Independent senate candidate wants Universal Survival Income at cost of $360 billion a year
A Geelong-based independent senate candidate wants every Aussie to get $20,000 under a policy that could cost upwards of $360bn — 12 times more than Medicare.
Chad Van Estrop
@cvanestrop
May 15, 2022 – 6:00AM
Every non-incarcerated adult Australian citizen would be handed $20,000 from the Federal Government under a radical policy a St Albans Park based federal election candidate is taking to the May 21 poll.
Independent senate candidate Paul Ross, 57, said a Universal Survival Income would apply to all citizens living in Australia.
It would be funded by doubling the Goods and Services Tax to 20 per cent and lifting the number of goods and services it’s applied to from 60 to 100 per cent.
“If all citizens get $20,000… you can deregulate the Labor market. So there’s no more argument about minimum wages; they don’t exist. If people want to work they can work, they are not under survival income [slavery],” Mr Ross, who holds a Bachelor of Economics and a Masters of Arts (International Studies), said.
“Taxes would come down and the budget would be balanced because you have massive savings in health, including mental health.”
Mr Ross, the founder of the 100-member Citizen’s Dividend Organisation a grassroots organisation concerned about economic issues, estimated the policy would cost $360bn annually.
In 2020-21 the Federal Government raised about $73bn from the GST which Mr Ross said was applied to about 60 per cent of goods and services.
Inflation was at a 20-year-high at 5.1 per cent in April, well outside the 2-3 per cent band the Reserve Bank wants as guard rails for the Australian economy.
But Mr Ross said a $20,000 Universal Survival Income for every Aussie would not further bump up inflation.
“There would be a one-off hit but that’s no problem. There will be extra demand because people are getting more money. The (rise to the) GST would take excess demand out of the economy.
“We’ve got 5.1 per cent inflation and the GST might be 0.5 per cent of that.”
Mr Ross said the policy would not remove the incentive to work.
“No one is going to be happy on $20,000, we all want luxuries.
“If people can say ‘right I’m going to get $20,000 a year. I might go and (work) and get a couple of grand more because I want to go to Bali at the end of the year’.
“People are going to go ‘yippee yi-yay, I’m being supported and now I’m really going to let rip, work, and look after myself and my family’.”
He said the policy, which would offer top ups for pensioners and those with a disability, would replace welfare, and help to solve social issues and prevent some crime.
“The charity sector is about 11 per cent of our economy it is massive amount, around $200 billion or over.
“We’ve got 5.7 million volunteers, it’s nearly half the workforce and yet they are failing to solve our social issues.
“Law enforcement becomes a minuscule program under the policy because people don’t have (to steal to survive).”
Mr Ross said the policy — which he said was piloted in some small areas in Canada and Finland — would “eradicate” poverty, unemployment, stigma including the ‘dole-bludger’ narrative, harassment via the mutual obligation process and workplace exploitation.
Mr Ross, who believes he can win 10,000 votes at the election, is yet to discuss the policy with the major parties who would need to support it for it to become law.
Comments
J T
Socialism knows no bounds… Always thinking they can even the odds without taking a free market or personal decisions into account. This initiative would do one thing, make the rich even richer.
Like a good socialist, the assumption here is that all this ‘free’ money will be spent responsibly. Sorry Mr. Ross, it won’t. Those with the least will blow it, those who need it less so will invest it, and around and round we go.
If equality is what you desire, personal responsibility is where you need to start.
Paul Ross
Thank you very much JT.
Most people do not regard labour market deregulation as Socialism.
On the contrary, with Survival Income Slavery (SIS) abolished, capitalism is then taken to the next level.
With the eradication of: Poverty, Unemployment (or Underemployment), Stigma (‘the dole-bludger’ narrative including its racist and disablist variants), Harassment (‘mutual obligations’) and paid-worker-Exploitation (i.e. they don’t need paid-work and, because there is zero unemployment, they can get other paid-work), we will be at least twice as prosperous.
Non-GST taxes will plummet.
Thank you once again.
Paul.
Debbie
Your proposal is pretty much job keeper on a permanent basis.
Paul
Thank you Debbie, I’m glad you raised this.
Jobkeeper was a disastrous waste of resources.
The Coalition trashed the chance to trade-up from divisiveness and regulation to the Survival-Income-Slavery abolishing Universal Survival Income (USI).
With Jobkeeper, there was no labour market deregulation – just even more artificial interference.
It didn’t encourage adaptation or increase freedom.
