Disabled Are Abled: They Can Do The Job!

Friday last was World Mental Health Day. As with any ‘Day’ sponsored by the United Nations, this event would usually have been nothing more than a thinly disguised commercial for the money-pit UN bureaucracy.

In Australia, however, it took on new meaning as a thinly disguised commercial for the benefits of a life spent on legal drugs.

The local radio station embraced the theme, bombarding me with ‘personal messages’ from a slew of dead-beat 90s ‘Celebrities’, none of whom I’d ever heard of.

The ‘celebrities’, eager to be back in the limelight that had roundly rejected their so-called talents the first time around, revealed that they had “battled” depression and “would be dead” if they hadn’t “found the right help”.

All mental health issues,, it was clear, could be summed up as depression. The right help to solve this issue, it soon became even clearer, was a shit-load of anti-depressant drugs.

While pharmaceutical company executives and doctors were breaking open the champagne to celebrate the forthcoming exponential increase in share price and/or repeat bulk bill visits, announcers breathlessly informed us that depression now affected more than 50% of all Australians.

If being depressed is the mark of the modern Australian, it was soon made apparent – by way of news that the vast majority of the 2000 Australians each week demanding to join their 900,000 compatriots already on the Disability Support Pension were doing so because they suffered from depression – that gaming the DSP was the new national sport … and now its time to cross to our commentary team at the National DSP Rorting Championships. The first voice you hear will be that of Doctor Tony …

… thanks for that JD,

I’ve got say that the atmosphere here at the Social Security Arena is absolutely electric. Doctor Bill is here with me and Bill, I don’t know about you, but I get the feeling tonight is going to be a special night in the annals of DSP rorting …

Yes, thanks Tony,

Before I go on I’d like to pay tribute to our sponsors, without whom tonight’s event wouldn’t be possible. Tonight’s entertainment is bought to us by the Australian Labor Party/The Greens -Your Welfare Cheque Is Our Business: Votes Bought With Borrowed Money, No Questions Asked; the Anti-Depressant Manufacturers Association-Trust Us, Your Lifelong Drug Dependency Is Our Business and last, but not least, the Australian Medical Association-‘Your Lifelong Illness Is Our Bulk-Billed Lexus”.

Thanks Bill,

Sometimes we forget that without our wonderful sponsors none of this would be possible, but they can’t complain about the return on their investment of other people’s money because the crowd here tonight really is incredible.

We’ve got the whole array of the modern depressive: the obese, the unemployed, the skinny, the ugly, the stressed by having to get jobs, the bad backs and, of course, the single mothers. Honestly, I’ve seen 25-year-old women out there with seven kids by 23 different fathers. The place is really humming.

It certainly is Tony,

I was outside the Shorten Gates earlier on and it was incredible to see so many people clutching their taxpayer-subsidised free tickets as they limped, waddled and wheeled into the ground and I’ll tell you what Tony, I’m glad you mentioned the kids because it the next generation is the future of this great sport.

I couldn’t agree more Bill,

I was down on the bank below the Frequent Prescriber Pavilion earlier and it was just terrific to see so many unsupervised children. You know, I had a chat to quite a few of them and while only about half of them were obese, every single one of them knew enough to tell me they were depressed. I had one little chap, must’ve been only five or six, who declared that he was depressed because he had heard that the Government was going to make it compulsory for kids to learn how to read and write so they could get jobs. Can you believe that?

Does the heart good Tony, does the heart good,

And … hello, hello, there seems to be some sort of a disturbance in the crowd.

Yes, Bill,

There was a game of British Bulldog on the Bulk-Bill Bank when all 400 players just dropped to the ground, clutched their backs and began waving their anti-depressant medication scrips around …

Well, Tony,

I’m afraid that it appears, sadly, that an insurance company operative with a video camera has made his way into the ground.

I can’t believe that, Bill,

At least the security people are on the ball. I can see three, no, four security personnel hobbling toward him. I feel for them, but hopefully the depression caused by their bad backs won’t stop them from throwing the troublemaker out …

Well said, Tony,

We can only hope they throw the book at him. That aside, who do you think has the best chance tonight?

Thanks Bill,

It’s a top quality field, but I really like the look of the Iranian, Fazal …

Sorry, Tony,

Is he the one personally sponsored by Handson-Dung?

That’s right, Bill.

Three wives, 12 children and a colonelcy in the Iranian Special Forces, but got a DSP by claiming he was 15 and afraid of water, a condition exacerbated by being forced to travel by boat. That is top form and I like his chances, but he is up against some tough competition, particularly from Peters and Staansgaard. I saw Peters at the regional championships last year and he is class. He got a DSP after claiming depression because he has an 18-inch penis.

Thanks Tony,

Well, Fazal certainly won’t go to water and Peters sounds like he can pull out the big one under pressure, but I haven’t heard much of Staansgaard. Is he the Swedish lad depressed because nobody accepts he’s Aboriginal?

That’s right Bill,

But unlike Peters, he’s no one-trick pony. He’s also claiming that he was adopted and – this is quite brilliant - stolen.

Gosh Tony,

All I can say is that I wish he was on my bulk-billing list. The adopted angle is, as you say, a stroke of genius. If I’m not mistaken, by the way, I believe Staansgaard’s biological parents are in the crowd tonight?

They are indeed, Bill,

I can see his father Olaf, the world-renowned UN human rights lawyer, and his mother Anna, the sociologist Greens candidate and UN child-rights campaigner. They must be proud as punch … say, Bill are you alright?

I’m sorry, Tony,

But the sight of those security guards hobbling through the throngs of 16-year-old single mothers to throw out that employed scum has left me feeling quite depressed. I … I don’t think I can carry on.

Don’t worry Bill,

What you need is a daily dose of anti-depressants … I can fit you in next Thursday ...