ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
A Betoota Grove man who’s father has largely told him to pull his noodle-armed body up by its bootstraps as been forced to eat some humble pie this morning as he lined up for unemployment benefits after losing his job.
Rutland Greene-Smith was working casually three-times-a-week as a bartender at a French Quarter pub until the government decided Australians couldn’t be trusted to isolate themselves.
The 22-year-old is a firth year Bachelor of Business student at South Betoota Polytechnic College and lives in an Old City sharehouse with six other boys he went to The Whooton School with.
Despite being an un-unionized wage-earner, Rutland votes for the Liberals because he feels voting for anyone else would upset his father – who he idolises to the point where his father himself is disappointed.
Which is part of the reason why he found himself lining up outside the French Quarter Centrelink office this morning talking to our reporter.
“I asked Mum if I could move back home because I lost my job. She said yes,” he said.
“But Dad came in over the top and told me to sack up and treat water like the rest of the people doing it tough. It’s really annoying because Dad thinks that just because he grew up in housing commission and made it rich in business it means he can treat me like shit,”
“I asked him what he thought I should do and he told me to go down to the dole office. I voted for Scott Morrison, why do I have to go to Centrelink? This shouldn’t be happening to me.”
When our reporter came across Rutland in the queue, two other blokes were holding him down and force-feeding him humble pie while an out-of-work pub chef whipped him with a belt.
They stopped when they saw our reporter standing there with a camera.
“Errol, mate, he was wearing a Malcolm Turnbull t-shirt for fuck’s sake!” said the pub chef.
“I had to give him a whip. I didn’t use the buckle end.”
Our reporter shrugged and Rutland, wiping the pie from his chin, conceded that it was perhaps a little bit ‘crass’ to wear a Malcolm Turnbull t-shirt to the dole office.
More to come.
