ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
A Liberal candidate has been forced to backtrack this afternoon after making the suggestion that pensioners could be put to work on the nation’s farms for as little as $10 an hour.
Mal Hingston, contesting the Tasmanian seat of Braddon, spoke to his fellow Boag enjoyers at a breakfast business networking event in Burnie last Wednesday. The electorate takes in our island state’s wild and windswept north where there are many large pastoral holdings and primary industries that are suffering from an acute shortage of labour.
“We [inadvertently] killed off the grey nomads,” he said.
“They used to come down here, they’d spend their winters up in Bowen stealing toilet paper from public restrooms and complaining about everything. And then they’d come down to Tassie and just clog up our one highway,” he said.
“They were happy with 10 bucks an hour or whatever it was. Those people were just happy to be out and about, socialising with other annoying old people. Sure, the farmer often had to carry around a good length of 40m dowel to flog them about the head when they wagged their chins too much but that’s just how Baby Boomers grew up,”
“If they break down and can’t work, we can just chuck them on society’s scrap heap [bolt gun to the forehead and dumped at sea] or have their assets liquidated and given to an aged care facility. Both ways, they’re still useful to someone.”
The comments have been met with outcry from our nation’s sanctimonious left, who’ve among them seldom worked a day in their life.
Despite receiving support from other successful farmers and businessmen, Drop Nuts Dutton has come out and labelled the comments ‘inappropriate’ given how close they are to an election.
“People on the pension, while bludgers, are Australians none the less,” he said.
“Personally, I think being on Centrelink payments is shameful and I’d never do it. But some people haven’t worked as hard as me and have no choice.”
More to come.
