Monday 21^st May

Tasmania seems very prosperous.  Every time we got to a restaurant or pub, it is crowded with cheery drinkers and diners, all looking very well and happy in the crisp autumn air.

The State budget has come out and the newspapers, however, are full of stories of doom, more doom, and gloom.  Lots of big businesses have closed down and people are out of work – K & D brickworks have gone, many forestry businesses, a whole dismal list. 

But one area seems to be thriving – fraud and deception!!  On one of our very pleasant stops as we were coming down the coast of Tasmania, we spent a few days in a beautiful little community of no more than 900 people.  A glorious place, with many small but busy community organisations striving to make it a better, happier place to live.  We were dismayed to hear that one of the small community facilities had been recently swindled, by its very popular, personable director.  She pocketed $30,000, thank you very much.  Worse than this, she did it very cleverly by NOT paying The Tax Man.  Big mistake!  For more than twelve months she squirreled away the superannuation payments for the (already underpaid; this is a very low-earning sector of the workforce, involving , as it does, women and children…) workers.  And now the board of hardworking volunteers is liable to The Tax Man for the money.  I asked whether she had fled and was hiding away in shame.  Oh no, she hasn’t.  She is happily leading her normal life, and was recently seen at the local agricultural show eating a hot dog.

Back in Hobart, I read the Mercury every day and often come across stories involving fraud and theft, mostly from small, vulnerable places life local football clubs.  And…schools.  My friend Kathryn has worked at a local primary school as a teachers aide for many years.  She said the office worker, was very helpful, friendly.  And…generous.  As well she might have been!  When she left, to live and work in a school on the East Coast, the new admin worker found…discrepancies, to the tune of $500,000.  Yes, half a million, carefully siphoned off the Incentive Scheme bonus money.  Her new school only suffered to the tune of $30,000 before all was discovered.

Sigh and sigh again.