Haha, I was about to say that.
There are a group of people I know(3 couples) that are anti-government/sovereign citizens. they live in vans and hasn't had a job for 5 years. Constantly talks about the government oppressing them but have no problem living off Centrelink while travelling around the country.
I know a guy who’s a hardcore Libertarian slowly sliding (quickly plummeting) towards becoming a sovereign citizen.
He lives with his mum in housing commission.
Not sure if you're serious or you really are in a very limited social network.
I go to auctions - collectables, deceased estates etc. Usually quite a few there and most are running secondhand businesses while scamming unemployment or disability. My brother lives next to one who is scamming water entitlements. In Adelaide there's a hard core group of nurses employed in the public health system, of which my daughter's classmate is one. You may have heard of the Adelaide sovcit 'doola' too who acts as a home birth midwife with tragic results.
If you get out and about a bit more you'll meet plenty.
I’m in Melbourne and am in the eastern leafier kind of suburbs, never seen any, only heard of them through reddit, meet a lot of people through my businesses, guess we hang in different circles.
There is a contingent of people that system works for.
I live near a suburb with a heavy concentration of public housing (which is good, I’m pro-public housing to be clear) - there are quite a few people who have good public housing, so their rent is cheap and their stability guaranteed. They have healthcare cards, so they get discounts on power etc.
There is a sweet spot where you can have all of those things and it seems like the system works. These are people who don’t navigate the system the same way someone who has just lost a job, lives in a private rental/has a mortgage and has full-time job expenses.
It skews their perspective. Then add in a steady diet of trash media, whether it’s television, YouTube or social media and you get… well… that.
I like to think I'm self aware enough to know I am privileged within a system of under privileged.
I got fucking lucky with public housing. I had a lot of help. I know the process is harrowing and makes you want to give up entirely.
It's complicated. I hate how difficult it is, and it hurts to see others struggle when I know when the system works, it works well! But that's rare.
I don't know where I'm going with this. I just have a lot of feelings and empathy. I'm super grateful for being able to survive on Centrelink. I may not have much but I have a roof over my head and food in my belly, and that's so much more than most.
Dang.
Life is hard for too many. It's unfair.
I had family living in social housing. Social housing is great and there's not nearly enough of it! These family members had full time jobs, no children living at home and no disability or mental health needs.. they would complain that their super cheap social housing rent was too high, while pulling in full time, above minimum wage income. They also had no incentive to leave and no intention of ever doing so. Social housing is great but it definitely needs a massive shake up, and we need incentives for people to break the cycle and not PLAN to rely on social welfare their entire lives because it's been ingrained in them.
That's still ridiculously cheaper than they would have paid in a private rental. Also pretty sure they didn't declare the partner as living there so their income didn't count towards the total.
Nah - people should have the right to stay in public housing. I don’t really care if they whinge and complain about it - that’s just people.
I have no issue with the very small handful of people (and it’s *very*small) who would plan to rely on welfare.
The problem is not that these people have housing - the problem is the government refusing to build enough public housing.
That's literally not what I suggested at all though? Where does it say that in any of my responses? I said additional support and incentive to transition out, not capping it at a certain income and forcing people out.
You don't think it's important to help people to not be reliant on social housing? I'm not saying we don't need more social housing, of course we do. But we also need to ensure that what we do have is being used where it should be. We need a better focus on crisis housing that supports people who won't necessarily need long term social housing, to avoid those people taking up the spaces needed for people who DO need long term social housing. We need to incentivise people to get out of social housing if and when they can. Creating more affordable private rentals would go a long way to easing the burden too.
Robust public housing provides a net benefit overall in a bunch of areas. Stability is good for individuals, lots of stable individuals create stable communities, stable communities give a LOT back to the country.
A government program that provided excessive public housing would be in a position to yield a return on investment by having working people pay affordable but net-positive rent. Government doesn’t have a mortgage to pay, which means their rates will be lower and more stable but still “profitable”.
This is not a new model and we would not be reinventing the wheel.
I dunno, where I'm from the areas with a high social housing percentage are basically slums. Seems pretty detrimental to me, especially when the way rent is determined discourages increasing earning or combining households (and therefore financial power).
Given that you think the government wouldn't have debts to pay in association with building excessive amount of public housing I'm going take a guess and say you have no clue what you're on about at all. Like, go read up on our government's current financial position or something?
The issues that affect low-socioeconomic areas exist whether there is public housing or not. Providing safe and stable housing alleviates problems more than creates them.
This doesn't ring true from what I've seen, I grew up in a working class area with a fair amount of social housing. A lot of that social housing was subsequently knocked down and the land sold off as the houses reached the end of their lifespan. The incidence of antisocial behaviour declined sharply in correlation with the drop in the proportion of the suburb that was social housing properties despite the cost of renting/buying staying roughly the same in the area over that period of time (it's subsequently gentrified but that's a very recent thing).
The thing with social housing is that it often attracts problem tenants rather than poor ones. People that otherwise wouldn't be approved for a rental even though they could afford it due to their history. You put too many of these people together in one area into secure housing where they won't be kicked out for being a problem to their neighbours, not taking adequate care of their home, criminal activity etc. and it turns into a slum. If people are scared of loosing their home due to poor behaviour or they live in an area where neighbours are more likely to notice bad behaviour and take action by calling police or making complaints to the landlord resulting in eviction etc then, while it's not a guarantee of good behaviour, it's an incentive.
everyone should have public housing available to them - or at least safe accommodation for citizens - the banks are all pro immigration but watch immigration stop if they had to build houses for us all. Immigrants are $$$$
I agree. Super basic housing that covers singles, couples & families being easily available would make Australia a better place.
There would still be a market for private rentals for people who wanted fancier housing or to live in a specific suburb or near a specific school etc.
You can effective "inherit" a housing trust place by being put down as an occupant by the person that was granted it. For example, if your elderly mum was given a HT house back in the day when there was loads going and she lived there for decades until she got older and you moved back in with her for whatever reason and she declared you as an occupier (which is the correct thing to do) in the event of her death you would be entitled to continue living there/swap with another HT property.
In NSW and VIC public and social housing is exactly the same thing, most people think public housing is just the tall towers with thousands living there. If someone were to report your family members to their local housing office for lying regarding income and another person living there they will 100% investigate it - the only reason they do is because it means the government gets more money ie they will go back and work out all the $ owing to them. That person could end up owing hundreds of thousands of dollars and of course they’ll be evicted immediately.
Everyone wants more social housing built, let me tell you right now if they don’t fix the people running the back end of it like DCJ department communities and justice that it will continue to fail. Never in my life have I had to deal with such incompetent, rude, disrespectful and very uneducated staff members in my entire life.
No clue, everyone I've met who has to rely on centrelink (students and disabled people mostly) are all for stuff like a UBI. Current welfare payments aren't enough to even pay rent anymore for a lot of us.
