JOURNALISTS LISTEN! FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE DO YOUR JOB
Gloating politicians laud their opportunities,
and good fortune,
of the past. Support from governments not available to aspiring young people today
September 2009:
Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, both delivered speeches to students this past first week or two.
Both lauded the former labor Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam's, visionary implemenentation of free tertiary education.
Both crowed (low key of course) how they had benefitted, how the opportunity of a free education had added to their successful careers.
Pity that these two nostalgically inclined, but myopic speakers, could not think see the irony in their content. The people in the
audience would have no such opportunity. The audience would have to use the Higher Education Scheme, which would burden them with high debt,
not a free education. Some may well have characterised the two as free loaders by comparison. Why is it that in this age of excess and tremedous wealth Australia cannot have a free education system? There is no reason actually just bullshit about the costs.
The visionary objective of these two senior leaders, in the modern day federal labor government is a spin (education revolution) campaign,
with gross misrepresentation and hyperbole, full of irony and hypocrisy, underpinned by a policy to build rather than educate within the schools of the nation.
The billions being poured into
school buildings across the nation could well have been applied to imbuing a love of education and perhaps a move towards free education in Australia,
a nation with
no life long learning policy
and no action plan to start on the long road.
Kevin Rudd has launched a review of the public service because he wants a modern, innovative service. He fails to see the fact that he is not at all innovaative hiself so what would he do with an innovative service?
Plageurise the ideas most likely. Do not expect any innovation out of Julia Gillard's federal education department.
Just an aping of the now embedded public service process of second guessing the Minister.
The waste of time, money and poor delivery of hyped government services grows. Despite labor Minister Jenny Macklin's recent bravado, and promises,
not one house was built in the Northern Territory in the recent past and none in over one year, not one since she came out a few months back
and said that she would deliver 700 houses. Tawn, sure Jenny.
Mr. Rudd, Ms Gillard and the labor party generally are not expected to deliver a revolution in any portfolio based on the
performance of the new comers to parliament, to date. The visionary party members struggle in the background in Defence, Trade and Immigration whilst those in the front line
have the sotlight showing an empty loft.
The underfperformance of a number of new and inexpeienced Ministers of the federal labor government, is being overlooked by the graeetr part of the Australian
media, which is focusing on polls and celebrity rather than substance. A few lone Australian media icons are questioning the gloss and the glamour as the gold shine tarnishes. The Australian population generlly are not deep political thinkers and observers. This is a sad reflection on how
we value our democracy and government. save the whales, dolphins, apes and the environment but not Australia's demoracy.
And of one of the new comers, what does the Minister for Government Services delivery do? He got the job because he
delivered certain politicians success in NSW.
Again we see that party political machine ability is not a good gauge of the ability to be a Minister in the parliament.
The same Minister, Senator Mark Arbib, is also the Minister for Employment participation. Pity that there are a lot of people not participating via his tremedously advertised, but somewhat failing,
programme. What was the claim by the Prime Ministerm 50,000 jobs?
Are we to assume that services delivery covers the government training scheme to get the unemployed a job?
If so that is not delivering as the government claimed it would. Mr rabib did not even know what his programme was all about.
Extract: "Gillard defends Arbib over PM's green jobs scheme 'error', Christian Kerr | July 31, 2009
Article from: The Australian
DEPUTY Prime Minister Julia Gillard came to the defence of her junior minister today,
explaining that "anyone can make an error" after his bungled explanation of the Prime Minister's green jobs plan.
Mark Arbib, a rising Labor star, took the gloss off the Prime Minister's first ALP National Convention speech by stumbling during
in an interview with Sky News.
“Anybody can make an error on live radio, live TV,” Ms Gillard, the Employment Minister, told ABC Radio today.
Mr Rudd said that “Mark would admit himself, he didn't have the best of days”, adding: “That's not unique to him, that's not unique to politics.”
Asked on Sky News yesterday how many jobs would be created, Senator Arbib said: “Well, straight off the bat 10,000 jobs with the new Green Jobs Corps”.
Asked to clarify his comments he claimed that the “work experience program is a job”.
When asked again whether these 10,000 positions were jobs or work experience, he again stated “work experience is a job”. (Source: The Australian newspaper, http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25861431-5013871,00.html).
This a labor rising star. god help us if this man is the future of a labor government.
Does this Ministry also include delivering the housing scheme in the Northern Territory?
The one announced April 2008, supposedly delivering 700 or is it a 1,000 houses to under privileged aboriginals?
If so not one house has been built as at September 2009.
Extract: "Not one house built out of $700m Fed Govt fund, Emma Griffiths reported this story on Thursday, July 23, 2009 12:10:00
PETER CAVE: For decades politicians have been promising to tackle the seemingly intractable problem of Indigenous housing.
Now the Rudd Government has been forced to defend claims that the largest ever investment in new homes in the Northern Territory has failed to deliver.
Seven-hundred million dollars in housing program was announced by the Howard government and adopted by Kevin Rudd. But two years on not even one new house has been built.
Emma Griffiths reports from Canberra.
EMMA GRIFFITHS: In the Northern Territory more than 60 per cent of Indigenous people are living in overcrowded homes. In some cases dozens of people can live in the one house and the conditions are known to contribute to chronic health problems and education difficulties.
When the Federal intervention rolled through, the Howard government allocated $670 million to build new homes and fix up others. The initiative is called the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program and it was picked up by the Rudd Government.
Earlier this year the Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin announced that work had begun to do up more than 300 homes
in the Tiwi Islands, Groote Eylandt and in Tennant Creek.
That work is due to be finished by the end of next year. But of the nearly 1,000 new homes promised under the program not one has been built." (Source: ABC Australia, The World Today,
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2009/s2634218.htm)
So government service delivery seems a bit wanting. When Mr Arbib is questioned about his portfolio and activities he presents
as a less than assured Minister on top of his responsibilities.
Looking again at Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, the litany of underperforming delivery examples within her multiple portfolios, continues. She has more talent than the average person in society
because she has risen through the ranks of decrepit
politics to achieve the second highest political office in the land. That however does not make her a good manager of complex issues nor a successful Minister. The criteria are completely opposed.
She ran with the Medicare Gold project in opposition, on behalf of Mark Latham, quietly abandoned because it was too expensive and it was fantasy bordering on stupid.
"...anyone over 75, even a multi-millionaire not in any urgent need, may jump the queue at a public hospital. (Queues of course are an inevitable feature of socialised medicine.) This recalls those earlier “reforms” of the 70’s to provide aged pensions and free university education without any regard to need. Neither lasted for long, but long enough to do damage. The universities have never fully recovered.
At the heart of Medicare is that sacred cow, bulk billing, which was always a flawed concept. Bulk billing requires that
not only the taxpayer subsidise each consultation, but also the doctor accept a fee substantially lower than that charged
by tradesmen and professionals. There is no limit to the number of consultations with each patient, even when these are clearly unnecessary.
When doctors demonstrate their lack of interest in doing the politicians’ bidding, state governments compound the problem by allowing hospital
casualty departments to be misused as a surrogate for bulk billing GP’s. It is difficult to think of a more foolish waste of resources than bulk
billing, although providing competition in the pay television market by having parallel cables in
suburban streets came close. (Why not also encourage competition between tramway companies by encouraging them to lay parallel tracks?)" (extract:'Medicare Gold' and the golden age of health care,
David Flint, http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=2682,)
Extract:" Julia Gillard stands by Medicare Gold, ABC Australia, AM - Monday, 4 October , 2004 08:06:00
Reporter: Alexandra Kirk
TONY EASTLEY: Labor's Health spokeswoman, Julia Gillard, is standing by the costings in Medicare Gold and says contrary to the Government's claims, the Opposition has submitted its policy to the departments of Treasury and Finance for scrutiny.
She maintains Econtech's figures are wrong, telling Alexandra Kirk she doesn't accept the private health insurers' criticism.
JULIA GILLARD: Medicare Gold is properly funded, properly costed, the costings have gone into Treasury and we are…
ALEXANDRA KIRK: But the Government says they haven't.
JULIA GILLARD: Well, the Government's wrong. The costings have gone into Treasury and I am
more than satisfied that Medicare Gold is fully funded and properly costed.
ALEXANDRA KIRK: And will Treasury and Finance have time to go over your figures before the election?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't have an answer. There's a full week there for Treasury to look at it.
ALEXANDRA KIRK: Part of your Medicare Gold policy is that if people aged over 75 and on a waiting list want to have private hospital treatment
that they can. Why wouldn't they take it if they were offered it?
I mean, you're arguing that not everybody will end up in a private hospital, but the Government
says they may well. Why wouldn't people take up the option if they were given it?
JULIA GILLARD: Look, I don't think that older people are going to be combing through every private hospital in
Australia looking for the best room. I think people will make the sort of decisions they do now, which is which hospital is
closest to my home so people can come and see me in hospital, which hospital does my doctor operate from or does my doctor
recommend for the procedure that I need?
ALEXANDRA KIRK: Now Labor is pledging as one extra election promise to spend around $700 million to reduce the cost of prescription medicines by 60 cents for pensioners and concession card holders." (ABC Australia, http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2004/s1212455.htm)
Now (2009) As Minister for Education she, and the Department, sat around for three months while disadvantaged students, largely from the country,
suffered misery and depravation,
from another stupid decision under her stewardship.
Extract: " THE Federal Government has given ground on the contentious youth allowance issue and will allow students currently on a gap-year before attending university to qualify for youth allowance under the old system providing they have to move away from home to get their degree.
After fierce lobbying from regional students, with the backing of The Nationals, the Greens and Independent MPs, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced that students who have taken a gap year and must move to attend university will be entitled to claim independent status for Youth Allowance under the existing system until 30 June 2010.
Ms Gillard said while the changes to youth allowance, announced in this year's budget, were designed to help more
people access the assistance, she acknowledged some students who had chosen to take a gap year in 2009 would have been
disadvantaged during the transition between the two systems.
But she said to pay for the change, the alterations to the amount a student can earn before affecting their youth allowance
will be deferred by 18 months.
Students are currently able to earn $236 a fortnight before their youth allowance payment is affected.
This will now rise to $400 a fortnight, but will now not be introduced until 1 July 2012." (Source: Gillard gives ground on youth allowance
26/08/2009 9:44:00 AM, Stock Journal, http://sj.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/agribusiness-and-general/general/gillard-gives-ground-on-youth-allowance/1606421.aspx)
"Author BJP River ®
Date/Time: 22 May 2009 12:20:10pm
Subject Youth Allowance, Double Standards
What a brazen set of double standards we live by. Who is setting a prime example on this front but none other than the Deputy Prime Minister
of Australia, the Federal Minister for Education Julia Gillard?
The other morning (Wednesday) Ms Gillard was on radio (ABC) dictating / justifying her proposed budget position regarding the new rules
for Youth Allowance qualification, where university students from households that earn more than $42,599 pa will not qualify for Youth Allowance.
A reason given for changing the rules was to tighten up the system so that those who are well off can no longer claim youth allowance. Apparently
now if you earn more than $42,599 in your household you are now classified as well off?
For country kids, moving to the city to study, many of whom move many 100's of kilometres, Youth Allowance is basically their "living away from
home allowance" contributing to covering such costs as rent, utilities etc whilst pursuing higher education.
My daughter is expecting to move to Adelaide next year, to undertake her studies at Flinders University which she has deferred for
a year in an attempt to qualify for youth allowance under the old rules.
