The "National Disability Insurance Scheme" is the latest one. "Insurance" is defined as a guarantee of compensation by a company or the state for specified loss, damage, illness, or death in return for payment of a specified premium.
Well, the NDIS is no insurance scheme because no one pays a 'specified premium' other than what's taken from the pockets of the Australian taxpayers, and it's sending Australia broke, or rather, further broke!
Welfare by any other name is still welfare, and while some is needed in any civilised society, it shouldn't be incentive-killing or abused. When it is administered by indifferent public servants, who are not going to break out into a sweat trying to weed out the disgusting from the disabled, it's going to be abused, hence the big blow-out in the NDIS.
It's well known that Centrelink staff push long-term unemployed (or rather, unemployables) onto the disability pension. Their disability is that they can't get out of bed in the morning. There are some even in my small number of nodding acquaintances. One I see every week on my pool day in the fast lane where he does a convincing Ian Thorpe (the swimming bit). Disability? Laziness is not a disability; get a job!
The irony is that many of the really disabled, the ones with white sticks, or on crutches, or in wheelchairs, line up at bus stops and on railway platforms every morning as they go off to work to earn an honest living just like you and me (well, perhaps not like me, as I'm retired now but I still pay a motza in taxes, hence my concern).
Remember Hillary's now famous climbing phrase "because it is there"? Well, far too many who claim welfare do so only "because it is there".
P.S. For the sake of accuracy, Hillary said, "we've knocked the bastard off". It was George Mallory who said, "because it is there", but he never reached the top nor did he ever get down again. His remains were found 300 metres below the summit of Mount Everest, and then given a proper burial. Let's hope the NDIS is given a proper burial at the next election.
P.P.S. Not surprisingly, even the crims are in on it: more than 20,000 jailed criminals have been busted illegally claiming a total of more than $16.5 million in taxpayer-funded benefits. Human Services Minister Alan Tudge said, “Due to the increasing sophistication of our data-matching capabilities, we are catching these crooks". Who is he trying to kid?