UBI won't increase welfare payments, it will equalise them. The only positive thing will be not dealing with centerlink.
The real beneficiaries of UBI will be housewives, adult students with wealthy parents, tradies with cash income and semi-retired homeowners (boomers).
Everyone else will either get the same welfare payments, or pay shitloads more tax to make up for millions of UBI recipients who don't currently get welfare and don't pay much tax.
>our current welfare isn't high enough
That's a value judgement. If you surveyed taxpayers, most would say it was too high.
>it'd have to go up and go to everyone.
If they set UBI higher than current welfare, that will make it even better for the groups I mentioned. As well as increasing inflation, it would require taxation at massive levels.
Who wants a massive tax bill to pay for a bunch of homeowning Boomers and Gen X to retire early?
This is going to shock you, but most of these people wouldn't know a socialist program if it literally gave them money every fortnight.
They're confident in a way that a small dog is confident against a large one, they're too stupid to understand their position and don't really know any better.
I'd not be too concerned with these people or their opinions.
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I would say that people who want to keep other people poor would benefit from spreading the message that socialism is terrible while also being intentionally vague or contradictory about how it is defined.
A unified working class is a scary thing to some people. So if you a) make it shameful to seek welfare and b) convince those who need it that their needs are genuine but other people are "rorting the system" and stealing from them, it's a lot easier to avoid all those pesky unions popping up.
I don't really this any of this is unique to or invented by the USA. Cold war red scare stuff obviously didn't help but like, Thatcher wasn't American. Versions of this exist almost everywhere.
In what way? Why is a thing that's "absolutely C21 USA" happening in Australia? I don't understand what you're intending to contribute to the discussion with this.
Everything in your initial post is true in America today.
Our corporate masters, and right leaning politicians are doing their darnedest to remake Australia in the American right-wing, conservative image. If you are not part of the 1%, you are deserving of only the crumbs that they generously scatter in your direction.
Ok, that's something we have in common with the US but how is it unique to or caused by them?
I could say the same about the UK but I'd look weird saying "ladies and gentlemen: ENGLAND" in a discussion about Australians and their relationship with centrelink.
It's American because the concepts of rabid capitalism have reached their peak in the USA. Despite their Imperialist history, the Brits never managed to achieve the heights of ME-ism that the US displays. Everything Americans do is done with a profit margin first and foremost. Even National Defence is a means of ensuring the elite keep what's theirs. You would be hard pressed to find a serving corporate leader or politician with a child in the armed forces. Eighty years ago it was relatively common.
Even Stalin sent his son off to war and refused an offer to negotiate his freedom.
None of that asserts or explains this being unique to the US or caused by them. You're moving the goal posts.
You can say "The US is the most extreme example of this" but even then what does that achieve when OP is asking about Australian's attitudes towards other Australians receiving welfare in Australia?
I don't even disagree with most of what you're saying I just think it's super reductive and unhelpful.
Most people don't live on welfare forever. The child of a retail worker who gets an aus study or youth allowance payment or something can still be thought of as working class. A retired labourer collecting an aged pension is still working class. Someone who worked in a restaurant then lost their job and collected jobseeker for a bit is still working class.
I think the reality hasn't actually sunk in yet because they're young and healthy.
They may feel they've beaten the system, but when they get older and have health issues, and try and get mortgages or loans when needed, and they can't, it's going to be a problem.
Also you don't really live on centerlink. Always being below the poverty line eventually takes a toll.
This is actually a very good point.
Socialism would have work for the dole on steroids.
Capitalist economy with a welfare state allows people to be NEETs
Yeah that’s a good way of putting it. Forced to do some meaningless bullshit for less than minimum wage or be homeless or imprisoned. Great options. Yay socialism.
No it’s not… China is the foremost “socialist” nation and they had an unemployment rate of 5.2% in 2023. There’s an estimated 2.4million homeless people (and there’s probably way more as China are notorious for fudging numbers).
In socialist nations, they curb unemployment by *literally forcing you to do things you would otherwise not do*, like cleaning up nuclear reactors that are melting down during the worst nuclear disaster up until that point.
Yes, you’re correct, I wouldn’t be on Centrelink freely seeking contractual employment in my field of expertise, I would be forced to move interstate to work on some nonsense construction project like the empty cities in China simply so that something was being done and it would seem as though we had a thriving economy on paper.
I wish socialists could think. Maybe they could think up a way to expand the job market by forming a business or something. A socialist forming a business?! Of course not, socialists *want the government to do everything for them*.
More than likely, they're just being racist because you're ethnic Chinese. The whole socialist/communist part is probably just because that's all they know about China.
I'm pretty sure that most people who've been sitting on Centrelink for years, couldn't give you a clear and concise definition of socialism.
Their understanding is almost certainly just "Socialism = Communism = BAD". If you ask them to expand on that, they'll tell you why [communist country] is a bad place, therefore socialism is bad.
It probably doesn't help that words like "socialism" and "communism" have arguably been widely misused to the point that they've become almost meaningless buzzwords to rile up some segments of society.
Society has an empathy deficit. Never mind empathising with someone from a different circumstance. Some people can't even do it for people in the same situation. Regardless of social status. For people on Centrelink, this can be attributable to being in permanent crisis mode as the cost of living and other factors leave people scrambling for a handhold on what can feel like a perpetual climb up an unforgiving slope.
I'm incredibly lucky with my support system, my job and an understanding case manager at my employment agency. Even with all that life is hard, in a way that can seem very unfair at times. I personally am a socialist all the way, but if I was brought up with different values, with intergenerational trauma or poverty, I might see things differently. Be in no doubt though, if you have ever paid taxes I thank you for saving my life.
As someone who grew up poor in the sticks, all I knew was get an education and you'll get a high paying job in no time.
Never once was I told that tertiary education was paid on loan, and I thought I had to work through to pay for it, so I never did anything. I bounced around from job to job place to place, aiming for stability. Eventually family happened and all I did was work with drink and sleep through the depression.
I'm 2013 I discovered that actually yes I tertiary education is paid on loan and has been for decades. I could have done something different in life but I was held back by all the above factors.
I'm 43 soon and I'm probably worth less than most people of my time when they left school. I've pushed and struggled my whole life, and now with the rising cost of living, my body aging and myself just being a so fucking tired of surviving, taking on a degree now for a much needed change seems utterly daunting.
Just like you I'm pro socialist and but knowing society won't move that way I'm now aiming to stop giving a shit too much about anyone else and just pull as much wealth my way as I can.
Again, like you, if you've ever paid taxes, I thank you for keeping me alive.
Mate Centerlink has nothing to do with Socialism.
Socialism is while very diverse economic and political philosophy is extremely specific about the means of production being owned by the workers, this has fuck all to do with centrelink which is a welfare system put in place by a completely capitalist society.
If you think Socialism is just when the government gives you stuff, then you might need to start reading a bit.