The double standard kicks in here where Ms Gillard, as reported on Today Tonight the other night,
openly claims $215/wk "living away from home allowance", $8500 for half of last year, whilst living in her own home.
My daughter will be living 300km from her home next year, living in some sort of rental, but under Ms Gillard's new rules, WILL NOT qualify for Youth Allowance (defacto living away from home allowance) because we earn more than $42,599. I can tell you this though, what my wife and I earn, our combined income, would not come close to what Ms
Gillard takes home on her own, yet she gets to make these claims whilst living in her own home."(Source of extract: The Country Hour, ABC Rural message board,http://www2b.abc.net.au/tmb/Client/Message.aspx?b=16&m=479&dm=2,
Discussion: Youth Allowance, Double Standards)
labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told us of an education revolution in the lead up to the election. This is not an
education revolution,
it is spin and misrepreresentation, designed to elude and cover up mediocrity, poor planning and
management by federal and state agencies, corruption in pricing and mates, with spin from a
celebrity politician.
The above equates to a $1.7 billion dollar over run on education (fizzle) revolution. It is according to Ms Gillard, a bump in the road. So successful is the programme that every wants in.
Why? It is easy money.
An exercise that is an over priced,
corrupted and inept big spending project on physical facilities for schools whether they want them, need them or want something else.
Like health, education is a blaoted over administered portfolio at every level of Austrlia's governments.
Services are taken away from schools to funds a whole army of pen pushers, paper shufflers and career fat cats. She is lauded by shallow journalists for her parliamentary performance. Is it eloquent and quality presentation to refer to a parliamentary member as a "poodle"?
This is not a smat intellectually challenging retort.
It is a circus performance not becoming of a highly (publicly paid for) educated person in high public office.
" PM-to-be Julia Gillard hits a road bump, Article from: Laurie Oakes, August 29, 2009 12:00am, Herald Sun Newspaper, http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25996107-5000117,00.html)
"DON'T look now, but St Julia's halo has slipped. Suddenly the Deputy Prime Minister's competence is being questioned.
Since Labor won office she has been Teflon-coated.
While other ministers copped their share of criticism, nothing seemed to stick to Julia Gillard.
Her image has been all polish, apparently untarnishable.
Even the country's most conservative commentators have expressed admiration for her.
But a $1.7 billion blow-out in the Government's stimulus spending on primary school infrastructure may have changed all that. Now there is talk about possible feet of clay.
The bottom line is that an extra $1.69 billion has had to be found for Gillard's infrastructure spend on primary schools.
It will come from money originally earmarked for other programs, most notably social housing.
Comments in the report about administration and procurement processes - along with the ordering of guideline changes to ensure value-for-money in contracts with builders and purchasing of materials - also lend credibility to Opposition criticism.
The huge cost blow-out focuses attention on claims that Gillard is not capable of handling both Workplace Relations and the Education portfolio.
Calls are mounting for her to give up one of them.
Making the most of all this is Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne.
Back in February, Gillard made the mistake of ridiculing Pyne in Parliament as a mincing poodle.
Since then he has pursued her doggedly (pun intended)." (Extract source: laurie Oakes, PM-to-be Julia Gillard hits a road bump, August 29, 2009)
This debacle in the education portfolio follows on the genius of putting a
computer on every school kids desk without anyone in her office, and in the bureaucracy, the federal Departmanet of Education,
thinking about the ancillary costs. Then there is the modernisation of awarsd, yet more spin and doctoring as this exercise also turns sour.
What does Ms Gillard, the Honourable Deputy Prime Minister, call this calamity? A speed hump in the road. A glitch, accordint tob the diatribe of spin, this cost over run
is an exhibit of the wonderful policy that is just so exciting, and revolutionary, that so many schools, and not so bright people, have like sheep,
embraced that they
have all demannded more, and of course the government has listened, causing the cost blow out. Then she blames the states for the "crooks in the private education" sector. never mind that
this is also a by - product of poor policy and stupid education ministers, never challenged at the state level, in the Australian
federal government who dreamed up, and enacted, policies (albeit Howard's liberal - national coalition) on competition and selling education
to the highest bidder across the globe.
Oh please, this is not a revolution nor is it an indicator of success. It is apparent that Ms Gillard
is in trouble when federal labor politician Anthony Albanese
comes out to defend her failures, dressing them up as successes. He is not that plausible but never mind the hubris that
runs in the veins of the career Australian politician.
She has dressed up, and looks quite comely, often startling good looking on television.
Will Australia ever return to the golden age of quality investigative journalism that examines political performance deeper than the make up and acid
tongue? Are we about entertainment or good government, and public service quality? The federal
Department of Education is not known for its challenging of policy, and Ministerial mediocrity and poor decisions. Rather it has a
record of giving every Minister what they want to hear, read and see.
This department's hallmark, within sections of the Department dealing with parliament, is sycophancy at great cost to the nation and the intellectual, and educative, development of Australia. The Department demeans the
notion of fearless public service. Can't blame them though cause that "utopian concept" passed away long ago, with the corruption
of public service by the Austraian Labor, and Liberal, parties in goverment, across Australia.
|
POLITICAL INTEREST, DELUSION, SPN AND LIES
There appears to be no admirable political leaders in any of
Australia's governments.
August 2009: The ethical, and moral, substance of today's governments across Australia
The Honourable, Premier of Victoria, John Brumby, would have us believe he is doing a good job, as would Ms Anna Bligh in Queensland,
Mr Nathan Rees in NSW, Mike Rann in South Australia, Paul Henderson in the Northern Territory, Colin Barnett in Western Australia, Jon Stanhope in the Australian Capital Territory and
David Bartlett in Tasmania. The evidence is quite to the contrary. Ignoring the
corrosion and corruption,
of the governance of Australia, ignoring the
ethical, and morally,
challenged administration, and governance, of each of the major political parties and the
government leaders, and we are still left with the gross failure of public service and
management. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is travelling the country talking to health professionals. The federal government has committed to major reform of health delivery in Australia.
This will be an extraordinary achievement if the Rudd labor government can get the moribund and inadequate state and territory governments to get off their collective self interest and
deliver service as they are elected to do. A picture of state, and territory,
mismanagement,
and failure, dangerous decisions and other scandalous activities,
within state and territory health,
is being starkly painted.
The management of health by our governments is a disgrace for a modern nation and represents the public face
of misrepresentation, lies, and stupidity of the public service administration and the politicians who are in charge in the states and territories. There are two core fundamentals that make society
-health and education. The Australian governments, collectively, in the past have failed on both portfolios. Every election the theme is the same - it will be fought on health and education. Is it that the state and territory Ministers and health agencies are
collectively incompetent?
Health, across the nation, is a bloated over managed system full of bureaucrats and consultants leaving insufficient funds for the employment of health professionals and
supply of resources. It is a mix of vested interests both public and private. Why would anyone vote for the health Ministers of the states,
and territories, when they demonstrate such incompetence year after year?
In Queensland medical malpractice has resulted in death with health
administrators disregarding the reports and exposures of nurses. Whistleblowers are treated with contempt. The Queensland health system is
riddled with corruption and mismanagement.
In Victoria the government failed to address major dysfunctions, poor administration and
technical neglect in the
state fire fighting services.
Premier John Brumby expressed his support for the under performers of the bureaucracy. He arrogantly reappointed the most senior before the
Bush Fire Royal Commission had handed down its report.
John Brumby is not a leader of an Australian government worthy of great respect.
Australians die, and others suffer greatly, as a consequence of failures in governance, and public service.
There is no accountability. Across Australia the labor party sells access to Ministers and garners favours via lobbyists.
In the Northern Territory, the government, and public service, has squandered, or stolen, millions in allocated federal funds
for aboriginal communities. They have failed in their duty of care in every facet of their decrepit political administration.
Liars, cheats and thieves, along with former political party mates and former senior Ministers and members of governments, infest
the political spectrum of the nation and the two major political parties, the Australian labor and Australian Liberal parties.
In NSW the government hangs onto office whilst being publicly pilloried for its stupidity, maladministration, corruption and arrogance.
No less culpable are the states of
Queensland and Western Australia, which are riddled with corruption, and poor public service administration. In Victoria Mr. Brumby is not interested in contrary or scathing opinions, speculation on his failing moral compass or any other
studied examination of his under performance. Mr. Brumby says that paying for access to his Ministers of government is a sign of a healthy democracy.
This is his idea of government in action. We have an ethical, and moral, void in Victoria within our government and public services.
Yet even more telling of Mr Brumby's ethical base is his response to the
deaths, and devastation, wraught by the fires in Victoria that killed 173 people and burnt 2,000 homes, 11,000 animals and countless assets.
He says that "in terms of responsibilities we all feel, all Victorians feel responsible for what occurred on February 7, all of us do, I do, Russell (Rees) does, everybody does... there were systems which worked well on the day and there were systems that didn't"
(Brumby media conference, Australian newspaper, Tuesday August 18, 2009.)
What a load of crock, and sanctimonious bullshit, flows from this man's mouth. I am not responsible for the deaths and failures, Brumby, his Ministers and public servants are.
Really Mr Brumby? You are the head of a government that failed to create the foundation of workable and responsive systems. You are the head of a government that failed to clear fire breaks and
create protection systems. You are the head of a government that is inept at every level of its administration.
The Victorian Bush Fire Royal Commission has found that all of the emergency services policies created, and managed, by this government were inadequate. The
Commission found major failure at the leadership level of the
Country Fire Authority and the Department of Sustainability and Development. The Commission found that the two senior managers of these
critical authorities showed no leadership, did not take charge and that no one was in charge at the Integrated Emergency Coordinated Centre.
What an irony that name is. For the leadership of the two critical agencies it was all about following the rules. For John Brumby it is all about following the political handbook guide "soin 101" plausable deniability and
don't look at me. Where is the Minister for Emergency Services, Bob Cameron, in all of this? Nowhere, silent. No one took charge
and no one is responsible, just the "collective we". The outcome of this terrible evequite a number of qualities that define real leadership, ethical and moral fibre.
No one is in charge in any of the labor government portfolios. The Victorian transport system for Melbourne has been privatised. The most recent tender (July 2009) exposed, as in Queensland, the shadowy,
behind the scenes presence, and influence, of labor party linked
lobbyists.
The governing political parties of Australia (labor and liberal) have
corrupted
the public service
process and should be held in contempt. They are thieves of democracy and government.
Business prefers to deal in the cesspool of the system than demand an open and transparent process.
Business buys access and donates funds to these corroders of democracy. Business is complicit in the decay and degradation of government in
Australia.
The two political parties wait their turn on the carnival, merry go round,
that is dressed up, and passed off, as democracy, and government, in Australia.
|
POLITICISATION, AND CORROSION, OF THE AUSTRALIAN PUBLIC SERVICE ON PUBLIC DISPLAY
August 2009: A senior officer of the Australian Public Service, Godwin Grech, has betrayed the Australian Public Service
eschewing the Code of Conduct in favour of seeking to consort in an inappropriate manner with politicians.
In doing so he has shamed tye service and put a spotlight on the lack of ethics and honour of members of Australia's parliament.
It has emerged that both political parties, laboe and liberal, have lied to us about their integrity and ethics. Both have actively encouraged betrayal of public service office and by accepting
the fruits of improper gians for their own benefit degraded the highest offices in the land. For this they should stand condemned and be seen for what they are.
Kevin Rudd fumed when his integrity was impugned by Malcolm Turnbull yet he is part of a ystem that impugns, corrodes and corrupts every day. Not a part, an active leader who lacks the integrity and stamina to put and end to it.
