Violence Escalates in the Eastern Suburbs

As an itinerant worker I have on occasions had the need to visit Centrelink which I did this morning; I made two notable observations since my last visit. The people in the ‘Looking for Work’ line had a median age of approximately 48; at the time there were about 10 people in the queue.

My second observation was the presence of a security guard; I had previously noticed a sign specifying appropriate behaviour for ‘customers’ and the chairs had been secured after they had been used as a weapon. I queried the staff member and was advised an incident had occurred the previous week. This is the eastern suburbs.

I told him last year in my workplace I experienced several violent outbursts including groups of young people illegally coming onto the grounds and into the buildings for the purpose of violence and I had first hand knowledge of often quite serious violent incidents in the workplace experienced by many others. Before I left Centrelink I said to the staff member, “At least your employer is doing something about it, mine chooses to ignore it.” Is this really what we want at the beginning of a millennium?

Rusty
(Russell Blore)