There Are Literally No Jobs

This podcast was recorded on Dharawal land. We pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging.We acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded by First Nations people.
G'day voters, and welcome to the show notes for the twelfth episode of 3 White Guys + Guest, a political podcast for a cynical nation.
Welfare and social security in Australia have been driven into the ground by successive Liberal and Labor governments. This bipartisan approach to punishing Australians for losing a job has created a system of entrenched poverty and desperate people are now at their wits end.There are a number of things Australia could do to address this, but the fact that those in Canberra have refused to lift the rate of Newstart for a quarter of a century has really become a framing device for the debate.
Issues like robo-debt, cutting off payments, work for the dole, the cashless welfare card, road-testing punitive measures in Indigenous communities, and forcing thousands of vulnerable people off other support pensions and on to Newstart has created a powerful movement that is starting to gain some traction in the media.And the fact that the only thing the government has to say in response (especially after they manufactured a recession through inaction and ideological lunacy) is "the best form of welfare is a job" means that we're officially in the upside-down.
Just today we've learned that there are 19 applications for every entry level position advertised, and that's a conservative assessment, the reality is likely much worse. There are literally no jobs. The government is actively hurting the capacity of people to find work through their punitive schemes that demonise the unemployed.The government should be investing in public jobs because decades of austerity has fuelled generations of neglect, and the private sector has absolutely failed to deliver on what they promised when the government contracts were tendered, if they were tendered.The system has failed.And those in charge of it are actively creating more harm as they continue to blame the unemployed for the lack of jobs.Will it be viva la revolucion, or suck it up sweetheart? Let's solve this once and for all.
Our plus guest is Jeremy Paul, unemployed wastrel, dole bludger, drug addict and general ne'er do well, he has been forced to deal with the Department of Human Services in all the worst ways, but doesn't complain because then Rupert Murdoch will cancel him. And today he's here to complain.
Your Rights: What Are They? - AUWU resourceAustralian Council of Social Service - ACOSS
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