Do not be folled by this little man's protestations. He is as guilty of neglect of principles as all the players in this sordid tale. His home state, and governing labor party, lacks integrity and thus he learned his
lessons in a cesspool.
Politicisation, and corrosion, of the Australian Public Service (APS) began somewhere back in the eighties when a federal labor government
decided to harness, and neuter, the Australian public service to its own personal interests, political causes and objectives.
It is not enough to have destroyed its base, successive governments have gone further and deskilled it making it
ineffectual
and a poor service provider leading to the employment of consultants, contractors and others lacking the ethical base of a strong service.
" In practice 'new public management' has led to (a) politicisation of administration (b) emasculation of Public Services;
(c) and ineffectual governance with symptoms including: unbalanced economic gains; consequent social stresses; and chronic
weaknesses in infrastructure, service delivery and regulatory roles. The dominant goal of Public Services shifted from helping the
public by ensuring good government, to 'helping' the government of the day to retain political power. Ironically this model often led to
unexpected electoral backlashes against state administrations who were seen as 'autocratic' after 5-6 years incubation, probably because
they had surrounded themselves with 'yes men' and thus lost touch with the fact that not everyone shared
their assumptions. This approach was reportedly being put in place in the federal government in 2000." (source: THE DECAY OF AUSTRALIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: A DIAGNOSIS,
CENTRE FOR POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT SYSTEMS, Queensland)
A google reference:
[PDF] Public sector corruption and its control....
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
world's highest, corruption has afflicted Australian public life to varying degrees for .... ened with decay, the risk of state collapse can impact on Australia's .... legislation,
and a politicised public service. ...
www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/ti143.pdf - Similar -
by P Grabosky - 2000 - Cited by 9 - Related articles
Once appeared on the Australian Government web site, now in its place:
"Sorry. What you’re looking for isn’t here at the moment.
The AIC website is being redeveloped and the page you requested is currently unavailable." (Australian Government Institute of Criminology)
,br>
The irony is that Kevin Rudd pens two essays attacking the nature of capitalism and extolls the virtues of binding social commitment, and values. he walks from the church on Sunday, the epitomy of the
Christian man who represents values. He lives in the short term of here and now political advantage using the very tools that he belittles,
managerialism. He is a member of the cancer of the modern political movement that will go to any lengths to win.
"No long term" is a principle that corrodes trust, loyalty and mutual commitment.
The short time frame of modern institutions limits the ripening of informal trust.
Strong ties depend, in contrast, on long association. And, more personally, they depend on a willingness to make commitments to others.
Short-term capitalism threatens to corrode our characters, particularly those qualities of character which bind human beings to one another
and furnishes each with a sense of sustainable self." (Source: Richard Sennett, The Corrosion of Charcetr, The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism
by Richard Sennett
(pub 1998 by WW.Norton and Company)
ISBN 0-393-04678-8)
Departmental Secretaries, long the barrier to unbridled political excess of the exeutive of
government, were put on contract. The practice of permanent sinecure in high office was stopped. Departmental Secretaries now owe their livelihood to self interested, sometimes petty, egos.
They owe their livelihood to the flippant ignorance of Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who arrogantly, speaks of working public servants
harder without too much thought as to the message he conveys. They are not his personal slaves and work horses to do his puerile, and often politically concocted, tasks.
Even though he might, as others, think they are. They are supposed to examine issues, and give good balanced advice. How can they when they are
subjected to ignorant, self serving, political demands that are often nothing more than window dressing? Kevin Rudd wears his own
frenetic working style as if it is a badge of honour instead of a red flag of stupidity. How can he give the nation good service if he lacks sleep and leisure?
He cannot. To think that he can raises questions of judgement.
John Howard, and the liberal party,
took this corrosion of the APS to its greatest corrupting end game, during their eleven year reign as government.
They were aided in their absolute "heeling" of the senior members of the Australian public service by an Australian judge who
ruled the Defence Minister John Moore
could remove a Departmental Secretary at his personal whim. No longer would the APS operate without fear or favour. They are on office at the whim and pleasure (note the word) of the Minister.
It is an official term, "at the pleasure".
Appointment to the pretigious positions of Departmental Secretary, by the two major political parties, is now entrenched.
It has been patently an anti-public service outcome and a further corrosion and corruption of our demiocracy and government.
It is one of the practices of the modern Australian government across Australia, that creates
bile, distaste and derision, in those who cherish democracy, and government, as
something with a higher purpose than the prurient interests of a few flakes who acieve high office in the political party wing and the
government executive. States and territories have followed suit.
The APS, like other bureaucracies in the nation is a hierarchical, class oriented, structure mired in hubris and the snout in the trough of executive privilege. There arethose who work hard, treat their staff with respect but still enjoy privilege.
They obey the government also.
Secretaries enjoy the perks of their office, free membership of the ultimate airline lounges, such as the Chairman's Lounge of Qantas,
the business, and first class, cabins and the five star hotels. They eat the finest food and drink the finest wines rubbing shoulders with the elite. They never meet with the lower ranks of community and business. That is for Assstant Secretaires. Their status is unquestioned and they are allof to the general public.
They enjoy salaries higher than our elected parliamentary members, including the Prime Minister and Premiers. Salries decided by an idenpendent tribunal, on spurious
justifications that they are senior executives much like corporate bosses. The
Senior Executive Service criteria,
for appointment, is gobbly gook nonsense of etherial, unmeasurable, dimensions. They are there to be the
Minister's feel good, and look good servant, regardless of the Minister's talent and capabilities,
recruited to serve the political interest. Never mind the higher aspiration to serve the public.
Today the senior executive of the APS serves the government sycophantically. It gives hypocritical credence to something called the Public Service Code of Conduct. It is politically partisan to the government regardless case and merit carrying on a charade of advising without fear or favour.
The Australian Senate is going to have a Privileges Committee hearing. This is another farce of the Australian bi cameral system. The notion that
the Senate exercises independence, has teeth and is a house of review. If were not for the independents, the Greens and the National
Party, the labor and liberal political machines would have
fully corrupted this institution to its own interests ages ago. Part of the squeeling rubbish, August 6, 2009,
is that a public servant leaked information, someone coached someone and the Senate may have been contempted.
It cannot be held in as much contempt by this concocted situation than the thinking people of the nation who wonder at its hypocritical tripe expressed as sanctimonious, mock
outrage. many of us despair that we have lost our democracy to thugs and sometimes
criminals, sycophants and some (not all) highly paid stooges. Not only do politicians coach, as Senator Conroy, has been exposed doing during the Senate questioning of Mr Grech,
when he tells his Queensland colleague what questions to ask because the Senator appears to lack cognitive reasoning
abilities of his own and is a puppet of his political colleague. Senior officers of the Australian Public Service accompany lower level
members of the APS, to Senate Estimates and other hearings, coach them and intervene at will with their Ministerial minder
sitting near by. What a joke this is. Godwin Grech is the public face of a system that is defiled by political appointments at the highest level
of the APS and by members of the
political class, whose ethics and moral character are beyond description in pleasant language.
The Senate should have its Privileges Hearing,
since the players of constant low grade theatrics are the privileged class. The dedicated, and caree public servants who believe in the public service principles are overshadowed and abandoned to their own fate by the decrepit few above them.
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FRAUDSTER OR MESSIAH - IT IS IRRELEVANT
Commentary by Kevin R Beck, July 2009:
A colleague described Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd,
as the ultimate fraud. Among other things as justification he said that the Prime Minister
walked out of a church on Sunday extolling christian virtue
but behind the walls of the poliitical office he reportedly used the foulest of language and unchristian like behaviour. My colleague
went on to say that prior to the election Mr. Rudd described himself as a fiscal conservative but
now in government he was a full on Keynesian, throwing money at problems. It is a compelling summary which I find attractive.
Such character analysis however does not actually enlighten as to the performance of the Prime Minister beyond personality It might, however, go to
credibility and sincereity..
The national Australian Labor Party conference, in Sydney July 2009, tells us nothing of the capacity of the government other than the tendency
to wax lyrical about each other's greate abilities, and traits, as
the Deputy Prime Minister did of the Prime Minister. The labor party is exuberant that it has climbed the Everest of Australian politics to dislodge the conservative government of John Howard.
The performance of new Minister for Employment participation, Mr Mark Abib, tells us that appointment to ministerial portfolio may have
a lot to do with factional numbers power and relationship with the Prime Minister rather than ability. Mr Abib was oblivious as to the substance of the announcement of the Prime Minister, regarding 50,000 new jobs, falling within Mr Abib's portfolio. He
unceremonially outed the Prime Minister through this neglect since there were no 50,000 new jobs. It was instead a snow job.
Similarly we may question the performance, and worthiness, of Senator Penny Wong, as the Minister for
Climate Change,
who talks populism, and rampant ideology, rather than coherent and provable scientific facts, not entertaining any contrary views, a single minded Minister refusing to give ground. Australian
Steve Fielding
has more credibility on climate change science, having spent hos own money and carried out hos own extensive research,
and should reap a greater number of votes at the next election. Senator Penny Wong swallowed the hook, the line and the sinker with little evidence of personal examination and research on the public record.
She has been conned. The Australian government is going to hand the energy companies, the coal industry and the polluters a gift of billions. Free permits, price rises, a trading scheme like a casino where the house wins 9and its not the government)
and unending justifications. Many of them, such as the Latrobe Valley generators, were nearly broke if not broke.
They have put together a cunning, and shrouded, plan and extracted themselves from financial collapse.
Minister Penny Wong is being roasted slowly by powerful forces and the kings of money with power. As she burns her new department, Climate Change, preoccupies itself with drivel doodsday documents predicting the demise of heritage buildings in the heart of Melbourne.
Fear not, my Minister for Climate Change, the opposition of Malcolm Turnbull, but the collective forces beyond the horizon, of which you are oblivious. The game is affot.
The labor has not realised that it is playing and end game.
orces that can create barriers, hide their true intentions and con with aplomb, are rallied against whatever objective of government they so choose. Come in suckers, Ministers Rudd, Wong and Garrett.
The language of the federal labor party is biblical and religious, bordering on
evangelical.
A deputy prime Minister who is judged on her political abilities and oratory manner rather than the depth of her portfolio performance.
Mr Gillard is in charge of the government's "education revolution" which, like Kevin Rudd's dissertations are nothing mor than rheortic and government spending for economic purpose dressed up as something else.
The building of new gymnasiums and the like does not enhance education performance. The Commonwealth is throwing billions at building (construction) projects across Australia via moribund, corroded and inept state and terriory public services.
The objective is to keep local construction companies, tradespeople and apprentices in work. It is dressed up as a major education reform agenda by the Rudd department spin doctors.
In Queensland,
a labor state regime mired in
corruption,
the Queensland education department has placed a ban on
principals talking about the expenditure and where it is going and their thoughts and views. This despite Julia Gilard stating that she wanted a
rigorous debate. So much for democracy under labor. The
federal departmeht of education,
under Ms Gillard ministerial hand, is a bloated multi - portfolio, bureaucracy managed by senior officers with a clear lack of innovative thinking and action.
Where is the Australian policy platform for "life long learning"? The department's web site does not mention life long learning and instead focuses policy on economic and social engineering objectives.
