I would love to have $400 a week to live on
So sick of aged pensioners complaining about the amount they get paid. They knew retirement was coming and had time to plan for it. I believe they deserve every cent they get, but please stop whining! I can't get an aged pension until I am 67, and was retrenched from my job almost 2 years ago at the age of 54. Still trying to get ready for retirement and not old enough to access my super. Since then I have been existing on $250 a week (Newstart Allowance) I get no rent assistance as I am still paying off a mortgage. I don't get all the discounts that aged pensioners get i.e. phone, electricity, rates, rego etc, etc. So please be grateful for the $400 per week as to me that would be living in luxury!
Seggie, I meant no offence and I'm aware that the vast majority of pensioners don't whinge. But just about every week there is a story on ACA or Today Tonight about how tough the aged pensioners are doing it. Tonight there was a story about them getting a rise and it's still not enough? I would be delighted with an extra $9 a week! And the chap on TV was living in housing dept so I'm guessing his rent is heavily subsidised also.
I feel like I am part of a very forgotten demographic (unemployed people in their 50's). Who will speak out for us?
There are options but a person has to look for them. I live in a small slightly isolated country town, where you can get accommodation for $100 a week, there is a supermarket, hospital, flying doctor, school Centrelink office and two waterholes. A car can be had for under $2000, and if a couple was sharing, they would get by very well. As far as I can tell a person has to get away from the big cities to get a decent lifestyle. Rents in the cities are a killer. The nearest large city in 350 kilometres away, but as it is an old mining town there are lots of empty houses, just wanting someone to love them. Petrol is not all that much dearer. If you think you would like a place like that post on this site.
Country Pete
If you move to an area where jobs are even scarcer you lose Newstart Allowance so that is not an option, unfortunately.
I feel for you living on the pitiful Newstart allowance forestgirl. It should have been increased a long time ago. Maybe our new government will turn out to have heart but I don't like your chances.
Newstart is a killer. After you turn fifty, employers are too frightened to give a person a job. Insurance is a problem for them, and education is practically useless except to stop the Job People sending you for useless interviews. I studied law but the Legal Profession would not let me practice it. If we were able to use the Laws of the Commonwealth to generate income, many of us would be far better off. So too would the Commonwealth revenue and they could afford to pay the unemployed and homeless more.
I am curious Country Pete. You say that you studied Law but the Legal profession would not let you practice. Can you please explain? Did you finish your LLB degree? If so, how did they stop you from practising? I have a little to do with the Law & my question is genuine. I may have missed something, but how does the NDIS get involved?
I also am curious country Pete, if graduating and then with a law firm,how come not admitted to the Bar?
You are lucky in a way that you are still young enough to get onto a Disability Allowance Pension through NDIS.
See your GP and the system will assist you with employment and give you a pension in the meanwhile.
Like you must have something wrong with you if you cannot find employment
Alternatively you might like to look at the prospect of sub leasing a room in your home and if they happen to be a pensioner you may be able to get the carer's pension as well.
Abby
Employers discriminate people who are over 50 preferring to hire younger types . I find that odd as the younger ones are more likely to be on the lookout for better paying jobs , more likely to move on . This discrimination goes across all sectors of the work force except the old boys club of company directors .
To get a DSP you must first have a medical condition and a recommendation from the local GP is not enough to get the DSP . The govt also sends the person applying for DSP to a doctor of their choice for assessment .
My entry to the DSP was a little different as I never applied but was sent to a doctor by the govt , centrelink . I got a letter saying I would not be getting the DSP and thought no more of it . About a year later they again sent me to a doctor twice , different doctor each time and then put me on a DSP pension . I remember being annoyed as it meant travelling 11km each time to see a doctor in Traralgon from Morwell where I live .I was assessed before being diagnosed with Emphysema which was not a concern at that time .
As I understand it both former govts have tightened the assessment for the DSP eligibility , made it harder to be accepted .
Abby there is absolutley nothing wrong with me physically or mentally. I am very well educated, fit and healthy and more than willing to work!!!! I have a lifetime of experience, and I believe, much to offer an employer. But all they see is my age, and though that should be no barrier it most definitely is. I hate relying on Centrelink (taxpayers) and I have no desire to con my way onto a DSP. I do see Newstart as a hand up - not a hand out, and my original point was that the Aged Pensioners are always complaining about having to 'scrape by' on $400 a week, while I, and many like me, are barely existing on $250 a week.
forestgirl
Re:
" I have been existing on $250 a week (Newstart Allowance) I get no rent assistance as I am still paying off a mortgage."