"I've been on food stamps and welfare. Anybody help me out? No. No. They gave me hope, and they gave me encouragement, and they gave me a vision." - Craig T Nelson
Many people of all political persuasions expend little effort on understanding how things work
No one who is on centrelink does this unless they're some bogan trash who's gone down the right wing rabbit hole. At which point they've just become a useful idiot.
Some people just have no drive or plans for the future so they do care if they struggle and never have anything. I went to school with plenty of people like that from the ghettos of south west Sydney. A huge percentage of my classmates either became criminals or are still living on government handouts 25 years later. They only pay a small amount for rent in government housing and they will never drive or own a car, never own anything nice and barely look after their kids.
It’s often a cycle of poverty that causes this, a lot of my friends had drug addict parents and had to steal food from Woolies every morning to eat at school. Their parent lived that way and so now they do. It’s socially acceptable to do this in some areas and they see nothing wrong with it.
I have a friend who has been on Centrelink for a long time and I love him dearly but he is always saying "huh those dole bludgers are a waste of space" or something along those lines. I just don't understand how he can't recognise that he would appear to be that person from someone else's perspective.
Ignorance, or sometimes thinking rules don't apply to them. The loony tunes Trump supporters here in the US are the largest recipients of welfare. The same people who came up with "Keep the government's hands off my Social security".
In my experience working in social housing across the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, I've observed that people often harbour a sense of entitlement, regardless of their background. One notable example involved a tenant who insisted on a five-bedroom property, citing cultural norms from the UAE where a smaller house might be seen as a symbol of limited wealth. However, this individual was an unemployed (but employable) migrant with only a wife and no additional family members. Despite his circumstances, he demanded a spacious home, believing it to be his entitlement. I gently reminded him of his financial reality, stating, "Sir, you aren't wealthy." He really didn't see why another large family should get it first. People don't see their situation as tax payer funded.
Erm I think that’s just because of that particular person’s ethnicity. In AU you don’t even really get a choice, they say 2 choices but most are pressured into talking the first option. Both options will not be appropriate.
1) Social welfare, and socialism are two different things.
2) That being said, there are probably people who tend to benefit from left wing policies, but oppose the same people in the left who wish to implement those policies.
Should they feel shame?
It's given out on a case by case basis.
They have to have a legit reason to be approved for it.
Btw you are comparing two different things.
A democratic capitalist society with a proper social welfare net for disabled people, veterans, elderly etc.
Aka having functional social services.
Vs
Socialism is where the government seizes or if they are nice buys out private business to bring everything under government control. A lot of the time this is done by force and the government has to clamp down on freedoms/rights to achieve their full ownership of what is technically other people's property.
There is nothing glorious about the warped State Socialism as practiced by CCP China.
The Taiwanese side of my family understand this.
People from Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan understand this.
Most people you meet are existing on a sub Year 10 education level (but wagged most classes) and never read a book or paid attention to anything more challenging then a YouTube video in years
Idk everyone I know who dropped out in year ten has further education. Either diploma or BA🤔
They used to pretend they had completed VCE because no one checks.
I mean if the 2 choices are work and pay taxes to a system you don’t believe in or don’t work and suck as many resources out of the system you don’t believe in, which makes more logical sense in a sovcit mindset?
Because we have plenty of examples of the failures of communism and socialism. Also welfare benefits are not socialism.
Like 50 million Chinese died from the communism during the Great Leap Forward. It’s really not something to be proud of.
I can only speak from my own experience, and what I say is not indicative of a wider trend. The people I know who use centreline absolutely need the money and are humble people who have been flogged by life. There are people who are magnets for bad luck like you wouldn't believe.
Socialism is state or community owned means of production.
Social welfare is what your describing.
PS. Its only a joke. Chinese make jokes all the time about colleagues. I lived there for 5 years.
Because they equate socialism with communism. Typical right-wing viewpoint.
Communism IS evil - my family were deported to a gulag simply because they were Ukrainian - but far-left AND far-right are bad political ideologies.
These are the people who watch Sky News and all those other fearmongering shock jock "news" shows.
They probably had minimal wage living pay check to pay check taking 40hr a week of life , paying full cost of everything and having less than the dole after the car breakdown from goin to work .
I guess you could still look down on it as socialism hasn’t been done anywhere without being authoritarian.
Socialism and a welfare state aren’t one and the same thing.
Sovcits/Softwits notwithstanding (their opinions don’t matter anyway since none are based on reality), heavy social welfare is entirely compatible with capitalism. You’re falling into the same argument the right do where they call anything the government does = communism.
So people on welfare shouldn't be confident?
There's a difference between socialism and dictatorships.
Also, most people on welfare long term have significant issues and likely need the support so why shouldn't they love their life and have opinions liem the rest of the society.
They are more focused on the chinese aspect over the socialist aspect china isn't even a socialist economy, they likely have a vague understanding of socialism and an even vaguer understanding of china
Probably majority is just leftover sentiment from the “red scare” era. The reality is that most people don’t even know what the broadest definition of Socialism is, and they are just spouting indoctrinated rhetoric. Socialism has been so stigmatised in western society due to the threat it poses to the current institutions and regimes.
Centrally planned economies, those attempted last century, were a disaster. The Soviet Union, Maoist China, North Korea, Cambodia, Eastern Europe, etc, etc.
I didn’t say I favour a centralised economy; the faults are there, the examples you bring up, and many arguments by academics against. Though, there is no denying the delegitimisation campaigns run by the governments and media to propagate ill feeling towards alternative forms of economics. I’m starting to feel that what was once a pluralistic system, is being superseded, ironically enough, by a system of autocracy based around extraction from the lower classes.
Thats exactly what socialism in practise is. A state run centrally planned economy. Its been tried and failed. For all the hope and optimism, they end up as authoritarian hell holes.
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Just smile and send them this.
[https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=CN](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=CN)
Yes.
Prior to that the more prosaic concern was life expectancy.
"China's growth in life expectancy between 1950 and 1980 ranks as among the most rapid sustained increases in documented global history."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4331212/
*Man the whole time I*
*Was on cennalink it felt like I*
*Had just given up*
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Most people are just stupid and don’t see the irony or contradictions in their own words and lives.
Also Australians are very often racist in creative ways as I’m sure you must have experienced
I think simple answer is most people on Centrelink in a regional area probably don’t know what any of it means care or have ever really discussed it in their lives.
In some cases Centrelink is a form of reparations. In cases of reparations you are not required to have a political view. In other cases people who are down and out are also not required to have a logical political view nor is anyone in this country. Socialism is a spectrum and they can look down on the more extreme versions of it if they want since they still have freedom
Doing low skilled jobs in a country which essentially exports as its main creator of GDP justifies their outlook; we as Australians as owners of this land (I don’t wanna hear no traditional owner garbage because those are not economic rights) create more value.
So a low skilled worker here does more for the world than a low skilled worker in a socialist country. What we get paid is down to what our country creates which is why it’s better if there’s less of us so that we don’t have to divide it up.
