About the Australian Social Security

Dear readers, in this blog, we have written several posts about D.I.Y. articles that dealt with building works. Having done that, now starting with this post, Farming today is still a risky business, we want to talk about social issues that can affect all of us. We will start with some Australian social issues that we have already written in the past, when these things happened; then we will follow with what is happening these days. This is only our views of what we see happening, so, we hope we can say something that can be helpful. We are starting with articles about farming and their problems, since farming is the most important part of our society, because it produces food for us to live. We hope to interest lots of people. 

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To see this article in full visit this link, Australian Social Security

Above is one of the many government offices called "centrelink". Anyhow, centrelink is the government office that runs the, Australian Security System, but not everybody can benefit from the System, because you need to qualify to receive it. And this is what we are talking about here. 

The Australian social security fails the farmers.

Welcome to our article, Australian Social Security.  

Dear readers, these blogs that we are posting now have been written when these things have happened, so, to make sense, you need to allow for this time that has past. Anyhow, we have posted our previous articles, Farming today is still a risky business, and then followed with, Farming today compared to the old way, to make the point that farming is important and must be kept going, because that is the way that we produce food. Anyhow, in this article about the “Australian Social Security”, we start by writing, why the Australian Social Security fails to help the farmers; then we will also discuss other things where they fail. But first let us discuss about the farmer, because as we have said in a 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.

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 investigate and 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, as we will explain as we go on writing these articles. Anyhow, we are talking about the drought and the farmers that are having a very hard time, so, we were saying that all this hardship can be minimized, if aids from the Social Security System was more readily available to the farmers, but it is not, so, the only thing that we can think about this failure, is why the social security has failed to help? Because it is not fair for the farmers, so, the present Social Security System needs to be fixed.

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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Here we can see people waiting in one of the Centrelink offices to wait for their turn to speak to the people in charge, to declare what they need to declare to receive financial help from the government. 

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. 

But the problem with this system is that all categories are not treated the same, this can create some problems for some people. 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 because they have too much 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 completely, 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 modified. Anyhow, we are going into details later, anyhow, it will become self-explained as we write more articles about it. We want to say now that there are issues that need to be fixed from the federal government. So, this farmer’s problem and the assets-test for pensioner, 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, I want to point it out to you, that 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 political people 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, the public is not going to forget easily what they have done, so, they are going to run the risk of losing their next elections, on this issue alone. But let us compare what is happening now and in the past. I believe that in the past it was better, at least this is the way I have seen it happen.

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. So, here we need to look at who are the people that make these decisions.

Of course, they 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.

So, let us talk about the Australian politics, who represents who and to which party the group of people may belong and other things. Since this is a different issue that influences the outcome, we will talk about this in our next article the Australian political parties, where we will try to explain how we see them.

After we do that, we will come back to talk about the social security system. Anyhow, here I need to remind you that we are writing a group of articles to show you what is going on, even if these things have happened in the past. See you soon, with our article The Australian Political Parties

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