from small donors, every facet of the way campaigns are run was permanently transformed.
Iranian election protests (2009)
When Iran's 2009 presidential election produced fishy results, the opposition took to the tweets -- and the "Twitter Revolution" was born. In fact, it was so vital to organizing demonstrations that the U.S. State Department asked the company to delay planned maintenance.. The protests also highlighted Twitter's key asset as a protest tool: Since most users don't access it through a central website, it's nearly impossible to censor.