Extracts from the home, and subsequent, pages of the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations
"Several programs have been migrated into the new site:
Digital Education Revolution
Forward with Fairness
New Employment Services
OECECC (Office Of Early Childhood)
Office For Youth
Productivity Places
Review of Australian Higher Education
Social Inclusion
Trade Training Centres
Training and skills summary
" The training and skills sector, also known as vocational education and training or VET,
gives Australians the opportunity to gain the skills they need to enter the workforce for the first time, to re-enter
the workforce, to retrain for a new job or to upgrade their skills for an existing job. Australian Apprenticeships are
available in traditional trades, and in a diverse range of emerging careers, in most sectors of business and industry."
"There is growing recognition that career development skills can help individuals to
meet the constantly changing needs of the labour market and maintain their employability so
that they can achieve their aspirations and participate in the community."
The policy, issues and reviews page (http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/career_development/policy_issues_reviews/policy_issues_reviews_menu.htm)
does not mention life long learning.
Policy
Career Education Quality Framework
Career and Transition Services Framework
Employability Skills Framework
Framework for Vocational Education in Schools
OECD Review of Career Guidance and Public Policy - Australia Country Note
National Youth and Careers and Transitions Advisory Group
Stepping Forward
The Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-First Century
Issues
Feasibility Study into the Establishment of a National Institute for Career Leadership
Professional Standards for Australian Career Development Practitioners
The Australian Blueprint for Career Development
Vocational Education in Schools
Reviews
Review of Career Development Services in Tertiary Institutions
Career Guidance and Public Policy: Bridging the Gap
Footprints to the Future
House of Representatives inquiry into Vocational Education in Schools
OECD Review of Career Guidance and Public Policy - Australia Country Note
Senate Inquiry into Skills Shortages
Structured Workplace Learning Student Destination Survey, 2003
Young Visions 2003: A follow-up study of Young Visions participants and their destinations one year later
Most people need support to help them take advantage of opportunities that present throughout their career.
Higher education summary
The Australian higher education system is seen to make a fundamental contribution to the
future of Australia and plays a vital role in Australia’s intellectual, economic, cultural and
social development. The higher education sector educates our future professional workforce, creates future leaders,
provides jobs for Australians, drives much of our economic and regional success, and facilitates cultural and trade links
with other countries. The sector plays a key role in the growing knowledge and innovation based economic health of Australia.
It enriches our social and environmental landscape and promotes the tolerance debate that underpins Australian society."
End of extracts
Commentary by Kevin R Beck: Isn't that just dandy. A focus on being employed. Why is it that a person who wants to continue study and learning, in an Australia, higher education institution,
has to pay exhorbitant fees to further their learning? Where is the rigorous debate that should be
nurtured by a proactive bureaucracy and a penchant for engaging inl,earning for learning's sake?
Is learning, if not for work, a hobby under Kevin Rudd or for that matter any government before or after at state or federal level.
Well, folks, in this federal department of education and employment it is employment and career that is the focus and it is highly unlikely that the senior management are going to challenge
the government on anything. Well, yibbity yibbity, that's all folks. (For those who have had no dalings with te department and the Secretary, staff messages and audio viduals carry the openning "hi folks" as the
signature of the Secretary.)
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MR. TURNBULL AND MS. BISHOP MIGHT CONSIDER GETTING OUT OF POLITICS TO PRACTICE LAW IN CHINA
Extract: "JULIE BISHOP - Well when I spoke to the Chinese acting Ambassador on
Wednesday it was apparent the Government had not even
called him in at that stage to discuss the issue. So I would have thought that would have been one of the first issues the Government would
have done when they learned on Sunday night that Mr Hu had been taken into custody. And my criticism of the Government is that it has been very
slow to react. As I said Mr Hu was taken into custody last Sunday night, his whereabouts, his welfare has been unknown. The Government had admitted
that it had no idea where he was being held, how he was being treated, whether he had been interrogated or in what fashion, and it appears Mr Hu has
had no access to his family, his employer, any lawyers or Australian consulate officials since Sunday evening.
JON FAINE - He’s not exactly Joe [inaudible], he’s not exactly a beer-mat-mum in Thailand is he? He’s got Rio Tinto and all the resources,
the money, the influence and connections that Rio Tinto can bring to bear which in fact, in my estimation, could well be more than the Australian
Government brings to bear, that’s all going into bat for him.
JULIE BISHOP - Except that he was denied access to his family, his employer or any lawyers. And it was deeply concerning that the Rudd Government
was describing it as a consular matter, like a tourist in trouble overseas. Now it’s clearly more serious than that." (Source of extract: ABC 774 Mornings with Jon Faine
Friday, 10 July 2009, Subject: Detention of Stern Hu in China - http://www.julie-bishop.com/transcripts/132-abc-774-mornings-with-jon-faine.html)
Commentary by KEVINRBECK: What humbug Ms Bishop goes on with. Why is it clearly more than a consular matter? What makes the internment of one particular
Australian, over another, so different and warrants a phone call to the sovereign government, of another nation, by our Foreign Minister or Prime Minister?
What merit does Mr Hu possess that he should be singled out for special treatment by the Australian government?
As ABC journalist, talk back host broadcaster, John Faine, says, "He’s got Rio Tinto and all the resources,
the money, the influence and connections that Rio Tinto can bring to bear which in fact, in my estimation, could well be more than the Australian
Government brings to bear, that’s all going into bat for him."
What is it that the Prime Minister, or any other government politician, can do regarding law practices and processes in a sovereign country?
The most annoying thing about Ms Bishop is the trait of the modern professional politician to detach themselves from the reality of their
professional training, and knowledge, to adopt without any compunction populist statements designed to impress the uneducated of the Australian
population. Maybe the liberal leaders' political, and media, advisers are not all that bright in proposing she take this spurious line of argument?
Ms. Bishop and Mr. Turnbull, both lawyers, know very well the constraints, and limitations, of the Australian government's powers and opportunities, in this matter,
but would have us believe that there are special powers conferred upon the person who becomes Prime Minister.
Mr Turnbull, and Ms Bishop, may want to read something into this case and may have conspiracy theories, and perceptions, and all sorts of prejudicial views yet the facts ares imple. China has arrested Mr Hu under their powers and apparent laws
and will do with him as they see fit. Mr Turnbull and Ms Bishop were not all that flash in relation to China when they were in government.
The call, by Ms Bishop to have the Prime Minister ring someone high up in the Chinese government and circumvent the country's due process is an insult to a thinking person's
intelligence and to the Chinese government. One might well question the Rio Tinto Board, CEO and legal counsel about what efforts they are making? Has their Chairman rung the Chinese Premier?
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PREVENTATIVE HEALTH REPORT COULD SPELL ONE TERM LABOR GOVERNMENT
The Australian federal Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, is examing a report prepared by the
Preventative Health Taskforce,
which apparently, amongst
other things, recommends a ban on liquor sponsorship of sport, limited, or no advertising, of alcohol and a diet, and exercise, regime for fat people, new labelling laws for food and associated
products. Like tobacco, the governments of Australia are hypocritical about alcohol.
Ignore the taxes, these are legal products yet wowsers, and do gooders, who would have us live in a world of abstinence, based on the proposition of reduction in health costs.
We have entered the maternal/paternal era of governments, in Australia, paricularly labor governments.
Extract " Call to ban alcohol sponsorship of sport, By Steve Lewis and Ben Packham
July 17, 2009 12:01am, Herald Sun, Melbourne Australia
Health task force wants end to alcohol ads
Would stop sporting sponsorship deals
Massive loss in revenue for codes
PREMIER sporting codes would be stripped of up to $300 million a year in alcohol sponsorship under a radical blueprint for
fighting disease and increasing life expectancy.
The National Preventative Health Task Force, handpicked by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd,
has also called for an end to alcohol advertising on the internet and in youth magazines.
Under the shake-up household names such as Bundaberg Rum, VB and Tooheys beer would disappear
from TV screens and sporting arenas, The Daily Telegraph reports.
It would rob Cricket Australia, the AFL, National Rugby League and Australian Rugby Union of a massive revenue stream.
And it would pit the Rudd Government against the powerful TV networks, who stand to lose lucrative alcohol-related advertising...
If Nicola Roxon believes that she can implement any section/s of the report then she is politically naive.
She may be a Minister in the government but corporate interests have far more resources and money than she does.
If she recommends to the Australian government cabinet aspects of the report for implementation then she best understand that she is asking the Prime Minister, and her Ministerial coleagues, to
spell the end of many a political career. Perhaps the Rudd government as a whole. This may not be a bad thing looking at performance to date across the balance of portfolios.
One grows extremely tired of wowser, paternalistic governments, public services and committees full of bleeding hearts, hangers on
and those who would have us all march in line to the same tune. It has taken the younger, and inexperienced, political staff
members of the labor government over a year to realise that the government is not all powerful simply because it says so. Some have not yet ralised this and fail to see "beyond the horizon" of their narrow
perceptions of power, politics and reality.
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SPIN BECOMES QUESTIONABLE, BECOMES LIES AND WE SEE BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF POLITICS
June 2009 marks the end of the
Australian Public Service Code of Conduct
23, June 2009: Below in this site I made the comment, some weeks back, about the maturity, and experience of people advising, and supporting, the Prime Minister,
and that that the propensity of the federal
labor governments' staffers to mislead would damage the
credibility of senior politicians of the Australian federal parliament. A senior member of the Australian Department of Treasury sat before a Senate Committee
facing questions from Senator Abetz.
This was a game of cat and mouse where the Senator knew that this particular public servant had close relations with the liberal government.
The Senator already knew the content and thought he knew the answers to his questions. Instead of investigating the ethical relationship of the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan, with specific car dealers the Senator pursued the legal inquisitorial line.
Similarly in the House of Representatives Malcolm Turnbull sought to trap the Prime Minister and Treasurer legally.
This is not a legal issue it is an
ethical one.
Should any senior government Minister or public servant, in any government of Australia, lobby (take a specific close interest) for
the benefit of a particular person, persons or a
sector? Should a wealthy Prime Minister accept gifts (in this case a vehicle, on road costs and other benefits) within his electrorate
even if he declares them? The principle should be no. However the modern politician, particular labor leaders, seem to lack both
principles and ethics that might
define them as true leaders of the communities they govern.
This particular senior treasury official has no place in a public serviuce that prides itself on its high standards and independence. Though he has had little leadership in maintaining distance and impartiality from his management.
There are questions about the close even sycophantic support of the Rudd government by the head of Treasury, Dr. Ken Henry.
These are serious issues and there is a need for an indepoendent arbiter and
steward of the public service ethical behaviour. Today the public service is at the behest, and cultural management style of the head of
Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the Secretaries of Departments along with any other two bit political power broker from a Minister's office.
The Australian Public Service Code of Conduct is mere words on paper and nothing more
than motherhood and perhaps a fantasy.
"APS Code of Conduct
APS employees are required, under the Code of Conduct, to behave at all times in a way which upholds the APS Values
The Code
The Code of Conduct requires that an employee must:
- behave honestly and with integrity in the course of APS employment;
- act with care and diligence in the course of APS employment;
- when acting in the course of APS employment, treat everyone with respect and courtesy, and without harassment;
- when acting in the course of APS employment, comply with all applicable Australian laws;
- comply with any lawful and reasonable direction given by someone in the employee's Agency who has authority to give the direction;
- maintain appropriate confidentiality about dealings that the employee has with any Minister or Minister's member of staff;
- disclose, and take reasonable steps to avoid, any conflict of interest (real or apparent) in connection with APS employment;
- use Commonwealth resources in a proper manner;
- not provide false or misleading information in response to a request for information that is made for official purposes
in connection with the employee's APS employment;
not make improper use of:
- inside information, or
- the employee's duties, status, power or authority,
- in order to gain, or seek to gain, a benefit or advantage for the employee or for any other person;
- at all times behave in a way that upholds the APS Values and the integrity and good reputation of the APS;
- while on duty overseas, at all times behave in a way that upholds the good reputation of Australia; and
- comply with any other conduct requirement that is prescribed by the regulations (regulations available here)
Source:http://www.apsc.gov.au/conduct/ Australian Public Service web site.
