A freelance video editor and full-time university student, without his regular Centrelink payments, can “barely afford” the train fare that gets him there.
John McLeish, 24, is “absolutely grateful for the dole”. “I’d probably be selling drugs without it. I’d be homeless. Assuming I was even still alive.”
A son to parents who struggled to make ends meet, John is no stranger to pinching pennies where it counts.
“I remember Dad would starve for several days just to keep us fed”, McLeish said.
Though doing well at school and later attending Swinburne University, as well as securing a job as a freelance video editor, John scrapes through each day with assistance from Centrelink, which he says, “essentially saved [his] life”.
“It’s an investment Australia is making in me”, he says, dissatisfied. “People are misinformed-if you’re not working to earn money, you’re branded as lazy”.
John was born into a family that relied on government payments to stay afloat. Despite their talents as what John describes as “lefty loonie hairy hippie academics”, John’s family would never know sizeable wealth-and it only spiraled further following the breakdown of his parents’ marriage.
“I took on the Dad role for a little bit”, he says, noting that family support was scarce, and wealth was not shared.
“My cousin is a millionaire and I’m stuck on the dole”, McLeish said.
John’s story is one he hopes will override the overwhelming social stereotype that those who receive Centrelink payments are “dole bludgers”, but instead, ordinary Australian’s who are being “supported while [they] are down”.
“I did feel scummy on the dole”, he said.
His struggle to financially support himself as a young university student mirrors too well the hardship of Australian millennials and breaks the stereotype that people on the dole have a comfortable ride as opposed to taxpayers.
“The dole really did save my life”, McLeish said, praising the Australian government for the payments that kept food in his stomach, clothes on his back, and a will to strive for more: a will to repay the investment taxpayers make in him year by year.