An Open Letter to Peter Costello
Dear Peter Costello,
I am writing in response to your allegation that the mining industry has been ‘treated shabbily’ by Australia. Apparently you don’t think they’ve had a fair deal, what with the billions of dollars of profit they’ve sucked out of the earth, from the dirt owned by Australian citizens. What would you like? For us all to give the mining executives a big hug, or a pat on the back, to say ‘thanks for royally screwing us over?’ Perhaps you would like us to cook them each a cake? A mud cake perhaps? Sorry. It never occurred to me to do this.
But hang on. You’ve said what you want. You want there to be a section in the Australian curriculum where school students are taught to bow down to the rich miners and kiss their toes, begging them to hire them to drive trucks for big bucks, and to spend weeks away from their family at a time, to live the Australian dream of helping mining executives get rich? What should this part of the curriculum be called, Peter? Perhaps it could be a whole subject? Kissing Gina’s arse? How about, how-to-rip-off-battlers-to-line-the-pockets-of-shareholders? How about a practical-lesson-in-sending-Australia’s-wealth-overseas so none of us get any benefit from it unless we’re wealthy enough to have huge superannuation accounts? Wealth inequality for dummies perhaps?
But you really do have a point, in your funny old way of being wrong while still somehow managing to make sense. A bit like how you claim to be a really great ex-Treasurer, and to be oh so worried about debt and deficit, while also conveniently ignoring that little problem of your actual legacy which, low and behold, screwed all of us. I see a pattern of incompetence forming here. Richard Denniss puts your yearly cost to Australia at $56 billion dollars per year. Ouch, Peter! What is it you like to say about inter-generational theft? Maybe everyone should learn all about your incompetence at school? Maybe we should have a Royal Commission into Peter Costello’s Incompetence to get to the bottom of how you managed to leave such economic destruction in your wake?
But really Peter, you’ve got a point about the mining industry deserving a place in the school curriculum. In fact, I applaud your call to give our children a chance to learn how they missed out on a once in a generation mining boom because the mining industry, with the help of your Liberals, crushed Labor’s super-profit tax in order to protect their unfair rort of taking all the wealth for themselves. I definitely think it’s a great idea to educate children about the ills of wealth inequality, so that they understand that life doesn’t have to be this way. They have a right to be told by their teachers that people like you shouldn’t be making decisions on their behalf. Because you don’t have their best interests at heart. And nor do the mining executives who you like to exalt as the mythical heroes of the Australian economy. I’m sure Australian children will be very interested to learn how your Liberals cancelled their chance to get their fair share of mining’s benefits, from the soil they all collectively own. They’ll no doubt be howling about this when they find out how much superannuation they’ve missed out on, money they needed in retirement. They’ll be pissed when they find out you preferred to let the mining executives live it up on their dime, stealing from their bank accounts so they’ll have to retire the day before they die. Good on you Peter. It’s definitely a good idea to tell all the kiddies about this con. Education is, after all, the key to a better future.
Speaking of education, I wonder if you have the figures at hand of how much education funding we could have enjoyed had your government, the one where you controlled the money, thought about taxing the mining industry properly and putting that revenue somewhere useful, such as into the education budget? Actually, let’s not get you to do the sums because we know how hopeless you are with accounting. Remember the time you sold all the gold at rock bottom price? When I say ‘the gold’, just to be clear, it wasn’t your gold, Peter, it was ours. Remember when you lost billions of dollars of Australian money, money that belonged to those school children who never heard anything about it?
Now I come to think of it, you really should be ashamed of yourself, Peter. You’ve screwed over the Australian people time and time again. I have no idea why anyone thinks it would be a good idea to listen to your opinion about anything. What are you doing these days anyway? When you retired you said it was to spend more time with your family. But then I recall, you’ve been appointed to, hang on, what the actual… Australia’s independent sovereign wealth fund? That’s really taking the piss, Peter. You’re the last person I would let even think about walking anywhere near Australia’s Future Fund, let alone giving you the keys and letting you drain it all away, sell the farm and watch the proceeds melt to nothing, until the future is free of any funds. But of course you still get paid. What a joke, Peter. What an absolute joke. Who on earth would give you such a responsible position, when you’re so clearly ideologically inappropriate and incompetently reckless with money to boot? I think I can guess.
I think it’s time you did the whole country a favour and just go away. And in particular, stay away from the young people, Peter. You’ve done enough damage. You’ve treated us all very shabbily. It’s time we had a chance to fix your mistakes for the benefit of all our futures.
Yours Sincerely
Victoria Rollison
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Return to home pagePrivilege, Private Schools,Money, Fortune or a Road Scholarship don’t maketh a great mind.
Wow, strong and good stuff. A true reminder of the ongoing incompetence of this mob. Bring Wayne Swan back any time. Now we have/had Hockey/Morrison. The incompetence knows no bounds.
The losers are yet again, all Australians. There is daily damage added to the Costello bill, when he was in Power. We have now paid in excess of 9 Billion for 4 years detention. By this time, we could have educated many of the refugees and have them contribute to Australian jobs.
But sadly, there aren’t many left any more.
Thank You for this article.
