Centrelink Sadistic Megalomaniacs

I've been working part-time at a University for the past four months since I arrived back in Australia (George Orwell's 'Utopia')

I go in everyday and teach a course. It takes about an hour to get to work. The money is not much but it covers petrol,speed camera and parking fines, my rent and food. The work is challenging but gives me a much needed focus in life at present.

I got this job myself without the help of any state or Government agency.

I want to contrast the attitude of Centrelink now to what it was fifteen years ago when I last claimed social security in Victoria.

In those days, the days of a Labour Governmnet, Centrelink staff were polite and helpful. 'Customers' as we were referred to, were assumed to be innocent of trying to cheat the state until proven guilty.

Ordinary people were often less sympathetic to the unemployed, but Government agencies such as Centrelink were very helpful to us.

Now, in 2009 in Adelaide I find the reverse is true. Individuals seem quite friendly (albeit with the stand-offishness inherent to most 'Dinky-Di' Australians)

But Government officials and petty bureaucrats have developed an officious attitude. There is a pervasive robotic, mindless, box-ticking mindset which sees even quite senior officials unable or unwilling to make decisions. As Hitlers deputies' did at Nuremburg, this army of petty officials justify their vindictive megalomania by quoting moronic regulations. Full of their own self-importance, some of these sadists use my tax money to push ordinary citizens around. Like Himmler and Goering they take pleasure in their jobs.

They do not practice what they preach themselves. If they have chosen this job and like it they are  then they are dangerous sadists who should be rooted out by the new Labour Government and told like everyone else that they should find another job.


See how they like being told that!

These petty bureaucrats think they have been given a legal and local license -a  "Fatwah" by the conservative Governments (and the voters who voted for them) to intimidate innocent people.

"It's ok to be a Bastard!" has been the message in the last decade.

They have been told by 'Big Brother' (The Mass Media) that it is ok to bully, harrass and intimidate your fellow citizens and look after your own interests.


By way of illustration here is my story. I am sure it is repeated every day hundreds of times around this Utopian lucky country of ours..


Even though I am working, I keep applying for social security so that I maintain my concession card to pay for medication from Chemists. This means I am officially still on Centrelink's books even though they pay me virtually nothing. They occasionally pay me a few dollars if I am sick (as my employer doesn't, because I am 'casual' like many employees these days) or if it is a week semester break between sessions.

The recent Government re-reorganisation of jobseekers has now seen me switched to  another Job provider called 'Jobs Statewide' (JSW) who proudly announce that they have 'won' a contract to provide jobs for job seekers.

Interesting word that they think thay have 'won'.

What is it they have won?

It certainly sounds like they have won a prize in a raffle.

It seems they have won a prize - that of being allowed to push their victims, other innocents and a few malingerers around.

What greater pleasure can there be in life than that?

On Monday, I found an e-mail in my 'Trash' box from Jobstatewide (JSW) 'reminding' me that I had an appointment the NEXT day (Tuesday) in the centre of Adelaide (miles away from where I live) at a time when I was teaching at University.

I had never heard from 'JSW' Jobs statewide before. how can i be 'reminded' of something I had heard nothing about?

I assumed they must be my new provider to whom I had been assigned by Centrelink.

I was annoyed that I had been sent a 'reminder' -when I had never even been sent an appointment in the first place-and at twenty four hours notice!


Moreover, the E-mail said I was 'not allowed' (Is this legal?) to reply to Jobstatewide by using the reply button on my E-mail.

This was an unsubtle attempt to force the 'customer'(or victim) myself into phoning them at the customer's expense.


Anyway,I overcame my indignation and did as I was requested- phoning Jobstatewide at my own expense on the Monday afternoon-immediately after receiving this junk e-mail-to tell them that I was working on the Tuesday.

I asked them why they didn't know that I was working?

I had ,after all, been filling it in on my forms every two weeks for the past four months.

They didn't even know I was working!


The thought occurred to me:

Was I just some number on the computer whose file is not even read before I am phoned. ?

Surely not-in a country where millions of tax payer's dollars is put into an educational system which is supposed to teach us to be critical thinkers and problem solvers?

Surely not! This is Australia...

That turned out to be exactly the case.

I phoned JSW and told them they should read the file and check with Centelink before they send out E-mails at such short notice.

Three days later I got a letter from JSW (Jobstatewide) making an appointment at the same time on the same day of the following week and making all sorts of veiled threats about what would happen if I didn't show up!

The letter started off with

"You are required to attend an appointment..."

So rude!

Such a presumption of guilt!

The arrogance of these people!

Who do they think they are talking to?

Ned Kelly?

An Al Qaeda suspect?



I thought about phoning them but felt that that was pointless as they had ignored what I had said in the previous phone call on Monday.

I E-mailed them on the Thursday night saying I couldnt attend because I would be at work on the Tuesday.

The next day, Friday, I was at work and was called by Centrelink who wasted a half an hour of my time going over all the aforementioned events.

During this call they adopted an accusatory tone from the very start of the phone conversation.

They spoke to me as if I were a criminal.

It was clear neither Centrelink nor Jobstatewide had even bothered to read my file before contacting me.

I pointed this ut to them quite clearly. Neither of them knew I was working at a University.

If they had read my forms they would have found that I had also been doing voluntary work at three agencies for the previous three months as well as my work at the University-and that therefore I easily qualified for the small amounts of money the they had been paying me every so often.

Moreover, when Centrelink realised that I had indeed been working it did not stop the mindless bureaucrat on the phone from continuing to talk to me as if I were an errant teenager rather than a tax paying citizen who has more than complied fully with all his obligations.

First of all she claimed that she didn't know where I was working.

(Because she hadn't bothered to read my file before phoning)

And then she kept insisting I needed to attend appointments with JSW implying that I had lied to JSW on Monday about my working on the Tuesday.

This robot eventually phoned my employer then and there, wasting more of my time, as I was waiting on the phone and after wasting all this time, eventually changed her tone as I explained to her that I intended to have nothing more to do with JSW as they had clearly on Monday misrepresented the contents of my phone call to centrelink in a predictable attempt to cover up the fact that they had not even bothered to read my file.

This story illustrates for me what has happened to the 'lucky country' in the last decade while I have been in Borneo

A veritable army of petty bureaucrats (liberals) have appeared and started to harass and intimidate those less fortunate than themselves.

A hostility of almost sexual proportions can be detected in the way these Government petty bureaucrats now address their 'customers' (You and I). I have been on the receiving end of these people for the past six months in Government Departments.

The power has gone to their head.

Don't they realise that their innings is over ?

Their number has come up?

That the corporate business model has failed?

That the 'blame the victim' approach is no longer acceptable.

These petty bureaucrats (like Hitlers "Brownshirts") are people who have amounted to nothing in life yet thay have the right to harrass and intimidate anyone.

They should be rooted out of the system.