June 12:
“…resident families were illegally claiming government benefits …”
Every fortnight, when all the welfare cheques arrive – unemployment, old age pensions, single parent allowances, disability pensions, etc – I noticed there were over 400 envelopes when our population at that time was less than 300 residents. It was the habit for people to just come into the office and ask for mail with a certain name. One day I noticed the same people were coming into the office repeatedly and each time asking for government mail for various people. I told them it was illegal to pick up anyone else’s cheque. They would claim it was for a granny or uncle who was sick and couldn’t come to the office themselves. So we set up a system where each person claiming a government cheque had to identify themself as well as be identified by a trusted office employee. When this was done, we were left with a bundle of unclaimed cheques. I contacted the Department for Social Security and they did a thorough investigation into the names on unclaimed mail. Most of the people were deceased. Other names were unknown or fictitious. In other words, many of the resident families were illegally claiming government benefits in the names of deceased relatives or false identities. The fraud had been going on for ages, I was told, something like 5 years in many instances, and no one had detected it up till that point. I was not a very popular boy for exposing that little scam, I can assure you.
The comunity store (more like a supermarket) must have cost the government a pretty penny. Nothing but the best – huge refrigerators, fully air conditioned. I have been informed that all the white staff who are part of the corruption get all or most of their food here for little or nothing. Almost every late afternoon, when the store has closed, I see the store managers walking past carrying cartons of food for unknown recipients who probably collect it at their house. Soon after I started here, the store managers knocked on my door one evening with a carton of assorted foodstuffs for me – as “a little welcoming gift,” they said with a sly wink and a conspiratorial grin. When I declined the gift, saying I was paid enough to buy my own food during daylight hours, they were offended and have been sulky with me ever since. Neither do I get invited to their parties. Very frequently the store managers, a husband and wife team, stage an elaborate barbeque of a weekend, inviting their circle of friends (?) among the white staff. They always have unlimited supplies of steaks, fish and other goodies, flown in fresh from Alice Springs. When I was a stranger to the scene, one manager said to me: “Money is no object.” Later, when a little wiser, I realised money would never be an object if someone else is always paying for it – i.e., the State and Federal governments and, of course, the naive Australian tax-payer. Such is life in this oh-so-civilised wilderness.
Our underground water supply is pumped up into a very large galvanised tank. Yesterday I caught three kids swimming in it. Not very hygienic! I must remember to always boil water before using it. I must also remember to warn others to do the same.
