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Sub-Paragraph te ln ie) ee a “2°OM GG soanvr of.-% & SOUTH AUSTRALIA-MOTOR VEHICLES ACT Duplicate LICENCE TO RIVE A MOTOR VEHICLE n the mid-’70s - after Vietnam, occupations. at univer- Subject to the provisions ol Part of the Motor Veh cles Act and the class and restriction conditions ) . . coded herein, and explained overleaf, the person samed below Is hereby ticensed to drive from sities, sexual revolutions - when Australian people 141 1O/ 7600 tre expiry date shown, a were achieving a worldly view, one person was proving § - to be a non-conformist negative mutation. The parents of @ SUB-PARAGRAPH THREE 1 MARK st this heretic named their baby Colin. GRETEEDISdas Colin didn’t enjoy music, alternate lifestyles or anything J “cool”. Violence, alcohol and a weird, ‘straight’ lifestyle was @ L enforced by a father who went to Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the Victorious Allied Armies, “cleaned up the fried meat”, be- came an alcoholic, observed the Maralinga Atom Bomb tests (and conceived three children soon after), bashed his children, raped his daughters, emasculated his son and scarred his wife. They called his father “Bruce”. a Colin saw the ‘best minds of his generation search the morn Assesses for an angry fix’. One hot summer afternoon SP3 could take no more. People had become ants and the tax department had become the foot of () the monster which had expanded over them - seemingly due, in a small way, to my own failure to comprehend the all-pervasive Then one day, soon after the outrage of the 11th of November nature of taxation. 1975, | was drafted into what seemed the divine calling of my | had won some money in a staff raffle (winning number 33), genetic strain (nicknamed the “Fish Family”) - The Public Service. and burned the cash in an ashtray seeking divine intervention. A brief Herring family history shows connections to ASIO, The entire floor stopped work as one pale-faced youth echoed the Customs, TAFE, weapons research and education. The Fish collective consciousness at that time; Family was completely plugged into the post-Whitlam Govern- “Don’t do that! That’s my God”, he yelled. | resigned from the ment System. Total computer cross-referencing of the Australian Taxation Department. ee ee Lo a yee Then one day, soon after the outrage of the 11th of November 1975, | was drafted into what seemed the divine calling of my genetic strain (nicknamed the “Fish Family”) - The Public Service. A brief Herring family history shows connections to ASIO, Customs, TAFE, weapons research and education. The Fish Family was completely plugged into the post-Whitlam Govern- ment System. Total computer cross-referencing of the Australian public service (and Australian public) began hand-in-glove with my induction into The Public Service. Bul before | could realise my purpose in life as the first human number, | had to become a Taxation clerk. Assessing ‘S forms’ created rapid promotion to Recovery clerk - | could send wind-up notices and penalties parrot fashion over the phone and terrify the public with my voice. This confirmed my belief that taxation was a calling related to assassination. More could be said, but fear of the Secrecy Provisions Act - which gives me 2 to 7 years jail - prohibits further comment. The internal handling of staff matters was ruthlessly enforced; there were spies on every floor. All matters syphoned their way to Gestapo Headquarters on the dread 17th floor. Each day memoranda would be sentensuring we all had equal rights to dob each other in. Then one day, | cracked when a ‘section three’ stated that “all officers are reminded that they are not to put their Coke cans or banana skins in the waste paper bins provided for they are for the paper-shredding machine only.” | went to Births Deaths and Marriages and formally changed my name to Sub- Paragraph Three. Having studied Living Theatre at university that year must have had something to do with it. | was now a human counler-welght to a bureaucratic ma- chine which expanded according to human failure. Some of the public started to pay their tax debts laughing after dealing with Sub-Paragraph Three. Meanwhile, the giant arm of bureaucracy was preparing to bowl me out. More than once SP3 was called to the dreaded 17th floor. SP3 was cut off from public interviews, telephone and the written word. SP3 wouldn’t make the mandatory probationary period. The Department was not prepared to leave it at that. SP3 was given a late Christmas present in the form of The Drug Squad. The magistrate said, “Sub-Paragraph Three, you are charged under the narcotic and psychotropic drugs act of 1934 as amended in 1967 - er - is this permissible?” “Yes sir,” |replied, “under section 24 of the Births, Deaths and Marriages Act, Sub-sections 1(a) & (b) and 2 & 3 (1), which stale that | am legally obliged to demand that ! be called ‘Sub- Paragraph Three’.” The court reporter fell off his chair and, after an interview which made world news, eventually became an edi- tor. Buzz Kennedy, writing for The Australian, observed that SP3 “is a genuine eccentric, not a poseur of the times.” Some T.V. shows made a great joke of it and a U.S. radio station rang for an interview. Colin Herring, a Taxation clerk, was the first person in the world to voluntarily become a number, and a sub-paragraph at that. The exercise was more than an experiment in living theatre; it was a symbolic embodiment of the times and a legend in the lunchtime of Australian culture. This Taxation clerk’s prank foreshadowed today’s tax-file numbering identity system which, with bank cards and EFTPOS, connect all Australians into the world computer identity net and new economic order. But Colin survived it all. A NEXUS New Times Six - Spring 1988 _ Ai