We are seeing the creation of fake records,
attempts at fraud and activity bordering on the criminal. Public servants briefing members of parliament secretly behind the scenes in order to assist political advantage and personal interest.
We are seeing duplicity within the Australian Public Service and a breakdown in the fundamental nature of trust, integrity and honour.
The two senior politicians in question here, the Prime Minister and Treasurer have corroded good government and defiled it for political purpose.
They employ people to assist them in this regard. The role of political staff in the day to day government activity and their interaction with the public service is something that needs deep examination and
clear rules. Currently the political staff modus operandi corrupts, and corrodes, democracy, government, parliaments and the public services across the nation.The ute gate (Oz Car) eopisode demonstrates what can happen when this corruption gets out of hand. The episode that has been dubbed "ute gate" has opened a window into the tawdry and false world of government. false because millions of dollards of taxpayers money is spent \presenting a facade. The Government of the day
would have us believe that they are above prurient interest, personal interest and corruption. But history, states like
NSW
and
Victoria
and current events show us, that that is not true.
There are many who know how the political system, and reward, works. Donors to the party, special people and special relationships are looked after in the back rooms. Political staffers, the parasites of democracy (unelected and paid from the public, not political purse,) have amongst their many dirty tasks looking after the
privileged. If you talk to any mid level public servant or any of them who have integrity they will tell you that the advisers and the staffers lean on them. They make it clear what the Prime Minister, and their Ministers, want.
They write emails, they ring and they visit. They threaten, cajole and twist the wrists. Every day someone from Rudd's, Swan's and most senior Minister's offices
corrode and corrupt democracy. So now we can surmise on the balance of probability that someone within the Prime Minister's office made contact with a Treasury public servant. He would ahve discussed the contact with his boss and they would have as all good public servants do, follow the
handbook. Obey the government, obey the mouthpiece of the Minister especially the Prime Minister, unless you are senior enough, like Ken Henry, head of Treasury, to argue an alternative, Ken Henry did not. t would be the expectation that good people would think that henry did not know. I have a view that all
Secretaries, of longevity, know when a request comes from the Prime Minister's, or a Minister's office. Thus the Prime Ministerial
staffer set the freight train on its way.
The assertion is that the request went from Prime Minister's office to Treasury and of course to the Minister, Wayne Swan. If this is the case then the motions were put into play to reward the loyal. Albeit they would have a look and see what they could do.
Did a request emanate from the office of the Prime Minister? I think so though it was probably verbal rather than written. The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, took up the cause and became custodian. This is the way that the special are protected. One thing is prominent, politicians know how to technically avpid lying and misleading parliament.
The problem here is that Kevin Rudd's staffers may be incompetent at the art of the inetraction with public servants using too much smoke, mirrors and invisible manipulation.
The email was issued, by whyom to where and for what purpose and someone removed it? What was its source? If as Mr Rudd says it does not exist then one wonders how Mr Garnt came to be in discussion with Mr Swan?
Did Mr Grant have a conversation with Mr Swan? If so who initiated it?
Now everyone is caught up in the affray and the public's money will be wasted further as the Prime Minister, and Treasurer, slither around tring to extracate themselves.
Agencies will be called in to investigate. This is a method of sanitising the situation and clouding the issue. The majority of senior politicians, and their staffers, of both sides of politics (particularly in the labor and liberal parties) should not be allowed in parliaments across Australia.
Arrogance and hubris along with inexperience and stupidity of staffers and perahps Wayne Swan himself, intertwine to create a sordid pot of intrigue that like the Sun drags things inwards to melt and swirl.
The politicians, staffers and public servants get burned. As is typically mandated, by the modern spin doctorate and political handbook, denial
is the first tactic. Everyone denies everything and then says that they cannor recall.
Treasurer Wayne Swan came out of his box barking that the opposition leader's attacks regarding the "Rudd car gate" issue were outrageous.
He further denied any real
knowledge, or interaction, with the person at the centre of the government's self made fiasco. later it emerges that there is a taril of communications and documents regarding the issue have been
faxed to the Treasurer's home from Treasury and elsewhere.
"Steve Lewis and AAP
June 20, 2009 12:00am, UPDATE: 1.30pm WAYNE Swan has hit back at Malcolm Turnbull over allegations of political favouritism to an Ipswich car dealer.
It's been revealed the treasurer's office allegedly lobbied on behalf of John Grant, a friend of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd who
was seeking a government-backed loan." (Source:Herald Sun, news.com.au, http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25662377-661,00.html)
Public Servant, Godwin Grech, found himself at the centre of the wtorm when questioned in Senate Estimates. The government and the role of the Senate could again be seen as questionable and
damaging to our nation's democracy as both a senior public servant, and labor senators, sought, to stop Mr Grech from truthfully answering or answering at all.
For decades the Senate has been treated with contempt by both major parties, by senior public servants and others within and without parliament. Mr Grech stood his ground and in doing so
demonstrated that he is a public servant of integrity and substance.
" Lachlan Heywood and Malcolm Farr, June 19, 2009 07:48pm:
UPDATE: KEVIN Rudd has continued to deny that he or his office tried to help Ipswich car dealer John Grant secure a government-backed loan.
Speaking to reporters late on Friday, Mr Rudd disputed evidence given by a Treasury official to a Senate inquiry
that his office had contacted Godwin Grech regarding Mr Grant, who is a friend and nighbour of the prime minister.
However, Mr Rudd has asked the auditor-general to investigate the matter.
Restating his previous denials to parliament, Mr Rudd said: "As of now, I have no basis before me which changes that position.....
..Earlier, a senior public servant has contradicted Mr Rudd's claim there was no request from the PM's office to help a car dealer friend and neighbour.
The public servant, Godwin Grech, told a Senate Estimates hearing this afternoon that the initial contact seeking assistance for Ipswich motor dealer John Grant from the Government's Oz Car scheme came from Mr Rudd's office.
He said to the best of his memory, he had seen a brief email from the Prime Minister's office.
But Treasury said searches had found no evidence of the email.
The hearing was repeatedly interrupted as Government members sought to stop Mr Grech answering Opposition questions about the Utegate affair.
Earlier, outside the hearing, it emerged that Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull lectured an adviser to Mr Rudd over the affair at a Canberra function.
"You should not lie to protect your boss," Mr Turnbull said, according to a statement today by Andrew Charlton, Mr Rudd's economic specialist.
"This OzCar issue will be very damaging for you," he quoted Mr Turnbull as saying. OzCar is the Government's
finance body for car dealers, established when credit was tight earlier this year.
"You know and I know there is documentary evidence that you have lied."
Treasurer Wayne Swan today said Mr Turnbull was attempting to bully and threaten the adviser. " (Source: Courier mail, news.com.au, http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25659339-953,00.html)
The latter tripe from wayne Swan regarding threatening the staff members demonstrates the peurile minds et of the people who occupy position sof power in the rarified atmosphere of parliaments and government.
On balance I think that the Prime Minister was not approached about getting access to thes pecila fund, but I think on balance he knew and knows most of the details of the events, being advised by a third party.
I think wayne Swan and his staff are up to their ears in it. Where the documents are may be any one's guess. Maybe theye are in thes pecial repository used by public servants to ensure retenetion. In the Department of Employment, Education and whatever (Julia Gillard's department)
this special receptacle is
known as "TRIM". One can put stuff in and recover it, but not delete it. Does Treasury have such a facility, yes, and so
does Prime and Minister and Cabinet. Does the email in question indicating the approach to the Prime Minister's office by the car dealer exist now or in the past?
It existed at some time, most likely,
in my opinion. An alert, and very experienced public servant, would receive a short email pointing out that "x" wants a benefit, or favour, and the public servant
would probablty keep that communication where no one can delete it, waiting the moment they need it.
Mr Grech would be such a public servant, I think. He waited at the last moment of the questioning, and blocking, to drop his qualified "bomb" on those who would
seek to under,ine his integrity and reputation for their own survival.
As he says, no public servant should have to be subjected to this. The fact that the government allowed it raises questions of their ethical compass.
Kevin Rudd, and others, who employ inexperienced political apparatchiks in their offices and in some cases people of
questionable integrity, deserve what they get.
Despite the motherhood emanating from their mouths about the government existing for the people, these exercises show that it truly operates
for the few. Political interest first, partisan interest next and the public interest a poor last.
Hopefully the email will emerge and show us clearly the
level
to which government, political and business, integrity and ethics, has plummeted in the nation in the last twenty years.
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June 2008: The Contribution of Kevin Rudd, et al, to the corrosion of
government, and ethics, in Australia.
Ethical Editorials.
|
June 2009: Kevin Rudd, and his personal staff of manipulators, risk a pandora's box
A lack of depth in the government's mantra and the skill base of Prime Minister's office
Back in the late eighties, and through the nineties Australia's federal, and state,
governments implemented sophisticated media, and communications,
management cells within the offices of the Prime Minister and Premier. Whilst Paul Keating's labor government was the first real
manipulator the practice has been honed by the likes of media savvy, Bob Carr (labor Premier NSW), Peter Beattie (labor Premier Queensland) and
John Howard (liberal (coalition) Prime Minister). It is now fully operational under Kevin Rudd.
"Rise of Rudd's sentinels of spin,
Greg Callaghan and Drew Warne-Smith | June 06, 2009
Extract - Article from: The Australian
"IT'S important to be who you are," Kevin Rudd was fond of telling journalists during the
election campaign when asked about his leadership style and his freshly minted image with the Australian public.
Twenty months after Kevin '07 swept to victory, the PM's burgeoning media machine has become so practised at
controlling his image and massaging his message that some political analysts liken it to a PR state, one exceeding the sheen
of former prime minister John Howard, whose renowned National Media Liaison Service (nicknamed aNiMaLS) set a new benchmark in spin.
While ostensibly serving as a liaison between the press and the Prime Minister, Rudd's media advisers serve one principal function: to
boost their boss's image, say observers.
"He (Rudd) is a micro-manager, he doesn't know when to stop, and that flows through to everything he does, including trying to control
the media," says one member of the press gallery.
Largely invisible to the public, the Rudd Government's growing force of press secretaries, media advisers and consultants is nearly
double the number employed during the Hawke and Keating eras.
After initially vowing to slash ministerial head counts, including media, across all departments, the Rudd
Government employs 40 communications staff in the Department of Agriculture, 30 in the Department of Innovation, 23 in the
Department of the Environment and six in the PM's office. Communications spending on consultants is also rising.
The departments of immigration, broadband and innovation forked out $7.4 million for public relations experts in 12 months.
Yet figures alone can't convey how the media machine is controlling the day-to-day discharge of information.....
"Keating would bore the bejesus out of you to make his case and Howard's office was willing to brief senior journalists on policy background.
