Saturday 4 August 2018
There have been calls for a National Anti Corruption body for some time now but there has always been reluctance, mainly by politicians, to subscribe. The Greens have been onside, the Conservatives cannot see the reason for having one and Labor have recently declared an Anti-Corruption Body to be official party policy.
The reluctance of the conservatives is understandable because they are embroiled in so much corruption that it would make your hair stand on end. Well, not mine.
No, I’m not forgetting the corruption of Eddie Obeid. It combined with other scandals overwhelmingly presents the case for a national body.
What is corruption?
In general, corruption is a “form of dishonesty or criminal activity undertaken by a person or organization entrusted with a position of authority, often to acquire illicit benefit.”
There was a time when a suggestion that Australia, or indeed its citizens were corrupt, would be treated with disdain. You might accuse other countries of being corrupt but certainly not Australia.
Somewhere along the way, we learnt that greed was good and in all manner of ways, money meant power and money corrupted. And so like rust corruption spread itself in its many guises throughout the community. Throughout business, throughout religion, sport, politics and the media.
The stench of the corruption is so bad that I would be justified in saying that initially, we need more than just a National Anti-Corruption body. In some instances, Royal Commissions would be completely in order to precede the setting up of a permanent body.
As I will demonstrate with the words that follow Australia is inundated with political corruption of the conservative’s creation.
1 When Malcolm Turnbull took over the Prime Ministership Barnaby Joyce took over the water portfolio. It was part of Turnbull’s conditions of employment. The ones the people of Australia were not allowed to see. So much for transparency in government.
After a few too many drinks in a pub in Victoria on the 27 July 2017, Joyce let it all out saying that:
“We have taken water, put it back into agriculture, so we could look after you and make sure we don’t have the greenies running the show basically sending you out the back door, and that was a hard ask,”
“A couple of nights ago on Four Corners, you know what that’s all about? It’s about them trying to take more water off you, trying to create a calamity. A calamity for which the solution is to take more water off you shut more of your towns down.”
Two nights earlier Four Corners had raised allegations of water theft.
In the pub, Joyce said that he had given water back to agriculture through the Murray Darling Basin plan so the “greenies were not running the show”.
His remarks were completely opposite to a press conference where he compared water thieves to cattle and sheep thieves, saying people who broke the law would be dealt with by the proper processes.
From that, you would determine that Joyce himself had broken the law. Later, enquires were held but the terms of reference meant that Joyce would not be accountable.
If the matter had been refereed to a national corruption body he would probably be in goal.
2 Ashbygate: In December 2012 Mr Justice Rare’s found that an attempt was made by James Ashby (now Pauline Hanson’s chief of staff) and others with the express purpose of bring down the Speaker of the House of Representatives and in turn the government. Yes, you read correctly. He said there was a conspiracy to use the legal system to remove a government. Do I need to repeat that or does the reader grasp the seriousness of the judge’s findings? I hate to sound alarmist but when people are found guilty of crimes of this nature you would think it would prompt alarm bells in the community, the media, and dare I say it the AFP.
I WAS OUTRAGED WHEN THIS STORY BROKE AND TIME HAS NOT DIMINISHED MY ANGER.
You would think that after Mal Brough had, on national television, admitted complicity in the affair that some action would take place. But no,
The AFP decided that neither James Ashby nor Mal Brough would be charged over the copying of Peter Slipper’s diary. Then they dropped its investigation.
How the Liberal Party dodged a bullet and how the AFP reached its decision will remain a mystery. The only person to have gotten it right in my view was Justice Rare. And let’s not forget how complicit Christopher Pyne was.
3 How come a small almost undetectable charity by the name of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation was visited by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg and Environment Department secretary Finn Pratt and offered its Chairman John Schubert $443 million? No tender, nothing.
The company funds climate denial groups and managing director Anna Marsden at a Senate enquiry agreed that climate change was the greatest threat facing the reef. She rejected suggestions that this fact jarred with the membership of the foundation’s “chairman’s panel”, which includes executives from heavy polluters AGL, BHP, Shell and Peabody Energy.
A bit sus you might say. Well, read these tweets. Wouldn’t pass the pub test and is the sort of thing one might refer to an Integrity Commission.
Rob Oakeshott
Want $443 million from Govt in Oz today? 1. Big political donations. 2. Form a group with a fluffy name – Ozn Water, Rain Corp, or even ‘Great Barrier Reef Foundation’ (a group of 55 large energy and banking companies who pay $20k membership) 3. Avoid tenders and go direct to PM.
Craig Emerson
OK, someone has to put a name to this scandal, or it will default to Reefgate
Bernard Keane
So the best part of half a billion was handed to big business pals in a private meeting with no process, no records, and no public servants.
This stinks. And rich indeed from @TurnbullMalcolm who demanded Rudd and Swan resign over faked Utegate allegations.
Kristina Keneally
The Prime Minister’s ‘private meeting’ with the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, when he offered them $444m of public funding, was more private than first thought. It now turns out that there were no public servants present. Just Turnbull, Frydenberg & GBRF Chair Dr John Schubert.
Rob Oakeshott again.
Want $443 million from Govt in Oz today? 1. Big political donations. 2. Form a group with a fluffy name – Ozn Water, Rain Corp, or even ‘Great Barrier Reef Foundation’ (a group of 55 large energy and banking companies who pay $20k membership) 3. Avoid tenders and go direct to PM.
