'While the vast majority of people who receive welfare payments are honest and entitled to those payments, unfortunately, there are a small number of people who still seek to cheat their fellow Australians. Australia is a generous country with a generous welfare system but taxpayers expect welfare to go to the needy and not the greedy. This report sends out a clear message to those people who are thinking about cheating: if you cheat, you will get caught.

To report a suspected fraud to Centrelink, call 13 7230, or by visit Centrelink's web site at www.centrelink.gov.au/reportafraud.' – Senator Amanda Vanstone
 'If it is meant to be, then it has to be by me!'

 

 

(i) A covenant of salt forever
On his last day, Baldwin

promises to send Redhoune

the bunch of poems he always

wanted to write, but never did.

'Algeria,' Redhoune says,

'is one big epic poem constantly

being rewritten. Its language wind.

Its words sand. Its rhythm,

the rise & fall of revolution.

Its metaphor, the people.'

Redhoune, one brother in America,

one in Australia, never became

a poet, became an architect

of dreams instead.
Drew lines in the desert

of his nomadic skull.
The poems arrive one day

out of the sheer blue.

Tossed up by a dust-storm

& stuffed in his letter-box.

That morning, after a long

stint at the wheel, screams

multiply through Redhoune;

a powerful structure of faint

but irresistible hope.
 

 
(ii) A covenant of salt forever ii
Everyone's waiting for

the 'salt money' to roll in.

Are we all pensioned off now

like Roman veterans? A parcel

of arid doctrine to swallow,

after all those years of service?

The Dole Army's banner strings

across mainstream Australia's

nose/out of joint. There's nothing

better than a witch-hunt gone

wrong for ratings.

Ask the Paxtons,

those neo-Salem kids

so media un-friendly (?)

A powerful sign of the times

which had to be brought down,

by the powers that be.
Remember the 'Long-haired men

will be served last' culture

of oppression we developed

in the seventies, when haircuts

actually meant something?
What's Ray Martin's

excuse for living?
What bargain did he seal

as he crumbled salt crystals

over the tree-frog thin defence

of these Dole Army icons?
This salaried man

with the Witch-finder

General's hair.

 

 
(iii) A covenant of salt forever iii
Stanthorpe, Queensland, 5 February 2002 AD.
'Nine Newstart payments were cancelled & 151 customers will have their payments reviewed, in a crackdown on welfare fraud in Stanthorpe, Queensland, today.

A joint operation was conducted this morning with the Queensland Police Service, Centrelink and the Department of Immigration.
The operation was designed to target people with outstanding arrest warrants, visa condition breaches and welfare fraudsters. Good results were achieved in all areas.
Road-blocks on all the major roads leading to the harvesting area of Stanthorpe were set up early this morning. The region produces a range of fruit crops including peaches, apricots, nectarines and grapes.
People travelling in cars were asked to provide identification to the police officers.
Many of these people had not told Centrelink that they were working and earning extra income while on unemployment benefits. They will be required to pay back any entitlements they were not eligible for and could be prosecuted. Seventeen debts were also identified for recovery action.
Centrelink is also expecting to cancel payments and raise debts in many more cases –151 people's employment records are now being reviewed and they will be subject to further investigation.
This Government is serious about catching welfare cheats.
Welfare cheats steal money that could be used to help the more vulnerable in our community.
While the vast majority of Centrelink's customers are honest, the message is clear: if you cheat the system you will be caught.' – Senator Amanda Vanstone.
 

 

(iv) A covenant of salt forever iv
Arun & Misbah, steely

from job search training,

wave three year temp visas

at the g-men from Immigration.

Salt walks out on their bodies

a crystal/industrial dispute

inside the rusted Belmont ute;

their working wall hall of fame

stalls at the first cattle-grid.
 

 
(v) On the Constitution of Atoms and Molecules
The little perpetual

motion machine orbits

suns, planets, selves.

There are worlds within

worlds of unemployment.

Baldwin, the 3-D video

artist charts pixels, HTML

atoms of electric speech.

Entered the JJJ video comp

waits for his big break

to descend, the quanta

to spark in his head;

the chunk of iron meteorite

he saw once in the Adelaide

museum hacked apart by

a diamond cleaver, feeling

for its structure.
 

 
(vi) Job Position: West Stands, University of Chicago 1942 AD
1. 20th Century Alchemist: (Needed. Energetic, sporty, scientific type

to sharpen world's first graphite reactor. Must have diploma or certificate

from a recognised institution. Must have 40,000 personal references

from the city of Nagasaki. References from Hiroshima acceptable as well.)