I agree with you wholeheartedly Fred. I'm 60 and still need to work. Maybe when I'm 70 I might feel like retirement.
The govt are starting to talk about foreign workers for the farmers FS dole bludger need to get off their arses.

Even when unemployment falls in the new year back to pre-lockdown levels, there will still be about 500,000 long term unemployed who want to keep staying that way. I am with Fred on this, despite being in my 50s. Each of these people should be told to report to the nearest dole office and pick up a free (yeah, paid for by us) survival parcel.

This parcel will contain a three-man dome tent, a map of the state the dole recipent lives in and a rail/coach ticket plus instructions on how to report to the manager of a fruit orchard or other farm where vegetables need picking. At the end of the page of instructions it will simply say, fail to report on time will mean loss of the dole and no return rail ticket!

I've been trying to hire a handyman where I work for the last six months and the applicants have been a bunch of deadbeats, non English speakers or qualified tradesmen who don't seem to understand that the role is unskilled and therefore only pays a base wage. I am not going to hire a dumbarse who cannot put a proper resume together, complete with the contact details of his referees so that I know at a glance what he has spent the last five years doing. I can't hire someone who isn't fluent in English because the position involves some elevated responsibilty when there are certain emergencies such as a fire alarm - this person needs to accept and carry out orders said once, not 10,000 times. And, I cannot hire a tradesman because they will do a runner as soon as the grass grows on the other side of the fence.

I was dead against the Commonwealth Government increasing the rate the dole is paid at and I still am. I agree that $40 a day ain't much and it well and truly plunges the recipient below the poverty line but that is the whole idea. I've been there twice - briefly - so I know what it's like but if the dole becomes a disincentive for the slothful to find a job then something is wrong. There are billionaires in this country that started out by failing at school or emmigrating to Australia with no qualifications at all. They got their money by getting off their arses and working. With that, there's no excuse for this sorry bunch. No-one expects them to become billionaires but it'd be nice if they'd meet us halfway and become self-dependent.