This “captains call” looks positively corrupt. I cannot think of any circumstance that would justify it. Come Friday when I scan the morning papers there is nothing to be found on the subject. Well only another tweet from Bernard Keane.
“I’ve administered a Commonwealth grants program. I (briefly) ran a procurement area. I’ve worked on major procurements (Australia Network). I’ve read scores of ANAO reports. The $440m handout to the GBRF is the most egregious case of maladministration I’ve ever heard of.”
David Spencer summed it up nicely with this tweet.
“Absolutely. Imagine if a Labor PM, had given an unsolicited grant of nearly 1/2 billion $, with no transparent process, to a private organisation. The Murdoch press in particular, would be apoplectic, and rightly calling for full disclosure. But this is the LNP, so hardly a peep!”
My view is that giving all this money to a small company who specializes in grants to those who deny climate change, might be a way of securing the votes of those in the Coalition who are prepared to vote against the Energy Guarantee policy.
4 This one concerns the Employment Minister Michaela Cash. Now that the AFP has told the AWU that it was referring the matter of leaking to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, and will formally refer at least one aspect of the investigation to it in coming weeks – meaning criminal charges could be laid.
There was a time when Ministers would resign for much less.
Every time the Minister hears a word with U at the front she seems to get her knickers in a knot.
The raid goes back a decade and concerns a donation the Union made to GetUp!
Cash has repeatedly contended she had nothing to do with any tip-off but it is very strange that the media arrive at these raids before the AFP. It has also happened with other raids of a different nature in the past.
5 Then we have the deplorable case of Canberra lawyer Bernard Collaery and former intelligence agent Witness K who are facing prosecution on charges of breaching the Intelligence Services Act five years after details of the operation were initially reported in the media.
At a time when negotiations were taking place with East Timor over rights to oil and gas Australia was spying on them in order to gain an advantage.
That my country should seek to do this makes me sick in the stomach. It’s those who did the bugging that need investigating not the whistleblowers.
All the men involved did was to reveal the truth. Now 5 years later The Turnbull government wants to prosecute the two men where as in fact they should be giving them the order of Australia.
6 John Lloyd is the public service commissioner, appointed by Tony Abbott in 2014. Prior to that, he was a long time member and former director of the Institute of Public Affairs. The institute keeps the funding of its organisation private. Well, one did become known last week with a donation of a cool $5 million from Australia’s richest women.
Lloyd has decided to retire after the release of some emails and a grilling at a Senates Estimates meeting that questioned as to who he was working for.
7 Yet another review of the ABC is to be undertaken by former Foxtel head Peter Tonagh. One would think there might be a conflict of interest given he is also involved in a quest for a billion-dollar government contract. He is part of a consortium that includes a friend of the Prime Minister, Scott Biggs, who just happens to be in the race for a Commonwealth government visa-processing contract?
Where is all that transparency Turnbull talks about? It raises the question as to why they should bother tendering when the Great Barrier Reef Foundation didn’t have too.
8 With all this corruption going on the question also arises as to why it has taken years for the Coalition to sort out the what can only be described as a political scandal at its worst. The VET FEE – HELP scheme involving our Government handing out billions of dollars of taxpayer’s money to private Colleges when there was literally no public benefit.
Yet again the government has shown its capacity for corruption.
9 Then we find a person of moderate intellectual capacity, George Christensen, is flying to Japan at the expense of the Minerals Council of Australia to plead for a new coal-fired power station to be built here, at the request of Resources Minister Matt Canavan?. At the very least this is highly inappropriate and yet again demonstrates a Government in Turmoil.
10 Last but not least we need an answer from the Government as to why for two years it held firm against a Royal Commission into the financial sector. We already know that financial advisors acted corruptly for the big banks and that the banks and the government knew about it.
If you are thinking at this stage that I’m making it all up I’m not. I have already written enough about the Governments readiness to use our money to fund Adani and how politically expedient the Nine-Fairfax deal was for the Government.
There was a time in our political history when we could justifiably say in the midst of a discussion about corruption “no, not us” But not under this sleazy lot we can no longer do so. It is time to act.
Back in March 2018 the United Nations Human Rights Council, the UN Special Rapporteur, Michel Forst, delivered a major report following a visit in October 2016.
In the report, he made it clear that he was “astonished” to observe “mounting evidence of regressive measures” being pursued by the government.“ (See link above) and “astounded” with the frequent public vilification by senior public officials” of charities, community groups and democratic institutions critical of the Government
“In February, Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index found that Australia was continuing a steady slide down the scale. Our country ranking had not changed – 13th for three years running – but our score had notably decreased over the last six years. In 2012, Australia scored 85 out of 100, but it had since slipped eight points to a score of 77, down from 79 in 2016. Transparency International’s local chairman, Anthony Whealy QC, told the ABC that Australia’s ranking suggested a failure to deal with serious public sector issues: “These include money laundering, whistleblowing, political donations and the effectiveness of our systems … the Government has simply not faced up to the need to have an independent corruption agency at a national level.” New Zealand topped the rankings, perceived as the least corrupt country in the Asia-Pacific, with a score of 89.
That’s where Australia should be, not third behind the Kiwis and Singapore. It’s time to arrest the slide before it gets any worse.”
And so I rest my case for an Anti-Corruption Body. I’m not fussed about what it might be called so long as it has some balls to investigate matters like the aforementioned.
My thought for the day
“How utterly dispiriting it is when the hearts and minds of men and women are so utterly corrupted by this virus of political lies, but more demoralising it is that ordinary people catch the same infection.”
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