Pezzullo: The Warmonger Who Won’t Go Away
The compromised former top boss of the Australian civil service has the lick and smell of belligerence. Begrudgingly conceding error and when in office, a bully and meddler in party politics, an incessant advocate of threats visible and invisible, Mike Pezzulo switches into a warmonger’s gear with ease.
The former secretary of the Department of Home Affairs was sacked last November after revelations that he had used WhatsApp to communicate with abandon with former New South Wales Liberal Party deputy director Scott Briggs. Those messages, unearthed in a joint investigation by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes, confirmed what many already knew: Pezzullo’s voracious appetite for meddling in the party politics of the Coalition government while denigrating fellow public servants and a number of politicians.
In August 2018, for instance, Pezzullo offered Briggs his gamey views ahead of the Liberal Party revolt that would see the overthrow of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. “I don’t want to interfere but you won’t be surprised to hear that in the event of Scomo [Scott Morrison] getting up I would like to see [Peter] Dutton come back to HA [Home Affairs]. No reason for him to stay on the backbench that I can see.”
An inquiry into his conduct led by Lynelle Briggs found Pezzullo in breach of the Public Service Code of Conduct on various grounds. 14 breaches were identified from five broader allegations, including failures to maintain confidentiality regarding sensitive government information, maintain an apolitical stance, and disclosing a conflict of interest. Most fundamentally, he had misused his offence and standing to benefit or advantage himself.
Last month heralded his return to the public arena, tinged by a sense of desperation that he wants to be taken seriously again. On the ABC’s 7.30 program, he admitted to making “mistakes” and accepted “the finding that no matter how rough and tumble there is in a place like Canberra, that the gaining of influence and the personal advantage to be gained by way of certain channels of communication, whether it’s to the prime minister or anyone else, crosses the line in terms of conduct.” Showing the mildest contrition, Pezzullo claimed he had “paid a price.” Hardly.
With such preliminaries out of the way, he could return to one of his favourite passtimes: warning about the Yellow-Red threat emanating from Australia’s north. He accepted that the prospect of a war with China was “actually quite low [but] the consequences would be significant and indeed catastrophic.” A meaningless percentage of such an eventuality was plucked out of thin air: 10 per cent. Notwithstanding that statistic of potential conflict, it was “meaningful enough to plan for and indeed to be concerned about.”
Focus, he insisted, should be directed to the dangers of cyber and cognitive warfare. Cyber and critical infrastructure were “vulnerable” to malware threats that could burgeon in the event of a conflict. Concerns held by FBI director Christopher Wray were cited (unsurprising – Pezzullo habitually fawns before the US national security state): “that there is malware implanted in both US and allied networks, which is specifically designed to be activated in the lead up to or in the at the outset of a conflict.”
Dusted off, this Manchurian candidate vision of the world, with its hibernating potency, has been repurposed as a threat against the critical infrastructure. “Director Wray has talked about the low blows that would be visited on the population at large … taking down hospitals, electricity grids, and the like.”
Close attention should be paid to the disfiguring way Pezzullo uses history. When he was Canberra’s most powerful (un)civil servant, he liberally offered gobbets of historical readings that were hopelessly out of context. Pezzulo has that charming sub-literate Wikipedia knowledge of the world that makes him tolerable in the company of other sub-literates. As Home Secretary, he was not shy in spouting febrile nonsense about such topics as, “The prospect of Great Power War” that he claimed would “approach, but not reach, a level of probability”, or the use of chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons by actors that were not “readily identifiable”.
Such views were expressed an address to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in 2019, alongside those fears that have become boringly recycled for endless consumption: “the deliberate subversion of our democratic institutions and our social cohesion”; “the world’s ungoverned and dangerous territories”; “radical extremist Islamist terrorism”; and “transnational, serious and organised crime” of the “globalised” variety.
His 2021 ANZAC Day address made no secret of his lust for conflict, masquerading, as ever, under the cover of peaceful intentions. “Today, as free nations again hear the beating drums and watch worryingly the militarisation of issues that we had, until recent years, thought unlikely to be catalysts for war, let us continue to search unceasingly for the chance for peace while bracing again, yet again, for the curse of war.” The speech was notable for mangling the legacies of two US generals: Douglas MacArthur and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Fascinatingly enough, Pezzullo omits mentioning the sacking of MacArthur by President Henry S. Truman for exceeding his brief in wishing to bomb China during the Korean War, with atomic weapons, if need be.
As long as Sinophobic nonsense growls and barks in Canberra, most of it under the close, cultivating eyes of US-funded think tanks, political converts to empire and the Pentagon itself, this demagogic eunuch will have an audience.
