Guest post by Rachael Price
Dear Australian Liberal National Party
My name is Rachael. I am a second year university student. I am under 30 years of age. I am unemployed. I will be impacted by your changes to the eligibility criteria for Youth Allowance.
Before you considered implementing these changes I was excited at the prospect of graduating from university: of course I was worried about my chances of gaining employment fresh out of uni, but I was focused on getting my degree and succeeding in the eyes of society.
Right now, I am shitting myself due to the six months I will be without financial support. I am certain this genius (this is sarcasm) brain fart was conceptualised with a certain stereotype in mind. This is the Liberal Party’s perception that us selfish Gen Ys have successful parents who would be able to feed, clothe, house and drive us around for six months while we apply for 40 jobs and go to all the job interviews we’ll get (more sarcasm).
It is obvious you kept this stereotype of “the ideal Australian LNP voting family” in mind when you ignored the fact that 719,700 Australians were unemployed in May 2014. You kept this stereotype in mind when you ignored the fact that there were only 146,100 job vacancies in Australia during May 2014. It looks to me like the numbers don’t exactly add up. You kept this stereotype at the forefront of your minds when you ignored the fact that 2,265,000 Australians are living below the poverty line. My family falls below this line.
My family is my mother. She works two jobs, seven days per week and still does not earn enough from her jobs to pay rent, bills and living costs. Unlike your stereotype of drinking, partying hard and going to music festivals I give most of the money I receive from Centrelink (i.e. taxpayers) to my mother so I can continue to live at home. She would not be able to keep me at home without this money.
When I graduate and you deem me unfit to receive support to live, I will have to leave home. I have no other family. I have nowhere to go. To tell me to go to an already struggling charity sector displays your lack of compassion and knowledge of the amount of support they are able to provide. According to Homelessness Australia there are currently 105,237 people who are without a home in country you were appointed to lead and care for.
Another stereotype you kept in mind was that us Gen Ys are lazy and selfish. Halfway through my first year of university I was fortunate enough to gain an unpaid internship in the industry I wish to work in after I graduate. I have been there 12 months today and hopefully I can continue to work there until I complete my education. This will give me around 30 months of on-the-job experience and maybe just enough to gain employment out of uni. But employers expect up to three years experience. The only way to get experience is to work in unpaid internships. In case you missed it, the key word is UNPAID. While companies know they can get a recently graduated student to do work for nothing, they will not consider paying them for it. At the moment, I am getting in to debt for a degree that might not be used.
When I leave uni, not only will I most likely be rejected from employment but I will also be rejected from financial support too. You might achieve your goal of a surplus of money but not without gaining a surplus of societal problems. Crime will increase. Prostitution will increase. Suicides will increase. Mental health will deteriorate. This budget is cruel. It was shaped by crude stereotypes that you have applied to every single young person in Australia. You have no idea what you are doing to my generation. Or you do and you just don’t care. If that’s the case, who’s the selfish generation now?
Kind regards
Rachael
you said it... 
I think he knows and doesn’t care Rachael.
I thought unpaid work experience was unlawful? It can be legal if it’s a vocational placement, or for a short time-frame, otherwise long term I thought that you had to be paid minimum wage? Anyway, that’s not the point of this article. Tony Abbot should realise that with centrelink not only can Rachael sustain efforts finding a job, if she wishes she would be able to continue her internship giving her valuable experience in her field. This whole, get a job, I don’t care what job, just get one attitude from the government is appalling.
I checked Rachael’s blog, and what did I find? Bogan racist comments that had nothing to do with the essence of the post. Sad.
I tried to post the following. I think she has switched off comments.
“Shockadelic specialises in stalking anti-racists and putting unsolicited rubbish in their mail boxes. He has already been cautioned by police but obviously has moved to intimidating women online – something which his sort is well-known for.
Ignore him Rach.
The Unprocessed milk creature is also known for spamming our blogs. I’d delete both of their posts.
