-With AAP.
1. “If you’ve got nothing to hide.” Waleed Aly and Jacqui Lambie’s heated exchange over random drug testing.
On Monday night, The Project co-host Waleed Aly questioned Senator Jacqui Lambie about her stance on drug testing welfare recipients.
It comes after Scott Morrison announced the Coalition government wants a rollout of cashless debit cards for welfare recipients to prevent the payments being spent on alcohol, drugs and gambling. On top of this, the government has proposed drug-testing welfare recipients at random.
Jacqui Lambie has said she will support this decision if politicians, and by extension all those paid “from the public purse”, are also obliged to the random drug test.
“If you’ve got nothing to hide up there in that big white house then it’s now your turn to go and do that random drug and alcohol test. What’s wrong with you people, might miss a few wines after 8 o’clock at night will we? That’ll keep the backbenchers in line,” she said.
Lambie appeared on The Project to clarify her position: “Whether you are a teacher, whether you are working for a politician or you are a politician, tell me why you should not be random drug and alcohol tested, you know, I think that is where I am at with all of this.”
The senator’s mention of teachers saw journalist Waleed Aly question just how many public-funded professions would be included in her proposition.
“Every ABC journalist? Every academic working in the country that is not private?” he asked.
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Are we also going to start denying drug and alcohol-affected people medical treatment in our taxpayer funded hospitals? Are we going to deny a Medicare rebate for drug and alcohol-affected people who see their bulk-billed GP? Why not taxpayer-funded healthcare and access to roads from people who work within the black cashy economy? Why just crackdown on Centrelink recipients?
Because they have no political power and this is a way for our conservative government to save themselves some money without any backlash. They are such cowards. And this is just the beginning with this very dangerous government. We should be really scared of the religious discrimination legislation they will inflict on us next. It will affect us all greatly and set us back decades. Thanks again Queensland.
Besides that, alcohol abuse costs our economy far more than illicit drug use. It's just that the government makes a nice sum from the tax on alcohol whereas illicit drug use is mostly manufactured in the third world. What utter hypocrites. Typical conservatives.
My husband and I receive the age pension. It wouldn't bother either of us to be drug tested. We worked for a total of 87 years between us, so we contributed our share to the economy. I strongly object to taxpayer money being used to fund drug, alcohol or gambling addictions.
Following an accident, I was in a public hospital (we pay private health insurance in order to take at least some responsibility for our own healthcare), in a ward with three men. The man in the bed next to me was 47, lived in government housing and told me he'd never worked. He told me with no sense of shame whatever, that he'd just been approved for a $3,000 Centrelink loan. He'd told Centrelink that the money was so he could take his three children on a holiday because their mother made it difficult for him to see them. He'd be able to spend quality time with them without their mother suddenly arriving and taking them home. He found it hilarious that Centrelink had swallowed the story because he told me that he intended to use every cent to buy drugs.
He told the story to every visitor who came in, even his mother. The poor woman was actually crying and begging him not to do it. I remember his reply to the letter: 'I'm a drug addict Mum. That's what we do. You should be used to it by now!'
My question is this: my son owns his own business repairing and servicing heavy vehicles and plant. It's heavy, dirty work and he works 10 hours most days. His wife is a civil engineer. Between them, they pay tens of thousands of dollars a year in tax. Why should their hard earned money be used to support people like the guy in hospital? On what level is this reasonable?
Also, if the government decides to introduce a cashless welfare card for everyone on benefits, that won't bother us either.
That's all good in theory but the assumption that everyone on centrelink is a drug addict is wrong. I don't think you are making that assumption though. The costs to administer the drug testing would not be small. Would you be satisfied if that cost is greater than what would have been paid out in benefits to people who are addicts? The testing is planned to be random. That means it will not catch all of the addicts which already make up a small potion of welfare recipients. Thus the only reason is to look tough and act as a deterrent. Addicts already have other deterrents like losing their license or criminal charges. These have not stopped them being addicts, therefore the threat of losing centrelink wont either. Rehab has it's best chance of working when the recipient makes the choice to go and is not forced to.
What is the right of appeal to a positive test? Not everyone caught will be an addict. We have already seen how little personal case management has been shown to people caught up in the robo debt scheme.
The real result is likely to be increased cost in policing welfare, more people becoming homeless, more suicide, more crime.
It's already been stated over and over that current drug rehab services are stretched and under resourced.
Except that a huge amount of money would be used to catch a small.minority of people. Alcohol is much more of a problem but they arentvtalking about testing for this
I have a problem with the has less welfare card being used as a way to funnel government money into the liberal party. The scheme is run by Indue Pty which is run by an ex Lib party mp. The dobate most if their profits to the Libetal Party. Now the Liberal Party want to extend the scheme. ...hmm legit??
You’re right when you say I’m not making the assumption that everyone on welfare is a drug addict. However, I’m a bit puzzled as to the point about costs. How much expense is there for the thousands of random drug tests carried out by the police every year on drivers? It’s quick and efficient method and if the cost were prohibitive, they wouldn’t be doing them.
Doing nothing is, to my mind, not an option.