A return to the saga of the pension...

I have previously blogged about the ridiculous saga of trying to have my small invalidity pension reinstated and receiving arrears owing to me. I previously warned potential superannuation retirees under Comsuper to be worried. Well things have now well beyond suggesting people be worried. It is instead time to be bloody panic-stricken based on the latest developments.

The latest in this saga is that at long last, after going through three formal complaints processes, Comsuper agree that yes, they still owe me the best part of $1,000 in arrears. But they can't give it to me. Why? Because the stupid phuckers had not been making the correct income tax deductions from my pension last year. Yet this matter came up in early December last year and I was assured that not only had they fixed things, there were no further tax installments outstanding. Complete and utter bullshit as it turns out.

So I now have to wait on an application for compensation to sort the mess out.

Isn't it absolutely outrageous that the Trustee of a Goverment superannuation fund can simply forget to deduct income tax instalments! Even worse when they know about it months earlier, claim to have fixed the problem only to really just let it fester until becoming a much greater concern and financial burden on the pensioner.

Along the way, I have now conclusively proven that:

• Comsuper lose documents but will attempt to put the blame on the superannuation fund member, claiming the documents were not provided;
• It is impossible to sight a copy of your actual file even under Freedom of Information as all Comsuper will allow you to sight is a copy of the electronic file (well it wouldn't do to let the poor sod of a member find hardcopies of all of these documents they claim said member never sent!);
• Comsuper will not initiate any contact with their pensioners whatsoever even when they have overpaid/underpaid/forgotten to pay etc;
• Comsuper routinely do not bother to respond to matters at all;
  
• Comsuper staff think nothing of telling blatant lies to superannuation fund members; and
  
• Comsuper are simply incapable of even elementary mathematics.

Now matters are in the hands of the Comsuper CEO. Assuming it eventually wends its way to his In-Tray. With luck, by about next October he might have gotten around to glancing at it. Of course by that time I will probably be facing prosecution by the Australian Tax Office for failing to pay my income tax deductions, but let's not let a little thing like a criminal conviction get in the way of things, shall we?

Julia, my Julia, what a sickly, sickly display

Julia Gillard, Prime Minister of Australia. The US Houses of Congress. What a sickly, sickly sweet combination.

The Red Roughy's [for my North American friends, that is a brightly orange coloured fish] performance was the most grovelling, sycophantic thing I have ever seen. And to think that not long ago we were sticking the boot into John Howard for his blind following of Georgie Wubblya Bush.

Should the US need any further proof that for whatever reason, that Australia blindly follows wherever they may lead, it just needs to look at how eagerly Howard threw us in with Georgie Wubblyah that Saddam had whacking great piles of Weapons of Mass Destruction laying around all over the place. Tripping over them he was! I tell ya boy, them things was blowing up all over the place, soon as spit terbaccy on 'em! Never mind it has since been amply demonstrated that intelligence services, both US and Australian, were saying "actually, we don't think that's quite correct." But off we toddled, part of the Alliance of the Terminally Dyspeptic against the Axis of Really-Quite-Naughty-Boys-Indeed or some such claptrap sounding like the cover of a Marvel comic. All based on a whopper, a prevarication, in short, a lie. So our friends in North America already know that we can be sold the Brooklyn Bridge at ease. They didn't need reminding.

No, I am not setting out on an anti-US rant. The great love of my life was a Seppo* after all. But in this day and age, was it really necessary to carry on like a grateful colonial native, ever so grateful to Bwana and his White Fella Magic for the used shirt and stick of barley sugar, hopeful that by licking the boots long enough, a plug of tobacco might also arrive?

Julia, I am embarrassed, and that sure as shit ain't easy to do.

*rhyming slang - Septic Tank = Yank

they get rehab, we just get in trouble

Ricky Nixon has really screwed up. I doubt anyone will contest that statement. But has anyone ever noticed that for the rest of we poor sods, if we crack up or have problems with the drink, whatever, we just become part of the numbers game that is Australian pyschiatric care and that's pretty much it? Two trips to the funny farm myself, and overcoming alcohol abuse. But if you are 'somebody', you get 'rehab'. Britney Spears has a mental breakdown, she goes into 'rehab' in what was apparently a private psychiatric facility. Charlie Sheen continues his years of erratic behaviour, he has to go rehab. Michael Douglas couldn't keep his pecker in his pants, he needed 'rehab' for sexual addiction. I am surprised that Shane Warne hasn't been into 'rehab' for his habit of failing to keep it tucked away in his undies. How many trips to 'rehab' has Brendan Fevola gone through? And now that Ricky Nixon is in trouble, he also has to go into 'rehab'. No, he says, there was nothing actually going on with the girl in question, although to be fair, her credibility is about on par with Joe Hockey denying Liberal Party leadership aspirations, but to cope with it, Nicco (as we called him at school - that's my lame claim to fame) has to go into 'rehab' to cope.

You name it, it seems to be covered these days by the 'panacea' of 'rehab', some special form of 'treatment' for 'special' people who are somehow better than the rest of we poor slobs.

Here endeth the rant