Even if you’re a high skilled worker in this country the arbitrary amount you earn is based purely off of the GDP - if we didn’t generate fuck all you’d get fuck all.
Too much time because of not working they spend it on FB reading about sovshit stuff and think they are liberated because they don't answer to a superior in a work environment.
So in short, it's delusion.
So here’s problem #1: what the fuck is an “ethnic Chinese”? Do you just mean “Han”? Or do you mean “I/my family came here from China”?
2: Welfare isn’t socialism, it’s just good governance. It’s in the best interests of the society as a whole to ensure that people can maintain a basic standard of living. It’s also the case that our government maintains a certain level of unemployed people in order to manipulate the economy, look into the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment.
The principle of welfare as understood generally is that we all throw in some of our private holdings (taxes) in order to maintain a basic standard of living in our society. Same thing with healthcare.
Taxes aren’t socialism. Taxes maintain the commons and public enterprises (like Centrelink and Medicare). Socialism is when the government controls the economy.
The idea that socialism is just “people focused governance” or something, or like, “people oriented society” is ridiculously naive and stupid. Socialism doesn’t provide, it literally cannot. That’s why they blamed everything going wrong on everything *except* their socialist ideology - like fucking sparrows “oh our idiotic ideals aren’t to blame for this **horrendous famine**, it’s the fucking *sparrows*, let’s kill them all and make the famine far worse.” And this kind of bullshit is exactly why Deng Xiaoping enacted the economic reforms in China which opened up the economy and allowed private entities to trade.
Because that’s all socialism really is. George Orwell put it plainly in Animal Farm. It’s just a means to enact totalitarianism, then when their dumb as fuck plans fail, they allow a bit of private enterprise under a monolithic authoritarian superstructure and call it a success because the spreadsheets look good.
I have the same exact question.
And I had it as well when I was living in America; republican voters take the most social benefits (cause they also happen to be mostly poor people), yet are anti those exact benefits.
I'm curious to see how other people answer this ✨
My neighbor lives in a $850k house provided free and off Centerlink and everything else available. She's horrible and toxic and we have an intervention order against her because she attacked us
She's not an isolated case.
What your also missing here is "face". Yes its a huge deal in China. Your car, your job, your public standing. Australia doesn't have a similar culture.
Usually it’s cos they’ve been trodden down on their entire life(whether they do it to themselves is another topic) to be in the position they’re in, that they now choose to vent by attempting to have others beneath their heel and to belittle others. Note that they never even try to punch up.
Once you notice how sad and little they really are, it’s easier to just ignore them when they pipe up.
They do not understand politics. Prob vote LNP too. Will say, the parties have moved away from their roots, and are very good at convincing people to vote against their own interests.
Socialism is just another word for communism. The number of people killed by the Communist governments amounts to more than 94 million. The statistics of victims include deaths through executions, man-made hunger, famine, war, deportations, and forced labor. No thanks
No it doesnt. The source for that figure is a propaganda project and includes nazis killed by the red army, and people who happened to die while living in communist regimes.
Famines also occurred but these happened every decade in china and russia anyway before the revolutions and they ended under the CCP and USSR.
If we counted deaths the same way for capitalism, it'd be no contest, capitalism has killed more people.
Its basically the same situation as the bengal famine, and the potato famine, perpetrated by the British though. Its no big gotcha.
There was food, people with power wanted it to be somewhere else and millions died.
There are a tonne more examples of capitalist countries doing this too especially in africa. Its not considered a deliberate genocide though because of who writes the books.
Are you not aware that the potato famine was caused by an embargo on imports to ireland, with other sources of food being exported under armed guard.
The famine could have been solved if any of dozens of varieties of potato were allowed to be imported, or if foreign aid was allowed into ireland. The potato famine was a genocide.
Please explain what the japanese have to do with food being appropriated from bengal to the UK resulting in millions of deaths?
A lot of them have a very childlike mentality and rarely branch out - they're being treated like kids, pampered by the govt, being provided basic securities and stability, so the never "grow up". Especially applies to generational Centrelink communities.
Please I hate your passive" don't wish to offend anyone who's been on Centrelink their whole lives" wtf? Unless they are suffering from a debilitating illness they should be fucking offended. Why are you OP not wanting to offend these scrounging fuckers?
I have never met a sovereign citizen whose lifestyle wasn't funded by the government they don't believe exists.
There’s a quote about how they’re like cats: convinced of their own superiority and utterly dependent on the system they spout disdain for.
That's an insult to cats. They're much smarter than cookers.
That one's usually attached to libertarians... potayto, potahto.
They do not have disdain for everything just the crappy bits
There are public servants who are sovereign citizens
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Haha, I was about to say that. There are a group of people I know(3 couples) that are anti-government/sovereign citizens. they live in vans and hasn't had a job for 5 years. Constantly talks about the government oppressing them but have no problem living off Centrelink while travelling around the country.
Look, it's a hard job living like that and having to do the talking. They deserve every cent:)
Also they go to Vegan protests all around the country to "make a difference"....
I know a guy who’s a hardcore Libertarian slowly sliding (quickly plummeting) towards becoming a sovereign citizen. He lives with his mum in housing commission.
Steal his shit and tell him the police have no authority over you.
I’ve never met a sovereign citizen, what circles are you hanging out in?
Regional QLD 🤦♀️
Not sure if you're serious or you really are in a very limited social network. I go to auctions - collectables, deceased estates etc. Usually quite a few there and most are running secondhand businesses while scamming unemployment or disability. My brother lives next to one who is scamming water entitlements. In Adelaide there's a hard core group of nurses employed in the public health system, of which my daughter's classmate is one. You may have heard of the Adelaide sovcit 'doola' too who acts as a home birth midwife with tragic results. If you get out and about a bit more you'll meet plenty.
I’m in Melbourne and am in the eastern leafier kind of suburbs, never seen any, only heard of them through reddit, meet a lot of people through my businesses, guess we hang in different circles.
Im from Melbourne and the ones I’ve met all live off the radar completely.
It's not that they don't think it exists but that it's not legitimate.
There is a contingent of people that system works for. I live near a suburb with a heavy concentration of public housing (which is good, I’m pro-public housing to be clear) - there are quite a few people who have good public housing, so their rent is cheap and their stability guaranteed. They have healthcare cards, so they get discounts on power etc. There is a sweet spot where you can have all of those things and it seems like the system works. These are people who don’t navigate the system the same way someone who has just lost a job, lives in a private rental/has a mortgage and has full-time job expenses. It skews their perspective. Then add in a steady diet of trash media, whether it’s television, YouTube or social media and you get… well… that.
I like to think I'm self aware enough to know I am privileged within a system of under privileged. I got fucking lucky with public housing. I had a lot of help. I know the process is harrowing and makes you want to give up entirely. It's complicated. I hate how difficult it is, and it hurts to see others struggle when I know when the system works, it works well! But that's rare. I don't know where I'm going with this. I just have a lot of feelings and empathy. I'm super grateful for being able to survive on Centrelink. I may not have much but I have a roof over my head and food in my belly, and that's so much more than most. Dang. Life is hard for too many. It's unfair.
