hawaiian_robot posted:

Please please please let him actually bring this up in court

Bogan King posted:

There is nothing funnier in court than 'pro se'

ABC posted:

Welfare drug tests: 10pc expected to test positive, those who fail twice will pay for analysis

Almost 10 per cent of welfare recipients are expected to test positive for cannabis, ice or ecstasy in a new drug-testing trial.

Those who return a positive test more than once will also have to pay for some of the cost of the analysis, a Senate estimates hearing has been told.

The Federal Government wants to drug test 5,000 new Centrelink clients and those who test positive will be forced onto an income-management scheme, which controls how a recipient spends their money.

The Department of Social Services' Cath Halbert told the hearing she "was not expecting very large numbers" to fail the illicit substances test.

"Out of 5,000 recipients who will be randomly selected for drug testing, based on available data and Department of Human Services data is that up to 425 recipients are expected to test positive to the initial test," Ms Halbert said.

"Around 120 recipients are estimated to test positive to a subsequent test and be referred for assessment for treatment."

Young people deemed to be at risk of substance abuse will be required to undertake random saliva, urine or hair follicle tests for drugs in three locations from next year. The method of testing is yet to be decided.

The Department of Social Services confirmed recipients who fail a test more than once will pay for the cost of subsequent tests.

"If one or both tests return positive, they will be called back within 25 working days to have a second test to ensure this is actually an ongoing issue and they will be required to pay for that test too," Ms Halbert said.

"The cost of the test will be set at the lowest cost of the types of testing that are being conducted and if they need to pay the cost of that, it will be through withholdings from their payment."

Labor and Greens senators expressed their surprise about the move and wanted to know the cost of the drug tests.

Department officials refused to provide detail, citing negotiations with a private firm that may conduct the tests.

They also told the hearing the drug testing proposal, announced in the budget, had been considered "for well over a year".

ABC posted:

Department officials refused to provide detail, citing negotiations with a private firm that may conduct the tests.

Bogan King posted:

quote:

They also told the hearing the drug testing proposal, announced in the budget, had been considered "for well over a year".

DancingShade posted:

It's not about the tests or the results.

It's about paying a mate's private company a shitload of taxpayer money to conduct the tests and getting favors in return.

Classic corruption

Bogan King posted:

Don't forget poor shaming. Even if there wasn't graft they'd still need that to get hard.

bowmore posted:

CrazyTolradi posted:

He is dumb enough to do this, I'm pretty sure they're representing themselves too. It's really funny because they have this vision of how it's all going to go down and it just goes the opposite way.

JBP posted:

Nice, Court can finally preach to everyone in the country

aejix posted:

What does it loving take before the police/legal system is actually forced to do something?

Bogan King posted:

https://twitter.com/couriermail/status/870010232923070464

starkebn posted:

She makes the rest of the nation talk about some horrible poo poo, to rebut her arguments, that they wouldn't otherwise bring up.

quote:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/darwin-or-dole-for-public-servants-says-lnp-20170531-gwgvhs.html

Federal public servants should face the sack if they if they refuse to go to work in Darwin, a former Coalition minister says.

Queensland Senator Ian Macdonald says federal bureaucrats in Canberra live "very privileged lives", describing the capital as a place where buses run every five minutes and hospitals are dotted around the suburbs.

The former mining minister for regional services believes that public servants should be forced en masse to regional Queensland and the Northern Territory, where he says people are "less demanding" and expect fewer government handouts.

Senator Macdonald was responding to comments in Senate Estimates early this week by Treasury Secretary John Fraser who complained that none of his public servants had been willing to answer a call for help from the territory's bureaucracy.

Mr Fraser said the NT's public service requested the assistance of a federal Treasury official to work in Darwin for three months but no-one in the top economic agency had been interested, despite the posting being advertised twice.

The Treasury Secretary told the senators on the Economics Committee that it was sad his agency's workers were not up for a "bit of adventure" in the top end.

But Senator Macdonald went further, saying he wants people sacked if they refuse to "get out of their very privileged lives" in Canberra Sydney or Melbourne and move to the regions, he told ABC radio Darwin.

"I would have thought that if a public servants had been asked by their boss, the secretary of the department, to go to Darwin, albeit only for three months, that person should do what was asked of them," the Howard-era minister said.

"I wouldn't have thought that person should be in a position to say 'nah' I"m not going to Darwin."

"I was aghast to hear that no-one volunteered and that people wouldn't go."

The Northern Territory has lost a higher proportion, 15 per cent, of federal public servants since 2013, more than than any other state or territory, down to just 2,220.

But a suggestion this year from another NT Liberal figure, former Country Liberal Party Deputy Chief Minister Mike Reed, that large numbers of public servants from the Prime Minister's department move to Alice Springs was met with silence.

Residents of the national capital might be surprised at Senator Macdonald's impression of their city, which he says has a lifestyle very different to that of northern Australia.

"If you lived in Canberra, you've got a school down every street, you've got a hospital in the next suburb, you've got four-lane highways wherever you go, you've got the very best of telecommunications, of theatre, of whatever aspect of life," he said.

"They just don't get the feel of what it's like to live and work and play in places that are far away from these privileged societies that they, from birth I guess, have always experienced."

Senator Macdonald praised Mr Fraser for opening a Treasury office in Perth but said there should be outposts in Darwin and far north Queensland too.

"I think that if public servants did get out of their privileged lives in Canberra and Melbourne or Sydney and went to Darwin, they'd probably never leave," Senator Macdonald said.

"We find that a lot in Townsville, those who are forced to come there suddenly become its greatest advocates, they love the place."