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[quote]De sleeplijn wrote:
Not starting a fight here, but which parts of Aussie society make you feel controlled? There is not a more free country in the Western world.
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Hmm…it’s just the coercive, compulsory nature of the government here. Do as they say, or get fined or penalized. Spend more than 4 minutes in the shower? You get fined. Fail to vote? You get fined. There is a whole list of offences building up that carry penalties these days. I can’t rattle them ALL off, but the things we are not allowed to do is building up. Of course there are plenty of reasons of justifying these things in the name of the public good.
But if, for example, the government didn’t waste $150,000 per every new police car put on the road (which they replace every 6 months JUST to waste money in order to use up all their budget) by keeping their current police cars running for longer, they could use the money to fix the water problem, for example.
There are speed cameras everywhere, which are more revenue raisers than anything else. Every day people lose their licences due to demerit points like dead flies dropping off a wall.
How about the graphic ad campaigns focusing on death and destruction the government uses all the time “fatal 4, every K over is a killer”, and all those drug and alcohol ads showing people having accidents or overdose and dying? It’s a propaganda tool to instill fear into the populace and thus compliance.
In the nightclubs there is a compulsory 3am lockout/curfew. If you step outside of a premises after 3am, even just for a smoke, the bouncer or doorman is legally required to lock you out of the club and you are not allowed back inside. (and HE gets a fine if he lets you back in!)
Police with sniffer dogs randomly raid clubs and parties on a regular basis and body search people for drugs! I think that’s a violation of basic human rights. These are free citizens on private property or licensed premises and they have to get pawed by a dog and then undergo a forced body search without warrant.
I don’t know, I just get the feeling that you can’t cough, sneeze or fart the wrong way these days without breaking some new legislation.
[quote]Guys live off the Government here their entire lives. A guy I work with gets around $400 on the dole per fortnight and so does his Mrs . And they earn the max amount possible at a part time job which is around $150 a week. They live a truly stress free and easy life. If they have kids, the Government gives them a $5000 handshake and then ups the weekly dole payments.
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Personally I wouldn’t equate getting the dole to freedom and a stress-free life. Most “dole bludgers” as they are called here, are unskilled, unmotivated, have no direction in life, find it hard to find or keep a job, and therefore are enslaved to the handout system they rely upon. Fortnightly visits to Centrelink to hand in their forms, and the money’s in the bank the next day. But have you ever tried living on, say, $300 a fortnight? That doesn’t even cover RENT for a house these days, which is averaging about $360 a week ($720 a fortnight). Australia is an expensive place to live and it’s not that easy to make ends meet, unless you are in the higher income bracket. As an American expatriate, you haven’t really seen or lived it from the inside, in the lower class “ghetto” areas. It may LOOK and sound easy, but it’s not as easy or stress free as it seems. Say we went the American way and didn’t give support our citizens with taxpayer money - most would not survive. We have whole families moving into TENTS these days because they are out of a home, even with government income support.
The good things about the system here are free medical care, plus the government pays for your university or college education until you have a career and are earning enough to pay it back.
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