“begging them to hire them to drive trucks for big bucks, and to spend weeks away from their family at a time, ”
Please try to keep up. Those big dump trucks have been driverless for a while now. Since their entire route is standardised and well known, that was easily organised.
“Maybe we should have a Royal Commission into Peter Costello’s Incompetence to get to the bottom of how you managed to leave such economic destruction in your wake?”
Destruction continues as he rips off the nation in his capacity as CEO of the “Future Fund”. Read more about it here:
The future fund scandal:
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=1570
This man is a complete and unapologetic charlatan. That’s why the IPA types wheel him out every now and then.
Holy Crap! This is awesome.
What should this part of the curriculum be called, Peter?
Ouch, Peter!
But really, Peter, you’ve got a point…
Good on you, Peter.
…it wasn’t your gold, Peter; it was ours.
…should be ashamed of yourself, Peter.
…taking the piss, Peter.
What a joke, Peter.
…stay away from young people, Peter.
… sincerely,
Victoria…
Victoria – great sentiment
Dear Ms Rollison.
Whilst I understand your angst, I cannot understand your wish to write to an innumerate. Another current minister says literacy and numeracy are interrelated, and inseparable. His caveat was that the interrelationship was dependant on the colour of your skin, and your geographic location.
Costello, the other half of the Abbott ‘team’, has had successors like hockey and morrison. His predecessors were little johnnie and lynch.
Why is it then that little johnnie, tiny, costalot costello, all suddenly reappear, when most people want them to disappear? It’s not like this country has real problems, is it?
White noise is defined as “noise containing many frequencies with equal intensities.”
Costalot’s successor is O’Dwyer.
We have much to be afraid of. As long as we are focussed on white noise, we will never address what we should be afraid of.
Yours Sincerely,
Kyran O’Dwyer (no relation). Take care.
The sheer insanity of their venality, incompetence and lack of any obvious talent, except lying, is well exposed in this lovely rant…. perhaps we should send our local member (if they are Liarbril) a copy.
‘It’s time we had a chance to fix your mistakes for the benefit of all our futures.’
You mean like supporting the Adani mine in Qld as the Labor Government there has done?
Kyran, thank you for your compassionate post.
I, for one, would never ever take you to be a relative of, or any way related to Ms Kelly O’Dwyer.
I too see that this country has major problems.
Peter Costello didn’t even have the guts to challenge Howard.
Granted he likely would have been even worse and I still wouldn’t have respected him even if he had done so but the point is that the government was rapidly going down fast and any deputy worth a damn would have at least tried to roll the leader that was bringing them down and do anything they could to try and hold onto power.
I mean Costello would have believed they were best for the nation right? (that’s ignoring reality of course but I’m talking from his point of view). So how could he just go down with the sinking ship instead of trying to roll Johnny and save their government? I mean he ultimately would have failed but he should still have tried rather than just take the path of least resistance and accept his government’s fate.
The mining industry, and other corporations, have to get their monies worth out of one of their main sock puppets. I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when I read this bit from Wikipedia (jeez, it does have some use sometimes):
“On 18 September 2008, Costello was appointed as chairman of the World Bank’s new Independent Advisory Board (IAB) to provide advice on anti-corruption measures.)
I wonder if he included/s the rotten stench that is the LNP here when he gave his sage, more like corpse flower, advice.
First Costello fails to allocate money to the Commonwealth Super Scheme for several budgets to make his “bottom line look good” – preferring to put the cost onto the Commonwealth Bankcard.
Then he sells Telstra to pay off that accumulated CSS debt and allocates the rest to a “Future Fund” which he created to guarantee his own ongoing Superannuation payments.
Next, he retires from politics to pay himself to manage the very fund he created.
This isn’t just “jobs for the boys”, it’s the perfect example of financial self-interest when political self-interest has fallen short.
His real legacy is the creation of a society based on personal entitlement and government handouts plus a tax system heavily dependent on personal income tax in a taxpayer asset-stripped economy.
I really don’t understand why he’s treated as some sort of financial oracle.
Clustaf…costello!
LNP=pathetic,,,,,,,,,great post thanks
You’d think he’d have the sense to keep his stupid head down. You’d think he’d realise he was on a separate planet. You’d think he’d realise that neoliberal “theory” is sheer unadulterated crap and that we’ve been around long enough to disregard anything spouted by Murdoch, Macquarie Radio, the IPA and the entire political spectrum from the lunar Right right through to the “neoliberal economic theorists” in the Labor Party, and yes, Virginia, they do exist also. The above article is a damn good argument against that arrogant idiot which needed to be spelled out. The sad thing is that the ABC probably will give him a soapbox to spout his self-indulgent rubbish just as Howard has been. By the way, Wayne Swan when elected wasn’t the shining light some of the readership thinks. He was much more keen on getting a tax cut through for the better off than an urgently needed pension rise. Wayne was MUCH less concerned about that In short, he bought quite a bit of the neoliberal crap, and focused on “trickle down economics” while pretending not to see it really was “gush up” economics. And just now I hear the Libs have squibbed fixing the super mess kicked off by Costello. I yam surprised. Much of the belligerence across the aisle is affected.
Totaram, in the west they are automated but the coal trucks are not.