Sorry you have been targeted by these cowards.”
As a general rule, when you have a small handful of very loud idiots trying to shout you down, you’re probably on the right track.
THANK YOU so much for this, Racheal. I’m in a similar situation except I have a bigger family and my dad is terminally ill (so all their money goes towards that). Don’t give up! They WANT you to quit uni and get a full time cleaning job. They want you to be out of sight/out of mind, the last thing they want is for us “low-lifes” to succeed in life, this is why they place such ridiculous limitations on us. I know you’ve probably tried everything but have you thought of O-desk or Freelancer sites? That is how I’ve been adding to me “income” the last few years. It doesn’t always work, but it can help. Once again, it’s good to know there are other “mature students” like me trying to make it in life (it’s obviously not good to know that they’re also similarly impacted by our shitty govt’s policies, though).
I’d probably go a step further and say this is all deliberate and by design, they want today’s youth to form an uneducated underclass, happy to work shit jobs for a pittance because the alternative is to starve.
yup. exactly.
“Shockadelic specialises in stalking anti-racists”
And you specialise in libelling/defaming people.
Which *is* a crime, unlike putting “unsolicited” mail in someone’s letter box.
I never spammed. I debated.
You, like Rachael, simply don’t want to hear any opinion but your own.
Hi Shockadelic-are you still claiming the holocaust never happened?
Daryl
You’re spamming now and I am debating whether to ban you or to leave you up here for everyone else to laugh at you.
Ban. Laugh. Whatever. Goodbye.
Quote me, JM
I have questioned the severity of the claims, which is what revisionists do.
Even the official version has been revised several times.
*Nobody* claims that oppression and killings “never happened”.
Further to the above defamation:
“cautioned by police”
Now that’s something that never happened.
I was questioned once, only because I was accused, without any evidence, of involvement in creating fake Facebook profiles.
Such juvenile antics are beneath someone of my superior intelligence (IQ 123).
“intimidating women”
To an anti-sexist, a blogger being female should be irrelevant.
To imply I should treat a woman more tenderly than a male blogger is itself sexist.
I speak to men and women in exactly the same manner: Bluntly.
“stalking anti-racists”
I haven’t interacted with this blog for years.
The only reason I have now is because *you* are making comments about me.
I have no problem with people opposed to racism.
I have a problem with hysterical obsessive fanatics who bully, censor and misrepresent people they deliberately “hunt down” to attack.
Every age has a phenomena that attracts hysterical obsessives like magnets.
In the past they burnt witches and exposed communists.
Today, they “fight”, “stamp out” and “‘eliminate” racism (note the violent terminology).
Their logo (“Goodnight White Pride”) is a man kicking another man (to death?) on the ground.
If you wish to never hear from me again, don’t make comments about me.’
Here’s your quotes:
“Most people have no idea there was even a swimming pool in Auschwitz, let alone that it was built at the height of the alleged slaughter”
So to be clear, you’re saying the Holocaust did happen, even though earlier you called the slaughter “alleged”?
Please, go on. How minor was the Holocaust? What are you saying really happened? Still telling us Auschwitz was a holiday camp that got out of hand? See how long you can try and provide evidence of your thoughts without having to say “All Jews are liars”.
““intimidating women”
To an anti-sexist, a blogger being female should be irrelevant.”
Great defense there. “You declare me of intimidating women, but I don’t see gender!”
So you do admit intimidation of others then?
““stalking anti-racists”
I haven’t interacted with this blog for years.”
What another great defense! It doesn’t even respond to anything anyone is accusing you of. Someone says you stalk, you respond with you do not comment on this blog. If I accuse you of trying to kill someone, you’ll probably respond with “I didn’t like the movie Frozen”
“Their logo (“Goodnight White Pride”) is a man kicking another man (to death?) on the ground.”
I have literally never seen nor heard of this before. Is this the sort of thing only extremists actually can see?