And tonight, an election-free zone.

Instead, we're going to focus on the nonsense that all too often passes for 'investigative journalism' on Nine's A Current Affair...

Announcer: Eighty thousand dollars a year for doing absolutely nothing. "They're a heap of bludgers" Announcer: On A Current Affair the Centrelink insider blows the whistle on what Australia's welfare recipients really get paid. — Channel Nine, A Current Affair Promo, 11th July, 2010

And on Seven's Today Tonight...

Ron Roberts: If they commit a felony on your property, you shoot them. They are punks, they are scum, they are thugs, and they're oxygen thieves. — Channel Seven, Today Tonight, 14th June, 2010

We'll come to the Grey Vigilantes later.

But first, A Current Affair's searing indictment of welfare bludgers, based on the revelations of an anonymous whistleblower from Centrelink...

Kate Donnison: How much can a family make in one year if they know how to rort the system? Whistleblower: Over $80,000 combined income a year from payments. Kate Donnison: Is there any incentive for these people to work? Whistleblower: There's none at all. — Channel Nine, A Current Affair, 12th July, 2010

$80,000 a year!

Kate Donnison spelt it out with a bewildering blitz of impressive graphicry:

Kate Donnison: For example, a couple under 30 can receive the disability support pension at over $500 each, the mother can then receive a family tax benefit and carer's allowance for three children, plus mobility allowance and the pension education supplement for undertaking voluntary work and an online study course... — Channel Nine, A Current Affair, 12th July, 2010

Let's just hold it there.

What Kate didn't tell us is that both parents would have to convince a doctor, and Centrelink, that they have disabilities that prevent them from working.

Then they have to prove they have three children who each have:

...a disability or medical condition whose combined care needs are equal to that of a single child... with a severe disability... — Centrelink Website

Information on Centrelink's eligibility criteria. [External site]

Now what does that mean?

Anyone who watched this Four Corners program about carers a couple of years ago will know that caring for a severely disabled child is a massive task...

Tansy Mayhew: Chant? has a long history of vomiting and getting infections and every day I have to wash all of her bedding. I was hand-washing till one o'clock in the morning. — ABC, Four Corners, 'In My Shoes', 12th May, 2008

Read the transcript or watch the Four Corners program 'In My Shoes'

But A Current Affair's putative mother can manage that - with a disability herself, mind you - and still find time to earn...

Kate Donnison: ...the pension education supplement for undertaking voluntary work and an online study course. — Channel Nine, A Current Affair, 12th July, 2010

At the same time, her disabled husband is getting an additional allowance...

Kate Donnison: ...for caring for two adults, for example his parents. — Channel Nine, A Current Affair, 12th July, 2010

...while educating himself too.

Centrelink told A Current Affair, though the point wasn't passed on to its viewers, that...

...any family that may receive this amount would be facing very unusual or extreme circumstances... There would only be a handful of these cases among our 6.8 million customers... — Centrelink statement to A Current Affair, 12th July, 2010

Read Centrelink's statement to A Current Affair

But according to Mr Whistleblower it's easy to rort the system. Just invent disabilities, dream-up behavioural problems for your kids, manufacture your parents' helplessness.

Centrelink has found that the figures in the story are full of errors. The details are on our website.

But anonymous whistleblowers are so much more credible than boring officials, aren't they?

Anyway, Kate Donnison did interview Centrelink's general manager...

Hank Jongen: We make payments in accordance with laws that are set down by Parliament. — Channel Nine, A Current Affair, 12th July, 2010

Except that Hank Jongen wasn't asked about any of the rorts the program was alleging. Because that interview had been conducted two weeks earlier, and it was solely about welfare support for refugees.

According to Centrelink, Mr Jongen complained to ACA after the program had gone to air that...

The reporter assured our staff as late as last Friday (9 July) that comments from this previous interview would not be edited into the new... story. — Email from Centrelink to Media Watch, 15th July, 2010

Read Centrelink's response to Media Watch's questions

That seems to have been a non-core promise, Mr Jongen.

As to concrete evidence that there is a single family out there rorting $80,000 a year from the taxpayer - not a skerrick was offered.