Now the PM's office is ruled by 12-year-olds," says one 20-year press gallery veteran, referring to the ages of Rudd chief of staff Alister Jordan,
29, senior press secretary Lachlan Harris, 29, and at least one other 20-something in the PM'soffice." (Source: as cited, the Australian)
The apparatchiks in the Prime Minister's office have taken the media massage to the "nth" degree making it an insidious tool.
They manipulate the news and information flow to the extent that democracy, and access, is being damaged.
They corrode, and corrupt, the peoples' government.
" How Rudd spins the gallery, Andrew Bolt, Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at 05:00am
Media Watch details one of Kevin Rudd’s trickiest techniques of spin - telling senior reporters of press
conferences too late for them to attend and ask him awkward questions:
It’s a recurring pattern, the bureaux tell Media Watch. Specialist political reporters, and their pesky questions,
aren’t welcome at the PM’s photo-opportunities.
In fact, Rudd will even refuse to bring along a pool reporter to cover a pretty-pictures press stunt he’s announced last
minute at the other end of the country:
Once again, one TV channel in Perth - this time Ten - was told there were seats on the PM’s plane for a camera operator and a
sound recordist. Ten said it didn’t need a soundo. Could it send a pool reporter instead? The answer was no. Ten camera operator Claire
Leeman tells Media Watch:
There was at least one spare seat on the plane.
Then there’s Rudd’s technique of making big announcements to divert attention from reports that might be critical:
… media people from the PM’s office have taken to dropping round to the press gallery at around 10am to find out what stories they’re
working on. If the office doesn’t like the news agenda, it quickly finds a new story to feed the chooks. The ABC’s Political Editor Chris
Uhlmann told us:
The PM’s announcements are driven not by policy but by the media cycle." (Source: http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/how_rudd_spins_the_gallery/)
Extract - " PM’s media manipulation beyond a joke, by Bernard Keane (Crikey.com)
What a Jekyll and Hyde mob this Government is. While John Faulkner is commendably leading the charge toward greater transparency and
accountability, the Prime Minister is engaged in a deeply cynical and unashamed process of manipulation.
I suggested on Budget Night that Wayne Swan was purposefully avoiding mentioning the deficit figure in order to deprive the Opposition of a grab for future advertising,
but foolishly thought that game would end once it became apparent what they were up to. In fact it was merely the start of an ongoing effort by the Prime Minister and
Treasurer to avoid saying any numbers that could be used against them, right down to persistently refusing to say “billion” after numbers.
Yesterday The Australian’s Matt Franklin asked Joe Hockey at the Press Club if things were reaching the stage where we couldn’t even have a
decent public debate if both sides were scared of their words being used against them in election advertising. I suspect the Government also
does not want any grabs on nightly news bulletins of them uttering the numbers.
It gets more blatant and more cynical, however. Last week Crikey ran a tip that the Prime Minister’s office, which is usually excellent with
churning out transcripts, had failed to put out the transcript of the Prime Minister’s rather robust interview with Neil Mitchell the day after the
Budget. The transcript remains unavailable. The transcript from Monday’s Lateline interview ?—?one of the Prime Minister’s worst?—?is also unavailable.
Then there’s the Prime Minister’s Office’s predilection for trying to manipulate media coverage. In late April, the PMO changed the way it
advised the media of Rudd’s appearances.
Instead of stating a time for the commencement of a press conference or media event, which had been the typical approach until then, the
time of the event is now advised as “Media please assemble by …”, even for press conferences in the courtyard in Parliament House,
meaning the Prime Minister is never late." (Source of extract: http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/05/21/pms-media-deceptions-treat-voters-like-children/)
I (Kevin R Beck) personally view the employment of political staff within Ministries, paid from the public purse, as a misuse of public funds.
These people, to my thinking, are parasites on the public purse and on democracy because of the
damaging effects outlined above and the fact that they are not elected, assimung various roles and powers undefined by constitution or legislation.
The majority are unable to actively participate in the government of Kevin Rudd, except by managed means, the town hall cabinet meetings, included.
Mr Rudd's advisers, and strategists, now risk a backlash and campaign on unforeseen fronts by both
conventional means and political and citizen activists, who collectively have more combined resources (technological and human) and unknown
networks than the Prime Minister, Minsitries and the Public Service, employ.
These disparate groups are now coming together, not only in known entities such as Get Up, but in loose coalitions of information, and web
technologists, private and business people, who are out and about, and a plethora of others, beyond the horizon of the Prime Minister's manipulators.
These hidden respondents can turn their attention to specific issues such as
Emissions Trading Scheme
which has been soundly attacked bu such colaitions, to othjer portfolios, e.g health fund insurance
rises, benefit fraud, consumer issues,
local electorate issues, intelligence gathering and dissemination of material to others for their use, government performance critiques, national
security, defence, spending, budget, immigration or whatever takes their fancy,
according to their whim. In doing so they trigger more than publicity. They trigger action in their own right or by selected interests
taking up goverbnment resources and time,
diverting attention, creating abrriers, ultimately enacting their
strategic actions
across a breadth that Mr Rudd's manipulators never dreamed of. These people may, or may not formally, or informally,
join with media, lists, action groups and any other interest that is disenchanted with the level of manipulation of the current regime.
They may turn their attention on the work horse of the government, the Public Service.
Put bluntly the operatives in the Prime Minister's office do not have the experience, breadth of talent, lateral thinking and the smarts to
handle what is now underway.
Conventional responses such as selective retaliation by the PM's staff will merely engender an even greater response.
This is going to be real problem for the Prime Minister and his fetish for micro management.
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I have a question. When the federal government Health Minister approves a rise in the private health isnurance rates what is the level of acceptable fraud
that the Minister tolerates, and perahps unwisely, or unknowingly, includes?
Under what provision does this fraud get passed on when the Minister/s have been advised through communication to their offices and a request to outline the fraud has been declined?
The cost of providing health cover in Australia, both public and private, across all of the disciplines includes a level of fraud.
The relevant public service agency, here the Australian Health Insurance Commission, or some department under Huamn Services,
calculates a level they think is reasonable, or happening. I have the feeling, like Treasury on their assessments of anything,
are way of the mark. They have instigated anti-fraud measures within Medibank and other agncies, as their justification for opposing the Access Card or as their way of supporting the government's spurious arguments before the election,
and to have them proven to be ineffective would be a blow to pride. The problem they have is that the evidence, set out generally in the correspondence, is not theoretical.
Probably their estimate is 1% - 2% of the total annual cost of the health rebates paid out by the private and public sector remembering that the govermnment ownes Medibank Private and it has what 50% of the
private health insurance market. Then add Medicare and fraud is a very big number.
Discussions I have had with people during the past three years indicate
that a low figure like the above may be way
off the mark, more likely say 7% or even in the teens. The former liberal government, during its Access Card project,
had a fraud level calculated that varies greatly with what labor believed, or put about, prior to the election.
Perhaps it suited labor at the time to belittle the claims of the former government, ably assisted by some in the Australian public service and other interest groups.
To stick to tis false assumption now they are in government will pose problems down the way.
I think labor cherry picked what they wanted and made an augument to suit and now regerdaless of evidence or contrary opinion will persist.
When an enquiry was recently made to the Health Minister, and others in the Rudd government, to meet and discuss this issue,
the communicator was summarily dismissed. The reason for dismissal was probably that the communication, and request, for a meeting
was looked at by an inexperienced, unaware, perhaps sometimes unthinking staff member in the relevant Ministers' offices.
It could be that the matter was seen to be of low importance. It would be a very bad judgement indeed, on the part of senior staff
within the Ministries, that received the
communication to misjudge what would be a follow up to the declination.
The evidence, set out generally, in the communication, indicates a substantial fraud is taking place and is condoned, and passed on to the consumer and tax payers of Australia.
Since it has been brought to the attention of the Ministers' satff members (more than one Minister) it
could trigger independent investigations and a claim that a Minister/s of the Crown has/have breached his/her/their
fiduciary duty, albeit via the inadvertant actions of a political staff member, under their parliamentary oath.
To allow any fraud to be committed, to be allowed to continue unabated and not addressed carries a wide range of actions under
many umbrellas not only within the parliaments but within the commercial sectors of the community.
Let's see where this goes and who it bites?
Kevin R Beck, June 2009.
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May 23, 2009: The 2009 Rudd Labor government and Wayne Swan
budget.
It is a document that currently may be hardly worth examining in its wider scope. The
underpinning
base assumptions, are questionable. They are predictions provided by Treasury and government advisers who have no credible record.
It is now two, and a bit, weeks since Wayne Swan's less than inspiring presentation in the Australian federal parliament, on Tuesday May 5, 2009.
The first ten minutes was, in my opinion, pure rubbish. The Treasurer said nothing of substance. The final segments of his speech lacked detail and vision. He rattled off a list of
road and infrastructure funding projects as if that is the stuff of economic foundation. wayne Swan had returned tp the leight weight presence that
denoted his first year in government. Then followed the spin and manipulation. The Prime Minister, and the Treasurer, have become captive to advisers whose
inetellectual rigour and under standing of governmment is at best infantile and immature and at worst quite ludicrous and dangerous. The public are treated with scripts penned to limit complex issues to thirty second
logos, symbols and perambulation around labor traditional grounds.
The figures upon which Mr Swan and Mr Rudd have founded their assumptions are
suspect.
Describing the modelling, and assumptions, as "suspect" is being kind,
given the record of Treasury and the quality of the performance of the Prime Minister's and Treasurer's offices and their media advisers.
The offices of senior politicians, in all Australian governments (state, federal and territory), are infested with parasites. Unelected, they are paid from public
funds, and devote their time, and role play, to
corrding, and corrupting democracy, degrading the processes of communication,
obstructing open, and transparent, government and in some cases assuming the persona of the Ministers they represent. These people, being political appointees, should be paid from the purse of the political parties they serve.
The Rudd lead government is in trouble. They do not do their homework and seem to rely upon
some crude, and ill founded, perception regarding the real world and effects of careless policy propositions and the implementation outcomes.
"Blunder turns into national fiasco as more schemes die, Thu. May 21, 2009; Australian Financial Review - Damon Kitney. with Ashley Midalia, Patrick Durkin and staff reporters
The employee share scheme fiasco is for many yet another example of the government neither consulting nor listening, writes Damon Kitney."
The employee share scheme refernced above, and the
Emission Trading Scheme (ETS)
are glaring examples of the propensity of this governmment to rush into areas where the its politicians,
advisers and strategists, have little or no experience and a huge serving of hubris.
Many policies are the fruit of ideology and "seemed like a good idea at the time" thinking of a young, and perhaps immature (in terms of experience and work
diversity), lot.
One might look at the profile of the
senior staff
of the Prime Minister and other Ministers as a guide to predicting the
likely performance in the future. "As one close observer notes, Alister Jordan (a confidante of Prime Minister Rudd)
has only ever held two full-time jobs, both with Labor MPs."
Those concerned about the apparent emphasis of the Rudd Government on spin and stunts won’t take much comfort from the make-up of the
Government’s staffers.
The first comprehensive analysis of the new Government’s advisers shows that ex-NSW ALP staffers and senior bureaucrats are playing a
strong role in shaping the new Government’s policy and political direction.
Crikey has looked at the backgrounds of over 100 of the 200-odd ministerial advisers in the new Government and found that
22 of them are Carr or Iemma Government veterans, or were senior bureaucrats in the heavily-politicised
NSW State Government Public Service. This includes nine of the Government’s Chiefs of Staff, about a third." (Source: Crikey.com -
The who’s who of Rudd’s spinners, sorry, staffers
Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane,Monday, 28 April 2008)
In 2009 we are seeing the effects of the selection process.
