By Benny Bongster
Political corruption. It smells. Its rancidness is stronger than the stink of mutton left to stew for days under the glaring Australian sun. The foul odour of corruption envelops our corporate sphere, our body politic, and far too many of our social institutions.
We can smell it and we are left flailing in our attempts to unearth it, to fully expose it, or even to clearly prove it.
There is a curious aroma around the diminution of the ABC. The Orwellian Newspeak of obvious cuts transforming themselves into anything but obvious cuts can in no way hide a naked truth that is apparent to all. All we have to do is identify who most stands to benefit because any effort to minimise the ability of the public broadcaster to vigorously inquire into the back-room deals done by government is corrupt.
There is a curious aroma in Queensland around the ability of mining companies to garner the greater share of underground water resources. There is no smell at all emanating from the empty water bores starting to dot the agricultural landscape of Queensland. All we have to do is identify who most stands to benefit when political legislators and favoured industries collude.
There is a curious aroma around the national Submarine Building Program. Our ship-building industry, our workers, our ability to retain important technological and engineering skill sets, and our very economy needs this program to be implemented here in Australia. All we have to do is identify who most stands to benefit when a veil of secrecy descends around important ADF procurement tenders.
There is a curious aroma around the federally funded ‘unemployment industry’. Our Job Network system, apparently tasked with placing unemployed Australians into sustainable work, gouges billions of dollars out of the federal government budget and consistently delivers nothing more than a damning level of under-performance. This failure to deliver is not questioned at the highest political level. All we have to do is identify who, which individuals and organisations, most stand to benefit from this funding largesse.
There is a curious aroma around Royal Commissions being used as weapons of political revenge. The bastardisation of the Royal Commission process, and the wasting of funds on politically motivated commissions, diminishes the capability of genuine Royal Commissions such as the current one into Institutionalised Child Sexual Abuse to effectively pursue and expose the reprehensible activities of some human beings. All we have to do is identify who most stands to benefit.
Any organisation set up by human beings will have an element of corruption within it. The very fact that the federal government has singled out and applied the blowtorch to only the union movement, and has avoided close scrutiny of the political, corporate, and financial industry spheres is in itself … a questionable and likely act of corruption.
The first thing we have to do, when we look at the decisions our politicians make, is to identify who most stands to benefit from those decisions.
Establish a Federal ICAC. Now!
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