Interrupting Graeme Martin's National Party political broadcast (‘Ensure welfare doesn't sink us', The Weekend Sun, March 7), might I tell a story?

A travelling salesman's car breaks down near a farmhouse, late one night. The salesman goes to the farmhouse to ask the farmer for the loan of a spanner.

On the way there he starts worrying; ‘What if the farmer's so annoyed at being woken this late, that he tells me where to go?'

In his mind he starts an argument with the farmer. Finally he gets to the farmhouse, knocks and the farmer opens a window and asks: 'Who's that?”.

'You know who it is and I wouldn't take your spanner anyway.” While I was in Christchurch trying to get a job, scraping by on the dole, it occurred to me a major part of the problem is that various New Zealanders had so taken on the idea the only reason people go on the dole is because they don't want to work.

So when a beneficiary turns up who wants to work, they can't accept that, so turn him or her down automatically.

Shooting yourself in the foot is painful: It's even more so if you've stuck it in your mouth.
Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves. Nuff sed?

W Parish, Bellevue.