Centrelink harassing jobless

In a recent report by the corporate media, it was made known that the government’s welfare strong arm Centrelink, is allowing its welfare recipients wait for two hours or more before being attended to.

It has also been mentioned that the jobless are expected to survive on $35 per day from the welfare payments received, even though this figure is ‘officially’ approximately 60% below the poverty line.

There have even been put forward challenges for politicians to live on $35 per day, with a response from labour MP Bill Shorten, that he is also struggling to make ends meet on $330,00 per year.

Whilst politicians give themselves pay rises of anything between $11,000 to $60,000 per year, a proposal put forward for a pay increase of $50 per week or $2,600 per year was rejected.

The discriminatory reality is that welfare recipients, particularly the unemployed, are not only frowned upon by ‘authorities’ but are labelled the derogatory Australian term ‘dole bludgers’.

A social function that included many Centrelink staff, netted disturbing results as to the attitude of the staff towards welfare recipients and an insight as to what goes on behind the scenes.

Employees mentioned how they deliberately put the welfare recipient on hold, meanwhile going out for a smoke break, and a morning tea break, taking their time, stopping and having lengthy chats with other staff members about the weekend or current sporting event.

Centrelink staff members also laughed at how they deliberately leave the recipients on hold for extended periods of time, justifying themselves by saying “we don’t give a f..k”, “they need us in order to get paid, so we’ll make them wait as long as we can”.

The abuse continues further by staff saying that if the customer complains, “we just hang up on them”.

This form of harassment would be unacceptable from the public, but since it comes from authorities, not only is it acceptable, supported but also covered up.