“A Four Corners investigation has found rorting of the [Job Services Australia] scheme is rampant. Forgery, manipulation of records and the lodgement of inflated claims for fees are widespread.” [ABC News]

It’s not ordinary employees who are committing these crimes, it’s business owners! The Liberal Party mantra – The law is for the little people – allow me to make myself rich and some of it will rub off onto you (the so-called trickle down effect). Get out of my way with your rules and regulations – I’m running a business here. Why should I pay tax when I’m paying payroll tax etc?  Eh, Rell? Yeah.

When those apprentices and young casual workers were electrocuted in metal roofs during the home insulation scheme in 2009, it wasn’t them who ordered themselves up into the roof spaces without training or safety rules. It was their bosses! The business owners. They saw a money earner and they grabbed for it, at any cost.

Yet the government minister Peter Garrett was blamed for it. Why the hell should he take the blame? He didn’t know this was happening, how could he know?

A Nationals senator is calling for a Royal Commission into the finance and financial advice industry, as he says up to $60 billion has been lost to small investors in dodgy advice and schemes in recent years. The National Australia Bank has recently made big payouts to small investors who followed bank employees advice in recent years. The Storm Financial company in Qld was another scandal, heavily involved with the bank we trust, the CBA. So much for integrity.

I doubt these fine business people vote Labour.  Grrrrrrr.

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I’ve got no water. No warning, just cut off. There seems to be a truck and workmen down the street a bit. If it doesn’t come back soon, I’ll have to walk down and “ask” them.

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Cheap appliances. My $50 Coles coffee capsule machine seems to have given up the ghost. It is supposed to show a green blinking LED in the button as it heats up, but it’s just blinking red all the time now. Less than a year’s use. Not happy.

And my $350 robotic vacuum cleaner has also stopped. It seems to work for about a minute, then just stops and goes back to standby. No indication of any fault or error. Damn. I bought it through Amazon and they asked me to review it. I never got around to it, but I was going to say, “It works, but not very well.” But it doesn’t even work now.

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I partially dismantled my one and only model loco last night prior to installing a new DCC decoder board which should arrive any day now. I followed the instructions, but I couldn’t get the old PCB out. I loosened the screws even more and “sproing”, it came apart and the wheels fell off.

I spent about 15 mins last night trying to get it back together without success, but my eyes were tired so I gave up. More work today.

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I’ve got a work guy coming this afternoon to do all the odd jobs around the house. I’ve gone downhill in the past two years that I’ve been here. I’ve lost all my strength. I can’t do the stuff I used to do. I can’t get up a ladder very easily, let alone work up there. It’s disheartening. It’s the leukemia, I think. I can feel the lymph modes at the back of my jaw much more now. Hmmm.

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3.30pm Huh! He came, but right off the bat, he didn’t want the work. First job: fix my reticulation sprinklers on the verge. “Sorry mate, I don’t do reticulation.” He’s got a mate who does, but …

OK, next job: weeding and revamping my garden at the front. “Sorry mate, I don’t do weeding.” He’s got a mate …

OK, I show him the garage and the cleaning up I need. Not hard work. But he starts sucking his teeth and looking through his diary and says, “Hmmm, I might be able to fit you in on the 17th.” The 17th of March!

I say, No, it’s too long. Just text me the names of your mates. So, a complete waste of my time. I’ve waited five days just for him to turn up and tell me this. Rack off, mate.

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