You can’t grow toilet paper

Name Withheld (Letters, July 16) says there was no Winz in the 1960s. It wasn’t called Winz, but it existed: on April 1, 1939, the Social Security Department was established.

We do not all “have loads of kids”. Some beneficiaries have none. My brother is on Supported Living and gets $359 a week. So do I now, after a long IT career. I had no choice; first I was my partner’s carer, now I am my aged mum and brother’s carer.

I’d love to earn even the minimum wage, but no, I get the $359, too, now. Just as well – we sure couldn’t do it without all our incomes.

I established fruit and vege patches and we mostly live off the garden. I make “nutritious meals”. However, you can’t grow toilet paper, soap or washing powder in a garden, or pay the rates, power and petrol with cabbages.

Even those with kids mostly don’t go on a benefit then have kids. They have kids and end up divorced for any number of reasons. Abuse sometimes. Requirements are that they must look for work once the child turns one.

I am tired of the nasty remarks by people who have not lived in beneficiaries’ circumstances. We’re called lazy bludgers. Being a beneficiary is described as “a lifestyle”, often by Work and Income case managers themselves.

No one in their right mind would choose