WENDELL HUSSEY | Cadet | CONTACT

While there’s been nothing but bad news for the majority of the country for a while now, the people responsible for the generic classical Centrelink hold music are riding an all-time high.

The annoying, always kind of crackly music that berates people doing it tough while they wait a couple of hours to talk to an actual person about how they should try and negotiate the increasingly convoluted welfare system, has just hit the top of the ARIA charts today.

Knocking The Weekend’s ‘Blinding Lights’ off the perch, the music has taken the nation by storm over the last few days as working-class people face the very uncertain prospect of the year that is 2020.

With QANTAS announcing that it’s standing down 20,000 staff and countless other people in a raft of different industries staring down the barrel of unemployment, the understaffed employees at Centrelink have been under the pump.

“The hold music has chalked up nearly 1,300,000 hours in last fortnight,” explained one under the pump Centrelink employee.

“I mean at least I’ve got a fair bit of job security, but I really do feel for all of the people who’ve been hung out to dry by our country’s rampant capitalist system.”

“Having to deal with the fact you are out of work because of a variety of factors is tough enough, let alone having to listen to some shithouse Vivaldi symphony.”

“I guess it’s good for whoever owns the royalties to those tracks hey.”

“I just hope they bank the profits when the times are good.”

More to come.