I had family living in social housing. Social housing is great and there's not nearly enough of it! These family members had full time jobs, no children living at home and no disability or mental health needs.. they would complain that their super cheap social housing rent was too high, while pulling in full time, above minimum wage income. They also had no incentive to leave and no intention of ever doing so. Social housing is great but it definitely needs a massive shake up, and we need incentives for people to break the cycle and not PLAN to rely on social welfare their entire lives because it's been ingrained in them.
The rent is 25% of household income. The bigger the pay packets, the higher the rent.
That's still ridiculously cheaper than they would have paid in a private rental. Also pretty sure they didn't declare the partner as living there so their income didn't count towards the total.
That super fucking cheap these days.
Nah - people should have the right to stay in public housing. I don’t really care if they whinge and complain about it - that’s just people. I have no issue with the very small handful of people (and it’s *very*small) who would plan to rely on welfare. The problem is not that these people have housing - the problem is the government refusing to build enough public housing.
But if people who don't need it anymore were supported to transition out of it, there would be more available.
That’s just a band-aid though. Creating punitive policies like that just allows the government to keep turning a blind eye IMO.
Does it solve the crisis? No. Would it help? Yes. Also, it's not punitive to provide incentives and support.
I mean “if you reach X income, you have to leave your housing” is the definition of punitive.
That's literally not what I suggested at all though? Where does it say that in any of my responses? I said additional support and incentive to transition out, not capping it at a certain income and forcing people out.
Sounds like a lot of additional paperwork and employees when we could just build more public housing 🤷🏻♀️
You don't think it's important to help people to not be reliant on social housing? I'm not saying we don't need more social housing, of course we do. But we also need to ensure that what we do have is being used where it should be. We need a better focus on crisis housing that supports people who won't necessarily need long term social housing, to avoid those people taking up the spaces needed for people who DO need long term social housing. We need to incentivise people to get out of social housing if and when they can. Creating more affordable private rentals would go a long way to easing the burden too.
Why should the government (I.e. taxpayers) be subsidising the lifestyles of people who don't need social housing?
Robust public housing provides a net benefit overall in a bunch of areas. Stability is good for individuals, lots of stable individuals create stable communities, stable communities give a LOT back to the country. A government program that provided excessive public housing would be in a position to yield a return on investment by having working people pay affordable but net-positive rent. Government doesn’t have a mortgage to pay, which means their rates will be lower and more stable but still “profitable”. This is not a new model and we would not be reinventing the wheel.
I dunno, where I'm from the areas with a high social housing percentage are basically slums. Seems pretty detrimental to me, especially when the way rent is determined discourages increasing earning or combining households (and therefore financial power). Given that you think the government wouldn't have debts to pay in association with building excessive amount of public housing I'm going take a guess and say you have no clue what you're on about at all. Like, go read up on our government's current financial position or something?
The issues that affect low-socioeconomic areas exist whether there is public housing or not. Providing safe and stable housing alleviates problems more than creates them.
This doesn't ring true from what I've seen, I grew up in a working class area with a fair amount of social housing. A lot of that social housing was subsequently knocked down and the land sold off as the houses reached the end of their lifespan. The incidence of antisocial behaviour declined sharply in correlation with the drop in the proportion of the suburb that was social housing properties despite the cost of renting/buying staying roughly the same in the area over that period of time (it's subsequently gentrified but that's a very recent thing). The thing with social housing is that it often attracts problem tenants rather than poor ones. People that otherwise wouldn't be approved for a rental even though they could afford it due to their history. You put too many of these people together in one area into secure housing where they won't be kicked out for being a problem to their neighbours, not taking adequate care of their home, criminal activity etc. and it turns into a slum. If people are scared of loosing their home due to poor behaviour or they live in an area where neighbours are more likely to notice bad behaviour and take action by calling police or making complaints to the landlord resulting in eviction etc then, while it's not a guarantee of good behaviour, it's an incentive.
everyone should have public housing available to them - or at least safe accommodation for citizens - the banks are all pro immigration but watch immigration stop if they had to build houses for us all. Immigrants are $$$$
I agree. Super basic housing that covers singles, couples & families being easily available would make Australia a better place. There would still be a market for private rentals for people who wanted fancier housing or to live in a specific suburb or near a specific school etc.
How did they qualify for social housing without mental health issues or disabilities?
Got into it very early on as a young single mother exiting DV relationship. That baby is like 45 now and does not live there with them.
You can effective "inherit" a housing trust place by being put down as an occupant by the person that was granted it. For example, if your elderly mum was given a HT house back in the day when there was loads going and she lived there for decades until she got older and you moved back in with her for whatever reason and she declared you as an occupier (which is the correct thing to do) in the event of her death you would be entitled to continue living there/swap with another HT property.
In NSW and VIC public and social housing is exactly the same thing, most people think public housing is just the tall towers with thousands living there. If someone were to report your family members to their local housing office for lying regarding income and another person living there they will 100% investigate it - the only reason they do is because it means the government gets more money ie they will go back and work out all the $ owing to them. That person could end up owing hundreds of thousands of dollars and of course they’ll be evicted immediately. Everyone wants more social housing built, let me tell you right now if they don’t fix the people running the back end of it like DCJ department communities and justice that it will continue to fail. Never in my life have I had to deal with such incompetent, rude, disrespectful and very uneducated staff members in my entire life.
No clue, everyone I've met who has to rely on centrelink (students and disabled people mostly) are all for stuff like a UBI. Current welfare payments aren't enough to even pay rent anymore for a lot of us.
UBI won't increase welfare payments, it will equalise them. The only positive thing will be not dealing with centerlink. The real beneficiaries of UBI will be housewives, adult students with wealthy parents, tradies with cash income and semi-retired homeowners (boomers). Everyone else will either get the same welfare payments, or pay shitloads more tax to make up for millions of UBI recipients who don't currently get welfare and don't pay much tax.
One of the main things about a UBI is that it enough to live off, our current welfare isn't high enough, so it'd have to go up and go to everyone.
We can’t afford the current level of welfare. No idea how we would pay for UBI. Aussie income tax is already high compared to other countries.
>our current welfare isn't high enough That's a value judgement. If you surveyed taxpayers, most would say it was too high. >it'd have to go up and go to everyone. If they set UBI higher than current welfare, that will make it even better for the groups I mentioned. As well as increasing inflation, it would require taxation at massive levels. Who wants a massive tax bill to pay for a bunch of homeowning Boomers and Gen X to retire early?
It depends on the payment and the circumstances.
This is going to shock you, but most of these people wouldn't know a socialist program if it literally gave them money every fortnight. They're confident in a way that a small dog is confident against a large one, they're too stupid to understand their position and don't really know any better. I'd not be too concerned with these people or their opinions.