It didn’t eradicate: Poverty, Unemployment (& Underemployment), Stigma (‘the dole-bludger’ narrative including its racist and disablist variants), Harassment (‘mutual obligations’) and paid-worker-Exploitation.
Its cost exceeded its return.
Every in-country non-incarcerated citizen, by definition, must have a Survival-Income – it’s a law of nature transposed onto an Industrial society – and The USI does this directly and efficiently.
Thank you again.
Paul Ross
Ben
Possibly the craziest thing I’ve ever heard from a politician, and that’s quite the accomplishment.
What happens a year later when that money is gone and we’re still paying 20% GST? Pretty sure the “survival income” situation would be even worse.
Paul
Thank you very much Ben.
With this policy we become vastly more prosperous.
First, there is labour market deregulation, which has massive efficiency benefits – our manufacturing will boom, our regions will boom and our international competitiveness will become unrivaled.
Second, we scrap most of our current income-Welfare program (such as Jobseeker), which is already around 45% of The USI.
Third, there are immense health (including mental health benefits, which the Productivity Commission estimates costs Australia $200 billion per year), crime (no poverty, no unemployment/underemployment and reduced mental-illness) and Welfare savings.
Fourth, to answer your point, yes, the 20% GST is ongoing but so is The USI. For instance, a full-time paid-worker on the minimum-wage receives around $36,000 net. With The USI, they will receive around $56,000 plus their partner and their adult children will receive The USI.
Non-GST taxes will fall.
Thank you once again.
Paul Ross
…
CDO
‘The pre-condition for saving the planet is Survival-Income-Slavery (SIS) abolition.’
The Universal Survival Income (USI) is not a cost but, like Universal Education, an investment, which will repay itself in multiples (including via immense environmental-sustaining efficiency gains) such that we will be, at least, twice as prosperous.
The USI should have been an Industrial Revolution inheritance and the Left – the guardians of Cooperation – should have championed it as they did the other 4 universal, guaranteed & unconditional Citizen Empowerment Infrastructure (CEI) cornerstones of:
- Universal Rule of Cooperation-first-&-Competition-second Law
- Universal Liberal Democracy
- Universal Education
- Universal Healthcare.
[The Right – the guardians of Competition – to their credit, eventually gave bipartisan support for these 4 CEI cornerstones before also progressively contributing vast competition-related improvements to each of them.]
Instead, with ‘universal, guaranteed & unconditional’ not a narrative, the Left became distracted, first, with Universal Minimum Hourly Wages (UMHoW) then, variously, with Communism (a Competition-eradicator) and, particularly in the West, ‘targeted’ income-Welfare, which is non-universal, non-guaranteed & conditional. The Left’s current campaigns include ‘Raise the Rate 4 Eternity’ and, the transition-to-Communism-Mark-II, Job Guarantee (JG).
Meanwhile, the Right – forever late to the party – should collectively partake in Neale Daniher’s ‘Big Freeze’ so as to wake from their 260-year slumber because within arm’s length is their Holy Grail of labour market deregulation.
The labour market should never have been regulated – it’s a violation of nature and of our human-nature. It was only ever regulated because The USI wasn’t implemented.
Regarding The USI investment, 45% of the $360 billion headline is gained by eradicating most of our disastrous bureaucratic mental-illness-fermenting income-Welfare system and rejuvenating the remainder as top-ups for pensioners and the disabled. Another 35% will come from the GST increase. And, the rest (and much much more) will come from the twin multitudinous benefits of Survival-Income-Slavery abolition and the deregulated labour market, which will unleash business and Australia Incorporated.
That is, instead of an economy comprising a colossal self-manufactured-mess Band-Aiding component consisting of excess law enforcement, health (including mental health), bureaucracy and charity, we will have one that ‘exclusively efficiently produces and distributes the goods & services we need and desire’.
Thus, by making just one further smart decision, which, of course, first needs to be investigated and discussed by all (including our experts and influencers), we will add trillions of dollars to our prosperity and millions of smiles to our faces. [Is it my imagination or do Australians seem to be losing interest in life?]
A win-win – this is what the gurus are always talking about – and here it is, on a societal-wide level, as easy as can be, on a platter – simple, pleasant and elegant – all we need do is escape our Left-Light-Right Survival-Income-Slavery paradigm prismed mindset.
Thank you.
Best regards
Paul Ross
Founder, The Citizen’s Dividend Organisation (CDO)
2022 Independent-‘Independent’ Abolitionist Senate (Victoria) Candidate.