Australia is to drug test newly unemployed people as part of a crackdown on those who spend their benefits on getting high, with data from sewage used to identify hot spots to target, officials said yesterday.
Up to 5,000 jobless people will have to take the test to quality for allowances as part of a trial to address welfare-fueled substance abuse.
Benefit recipients who do not pass are to have their handouts put on a cashless debit card that they can only use for essentials such as food and accommodation.
Those who fail more than once are to be referred to medical professionals for assessment and treatment.
“We’re going to trial this with just 5,000 people and if it doesn’t work we’ll stop it and if it does work and it’s helping people, well, we’ll keep doing it,” Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison said. “We’d be silly not to.”
Australia’s unemployment rate stands at 5.9 percent, with 753,000 people out of work.
The government hopes the plan, along with docking welfare payments for people who skip job interviews or fail to attend meetings, could save taxpayers more than A$600 million (US$440 million) over the next four years.
Sewage data would be used to pinpoint three sites for the trial based on the National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program, which has identified “astonishingly high” rates of methamphetamine use across Australia.
Australian Minister of Social Services Christian Porter said it was about helping people have the best chance possible of getting a job.
“The 5,000-person drug testing trial is squarely aimed at identifying and assisting people and driving behavioral change,” he said. “What we think we can achieve through this is to ensure people at that absolutely critical point in their life when they’re searching for a job, engage in behaviors that assist them in that process and don’t destroy that process.”
Some welfare lobby groups have argued the approach is wrong.
“This is further demonizing of people on social security, people on the lowest incomes in the country,” Australian Council of Social Service chief executive Cassandra Goldie told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “Another harsh welfare crackdown, compliance, it’s already really tough.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not