Welfare recipients fall a third in under 20yrs - Australia

Yes, I'm talking about the same Australia that Kevin Andrews and the gov is. They claim welfare spending is out of control and unsustainable, bla. So bad that we must drive the sick into abject poverty for the sake of the country's bottom line.

But the facts say something different. Something very different.  I was certainly surprised to hear such startling figures. Yes, since 1997, the number of Australians receiving welfare payments has dropped by nearly one third.

The government’s own Review of Australia’s Welfare System, chaired by Patrick McClure, shows that Australia’s welfare state is shrinking. The proportion of ordinary Australians accessing government benefits has been falling for decades. According to the Interim Report, released over the weekend, “the percentage of the working age population receiving income support peaked in 1997 at 24.9 per cent, before falling … to 16.7 per cent in 2013.” 

That’s a very significant fall. The proportion of Australians on welfare dropped by approximately a third in less than two decades. As a nation, we’re bludging less, and working more. more

 
Such spectacularly blatant lying through their teeth, this gov seems to thinks we're all fuckin morons.