Unemployment: The Axis of EVIL

Add this one on to your terrorist acts kids. They've started breaking out the big scary words.

The Salvation Army is the latest church based group to oppose the industrial relations plans, labelling them `anti-family' and inevitably prejudicial towards the most vulnerable people in society.

Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrewss' reaction to this?

Unemployment isn't just bad: IT'S EVIL. Evildoers traffick unemployment in the outposts of tyranny like Iran and Syria. I hear Osama bin Laden is unemployed. `Unemployment is an evil. It's especially evil when it takes away the hopes and dreams and aspirations of young people' according to Andrews, on AM this morning. I nearly choked on my cornflakes. I didn't know whether to laugh or pray.

Now, I myself have suffered the indignity of unemployment. And it is indignity. You're made to feel like a piece of shit every step of the way. Centrelink is designed to make you feel like a useless, leeching fool. If you have a degree, they may as well tear it up front of your face, laugh, and say `Why did you even bother with this useless scrap of toilet paper?'. You go in hoping to be more employable - they basically say `Nah - just find a dead end job and get the hell out of my hair, Billy!'.

Yeah, it's bad ... but uh ... evil? Mate, you have to be careful with words nowadays. Remember when, at the very beginning of the War on Terror, Bush began rashly describing it as a Crusade, and everyone started nervously staring at their feet going `Uhh ... not a good idea ...'

What's that? You meant to say `evil' so all those churchy types would have a good hard look at themselves? To imply that even God would never wear a Your Rights at Work bumper sticker on his Vespa so nyeh nyeh nyeh?

Well I never.