Stolen from: http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,26518859-5006301,00.html (http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,26518859-5006301,00.html)
BEN PACKHAM
December 23, 2009 12:01am
IT used to be considered un-Australian but after years of turning a blind eye we've become a nation of dobbers.
Australians have proven themselves to be world-class informers, pointing the finger at hundreds of people every day for alleged wrong-doing.
Tax dodgers, welfare rorters, criminals, litterbugs and water wasters spurred almost 250,000 Australians to overcome a natural distaste for dobbing last financial year. Nearly 60,000 people contacted the Tax Office to accuse someone of fraud in 2008-09, suggesting the only thing Australians hate more than a dobber is a cheat.
The tips - often against ex-lovers, former employers and business associates - recouped tens of millions in unpaid taxes.
And more than 96,121 people - some motivated by civic duty, others by malice - picked up the telephone to ring Centrelink's fraud hotline.
The agency identified $49.5 million in savings as a result - most of it to be repaid over time by 9126 welfare recipients.
The long-running Crime Stoppers hotline received more than 60,000 calls in 2008-09, leading to more than 960 arrests. And 19,465 litterbugs were fined at least $234 each after calls to the Environment Protection Agency's litter hotline.
About 90 per cent were smokers spotted throwing cigarette butts from cars.
Monash University Australian history expert, Professor Graeme Davison, said the nation's traditional abhorrence of dobbers was believed to stem from convict times.
It was considered, for most Australians, on par with being a scab or a pimp, Prof Davison said.
"It was a kind of code of honour among mates.
"It was supposed to go as far as not dobbing people in even when they were in the wrong."
But he said Australians today felt less bound by such social codes.
"I think Australians are much more individualist than they once were," he said.
"Therefore they feel more entitled to dob people in."
I've had people dob me in as a "racist," ring the terrorist hotline about me and brag about it on the internet, and amongst other things, call the police to say I had stolen a person's furniture simply because they wanted mine.
Fortunately I was not charged for any of those supposed crimes. Yet the people who made the complaints did commit crimes, but each time the police let them get away with it. It seems to me that the Australian JOG would not only prefer a lying informant, but actively encourage them to make these baseless calls in order to give the JOG a chance to get their foot in the door of someone that they would normally not be able to touch, rather than arrest a possible serial (and definitely criminal) trouble maker.
Sings: "Australians all let us rejoice,
For we are young conformist, greedy, dobbing bastards."
https://sacreator.com/2009/12/02/advance-australia-fair-a-worthy-national-anthem-if-you-know-the-original (https://sacreator.com/2009/12/02/advance-australia-fair-a-worthy-national-anthem-if-you-know-the-original)
@Cailen.