If there is nothing wrong with you now there is a high probability there soon will be as there is no way you can exist on $250 still trying to pay off a morgage for an extended time - something has got to give.
Perhaps if you see them at the Centrelink they may be able to retrain you for a suitable positon. You may also have to consider moving to a different location where there is more work available.
Abby - "Like you must have something wrong with you if you cannot find employment" being over 50 doesn't mean you must have something wrong with you that would qualify for disability, just ageism really comes into play once you are in your 50s, and no way is that a disability just a stark fact of discrimination.
Sorry if I have misinterpreted what you meant Abby, but searching for a job for a 50 year old is heartbreaking for some one with a work ethic who would prefer to be working.
There is something terribly wrong with our society when those over fifty who want to work have to rely on doctors of goodwill to put them on a disabity allowance. While at the same time Howard brought in family benefits which effectively took out of the tax system those on 85,000 a year at an annual cost of 20 billion . Our whole system of govt payments needs an overhaul and should be given only to the needy and at higher rates .
To Innes
I was studying in NSW when I realised that the legal profession in that State does not automatically admit a person with an LLB. Kate Wentworth got an LLB but the bastards who are Judges in the Supreme Court would not admit her, because she alleged Michael Kirby was gay before he came out and confirmed it. I have been alleging for a number of years that they are criminals, protected by the Commonwealth and State Governments because the same Governments are into extortion and theft. All State Governments and the Commonwealth are in breach of S 79 Consrtitution and S 5 Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1901. No way they would admit person who tells the truth. The Scumbags make theire own laws without any respect for the laws of the Commonwealth. Rudd was replaced by a lawyer, so these people could continue to offend and be protected. It is a Liberal Party thing to protect Big Business but Labor has continued it. I think Clive Palmer may make a difference as he is not afraid to tell the truth in Parliament. Whole wedges of the legal profession left after realising what mongrels they have become, from Local Magistrate to the High Court: Morally bankrupt. I survive because I can still grow my own vegies and manage my money carefully.
You are right about S5 & S79, but surely an application to the Administrative Affairs Tribunal would have over ruled the Law Society in NSW. They are not the best of bed fellows anyway.
When I was at Uni I had a house rennted with five bedrooms. Like many Students I survived by renting them out. Worked well. Had a row with a Professor and went to another University over the right to jury trial, and my allegation that the High Court was no longer a Federal Supreme Court, but had become an exclusive club for rich people and their lawyers. My studies of the Crimes Act 1914 showed me that there are bilions of dollars going begging for consolidated revenue, because major offenders of the corporate kind can buy indulgences from Judges. Given a fair go, as we should all have, there would be all the money in the world to pay better benefits to the needy and homeless. In 1487 a Statute was passed prohibiting Judges from selling indulgences by requiring a jury trial before an offender could be set free from their obligations. Henry VII firstly gave an amnsety to all offenders in the War of the Roses after he won, and then swtripped Judges of their right to sit on an allegation of a crime in any civil proceedings. It was called the Qui Tam Action, and all the laws to allow it to happen are still in place, but the Lawyers Cartel whichy controls access to their Courts will noty let these laws be used. In the USA Erin Brockavich used Qui Tam to stop a very large corporate criminal from continuing to offend. Some of teh worst offenders are branches of the State Governments, extorting money from hordes of poor people and even imprisoning them for unpaid fines, or stopping them from working by taking their driving licesnces or car registration. The Commonwealth Parliament made this a crime in 2002, but lawyers are ignoring the laws of the Commonwealth, and the two party cartel stops law enforcement against these corporate criminals.
Unfortunately Unions and Politics are full of corrupt lawyers who appoint each other into prominent positions.
There were about thirty of them ( lawyers) in the Labor Party last Parliament and seventeen in the Liberal Party. They effectively shut down criticism of our corrupted Judiciary in the Parliament. The Judiciary is not mentioned in the Constitution, we should have courts of Judicature, not Courts with a Judiciary. we did have until about 1952 when the Liberals allowed the High Court to make restrictive Rules of Court in breach of S 43 Crimes Act 1914 and they have continued to be criminals ever since.
Well that is good news, I hope we should have less lawyers in the Parliament or are the Liberals just going to make up the numbers that the Labors evacuated.
The Senate looks a lot more promising.
Seggie. Not sure which pensioners are whining, Trish. I'm certainly not. I guess it's because I'm old and know how to make do and there has never been any super as far as I'm concerned. I never want to change furniture,llinen, etc. Quite content with what I've got and you may be surprised if you saw what I am content with so don't blame all pensioners. Some of us are quite nice and not whingers.