How "Labor" treats the unemployed

How many people are on Newstart because they are denied the Disability Pension?

The bizarre rule for being accepted on the Disability pension is that your condition must be long term and stable.

Centrelink forces those whose condition is long term and unstable (eg not responding to medication) to stay on Newstart.

When such people apply for a Disability Support Pension, they are forced to remain on Newstart, with reduced job search requirements.

In other words, their inability to get work is tacitly recognised.

So what's the difference?

Oh, about $100 a fortnight per person in the government's coffer, extracted from the hide of some of the Australia's weakest and most unwanted..

The unemployed are the most stereotyped, stigmatised and reviled group in Australia.

Yet how many of them are actually

• chronically sick
• moderately disabled
• low-level mentally ill
• near pension age and unemployable due to age discrimination

And to add injury to insult, all these people, who are trying to get by on $225.15, a week were denied the $900 stimulus package that might have seen them catch up on a few bills at last.

And to add the 'Labor' government's irrationality to injury, these are the people who would have turned over the money most quickly! While those whose fancy lawyers and tax minimisation schemes reduce their income to $100,000 will not only receive the money, but can squirrel it away to do the economy no good at all!

All because the unemployed are the nation's scapegoats, and governments can get away with it.