Barnaby Joyce has made the extraordinary decision to point blank defy a Senate order to produce the cost-benefit analysis on his plan to forcibly move 175 public servants from Canberra to the heart of his electorate.
The unbelievable arrogance of this man to uproot hundreds of families to satisfy a whim of his is obviously not backed up by any discernible benefit. What’s more, he paid Ernst & Young $270,000 to produce the report. What excuse can he use for refusing to release what we have paid for – Nationals security?
The election may be over, but the vote buying continues apace with the government pandering to all sorts of weird and less than wonderful demands by Senate crossbenchers.
Last year, David Leyonhjelm was allowed to set up a Personal Choice and Community Impacts (nanny state) committee to look into issues such as mandatory bicycle helmets, tobacco sales, alcohol outlets, pool fences — almost all matters controlled by the states.
The committee held seven public hearings at significant expense to taxpayers before fizzling out and lapsing with the election.
The Senate has now agreed he can head an inquiry into “how red tape imposed on us by three levels of government affects our economy and impacts our lives.”
In another frightening development, One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts has gained approval for an investigation into industrial relations reform.
Specifically, he wants the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to look at “narrowing the IR carve-out that exempts some union and company abuses of law from the scrutiny that otherwise applies to all other Australians.” ABCC here we come.
Not wanting to be left out, Pauline Hanson stood for election to the NBN Co joint inquiry but missed out with Xenophon’s Stirling Griff winning the spot. Matthias Cormann rushed to assuage Pauline’s disappointment by making Nationals Senator John “Wacka” Williams stand aside and gift Pauline his spot.
Good luck with trying to educate Pauline on Information Technology – please explain.
It appears the government is more than willing to spend hundreds of thousands on useless committees (or committee members) to try to buy the support of the cross bench.
I shudder to think what Brian Burston’s gift will be.
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