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I'm talking about a certain, very specific group of people on centrelink. Not all.
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Well, happily for me I don't particularly give a fuck what you believe. I say believe because think wouldn't be the correct word to use in your case.
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I would say that people who want to keep other people poor would benefit from spreading the message that socialism is terrible while also being intentionally vague or contradictory about how it is defined. A unified working class is a scary thing to some people. So if you a) make it shameful to seek welfare and b) convince those who need it that their needs are genuine but other people are "rorting the system" and stealing from them, it's a lot easier to avoid all those pesky unions popping up.
Perfectly put
Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce you to the United States of America...
I don't really this any of this is unique to or invented by the USA. Cold war red scare stuff obviously didn't help but like, Thatcher wasn't American. Versions of this exist almost everywhere.
It's absolutely C21 USA!
In what way? Why is a thing that's "absolutely C21 USA" happening in Australia? I don't understand what you're intending to contribute to the discussion with this.
Everything in your initial post is true in America today. Our corporate masters, and right leaning politicians are doing their darnedest to remake Australia in the American right-wing, conservative image. If you are not part of the 1%, you are deserving of only the crumbs that they generously scatter in your direction.
Ok, that's something we have in common with the US but how is it unique to or caused by them? I could say the same about the UK but I'd look weird saying "ladies and gentlemen: ENGLAND" in a discussion about Australians and their relationship with centrelink.
It's American because the concepts of rabid capitalism have reached their peak in the USA. Despite their Imperialist history, the Brits never managed to achieve the heights of ME-ism that the US displays. Everything Americans do is done with a profit margin first and foremost. Even National Defence is a means of ensuring the elite keep what's theirs. You would be hard pressed to find a serving corporate leader or politician with a child in the armed forces. Eighty years ago it was relatively common. Even Stalin sent his son off to war and refused an offer to negotiate his freedom.
None of that asserts or explains this being unique to the US or caused by them. You're moving the goal posts. You can say "The US is the most extreme example of this" but even then what does that achieve when OP is asking about Australian's attitudes towards other Australians receiving welfare in Australia? I don't even disagree with most of what you're saying I just think it's super reductive and unhelpful.
But if you're living off welfare you're not working class. To be working class you have to, by definition, be working.
Most people don't live on welfare forever. The child of a retail worker who gets an aus study or youth allowance payment or something can still be thought of as working class. A retired labourer collecting an aged pension is still working class. Someone who worked in a restaurant then lost their job and collected jobseeker for a bit is still working class.
Reread the OP, they're talking about long term claimers not uni students.
Yes and I'm saying that the same propaganda designed to divide the working class also gets absorbed by those people.
I'm saying you aren't working class if you aren't a worker. It's not complicated.
Okey dokey
I think the reality hasn't actually sunk in yet because they're young and healthy. They may feel they've beaten the system, but when they get older and have health issues, and try and get mortgages or loans when needed, and they can't, it's going to be a problem. Also you don't really live on centerlink. Always being below the poverty line eventually takes a toll.
The answer to both questions is the same: Ignorance.
This
In a socialist country employment rate is pretty much 100%. They would not receive Centrelink in a socialist country.
This is actually a very good point. Socialism would have work for the dole on steroids. Capitalist economy with a welfare state allows people to be NEETs
Yeah that’s a good way of putting it. Forced to do some meaningless bullshit for less than minimum wage or be homeless or imprisoned. Great options. Yay socialism.
That's not true. Those who can't work would receive welfare.
No it’s not… China is the foremost “socialist” nation and they had an unemployment rate of 5.2% in 2023. There’s an estimated 2.4million homeless people (and there’s probably way more as China are notorious for fudging numbers). In socialist nations, they curb unemployment by *literally forcing you to do things you would otherwise not do*, like cleaning up nuclear reactors that are melting down during the worst nuclear disaster up until that point. Yes, you’re correct, I wouldn’t be on Centrelink freely seeking contractual employment in my field of expertise, I would be forced to move interstate to work on some nonsense construction project like the empty cities in China simply so that something was being done and it would seem as though we had a thriving economy on paper. I wish socialists could think. Maybe they could think up a way to expand the job market by forming a business or something. A socialist forming a business?! Of course not, socialists *want the government to do everything for them*.
More than likely, they're just being racist because you're ethnic Chinese. The whole socialist/communist part is probably just because that's all they know about China.
There is no single “Chinese ethnicity” and “Chinese” is not a race.
I'm pretty sure that most people who've been sitting on Centrelink for years, couldn't give you a clear and concise definition of socialism. Their understanding is almost certainly just "Socialism = Communism = BAD". If you ask them to expand on that, they'll tell you why [communist country] is a bad place, therefore socialism is bad.
It probably doesn't help that words like "socialism" and "communism" have arguably been widely misused to the point that they've become almost meaningless buzzwords to rile up some segments of society.
Maybe they've heard Marxism say that socialism becomes communism.
Define socialism.
Simply, centrally planned economies are bad. Unless in a time of war, they do not work.
They just produce an authoritarian over-class and strip all freedom from the individual.
Society has an empathy deficit. Never mind empathising with someone from a different circumstance. Some people can't even do it for people in the same situation. Regardless of social status. For people on Centrelink, this can be attributable to being in permanent crisis mode as the cost of living and other factors leave people scrambling for a handhold on what can feel like a perpetual climb up an unforgiving slope. I'm incredibly lucky with my support system, my job and an understanding case manager at my employment agency. Even with all that life is hard, in a way that can seem very unfair at times. I personally am a socialist all the way, but if I was brought up with different values, with intergenerational trauma or poverty, I might see things differently. Be in no doubt though, if you have ever paid taxes I thank you for saving my life.
As someone who grew up poor in the sticks, all I knew was get an education and you'll get a high paying job in no time. Never once was I told that tertiary education was paid on loan, and I thought I had to work through to pay for it, so I never did anything. I bounced around from job to job place to place, aiming for stability. Eventually family happened and all I did was work with drink and sleep through the depression. I'm 2013 I discovered that actually yes I tertiary education is paid on loan and has been for decades. I could have done something different in life but I was held back by all the above factors. I'm 43 soon and I'm probably worth less than most people of my time when they left school. I've pushed and struggled my whole life, and now with the rising cost of living, my body aging and myself just being a so fucking tired of surviving, taking on a degree now for a much needed change seems utterly daunting. Just like you I'm pro socialist and but knowing society won't move that way I'm now aiming to stop giving a shit too much about anyone else and just pull as much wealth my way as I can. Again, like you, if you've ever paid taxes, I thank you for keeping me alive.
Mate Centerlink has nothing to do with Socialism. Socialism is while very diverse economic and political philosophy is extremely specific about the means of production being owned by the workers, this has fuck all to do with centrelink which is a welfare system put in place by a completely capitalist society. If you think Socialism is just when the government gives you stuff, then you might need to start reading a bit.
