Among the reporting obligations for the age pensioner in Australia are to let Centrelink know when you are going overseas, even on holiday, just in case they are able to void the social contract the government made with you when you were a young lad in the 1970s and starting to pay tax, unaware that most of it would go to concentration camps for refugees on Pacific islands, and to advise them when you are sent to prison or committed to an institution.
We all know that when one is banged up at Her Majesty’s Pleasure at a cost to the taxpayer far greater than your pension the first thought is, ‘Gosh, now that I’ve slain the prom queen on that lonely road on the outskirts of town, I must notify Centrelink of my change in circumstances’, or ‘Once I’ve finished smearing faeces on this wall I must upload my 200-page analysis of why rabbits are persecuting me to my.gov.au.’
It takes special minds to write government policy that manages to skirt around reality almost entirely.
Michael McDonald, Wilsons Creek
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
