Certainly one of the more baffling yarns of late has been The Daily Tellegraph‘s war against two girls from Mount Druitt, who they alleged were representative of a half a million strong army of ultra bludgers who are sucking the taxpayer’s teat dry.
The crux of the story was that the two ‘NEETs’ (Not In Employment, Education Or Training) were laughing in the face of the honest, hardworking Aussie taxpayer by refusing to get jobs and spending all day dropping their welfare checks at Maccas. It was a deeply weird and unrepresentative yarn, which went way further than it needed to when Scott Morrison promised that he would look into their case personally.
Well, after setting its readership on these girls, the Tele is out with a new story today: apparently one of them totally made it up.
Yeah. Apparently Amy, 17, one of these monstrous dole bludgers, has actually been working at McDonalds for 7 months, and was just “acting up” when she spoke to the Tele, and the gag apparently went too far exactly at the point where the Treasurer of Australia announced on national radio that he would personally strip her of her benefits.
“She’s just a silly little teenager who was acting up and wanted her five minutes of fame,” her dad said. “She made the whole thing up … She’s a good girl and has been depressed recently. I’m sending her to see a counsellor.”
“She wasn’t claiming Centrelink. She’s been working at Maccas for seven months and was just there to accompany her friend.”
Crazy to think that if you just show up at a Centrelink office looking for blood and the first person who looks like a deadbeat no-hoper, you’re not going to get the most rock-solid story. The damage is done, regardless.
Ah well. The Government is doing its best to gut welfare right now, and the Tele has already done its bit in the trenches of that war.
Source: Daily Telegraph.
Photo: Daily Telegraph.
