I guess the first question that needs to be answered is, how much are we actually paying in welfare? Well in the 2010/11 financial year 
welfare spending in Australia was $120 billion, with $90 billion of that being paid out in cash payments, such as unemployment benefits. Throughout that year this $120 billion paid on welfare expenditure was around 35% of the governments total revenue from tax.
In the current 2014/15 financial year we are still using up around 35% of total budget expenditure but that is amounting now to $146 billion in welfare spending.
The government wants to get the National budget or our country’s budget back into surplus – why? Because the cost of our debt is costing a lot of money in interest payments – the government is currently paying $1billion a month in interest on its debt and that money only comes from one place – taxpayers. So we are all paying for it in one way or another.
In Australia at present we have 1 in 5 Australians receiving income support – is this sustainable?
Can we look at ways of reducing the $146 billion per year being currently spent in welfare payments in some way without it hurting people who really need help? Can we have a work for the dole or work for unemployment benefits system in place? I think that it is very sad and unfortunate when people lose their jobs, through no fault of their own, and have to go on unemployment benefits, but I think we should consider both:
(a) Working for the unemployment benefit that is being received in some sort of way that may help the economy &
(b) That perhaps unemployment benefits should not last forever – perhaps we need to consider reducing them or taking them away after a substantial period of time.
