The bludgers taking us all for a ride

A supermarket encounter with two lazy young women has convinced me more than ever that our welfare system is too ripe for exploitation, writes Kylie Lang.

Bludgers make my blood boil, and the sooner Australia tightens its joke of a welfare system the better.

I’m not talking about battlers who are genuinely trying to get ahead and failing, or who want to work but can’t. Society must support its most vulnerable members.

It’s loafers who openly rort the system, bragging about how good they’ve got it and what a bunch of suckers the rest of us are, who anger me, especially when our taxes are funding their idle lifestyles.

Take the grubs in Coles at Toombul, in Brisbane’s north, midmorning one day this week.

Waiting in the “12 items or less” lane, one 20-something who’d never encountered a hairbrush began grumbling to her shoeless friend about how slow it was to check-out.

Granted, there were a number of customers ahead of the pair but so what? Where were they going in such a hurry? Certainly not back to work.

Yet with the insufferable inconvenience of having to wait her turn, she upped the volume on her whining, rattling the checkout operator who was doing her best to be quick.

They say misery loves company, and right about then another shopper, who seemed to know the pair, sidled up and joined in the rant.

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Our welfare system is needed for battlers who are genuinely trying to get ahead, but it’s too easy to exploit. Picture: Mick Tsikas/AAP

“Never thought it would be so busy this time of the morning, hurry the f.ck up,” she shouted. “I’ve got places to be.”

“Yeah, like on your couch,” guffawed one.

“Hey,” said the other, “it’s better than f.cking working for a living.”

Cue raucous laughter, C-bombs and figurative back slapping.

These women were so hilarious they should join the comedy circuit.

Tempted as I was to tell them to show some respect and to defend the hapless operator, I didn’t need to because a supervisor approached and said he was going to call the police.

I got the impression it wasn’t the first time these people had caused trouble, and unfortunately, I don’t believe they are exceptions.

So what is being done about deadbeats who refuse to work and mock the very system that carries them?

The Federal Government last year announced several plans to close loopholes and increase accountability but many are still being blocked by Labor and the Greens.

In August, it redrafted legislation — which had been going nowhere in the Senate — to try to stop “job seekers” deliberately applying for positions for which they were monumentally underqualified and had no hope of securing.

Several MPs told The Courier-Mail they were fully aware that applicants were turning up to job interviews looking so unpresentable that no employer would hire them and that many unemployed people simply “preferred not to work”.

The Government said it wanted to tighten compliance legislation so that it factored in the quality — and not just the number — of job searches. Applicants would need also to show that they are trying for a range of jobs, instead of dismissing those that don’t quite suit or pay enough.

But then the Prime Minister was deposed and nothing seems to have happened since.

As for the proposed drug-testing trial of 5000 new recipients of Newstart and the Youth Allowance — to reassure taxpayers that welfare payments “were not being used to fund drug addiction, and that jobseekers do all they can to get a job” — that has been postponed for more than a year and lacks support in the Senate so is highly unlikely to ever be passed.

On the upside, gains have been made. In 2018, the Government clawed back $61 million from more than 26,300 Centrelink fraudsters.

But there is still a long, long way to go until the welfare system rightly established after World War II to help rebuild our nation and assist those in greatest need is again running as it should.

MORE FROM KYLIE LANG: How to say no to kids

Consider the more than 70 people a day who are being caught out by specially trained fraud officers for falsely claiming to be single so they can scam higher payments (a handy $357 a fortnight on average).

Consider also the high number of non-working households in this country compared to the rest of the developed world, that one in four Australians receives benefits of some kind, and that generational unemployment is a growing problem, with one in 10 dependent children living in a family where no-one is employed, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Why work when mum or dad didn’t?

It’s important for governments to invest in education, training and other initiatives to get people in jobs, but it is not a panacea for a culture of bludging that has become entrenched.

Taxpayers don’t deserve to be mocked or taken for mugs. Like all Australians, they deserve a fair go.

Kylie Lang is a Courier-Mail associate editor.

@kylie_lang