It takes Balls to Punish the Jobless

The thing about the unemployed is that, well, they’re powerless; or rather, they’re disempowered, particularly by the feeling of being unemployed in a culture in which what you do, not to mention how much you make, pretty much defines who you are and what you’re worth.

On top of that they’re disempowered by the restrictions of poverty – the limitations on food (especially healthy food) and travel.

Unemployed people in Australia are placed by government and its proxies, the Job Networks and ancillary services, under stricter control orders and behavioural requirements than the most oppressed employed people.

What has to be understood is that unemployment in Australia is not so much a political, nor an economic, issue as it is a moral issue.

Unemployed people are suffering.

> Suffering is punishment.

> Punishment is retribution for sin.

> Therefore:    > The unemployed have only themselves to blame.

As my (thankfully ex)-father-in-law would have said, “If they want a job why don’t they just bloodywell get off their arse and go out and get one?”

The unemployed are not just lazy; they’re devious in their determination to avoid work.

Because unemployment is a moral issue and the jobless are immoral (obviously) the attitude towards them and treatment of them by the employment service industry is justified.

The patronising and sometimes almost bullying attitudes of (some , not all)  “case managers” towards the trapped victims — off whose misfortune they feed — is justified by their demonstrated inferiority.

And so it was easy for Rudd and the rest of the increasingly hideously Howard-like government to “overlook” the unemployed in their gladhanding stimulation. They’ve got no power, no comeback and no voice.

If anyone needs a boost, it’s the unemployed.

Those who participate in work for the dole activities receive a fortnightly income boost of … $20.80. This is supposed to compensate them for the additional transport costs required by their attendance up to four days a week and any additional costs associated with travelling to interviews up to 90 minutes away. At a maximum of $1.30 each way for a full-time work for the dole participant, you can see how very generous this feels for people who are struggling to both pay rent and eat food in the same week.

If Rudd wants a bit of instant stimulation, if he wants the money he provides to go immediately into the ‘economy’ rather than being saved and hoarded, then if he gives it to the unemployed it won’t even touch the sides.

Kevin is aware of the problem (the electoral problem, anyway) with the punishment of the jobless his massive package means.

“ The Prime Minister said yesterday the next COAG meeting would develop a plan to deal with 300,000 more people who would be out of work by 2010, in a dramatic upward revision of the unemployment figures that means an extra 100,000 people jobless by June.

“At the top of our agenda we’ll be dealing with the whole question of the problem of unemployment, the problem of labour market programs, the proper co-ordination of commonwealth and state labour market programs … in the most seamless and sophisticated way possible,” Mr Rudd said yesterday.

As the Government tries to create 90,000 jobs in labour-intensive industries across the nation – building schools and homes to slow the expected rise in unemployment – the latest economic and fiscal outlook predicts joblessness will surge to 7 per cent in 2009-10, up from 4.5 per cent at present.

So far the Government has provided no additional assistance for those without jobs, promising it will have more to say on labour market programs in coming weeks. Welfare groups are angry that the unemployed received none of the handouts in Tuesday’s stimulus package, and the dole was kept at its current level. Mr Rudd said he and Employment Minister Julia Gillard had been looking at options to help the unemployed but had not made a final decision.

“We’re going through a whole range of options, dealing with kids just coming out of the school system who are going to find it difficult entering the labour market, dealing with the challenge of people who are in jobs who may lose their jobs, the geographical concentration of that, the adequacy of the information flow, and the adequacy of supporting labour market programs for all the above, and the existing social security network as well,” the Prime Minister said.

Yes, Rudd is going to do what he has always done. Develop a plan, have more to say later, look at options, assess information flow, manage programs, make a ‘final decision’ in the fullness of time.

Sounds a lot like Peter Garrett, doesn’t it.

The jobless don’t really care how shiny the solution is. They don’t really care whether or not it’s bureaucratically-acceptably seamless, shiny and ‘sophisticated’. The Rudd government — like many before it, it’s true — is hopelessly out of touch with the reality of human experience. But then, you can’t expect more from a Sirhumphreybot MkII.

The trouble for Uncle Kev is that giving money to the supposedly profligate, the wasteful, the idle, the smelly, the drug-raddled, the diseased, the incompetent, the incontinent – the, you know, unemployed – is not electorally attractive and they won’t suffer too much backlash from the good voters – the, you know, employed. Not until there are so many unemployed and pissed-off voters that they might look like losing an election.

The sleaze of the government, the proof that it is politicking all around this, was shown in the interview, with Albanese we think, where the subject of the disenfranchising of the unemployed from the Big Splurge was brought up. The Minister claimed that the unemployed had not been left out. They would benefit, he said, from the job creation efforts that would flow from increased infrastructure spending. This on a day when unemployment is supposed to be about four and a half percent and is expected to grow to over seven per cent over the next year.

Explain again to us how the unemployed are going to benefit from job creation schemes which will at best only slightly slow the increase in unemployment.

If you imagine that the Turnbull Costello party would be any better, you haven’t been around much, have you.

They are unremittingly awful.

Just awful.

The only thing still in Kevin Rudd’s favour is that he is not them.

Not quite.

Not yet.

The coalition’s only role, as they say, may be to serve as a warning to others.

Heather Ridout wants the unemployed to be trained up in readiness for the boom times that will follow the recession [SORRY – REALLY VERY SORRY. SORRY.]

The unemployed ALREADY get trained all the time. All sorts of programs; for example: how to write an application letter that looks exactly like all the others (and tells exactly the same lies and is full of precisely the same bullshit) to an employer who is considering two hundred other identical applications, and is totally over it. For instance.

Hundreds of thousands of Australians are already being trained for jobs that simply don’t exist and won’t for a long time.

In fact, the boom industry for the next few years is going to be … TRAINING!

Wait!

That’s the magical solution!

An endless loop of the unemployed employed to train each other to train each other.

Get your Cert IV now!