OPINION: Government should go after the big fish

I'M all for recovering debt where it was unlawfully accrued, help reduce expenditure and crack down on rorters, et al

Picture: Barry Leddicoat

I'M all for recovering debt where it was unlawfully accrued, help reduce expenditure and crack down on rorters et al, but it's hard to swallow when there are way bigger fish out there roaming free.

These slippery characters swim around the sea of taxation legislation that enables them to legally dodge their way out sharing their wealth with the country in which they maketh it.

Which is, as far as I'm concerned, stealing in reverse.

Depriving the nation of cash it could use to fund its future is just plain mean, but if you are enabled by the government why wouldn't you exploit that.

No, instead of bringing in much larger revenues that way, it seems a whole lot easier to be stricter with the powerless such as the unemployed and disabled, than restructuring a taxation system so the big end of town starts paying its fair share, or in some cases, any at all.

It reminds me of way we harangue Joe Blow for rorting welfare payments by using hidden cameras and carpark confrontations to expose the few hundred bucks (or thousands), he has been double dipping in while moonlighting as a labourer.

Scum of the earth we think. Crook. Common criminal.

Well he did break the law and we don't condone that behaviour but it seems if the government spent less time and money chasing down petty cash offenders - which also resulted in the humiliation of some Centrelink clients who were accused of owing amounts when they didn't - while ignoring the corporate elephant in the room, we are on the fast track to nowhere and this latest fiasco is just another stalling tactic in that journey.

Originally published as OPINION: Government should go after the big fish