NOTE, ARTICLE No: 3
This article is the third article, of a group of articles, about Australia and the housing problems cause and remedy discussions. We have started with these farming articles, because farmers can also have financial problems, in a way similar to the housing problems, since the Social Security System fails to help them.
Welcome to our article, Australian Social Security
The Australian Social Security System needs to help.
Dear readers, this is an old article, but it can still apply today. In this article about the “Australian Social Security”, we start by writing, why the Australian Social Security fails to help the farmers, and other people that need help. But first let us discuss about the farmer, because of our previous article Farming Today Is Still a Risky Business, so, we want to work out, why the farmers don’t get social security payment from the government, like most other people do, when they need help.
You see, today the
Australian Social Security system is helping lots of people, but it is not
helping the farmers, even though the farmers really need help from the
government. Therefore, we want to know why this is happening, and then, we can
suggest how to avoid this happening again. We believe that the Social Security
system in Australia must help anybody that needs help, at least the name itself
suggests that. So, we are going to talk about this issue, in
this article and the following articles.
Anyhow, our views
are based on what is happening in Australia today, about farming and the
drought, so, the first question is; why the Australian Social Security system
has failed to help the farmers. We believe that the Australian Social Security
can do better than what it is doing now. So, let us see why the Australian
social security is failing to help the farmers.
Now, what we are
saying here is what we know, but, if you want to know more about the Australian
Social Security system, you should follow these links, Social security in
Australia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_security_in_Australia, Benefits and
Payments - Australia.gov.au, and other links that can be found on the
internet.
Anyhow, we believe that the Australian Social Security system that we call Centrelink, has failed to help the farmers, because it has not been planned to help them from the beginning, so, it needs to be changed, for the hardship to be minimized.
So, why the social
security has failed to help? Once you ask that question and look for the
reasons, you realize that in Australia not everybody is treated the same, from
the current social security system. You see, people are treated different
because they belong to different categories; there are: the-have and
the-have-not; there are the workers that work for wages; there are the
self-employed; there are the farmers, which we could say are self-employed, and
others; anyhow, when people go to Centrelink the Social Security government
agencies for help, the agencies do what they can according to where these
groups of people belong, so, let us see some examples how this works.
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How the Social Security works.
Let us start from
the working people. When people that work for a wage, become unemployed and
they are not earning money, they can go to Centrelink, where they can apply
to receive the unemployment benefit from the government; this means that the
government gives them some money, until they find another job to go to and can
earn their living. This system is called Social Security unemployment benefits,
or something like that, and it is good, it is like receiving a small wage to
help you survive, so, it helps the workers when they don’t have a job and need
financial help, which is good.
But the problem
with this system is that all categories are not treated the same, which is not
good. So, I believe that something needs to be done, to help anyone that needs
help. You see, some categories may not receive help because they belong to a
certain category, even if they earn no money and have no money, like the
farmers today, this is the problem with the Social Security system of today.
You see, the
farmers cannot turn to the government for help, because they are self-employed,
and they are supposed to be rich, okay they are rich, because they own a lot of
land, so, the assets test will exclude them from any government help; in this
case there is no social security for the farmers. This is the reason why the
social security system is failing the farmers, it is not set to help those
people that cannot earn money even when they work hard, in the hope they can
earn their living.
But I believe that
these people must be helped, because they are the backbone of the Australian
economy, therefore, we cannot afford to lose them, so, the Social Security
system needs to be adjusted to help them when they need help. They must be
helped from the government, until the day that something else can replace the
government help; like the collection of funds that we have suggested in our
last article. Here we need also to say, that today farming is not regulated
from the government, but some regulations may need to be placed; so that when
things don’t work out, the government will be more willing to help the farmers.
Anyhow, we have
worked out that today the farmers cannot be helped from Centrelink, because
they are self-employed, and they have property as assets. You
see, the assets-test is the main problem here; but I believe that the
assets-test in special cases should not override the income test,
this suggestion does not apply only to the farmers, because the assets-test is
also making life miserable to pensioners that own properties, when those
properties cannot earn half the money the assets test believe they could.
So, in my views the assets test needs to be abolished or modified. So,that this farmer’s problem can be solved, this will also apply to pensioners, jobseekers and other groups, but it it is going to be a real problem for the politicians, if they want to help the people that have voted for them at the elections.
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Let us look at the political reasons.
Anyhow, in our previous articles we have started to talk about the farmers problems, but slowly we found ourselves to talk about assets-test and politics. Now, what is happening at the Australian federal government level is not right, they need to work better what the people need, and how the people are affected when they make their budgets, I believe that this is one of the reasons why Australia is having problems today, some of these politicians, that become treasurers are heartless and careless, they have made many mistakes that has affected the public adversely, some of these mistakes need to be fixed.
Anyhow, in the past as far as I know there was no assets test in the seventies, it was introduced later to stop people that were abusing the system, also because the government needed more money. Now, let us try to see and discuss some of the reasons that apply today, which takes us to see that the federal government is greedy, because they want more money.
Of course, the people that make these decisions, are the politicians that we send to Canberra parliament to govern us, since the government is formed from the political parties. Now it becomes evident that it is what these political parties represent, believe and preach that are going to make the future laws and budgets that parliament will pass, to govern Australia.
Here we could talk about the Australian political parties. But we are leaving that behind and we will talk about The Assets Test Problem because it affects most of us.
To see more click on this link, Australian Social Security
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NOTE. This article above, is the link to the following article, The assets test problem. This article is also the third article of a group of articles that we want to publish. The aim of these articles is to demonstrate that, the Australian Social Security System fails to help those that need their help. And we believe that it must be equal for everyone. The greatest problem is created by the assets test anomalies, so, the ASSETS TEST must be abolished or adjusted, so that those anomalies are eliminated. Because this is one of the reasons why, there are not enough rental properties on the market. But the greatest problem is that the politicians do not see it that way, and want to make laws that would stop anybody to invest in rental properties, so let me explain.
For
me there are three main things that the government can do, to come out of this rental crisis: give more rent assistance to the low income earners, abolish the assets
test on affordable rental properties and low other levies, so that the small
investors can keep renting at affordable price, and stop foreign ownership on
rental properties, that is pushing real estate prices up, and the rental market must follow to go up, because the properties cost more.
Some politician believe that the government should build, affordable rental units to solve this rental crisis, but for the government, to build an infinite number of affordable rental
units, is not practical, because it will cost the tax payers several times more than helping the
present rental set up, as we have suggested above.
To read all the blogs of this selected group click on this link, http://menfranco.blogspot.com,
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