“Hello, I was wondering if you could help me.”
“Certainly, how may I be of assistance?”
“I received this letter telling me that I owe $2 million dollars in overpayments from Centrelink…”
“If you’re wondering how to repay it we have a number of options: you can use a bank transfer if you like, but we also accept cash or gold bullion. The cash can either be in US or Australian currency and…”
“I don’t want to pay it!”
“That’s unfortunate. You did read the consequences of not paying your debt straight away?”
“No, I’m trying to point out that you’ve made a mistake and that…”
“A mistake? Highly unlikely. We’ve had quite a few people come down here and complain and only one in five is a mistake.”
“One in five? That means that there are thousands of mistakes.”
“But it also means that there are thousands that we got right.”
“But if you haven’t checked all of them how do you know that there aren’t even more mistakes out there and that people haven’t complained because they just presume that…”
“Sir, if I could direct your attention to the consequences of not paying your debt on time.”
“But there’s no way that I could possibly owe that much. I only ever received about ten thousand in total from Centrelink.”
“Yes, but you’re overlooking our debt recovery costs.”
“What?”
“Debt recovery has been contracted out to us in order to make it more efficient. That’s why the costs are so high.”
“How is it more efficient?”
“Well, we make a profit. The public service don’t do that, therefore they’re not as efficient.”
“Ok then, what if I just refuse to pay.”
“If you read the letter, you’ll see that failure to pay by the due date will not only will incur further costs but we take a member of your family and sell them into slavery.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Why? Debt slaves have been around for centuries and we do have a group of traditionalists running the country these days. Besides, you get to nominate which member of your family gets taken.”
“You expect me to nominate someone in my family to be a slave?”
“Well, they have to be of working age somewhere between ten years old and 80. Although if they grow too infirm to work, you’ll have to replace them.”
“This is absurd. Can I speak to someone higher up?”
“Sorry, sir, but there’s only a ground floor and there’s nobody on the roof apart from some guy threatening to jump unless we cancel his debt.”
“What are you doing about that?”
“Oh we can’t give in to blackmail. It’s like giving medical attention to those illegals… It only encourages them to get ill or beaten up by local police. No, if he jumps we’ll just pass the debt on to his next of kin.”
“Anyway I meant that I wanted to speak to your superior.”
“He’ll only tell you what I told you.”
“I’d like to speak to them anyway.”
“There’ll be quite a wait.”
“How long?”
“He won’t be free till sometime in 2018. In the meantime, your relative will be working to pay off your debt and you may find that it’s hardly worth the effort of complaining.”
“What are you saying?”
“Well surely you’ve got some kid at home who doesn’t help around the house enough. This is their chance to do their bit for the family. It could be the making of them! Just think of it like a permanentwork-for-the-dole scheme where they get food and shelter as well.”
“How can you live with yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
“Doing this job?”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“What do you mean?”
“My mother had a debt and she said it was either me or Nanna and she figured Nanna wouldn’t last and it’d be me in a couple of years anyway. Besides, Nanna could change her will and then Mum’d have nothing!”
“I see.”
“It’s really better this way. Even if there’s the odd mistake, it only affects the poor and vulnerable so they’re not likely to make much of a fuss and even if they do, nobody cares that much. The government’ll just get those current affair shows and shock jocks to complain about how these dole bludgers are ripping off the taxpayer and nobody’s likely to remember the odd story about some poor pensioner getting all upset about a demand for money.”
“I’m going but you haven’t heard the last of this.”
“Just before you go, sir, could please nominate your preferred method of payment, or failing that, nominate a relative for pick-up?”
