Ok, it’s probably unfair to use Schwarzenegger references when talking about Mathias Cormann. Apart from their accents, they have very little in common. One is a respected politician while the other is a bad actor who has trouble finding roles where he seems believable. Ok, perhaps not everyone agrees with his politics but his time as governor of California qualifies Arnie as a respected politician in my book.
Speaking of Arnold Schwarzenegger, what was your favourite Schwarzenegger film? The Terminator? Collateral Damage? The Running Man? True Lies? Cormann The Barbarian?
Anyway, enough about Arnie; it’s Mathias Cormann I want to talk about. He is, after all, our Finance Minister and what I’m reading today makes me very worried that he holds that role. According to reports, Mathias went on a holiday which he didn’t pay for until the media asked him why he didn’t pay for it.
Now, I want to make it clear that I’m not suggesting anything untoward here. Even though the firm was awarded a billion dollar government contract, and Senator Cormann’s holiday was booked under the “family and staff travel” account, mistakes like that happen all the time. Obviously, the person booking the holiday saw Mathias and thought, “You look familiar, so you probably work here.”
No, I’m sure that it was just a simple mistake and that there was no link between the fact that it was the Liberal Party Treasurer who controls the company and them getting the contract because, well, like Paladin, these decisions are all made by public servants and ministers have nothing to do with the awarding of contracts.
No, it’s clear that everything is all above board when it comes to the things I’ve mentioned. The reason I’m worried that Senator Cormann is our Finance Minister is because, in my limited understanding of the role, that means he has something to do with money. This is a concern because apparently, he didn’t notice that the hadn’t been charged for the trip.
Personally, I can understand this. I sometimes forget to check my dockets and go home to find that the item on special was charged at the full rate. And sometimes no doubt I’ve gone home and not checked my receipt at all and haven’t been aware that the bottle of wine I thought I was paying ten dollars for actually cost $328 and it’s not like I’d notice such a thing when my credit card bill was due.
But then I’m not Minister for Finance. You’d think someone like that would check something like a holiday to make sure that he wasn’t overcharged through some administrative error. After all, administrative errors happen all the time… like putting it in the family and staff account. So you’d really think that someone who deals with finance would be checking their own credit card and if they don’t, then are they really suited to the role?
Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh. It was only $2780.82 after all, Who hasn’t missed an amount that trifling on your statement? But I still feel like he should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us. I mean, if Liberals are that careless with their personal finances, can we be sure that they haven’t forgotten to include something in the Budget and we’ll find that the projected surplus will evaporate because they forgot to include politicians’ travel costs?
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