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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 25, No. 2. 1962.

Luck and Security

Luck and Security

Sir,—To sound a rather unusual note for Salient; I want to pay a tribute to the work of the Social Security Department. About once a week there is a letter in the newspapers demanding why one must pay as much as 1/6 in the pound, or anything at all, letting others gel their characters ruined by receiving something for nothing. Now most of us most of the time are lucky; not more thrifty, more industrious or more deserving than others—simply more lucky. Social Security acts as a universal (and non-profit-making) insurance scheme for when your luck goes bad on you. Today or tomorrow you may be an innocent victim in a car-smash, may contract tuberculosis or a brain-tumour. Your earning-power would vanish for many months, maybe even for the rest of your life. And if you have any dependents, what would happen to them? How long would your savings last?

In addition to the Cash Benefits: Superannuation, Family, Age, Invalids, Miners', Orphans', Widows', Unemployed Sickness, etc., the Department runs a Welfare Service with trained social workers to help the down-and-out and the very unfortunate. This is good. This is how a community ought to be. Because we live in a Welfare State, life is not necessarily easy. But it is not as cruel and hard as it could otherwise be, for the unlucky.

Granted the bill is heavy; but the number of cases in which the cost could be justly reduced is very tiny. The bill is great; so is the need. I am, etc.,

John C. Ross.