The Insiders - A Journey Through Form S

When the financial year ends, it's tax time! Hype yourself up for the ‘BYO biro party’ with this episode of The Insiders, a series made by Film Australia in 1988. It was designed to be shown to high-school students, telling them how and why they should fill in their tax forms. 

The dry material is given a ‘for the kids’ twist by fresh-faced actors Ben Mendelsohn, Zoe Carides and Paul Gleeson (whose boom-box-toting club bunny is content to let his Dad fill in the forms for him). The debate over why you should pay your taxes is pure late-’80s, and the set is a little too carefully dressed to evoke an ’80s share house – LPs on the walls, studiously lopsided posters, and a snare drum set mysteriously close to the kitchen table, as if it too wants to get in on the biro party.  

Carides would find the limelight as Sophie in the Melbourne indie hit Death in Brunswick (1990); Mendelsohn found the Hollywood starlight, most recently having his moment as Director Krennic in the Star Wars series Andor (2025). The Insiders offers the opportunity to see these Australian luminaries in their light-bulb era.  

Get razzed for tax time – but ‘don’t get yourself all raged out, gang’.