English
Alternative forms
Noun
sit-down money (uncountable)
- (Australia, colloquial, informal) Welfare or social security, including unemployment benefits, especially such welfare paid to Aboriginals.
- 1999, Australian Senate, Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), page 9151,
- I have given you examples of some of the reforms we have already put in place which are helping young people, for example, to find jobs instead of getting sit-down money, which they got from Labor.
- 2005 February 21, Australian Broadcasting Commission, The World Today, transcript,
- A discussion paper being released today canvasses a number of proposals to transform the payments that have become known as ‘sit-down money’.
- 2006, Australian House of Representatives, Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), Volume 279, page 63,
- So far be it from wanting sit-down money. More and more Indigenous leaders are telling me that that is what has destroyed their society.
- 2010, Andrew Stojanovski, Dog Ear Café, ReadHowYouWant, Large Print 16pt, page 105,
- Meanwhile everyone else in your family is unemployed, getting $400 a fortnight unemployment benefit (which the Warlpiri describe as ‘sit-down money’). As soon as your $600 is in your hand, there are eight people who you are obliged to distribute it to, in the same way that you would have to distribute a kangaroo. When they get paid, they also have to share their sit-down money with each of the others.