WELFARE AND SOCIAL SERVICES POLICIES
Entitlement
When you have an entitlement mentality, you start to believe that things are owed to you, rather than earned.
Self-Sufficiency and Pride of Independence
We encourage all Australians to become self-sufficient and break the cycle of welfare dependency. We also encourage individual entrepreneurship and small business as a driver of the Australian economy and personal prosperity. These virtues are not only good for society and the individuals concerned, but they also free up government funds to help those in genuine need, or to lower taxes.
Support for Families
The traditional family is the foundation stone of civil society. We commit to supporting families by defending the traditional definition of marriage and easing the cost-of-living pressures on families through tax and benefit payments reform.
NDIS
In its current form it is not fit for purpose. A good idea that was ill thought out and poorly implemented. It has become a licence to print money for some, whilst not delivering the services that those in need require.
The pricing structure appears to have been designed along the lines of the “ideal” model, i.e. what someone would ideally want to be paid, instead of along business lines, which would take into business and competition considerations. The fact that claimants were able to claim for all sorts of weird and wonderful things, proves that there was no real oversight of the scheme. Organisations seem to have been left to their own devices and have been able to work out and exploit the loopholes.
The persons requiring the help have been given far too much free rein over the finances of the scheme. The concept of a disabled person being able to have the same person come and attend to their needs, because they have a rapport with them, is a good thing. But the reality is the disabled person will get who is available and they may or may not develop a rapport with them.
The NDIS missed what was really required and focused too much on the propaganda of this idyllic world of smiling faces. People who are in need, need proper functional and professional help. The help needs to be cost effective and efficient, so that the service can be maintained.
We will need to scrap the NDIS and revert to the old-fashioned health service with home visits. All the middlemen need to be removed and replaced with one government department that organises and oversees the whole scheme. They will deal directly with the patient or disabled person and they will provide the appropriate and necessary help that is required. All the helpers will be public employees or dedicated persons from the private sector, who will provide their services at a discount, due to their access to guaranteed volumes of work.
Family Tax Benefit – Child Benefit
The system for calculating child support payments is quite complicated and depending upon your eligibility will determine the amount that you are paid. So, either the Government wants to support families with children or they don’t. If they don’t, then abolish it and save the tens of billions that it costs each year. If they do support it, then make it fair and simple.
It is not unreasonable to expect every parent to take responsibility for bringing a child into this world. They should not expect everyone else to pay for it. However, the birth rate is falling and either we want people to have more children or we don’t. If we do, then one has to accept that raising a child is not cheap and they are a massive drain on the finances of any household income.
We propose that we streamline the whole process and keep things very simple. If your family income, either a single or combined wage is less than $200,000 per year, then you will be eligible for child support. The amount paid per fortnight per child will be $200 and this figure will be paid for every child from ages 0 to 18. This equates to a yearly payment of $5200 per child per family. With an estimated 5.8 million children this will equate to approximately $30 billion per year.
Welfare Drug Testing
Any person receiving welfare assistance from the government will be required to take random drug tests to ensure that their welfare payments are not being wasted or misused. Welfare recipients that are addicted to drugs will be required to go through the detox programme to end their dependency.
Pensions
All pensions, except the dole, will remain in place, pending a full review. The structure of pensions may change as we begin to fix the economy. Pensions need to keep pace with inflation and the cost of living, but if inflation is kept low and the cost of living is brought under control, then there may not be the need to increase pensions.
Aged Care
Although we want the elderly to be self-sufficient financially, it is not always possible, so it is important that we assist the old age pensioners with a state funded aged pension and to allow them concessions on many day-to-day items, such as electricity, gas, rates etc.
Social Care
A society is judged by the way that they look after those in society who are unable to look after themselves. Many people may need help from time to time and as a caring society, we must have facilities in place to be able to provide this assistance.
