WENDELL HUSSEY | Cadet | CONTACT

After yet another Centrelink debt recovery court hearing took place this morning, the nation has today asked if maybe the blokes in charge of the nation’s finances could go a bit harder on the giant tax-dodging companies.

This comes after the government argued in court today that they did not owe welfare recipients a duty of care in regards to the controversial robo debt scheme and denied that they put people under ‘undue duress,’ even when making claims on ‘false assumptions.’

Regardless of the legality of the scheme, the nation is wondering why the same brazen, take no prisoners approach can’t be taken to faceless multinational companies who do everything they can to pay zero tax in Australia.

“I know they are separate departments, but surely it’s more in the nation’s interests to direct the efforts and expenses of chasing down ‘dole bludgers’ towards large companies who pay gun accountants to manoeuvre money through complicated company structures in an effort to rip the Australian Taxation Office off,” said one former Austudy recipient whose spent months trying to prove that there was a glitch in matching up his ATO data and his payroll data.

“I mean there are conservative estimates that companies are dodging upwards of 50 billion dollars a year in tax, which is a fair few dodgy disability pensioners.”

“Maybe we need Tracy and the A Current Affair team doing some actual journalism and chase down white-collar criminals, but then I guess that won’t make good TV at all.”

“I suppose it’s easier to demonise welfare recipients than it is to demonise faceless corporation’s with shell companies in places like the Caymans.”