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"For evil to triumph it is enough only that good men do nothing", Edmund Burke, an 18th
Century British Statesman". Where are the good men, and women, of Australian politics and parliaments?
They are obviously not to be found in
Victoria.
Prediction - May 2009: The Minister for Local Government, in Victoria, Justin Madden will be sacrificed to protect labor state and federal members of parliament.
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A FEW PEOPLE IN RICKETY BOATS SEND MANY EDUCATED PEOPLE INTO A LATHER
Yesterday (Thursday 16, April, 2009) a small craft appeared 600 kilometres of the Australian coast line, near Ashmore Reef,
carrying Afghans.
"3 ‘Afghan’ boat people dead after explosion off Christmas island; 34 being treated for burns
by: ashok Thursday, April 16th, 2009
Thirty-four suspected asylum seekers, some in a critical condition with severe burns will be treated in Australian hospitals,
reports AAP quoting the West Australian health department.
Puffin, an offshore oil rig, 740km west of Darwin is being used as a triage
centre for the injured, which include a number of children. According to a report in Melbourne based South
Asia Times, three refugees have died after the explosion on the boat they were travelling in. The asylum seekers are reportedly from Afghanistan.
Asylum seekers doused their boat in petrol before a fatal dawn explosion off the north-west Australian coast, West Australian
Premier Colin Barnett says.
Mr Barnett said it was unclear how the flames ignited.
“It is understood that the refugees on the boat spread petrol and that ignited, causing the explosion,” Mr Barnett told reporters in Perth.
Mr Barnett would not elaborate on the claim when questioned further.
At a heated press conference in Canberra this afternoon, the Minister for Home Affairs, Bob Debus, said that the Government did
not want to speculate on the cause of explosion due to ongoing investigations." (Source: The IS Times, http://www.theistimes.com/3-afghan-boat-people-dead-after-explosion-off-christmas-island-34-being-treated-for-burns/)
Boat people coming to Australia, seeking sylum, has a special trigger and sends conservatives into a lather. Melbourne "light article" columnist, Andrew Bolt, pontificates from his desk surmising all sorts of things.
Media, politicians and the guardians of the nation break into chatter, hooting and after a time may incur aphonia. Others drop apophthegms. Their recollections of history, and assumptions as to what these boat people may harbour are apocryphal.
"Opposition quick to blame Kevin Rudd for loss of life, Paul Maley | April 17, 2009
Extract Article from: The Australian
"THE Federal Opposition has gone on the attack on the issue of border protection, blaming the Rudd Government for indirectly causing
the death of at least three asylum seekers and likening its softening of immigration processing practices to putting up a
welcome sign for people-smugglers.
Within minutes of news of yesterday's tragic explosion aboard an alleged people-smuggling vessel off Ashmore Reef, Opposition
immigration spokeswoman Sharman Stone began the recriminations, squarely placing the blame for the deaths on Labor.
"You can't slash funds, you can't take your eye off the ball, you can't announce a softer policy and then expect people not to lose
their lives through people-smuggling," she told Sky News. "Which, of course, is all about cash, nothing to do with getting an individual,
a young person, a family safely to Australia."
Dr Stone's strongly worded attack drew a sharp rebuke from the Government and caused her leader,
Malcolm Turnbull, to tone down the Opposition rhetoric by insisting that the Opposition did not want to make political points over the tragedy." (Source: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25345169-5013871,00.html).
The number of boat people is by comparison, to Europe, a few. Surely a nation of 20,000,000 with modern warfare capability, a rich nation, is not scared of a few
homeless people? What would Andrew Bolt, Sharman Stone, et al, be saying if we had 36,000 coming across our borders? They would be apoplectic, prone to aposiopesis and in the case of Graeme Campbell prone to
apostasy. Malcolm Turnbull's pronouncemenst are in the category of apostils. The herd clucks like Australian apostle birds, a greysih brown nesting communal flock in the interior. They engage fitfully in the apostolic succession of Howard's beliefs as to whom may decide to come here and
under what circumstances. Watch out if the boat catches fire or the chidren are thrown overboard, it is surely a sign of the
impending doom and the devil's curse of those who
are illegals.
Emotive rubbish and hyperbole spills from the mouths of critics devoid of common sense, care and ethics. Everything presents an
opportunity for spin, gross exaggeration, or even lies, in our political system.
People who would, otherwise, be largely irrelevant get a voice and take a stand. They are outraged. They want Kevin Rudd, and his policy of being nice, to asylum seekers and the less fortunate to be handled by Appollyon. Who will rise from the tombs of
the parliament house to flagellate and scurge the desecrators. They pray but Appollyon does not come. They sulk and are prone to becoming apochromatic, perhaps muttering
apologues.
We should remind Sharman Stone, Malcolm Turnbull, and hysterical supporters of
the former Howard government policies and of their cardinal sins. Look at those sine against humanity through the images of those the former goverment locked up and
mentally tortured for having the audacity to try and better their lot in the world. I do not respect, nor want the politicians who thought this was the right thing, to be in any government in Australia.
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Images that redefined Australia. Should we go back there?
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LABOR'S BROADBAND POLICY APRIL 2009
April 2009: Australia has long suffered from a protectionist policy where successive governments have
allowed the nature of our communicatiuons to be dictated by a few. This includes the former publicly owned Telecom (now private Telstra), and the commercial television network owners (3). Simulated,
and bureaucratic contrived competition models, managed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, have dominated planning and policy.
For all the spin every government up until 2009 has failed to deliver the full capability of technology to
Australians. The mantra for every good idea has been we cannot afford it. For some reason every question that arises when a plan is proposed for anything is how much will it cost and how will it be paid for?
This ludicrous, and presumptious reaction, has been adoptede not merely by politicians seeking to shoot down everything but by radio and television reporters subjecting interviewees to a grilling.
Ipso facto we cannot afford it. Malcolm Turnbull, the leader of the opposition, was first off the rank. He claimed, in a vacuum of knowledge that it would cost $A150 - $A200 per month and no one would subscribe at that price.
Good on his crystal ball, may be can borrow it.
Everything must come out of the surpluse, a concocted number devised by a unique accounting methodology that makes all governments of Australia llok good.
We must not ever borrow, go into debt, invest or take any action that might cast doubt upon out nation's fiscal rectitude. We must not attract
a negative rating by agencies that have demonstrated the full extent of their credentials, and rating capabilities, during the financial fiasco of 2008-2009.
It is not enough that everyone runs scared of proposing anything to the nation's voters. When something like this policy (apparently costing $A49 billion) is announced the detractors move to
misleading, fear mongering and
irrational arguments, based on spurious facts, strange assertions, too often from people who lack experience and knowledge.
We look in the rear view mirror constantly having swqallowed the single mantra - "it's about the economy stupid" - when in fact it is much more.
The nation advances backwards under the dead hand of the herd mentality and inept policy makers.
Australia's largest telecommunications company, Telstra has the widest reach copper cable network and focus
has been on that barrier to enabling high speed broadband. It inherited its assets, not from purchase but by bequest of the nation
and the federal government.
For decades Telecom, now Telstra, has manipulated its monopoly position to block development and to control the availability of
products, services and technology to the Australian nation.
It has sought to frustrate at every turn conducting guerilla commercial, and political, warfare. Telstra should have been broken up years ago.
It is of note that a past government that failed to deliver should now, in opposition, snipe at any one who might support a broaband nation.
What the Rudd labor government, and Australia, now faces is not dissimilar to the problems facing Europe, and their experiences, for example Italy.
The research for brodaband in regional Italy is a useful example since
it is taking place in an environment of low technology understanding, use and up take. Here in Australia the population is a mature user of technology.
"In residential markets, all couriers shared the opinion that the availability of broadband
services did not represent the principal issue. In their opinion, the main barrier to adoption
was that service costs are still too high for the average household budget. In this respect, competitive players
see the high influence that the ex-monopolist still exerts on the industry cost structure, and considers this a limiting factor.
All main national operators serve the metropolitan area; however, market segmentation has considerably dampened the effect of price
competition. The only courier operating on proprietary networks has positioned itself in a high-end user niche, thus not invading the
incumbent’s mainstream market. All other players targeting middle or low-end users do not own a proprietary network. As a consequence, the
ex-monopolist exerts a deep influence on its real competitor’s cost structure, can maintain higher prices levels and avoid a fierce price
reduction competition. Many competitive players thus viewed the role of the regulatory authority as key to a decrease in retail prices.
Although this may be true, it should not be forgotten that a reduction of retail prices may also be obtained by competitive players through
the acquisition of efficiency gains.
Another barrier to the diffusion of broadband among residential users was the immature use of the technology due to limited computer literacy,
on the one hand, and to lack of multimedia content, on the other. To overcome these barriers, investments to guarantee a wide availability of
Internet connections within all levels of education were reported as important factors, as well as the switch in the distribution of the
television programmes from analog to a digital mode.
For business users, operators still perceived high infrastructure investments as a hurdle and demonstrated very cautious attitudes
towards the profitability assessment of infrastructure expansions aimed at acquiring new business customers. In this respect, an interesting
business model was adopted by a utility company that recently entered the business segment in the main metropolitan area. This company, by
bundling its fibre to the building offer with the applications provided by other operators, eliminated the risks related to infrastructure
related investments. In fact, if a client decided to change providers, they would simply need to change the courier they were bundling their
offer with.
Although this business model represents an interesting method to foster infrastructure diffusion, further research should be conducted in order to
investigate whether it could be extended on a nation-wide scale and across all market segments. " (source: Broadband diffusion dynamics:
a systemic analysis, Enrico Ferro, Technology to Business Intellingence Unit, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, Int. J. Electronic Business,
Vol. x, No. x, xxxx, www.enricoferro.com/IJEB_4204_Ferro_FINAL.pdf)(http://www.enricoferro.com/html/research_.html)
Mr Turnbull cites figures of $A150.00 to $A200 per month for subscriber charges indiacting that these are too high and will not be taken up. He seems to exlude the "bundling" of complementary services -
telephony, pay television, pay radio, internet, business and home services, fixed and mobile, plus other as of yet undefined service offerings. What does it cost the average household to have all of these now, in disparate form?
Well above $A200.00 per month.
Many Europeans buy their home telephone service from one company, Internet access from another,
mobile-phone service from a third, and cable or satellite television from yet a fourth. The result—a blizzard of
monthly bills and customer service channels—leaves many yearning for a simpler arrangement. About 80 percent of European
consumers would prefer to buy all of their telephone services and Internet access from a single provider, according to a recent survey of
more than 7,000 people in eight countries. Given the option, about 40 percent of consumers would purchase
everything, including media services such as television, from a single company." (Source:Bundling Europe's broadband, When it comes to phone and
media service, a lot of consumers want a package deal. FEBRUARY 2005 • Josep Isern and José Perdomo, the McKinsey Quarterly)
For the first time in recent history the Rudd Labor plan is to provide a nationally owned open access infrastructure for all competitors and content providers.
Thus on the first glance of the material above, Mr Turnbull's
argument is flawed economically speaking. Mr Turnbull, in focusing solely on end user cost, which he is guessing. He has obtained a figure from some source that bears no relevance to reality or fact.
He narrows the exercise to how much will it cost the average Joe, the Aussie battler, when it should the justification should be expanded to
its social and economic contribution to the nation. His is a myopic, and politically contrived argument, based on the Australian political tradition of fear mongering.