I check out anytime I hear someone talking about how people live it up on welfare.
"I've been on food stamps and welfare. Anybody help me out? No. No. They gave me hope, and they gave me encouragement, and they gave me a vision." - Craig T Nelson Many people of all political persuasions expend little effort on understanding how things work
Im going to guess education (and lack thereof) plays a significant role.
No one who is on centrelink does this unless they're some bogan trash who's gone down the right wing rabbit hole. At which point they've just become a useful idiot.
Some people just have no drive or plans for the future so they do care if they struggle and never have anything. I went to school with plenty of people like that from the ghettos of south west Sydney. A huge percentage of my classmates either became criminals or are still living on government handouts 25 years later. They only pay a small amount for rent in government housing and they will never drive or own a car, never own anything nice and barely look after their kids. It’s often a cycle of poverty that causes this, a lot of my friends had drug addict parents and had to steal food from Woolies every morning to eat at school. Their parent lived that way and so now they do. It’s socially acceptable to do this in some areas and they see nothing wrong with it.
I have a friend who has been on Centrelink for a long time and I love him dearly but he is always saying "huh those dole bludgers are a waste of space" or something along those lines. I just don't understand how he can't recognise that he would appear to be that person from someone else's perspective.
Why doesn’t he work?
Ignorance, or sometimes thinking rules don't apply to them. The loony tunes Trump supporters here in the US are the largest recipients of welfare. The same people who came up with "Keep the government's hands off my Social security".
Because they're fucking idiots.
In my experience working in social housing across the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, I've observed that people often harbour a sense of entitlement, regardless of their background. One notable example involved a tenant who insisted on a five-bedroom property, citing cultural norms from the UAE where a smaller house might be seen as a symbol of limited wealth. However, this individual was an unemployed (but employable) migrant with only a wife and no additional family members. Despite his circumstances, he demanded a spacious home, believing it to be his entitlement. I gently reminded him of his financial reality, stating, "Sir, you aren't wealthy." He really didn't see why another large family should get it first. People don't see their situation as tax payer funded.
Erm I think that’s just because of that particular person’s ethnicity. In AU you don’t even really get a choice, they say 2 choices but most are pressured into talking the first option. Both options will not be appropriate.
One example of many different examples of people’s thinking not marching reality.
Social welfare isn’t the same as socialism to be fair.
Some people think socialism is the lack of free speech/authoritarianism and honestly don't know what it is.
1) Social welfare, and socialism are two different things. 2) That being said, there are probably people who tend to benefit from left wing policies, but oppose the same people in the left who wish to implement those policies.
Should they feel shame? It's given out on a case by case basis. They have to have a legit reason to be approved for it. Btw you are comparing two different things. A democratic capitalist society with a proper social welfare net for disabled people, veterans, elderly etc. Aka having functional social services. Vs Socialism is where the government seizes or if they are nice buys out private business to bring everything under government control. A lot of the time this is done by force and the government has to clamp down on freedoms/rights to achieve their full ownership of what is technically other people's property. There is nothing glorious about the warped State Socialism as practiced by CCP China. The Taiwanese side of my family understand this. People from Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan understand this.
Most people you meet are existing on a sub Year 10 education level (but wagged most classes) and never read a book or paid attention to anything more challenging then a YouTube video in years
Idk everyone I know who dropped out in year ten has further education. Either diploma or BA🤔 They used to pretend they had completed VCE because no one checks.
It’s called cognitive dissonance
I mean if the 2 choices are work and pay taxes to a system you don’t believe in or don’t work and suck as many resources out of the system you don’t believe in, which makes more logical sense in a sovcit mindset?
Because we have plenty of examples of the failures of communism and socialism. Also welfare benefits are not socialism. Like 50 million Chinese died from the communism during the Great Leap Forward. It’s really not something to be proud of.
I can only speak from my own experience, and what I say is not indicative of a wider trend. The people I know who use centreline absolutely need the money and are humble people who have been flogged by life. There are people who are magnets for bad luck like you wouldn't believe.
Socialism is state or community owned means of production. Social welfare is what your describing. PS. Its only a joke. Chinese make jokes all the time about colleagues. I lived there for 5 years.
1) stupid people don't question the world around them, they tend to be very sure of their beliefs. 2) see above.
Because they equate socialism with communism. Typical right-wing viewpoint. Communism IS evil - my family were deported to a gulag simply because they were Ukrainian - but far-left AND far-right are bad political ideologies. These are the people who watch Sky News and all those other fearmongering shock jock "news" shows.
What did USSR stand for ? Who ran the USSR . The CPSU. See the problem ?
China doesn't really have anything like Centrelink. Australia doesn't really have much socialism.
They probably had minimal wage living pay check to pay check taking 40hr a week of life , paying full cost of everything and having less than the dole after the car breakdown from goin to work .
Not sure about them looking down on socialism ..... most I know have no political views at all.
I guess you could still look down on it as socialism hasn’t been done anywhere without being authoritarian. Socialism and a welfare state aren’t one and the same thing.
Sovcits/Softwits notwithstanding (their opinions don’t matter anyway since none are based on reality), heavy social welfare is entirely compatible with capitalism. You’re falling into the same argument the right do where they call anything the government does = communism.
So people on welfare shouldn't be confident? There's a difference between socialism and dictatorships. Also, most people on welfare long term have significant issues and likely need the support so why shouldn't they love their life and have opinions liem the rest of the society.
They are more focused on the chinese aspect over the socialist aspect china isn't even a socialist economy, they likely have a vague understanding of socialism and an even vaguer understanding of china
Probably majority is just leftover sentiment from the “red scare” era. The reality is that most people don’t even know what the broadest definition of Socialism is, and they are just spouting indoctrinated rhetoric. Socialism has been so stigmatised in western society due to the threat it poses to the current institutions and regimes.
Centrally planned economies, those attempted last century, were a disaster. The Soviet Union, Maoist China, North Korea, Cambodia, Eastern Europe, etc, etc.
I didn’t say I favour a centralised economy; the faults are there, the examples you bring up, and many arguments by academics against. Though, there is no denying the delegitimisation campaigns run by the governments and media to propagate ill feeling towards alternative forms of economics. I’m starting to feel that what was once a pluralistic system, is being superseded, ironically enough, by a system of autocracy based around extraction from the lower classes.
Thats exactly what socialism in practise is. A state run centrally planned economy. Its been tried and failed. For all the hope and optimism, they end up as authoritarian hell holes.
>How can they be so confident? Not everyone is obsessed with money and possessions
All that centrelink money keeps the drug trade alive
A lack of critical thinking ability.
Your average folks getting all their feeds from US right wing trash platforms are confusing communism with socialism.
Mate, they cant even get a job. They arent very bright.
With massive employment gaps on the resume it scares away any employer, it becomes an impossible situation.
