-Budget Focuses on Centrelink Policy-
AUSTRALIA: As part of Budget 2017 the government has announced a more stringent program to reduce the chances for people to make poor choices while on Centrelink welfare. Job-seekers will be subject to a demerit system that records their 'belligerence' toward attending Centrelink referred appointments where they will receive 'strikes' after repeated issues until they reach three strikes.The government will also begin a random drug testing program on 5 000 new welfare recipients with plans to extend the testing to others who fail to correctly report to interviews as directed. Among penalties such as temporarily discontinuing payments the government will use the Indue Cashlesh Welfare Card to quarantine Centrelink customers access to money.http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/05/09/budget-2017-welfare-recipients-be-drug-testedhttps://finance.nine.com.au/2017/05/09/20/38/federal-budget-2017-government-rolls-out-drug-testing-for-welfare-cheats