The ever-progressive Australian federal government (conservatives, called the Liberal Party) are seeking to introduce mandatory drug and alcohol testing for ‘some’ people in ‘some’ communities in order to kick them off Newstart, the unemployment benefit. The plan is to remove their living allowance and to get them into rehab in order to increase their employment prospects.
Newstart is umpteen dollars under the poverty line, and most long-term recipients nowadays are people over the age of 55. People who have worked all their lives, have paid taxes, and are now redundant in their jobs or who might suffer significant medical issues are now considered scammers and drug addicts by default. Yet another way our New Government Orders are blaming the victims in order to deflect the blame for economic woes from themselves, yes?
There are right wingers here in the states that favor such an idea, too. Any way to make life rough on the less fortunate makes life better for them, I guess.
Serious question. I know that conservatives make a lot of assumptions about the poor (and frankly, so do liberals.)
Is there a welfare officer or social worker or somebody that works with a particular group of recipients of benefits? If that person worked with the people one on one at least at some point? Maybe that person might be a better arbiter of who needs a drug test.
I used to work in a version of governmental benefits (financial aid) and I could tell right away who was geeked out on meth, who was shooting stuff in their veins, it was pretty obvious for a few of my clients. I wouldn’t say that I could tell who was using drugs off and on, but you could tell generally who was in some sort of drug crisis when its happening two feet in front of you in a tiny office.
I could slow roll their benefits to an extent, but I wouldn’t do it on my own volition or judgement, I involved a superior to do it. Giving someone that is nodding in and off in your office two thousand dollars cash all of a sudden could very well kill them. I had several students die on me over the years right after their refund checks came in the mail and they took the cash to their dealer and OD’ed. To be honest, that job fucked me up a bit.
I have to be honest though, my motivation for slow rolling benefits (I can’t deny anything you could qualify for) and the efforts to “drug test the welfare people” here lately seem to be coming from different places.
‘Liberal’ in the American sense isn’t really as much of a thing here. The big left-wing party is Labor - ie, old-fashioned trade-unionists, though they’ve gone a bit more managerial/‘new-Labour’-ish in the last couple of decades. Progressive-SJW-left are the Greens.
“So that they can kick them off Newstart” is … certainly not an interpretation that’s going out of its way to be charitable. But there are plenty of very likely pathways there for people to lose access to their benefits (bolded in my quote) and the well-known rubbishness of Centerlink in its core business of helping people look for jobs doesn’t inspire confidence that they can do particularly well at the new task of helping people kick drug habits.
It’s just a way to be cruel to people that you feel morally superior to. First of all, it may not be fiscally responsibility. If you spend more on the testing than you gain by kicking drug users off the rolls, you’re wasting money. I think a lot of people have a visceral hatred for the poor and would love to see them all starve, drug testing gives them a rationale for condemning many of them to death. Finally, what about the children of drug users? Do we say, “sorry but your mommy smoked a joint. No food for you!”?
Oh, and this is all happening in the middle of the RobodebtScandal which is a great showcase in itself for Centerlink incompetence. Maybe don’t give 'em any more jobs to do until they’ve shown they can do their current ones without bollixing it up
Well obviously. Whenever a useless but costly measure is enacted, it’s always a case of showering public money on friends (or yourself) in a slightly convoluted way that nevertheless looks a little more distinguished than the old fake job trick and doesn’t require keeping two sets of books.
In this case, two seconds of thought is enough to realize that the number of people whose life is so fucked up by drugs/booze they can’t possibly find a job but are still functional and connected to society enough that they’re able to go through the soul-sucking bureaucratic hoops and checks and forms 27-B (notarized, triplicate) necessary to get welfare in the first place is minuscule ; certainly not a percentage high enough to force everyone to get regularly tested. That, in short, the amount of public money “mooched” by any “undeserving” druggie schemer pales in comparison with the costs of any large scale drug testing boondoggle.
But of course, saving money was never the point. Even shitting on the poor isn’t really the point, although that’s often a welcome by-product. The point is always to put someone’s hand in your pocket - because surely *they *deserve public welfare, what with already being rich and connected and all.
Alcohol testing. Jesus. Is there a lot you can prove by establishing a person hasn’t had anything to drink in the last couple of hours?
As Kobal has pointed out, there is zero chance that the cost of the government testing people would not be more than the money saved by kicking people off welfare. What’s hilarious about this is that the same people who want to do this sort of thing are the people who will tell you the government can’t do anything right when they’re discussing almost anything else.
Most people on unemployment won’t be on drugs so it won’t effect them. Those that are on drugs are either recreational users or drug addicts. The recreational users can stop until they get a new job after their first positive test. The addicts need help and this would be a good way to identify them and get them some help.
There are probably better ways to identify drug addicts and help them but this has the added benefit of allowing the public to have more faith that unemployment money is being used to help people and not harm them.
Except for the shame and implicit Othering of having to get regularly drug tested, and the costs involved in being drug tested (if only in travel & time).
A propos of nothing, back in the Middle Ages and contrary to popular opinion feudal lords didn’t really tax their peasants all that much as it got people angry over little and there wasn’t much money to be made there anyway (there were other extortionate ways to squeeze them, of course). If you read tax ordinances you see things like “half a chicken on the 5th of March, half a bucket of wheat on the 12th of April, a wheel of cheese on Saint Whatever’s Day” etc…
The point of these multitude of small taxes spread out year-long wasn’t to accumulate wealth. But by forcing peasants to regularly go to the lord’s manor to deliver these pissant tributes, they were constantly being reminded of their place in society, and how little they were as persons.
Why do I tell you this bit of historical trivia ? No reason whatsoever, I’m sure.
From experience, you cannot possibly force or coerce an addict (or a depressive person for that matter) into getting better. It’s a decision that has to come from within, because the people kicking you in the butt to get you into rehab or a clinic or wherever won’t be kicking it every day of every month for the rest of your life. Only the addict can do that to themselves. And to do that they need to want it, and to remember why they want it. Every day. “Because otherwise I’ll get in trouble” is shit motivation.
And if/when they do want it, help is usually piss easy to come by.
As a Floridian, let me educate the people of Australia: unless your government is smarter than our (admittedly Republican) government, you shouldn’t have faith that drug testing unemployment compensation recipients is accomplishing anything (other than stigmatizing the poor).
TLDR version: Florida tried testing welfare recipients in 2011, and discovered that it cost the state money even though we made the testees pay for the tests (also it was unconstitutional).
I don’t see how you can reconcile making a demand on people collectively referred to as the public and the public not being allowed to make a counter or conditional demand.