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Return to home pageThe repulsive, defective, intrusive, persistent Mr. Mike Petit-Mussolino, never shuts up, believing, apparently, that he has knowledge, gifts, insights, information, secrets, roles to play. He is an ulcerous outgrowth on Australia’s skin, already scarred enough by the former cadaverous cackbrained cranks and crawlies like mad Morrison, andocratic anality Abbott, B Rootem-Juiced, Pauline Halitosic and others. Peter Duckwit-Futton used this flea to utter otherwise dodgy outpourings that were not so politically responsible. Diseasy stuff…
Sadly some folk , mostly men, but not entirely, get their jollies from observing and creating suffering and disharmony . There are too many now in the right and far right ranks , sniffng the breeze for potential conflict and hot battle and stirring whenever they can. They need to be publicly shamed and tightly restrained , for the good of us all. Our media, to their eternal shame , encuourage this for dirty profits.
A ball tearer
Yes let us prepare for conflict, well not us really, but the usual lot somewhere down the social scale. J. Patterson and I will observe from the top row of the back seats as we’d be so out of place in a uniform at the front line.
I like the characterisation of Pezzullo as a demagogic eunuch.
I reckon one of his heroes is the late Henry Kissinger (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVGV6lvNTR4) who he seems to be trying to emulate, with very little success.
How’s Mike’s AO going?
What a despicably corrupt, self-serving, callously inhumane psychopath Pezzullo is! Not at all surprised that this vile grub moved across to the LNP – the “dark” side of established political malfeasance – its right where he belongs along with the other megalomaniacal narcissistic sociopaths on the autocratic extreme-right-wing of the deplorable LNP.
Pezzullo proved himself to be a self-opinionated bully with zero remorse for his deplorably corrupt behaviour that provided him with long-term benefits that helped increase his tyrannical power and ill-gotten wealth! This depraved parasite, who clearly thrives on intimidation and reckless self-interest, was the former secretary of the Department of Home Affairs; his behaviour was so errant, he was justifiably sacked last November after revelations that he had used WhatsApp to communicate with abandon with former New South Wales Liberal Party deputy director Scott Briggs! The fact that Pezzullo admires and loudly supports that like-minded, callously inhumane political psychopath, Peter Dutton, says SO MUCH about Pezzullo and NONE of it good! What is worse, is that, like most of the war mongers in the LNP, Pezzullo is looking to get Australia involved in yet another dodgy, distractionary conflict – in order to take attention away from their OWN level of corruption and depravity – by stupidly picking a fight with China and starting a war with a country that we can NEVER win given the level of power, nuclear weapons and resources China have on-hand and not to mention more than 1.44 billion citizens at its disposal!
WOW, it appears that nothing is too heinous, too dodgy, too corrupt for Pezzullo to stoop to in order to increase his autocratic power and burgeoning bank balance – even escalating a needless conflict with our BIGGEST trading partner! Is he sorry? No way – Pezzullo’s attitude is a big “Fcuk you!” to Australian taxpayers and now he has the GALL to want another stab at despotic power and to hell with the consequences! It is remorseless psychopaths like Pezzullo who can NEVER be trusted; instead, unconscionable predators like Pezzullo MUST be CHARGED and jailed for their obscene level of continuing corruption!
Lots of words and flowery language, but look offshore it’s very easy to see the influence on Pezzullo and allies of hard right corrupt nativist Christian/Catholic authoritarianism with ethical, moral and empathy bypasses (see FBI, Trump & Putin’s regime), but embarrassing for many Australians who see themselves as informed and on the right side of history, but indirectly and unwittingly linked to their supposed foes?
Complex, but one can link the likes of the Wikileaks/Assange with allies of PM ‘mini Putin’ Orban in Hungary (ally of Trump/GOP, Tories, Russia, China, Turkey & Israel vs EU, NATO etc.), whose government funds Danube Institute in Budapest (partnered with fossil fuel anti-Ukraine & anti-EU Atlas Koch Network Heritage Foundation), led by former Thatcher aide O’Sullivan who is friends with white nationalist Peter Brimelow (who had been employed by Fox, in turn friends with dec. white nationalist & white Oz admirer John ‘passive eugenics’ Tanton linked to SPA); also employs Tony Abbott as a ‘researcher’?
There is ‘architecture of influence’, but cannot be analysed let alone understood by keeping a focus within our borders as opposed to transnational links (often using RW PR architecture)….. but does help RW MSM gatekeepers and <1%.
Some people just refuse to go away.
Most fundamentally, he had misused his offence and standing to benefit or advantage himself.
Shouldn’t that be “misused his office“?
LNP in power, but bereft of any talent or ideas. Brow-beat and thin down the PS to only tyros and toadies, hire-in the Big4+ to sanctify your desires and help fashion the trough, and get Pezzullo to fashion and run the meritocracy mafia-style.
Perfection for a gang of droogs.
So, Binoy, can you find the transcript that I saw many years ago of MP sucking up to some senior US military figures about the need for harsh measures to prevent eg terror? I saw it a long time ago and didn’t save it. I haven’t been able to find it again. It’s repulsive.
Lucy, sounds like a Downer thing.