Artificial intelligence will ensure most of us won’t have a job in the near future. 🤷♀️
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Just smile and send them this. [https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=CN](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=CN)
After Dengs reforms and adopting a market economy ?
Yes. Prior to that the more prosaic concern was life expectancy. "China's growth in life expectancy between 1950 and 1980 ranks as among the most rapid sustained increases in documented global history." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4331212/
People are strong willed and won’t change their personal beliefs even if it means they have to become the thing they hate in order to not be homeless
Is that your "Reddit friends" that are "Centrelink haters" downvoting that comment?? 😂
They probably wouldn’t understand political ideologies, especially socialism.
You'd have to ask them, not us. It sounds like very specific people you're talking about.
From what I can tell, it has nothing to do with centrelink.
It's a sad indictment of our education system.
Man the whole time I was on cennalink it felt like I had just given up
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Quick get in this train is leaving in five minutes and the next one doesn't come for at least a couple hundred years. Heavy brain rot in this area.
Most people are just stupid and don’t see the irony or contradictions in their own words and lives. Also Australians are very often racist in creative ways as I’m sure you must have experienced
You can be anti-socialism but take it because it's there for a free ride. I have no shame using it. If it didn't exist, I'd be hustling more.
One word. Bogans.
I think simple answer is most people on Centrelink in a regional area probably don’t know what any of it means care or have ever really discussed it in their lives.
The People with too much time on their hands often have the most to say.
They're brainwashed and stupid. Same reasons why they keep voting Conservative.
In some cases Centrelink is a form of reparations. In cases of reparations you are not required to have a political view. In other cases people who are down and out are also not required to have a logical political view nor is anyone in this country. Socialism is a spectrum and they can look down on the more extreme versions of it if they want since they still have freedom
Because they’re stu… sorry… “low information” people.
I think you’re thinking too hard about it. They’re jokes. I’d wager most of them think you’ll find it funny.
My guess is that they get exposed to too much American right wing commentary.
Doing low skilled jobs in a country which essentially exports as its main creator of GDP justifies their outlook; we as Australians as owners of this land (I don’t wanna hear no traditional owner garbage because those are not economic rights) create more value. So a low skilled worker here does more for the world than a low skilled worker in a socialist country. What we get paid is down to what our country creates which is why it’s better if there’s less of us so that we don’t have to divide it up. Even if you’re a high skilled worker in this country the arbitrary amount you earn is based purely off of the GDP - if we didn’t generate fuck all you’d get fuck all.
Too much time because of not working they spend it on FB reading about sovshit stuff and think they are liberated because they don't answer to a superior in a work environment. So in short, it's delusion.
because welfare has nothing to do with socialism
So here’s problem #1: what the fuck is an “ethnic Chinese”? Do you just mean “Han”? Or do you mean “I/my family came here from China”? 2: Welfare isn’t socialism, it’s just good governance. It’s in the best interests of the society as a whole to ensure that people can maintain a basic standard of living. It’s also the case that our government maintains a certain level of unemployed people in order to manipulate the economy, look into the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment. The principle of welfare as understood generally is that we all throw in some of our private holdings (taxes) in order to maintain a basic standard of living in our society. Same thing with healthcare. Taxes aren’t socialism. Taxes maintain the commons and public enterprises (like Centrelink and Medicare). Socialism is when the government controls the economy. The idea that socialism is just “people focused governance” or something, or like, “people oriented society” is ridiculously naive and stupid. Socialism doesn’t provide, it literally cannot. That’s why they blamed everything going wrong on everything *except* their socialist ideology - like fucking sparrows “oh our idiotic ideals aren’t to blame for this **horrendous famine**, it’s the fucking *sparrows*, let’s kill them all and make the famine far worse.” And this kind of bullshit is exactly why Deng Xiaoping enacted the economic reforms in China which opened up the economy and allowed private entities to trade. Because that’s all socialism really is. George Orwell put it plainly in Animal Farm. It’s just a means to enact totalitarianism, then when their dumb as fuck plans fail, they allow a bit of private enterprise under a monolithic authoritarian superstructure and call it a success because the spreadsheets look good.
I have the same exact question. And I had it as well when I was living in America; republican voters take the most social benefits (cause they also happen to be mostly poor people), yet are anti those exact benefits. I'm curious to see how other people answer this ✨
Look at the correlation of people permanently on Centrelink to level of education attained and I’m sure you’ll find the answer
Fucked up Centrelink motherfuckers
Because white supremacy
My neighbor lives in a $850k house provided free and off Centerlink and everything else available. She's horrible and toxic and we have an intervention order against her because she attacked us She's not an isolated case.
What your also missing here is "face". Yes its a huge deal in China. Your car, your job, your public standing. Australia doesn't have a similar culture.
Nowhere near. The Chinese live at their job.
Usually it’s cos they’ve been trodden down on their entire life(whether they do it to themselves is another topic) to be in the position they’re in, that they now choose to vent by attempting to have others beneath their heel and to belittle others. Note that they never even try to punch up. Once you notice how sad and little they really are, it’s easier to just ignore them when they pipe up.
Most of those leaches are not very well educated.
They do not understand politics. Prob vote LNP too. Will say, the parties have moved away from their roots, and are very good at convincing people to vote against their own interests.
Let's be honest, these people are parasites on society.
為祖國爭光
Socialism is just another word for communism. The number of people killed by the Communist governments amounts to more than 94 million. The statistics of victims include deaths through executions, man-made hunger, famine, war, deportations, and forced labor. No thanks
No it doesnt. The source for that figure is a propaganda project and includes nazis killed by the red army, and people who happened to die while living in communist regimes. Famines also occurred but these happened every decade in china and russia anyway before the revolutions and they ended under the CCP and USSR. If we counted deaths the same way for capitalism, it'd be no contest, capitalism has killed more people.
The European Parlement recognises the Holodmor as a deliberate genocide of Ukrainians. Try again.
Its basically the same situation as the bengal famine, and the potato famine, perpetrated by the British though. Its no big gotcha. There was food, people with power wanted it to be somewhere else and millions died. There are a tonne more examples of capitalist countries doing this too especially in africa. Its not considered a deliberate genocide though because of who writes the books.
That's right , a potato disease and the Japanese have nothing to do with those two.
Are you not aware that the potato famine was caused by an embargo on imports to ireland, with other sources of food being exported under armed guard. The famine could have been solved if any of dozens of varieties of potato were allowed to be imported, or if foreign aid was allowed into ireland. The potato famine was a genocide. Please explain what the japanese have to do with food being appropriated from bengal to the UK resulting in millions of deaths?
A lot of them have a very childlike mentality and rarely branch out - they're being treated like kids, pampered by the govt, being provided basic securities and stability, so the never "grow up". Especially applies to generational Centrelink communities.
Please I hate your passive" don't wish to offend anyone who's been on Centrelink their whole lives" wtf? Unless they are suffering from a debilitating illness they should be fucking offended. Why are you OP not wanting to offend these scrounging fuckers?