It focuses on home use almost entirely. It also is based on
some historical data, that does not exist here since there is no comparison technology available other than the manipulated prices of the current market. He has based his argument, I presume, on the
case where the market is not fully covered. That is a market where there is no real competition, in which there is only one provider or at best
two dominant players, some minors trying to eek out an existence where a monopoly in some segments applies (Telstra copper cable)
and what amounts to a duopoly in the other areas such as mobile, internet and telephony(Telstra and Optus). This situation, and its challenges,
for policy makers is examined in detail in, "Service
Bundling and the Role of Access Charge in the Broadband Internet Service Market, SHIM, Sunghee and OH, Jungsuk COMMUNICATIONS & STRATEGIES, Septemb er 2006", and Mr Turnbull and
goverment policy makers would do well to read that research before they bvurst out assertions, as fact, as Mr Turnbull and the telecommunications spokesperson for the opposition, Senator Minchin have done.
The competitors, aspirants and others in the Australian market may well desire another scenario than the rejection offered so emphatically by Mr Turnbull.
Enrico Ferro says, "all operators shared the belief that policy makers should design policies to encourage the use of telework.
As a matter of fact, this practice would significantly contribute to boost broadband needs of both residential and business users. Moreover, it would help in reducing mobility’s aggregated costs and the costs due to the
negative externalities that mobility entails (i.e., environmental, social and health related costs). " ....
The influence of household size on adoption could be linked to the amount of total traffic generated. As a matter of fact the higher the number of people living in a household the higher the likelihood of having one or more internet users generating traffic. From
both the descriptive statistics and the multivariate analysis, the presence of three to four people in the household seems to
be the minimum threshold for making the adoption of a broadband connection economical.
To further test this hypothesis, data concerning offer prices and internet usage were analysed...
in order to make use of broadband connections as a mainstream phenomenon, progress along the usage evolution path
must be made by society in order to raise the volume of traffic produced. This, coupled with a physiological reduction of
bandwidth prices, should allow usage patterns and connection costs to meet, thus resulting in higher penetration levels."
(Enrico Ferro, ibid)
"The UK city of Cambridge is essentially a high technology island in the middle of rural East
Anglia. The surrounding countryside is relatively sparsely populated and the population is concentrated
in villages with a thousand or fewer inhabitants. Many of the villages within about 20km of Cambridge have small technology-based
businesses and they also provide homes for people working in Cambridge’s industries. As a result there is a significant demand for
broadband services.
Unfortunately this demand is not usually high enough to justify equipping the small telephone exchanges that serve
these villages with ADSL equipment. The standard ADSL interface unit supports 300 customers
1
and it is highly unlikely that a village with even a thousand telephone lines would have enough broadband customers to use most of its
capacity. Cable TV coverage outside Cambridge is very patchy and, given the current financial state of the UK cable industry, the cable
network is unlikely to be extended significantly in the next few years. Broadband access using cable modems is therefore not an option for
most Cambridgeshire villages.
This means that, although people and businesses in Cambridge itself have good access to broadband communications, there are villages as
little as 5km from the city boundary where the mainstream communications companies are unlikely to offer broadband services in the near future.
The situation is the same throughout most of East Anglia and other rural parts of the UK.
A broadband access solution for such villages needs to be viable with a few dozen customers, be scalable and involve low up-front infrastructure costs....
The ‘Cambridge Ring’ projects demonstrate how affordable broadband services can be delivered to medium and small rural villages using
Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b) technology. An important element of the business model is identifying and stimulating demand by means of an active
marketing campaign within and involving the local community. The technical solution
uses widely available, and hence low cost, equipment and is scaleable from dozens to hundreds of customers." (Source:
Community broadband networks in the east of England)
Thus an effective broadband network across Australia is likely to be made up of cellullar components feeding off a backbone.
The closer the backbone the better will be the remote service delivery. Now let us look at the possible impact on the Australian economy overall with ubiquitous access.
"On the national level, one study found that ubiquitous broadband deployment across the U.S.
would produce as much as $460 billion in economic growth per year. Estimates made by Accenture
in 2003 suggest broadband could contribute $500 billion to GDP in the United States and as much as $400 billion in Europe.
The nationwide impact of broadband begins in communities and
individual businesses, where research has repeatedly identified positive effects
including greater productivity and rapid employment growth. One study estimated that for
every percentage point increase in broadband penetration in a particular area, employment would increase 0.2 to 0.3 percentage points
per year. Another study found that from 1998 to 2002, U.S. communities that were among the early adopters of mass-market broadband experienced
more rapid growth in employment and number of businesses in IT-intensive sectors.
Internet business solutions have enabled private companies in the U.S. to save $155 billion and have
helped companies in France, Germany and the UK increase revenues $79 billion.
A survey of more than 2,000 businesses across the U.S. found that Internet business solutions had already resulted in a net gain
of almost $600 billion by 2001 and would add .43 percentage points to future productivity growth through 2011...." (Source: The Economic Impact of
Broadband in Developing Nations, Best practices enable developing nations to reap economic benefits of broadband. Intel Corporation 2009)
Broadband networks can also be used to bring more citizens and businesses from rural and remote areas into the formal national economy.
Transitioning more people into the formal economy can enable governments to strengthen the basic infrastructure (roads, schools, hospitals, etc.) in rural areas. Connecting the nonmetro population via broadband also enables access to e-government for citizens and businesses, and better educational
opportunities for students who can be introduced to the technology necessary to compete and succeed in the 21stcentury global economy. ( Source:
The Economic Impact of Broadband in Developing Nations, Best practices enable developing nations to reap economic benefits of broadband. Intel Corporation, 2009, download.intel.com/intel/worldahead/pdf/economic_impact.pdf)
Conclusion: For personal users, it is the product offerings that will attract the user and also the household demographics, not merely the price. For business, institutions and society overall,
the gains are enormous.
Today, low-cost broadband and information technology are creating new kinds of
businesses and entire new industries. They enable companies to be global exporters – including the export of skills,
knowledge and culture which were never portable before. They can ensure that schools in remote regions and inner cities
have access to the latest information tools. They link rural healthcare providers to leading medical centers and local law
enforcement to national information grids. Individuals and local businesses can go global in search of low-cost, quality vendors,
and Web-based tools can increase community involvement. By boosting the economic and social well-being of communities, broadband and
IT can reduce the incentives for their young people to move away in search of opportunity and a better quality of life – but only if
communities know how to put them to effective use.
There are some factors should be considered as main factors while implementing broadband economies. Those are :
1. Community involvement
2. Technology Development
3. Income creation
4. Social cohesiveness
(Source: Broadband Economy, Muhammad Awaluddin, http://mawaluddin.info/2009/03/broadband-economy/)
Washington, DC, January 14, 2009 – The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program today released its new report “ICT: The
21st Century Transitional Initiative.” The Report calls for bold and broad measures by the new Obama Administration to promote widespread
diffusion and adoption of broadband communications, promotion of new applications in government and private industry using communications,
and the use of communications to save energy costs and reduce carbon emissions.
View the report
"High speed data infrastructures are vital
for the widespread use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in public services, SMEs and households.
They should be considered as important to the development of
the Knowledge Society as (rail)roads, canals and roads were for the Industrial era." (EUROCITIES Broadband Manifesto,
EUROCITIES is the network of major European cities. Founded in 1986, the network brings together the local
governments of 129 large cities in some 33 European countries. EUROCITIES represents the interests of its
members and engages in dialogue with the European institutions across a wide range of policy areas affecting cities.
These include: economic development, the environment, transport and mobility, social affairs, culture, the information and knowledge society,
and services of general interest. EUROCITIES website: www.eurocities.org)
So what is the economic equation?
There are a lot more players in this potential market than a few million potential subscribers, and a handful of telephony companies. Whilst the capital
cost of the physical infrastructure may be $A49 billion what will be the aggregate value of all of the content carried on the network and
what fees will the network owner garner from all of the participants over and above subscriptions? Will the subscriber base be Australian only or global?
Not only television operators will pay, but education providers such as schools, colleges and
universities, governments, enterprises of all type will want to create content offerings. These buyers of access for their content will be here in Australia and from overseas. They will want to be on a state of the art broadband network.
They will pay the owner of the network and what will that annual income be? Hundreds of millions or maybe billions? If the income for the content is
very high then why would the consumer be paying $A150.000 or $A200.00 per month. Prices will range in value according to content accessed and the type of access.
Much like pay television but a lot more economical and configurable. The user is not the only source of income to cover the capital build
and is by far the lesser contributor. The providers of the content will be world wide and they will pay a premium.
The potential is limitless and the only barriers are our imagination and that of the members of our parliaments and bureaucracies.
Perhaps no one has informed Mr Turnbull of the
inclusion of television, data providers, public and private enterprise and a plethora of other as yet unidentified potential contributors?
Whilst Mr Rudd may have embellished the description as "Australia's greatest nation building proposal" he may be far closer to the mark than Mr Turnbull.
If the opposition leader continues with his current argument then he will be proven to be not only incompetent in understanding and
effectively analysing public policy in detail, with relation to ICT, and without prejudice
but very wanting in his vision for Australia and its future. (Kevin R Beck, owner of the Mosaic Portal on the web)
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Determing the value of assets, stocks and property et al
Foundatioons for rational policy making and action plans
An asset's assessed value should no longer be used to
determine market value in 2009 and beyond. The growth of values fro almost everything (except consumer goods) in the past five years
has been abnormal and eveything was, and much is still,
over priced. This is particularly so with housing prices in Australia. In the USA they are plunging as in Britain.
This effect has not hit here yet and will be exascerbated when
unemployment climbs in the second half of 2009 and defaults rise. To determine the likely value find a point back in time where the normal growth compound per annum was about 2% - 3% and extrapolate that forward to today.
That will be the likely value of property in Australia in 2009 - 2010. Real estate agents are looking at demand and supply and that is a false indicator in this financial climate.
They must look at the spread, and type of debt, and income, across the Australian community. The government should
immediately engage the Australian Bureau of Statistics to undertake a census. Another wil have to be undretaken in 2010 to provide assessment points.
Only then will the hidden effects be exposed, enabling policy makers to plan with some reliability.
The current methods used by the Australian government Treasury Department are discredited.
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PREDICTING PUBLIC OPINION. GO FOR THE GAZUMP! SET THE INFRASTRUCTURE BOND RATE ABOVE 8% ANNUALLY AND SELL OUT IN A MATTER OF HOURS!
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MAKE THE INFASTRUCTURE BOND MATURITY DATE EIGHT YEARS, ANNUAL RATE 8.2%, AND WE CAN IGNORE MALCOLM TURNBULL YET AGAIN
APRIL 2009: Broadband and the Brilliant Tactic of the Labor Government
Catching the Opposition (Malcolm Turnbull, Nick Minchin and liberal front bench, analysts and pundits, flat footed
For over a year interested parties have been watching Minister,
Senator Conroy, and the federal Department of Communications,
Information Technology and the Arts, grapple with a recalcitrant, and anti-public interest, telco company, and the delivery of
the election promise, of Australian labor, to build a high speed, to the node,
broadband network across the nation. It was always logical to build a second major open access, open architecture network to enable true competition. The privatisation of electricity in Australia is a contrived model requiring mandated access on common transmission lines.
This was okay because the State Electricity Commission of Victoria was a public entity. The telecommuicatons
backbone in Australia was a public entity but
without deep aforethought the government sold off the entity making a rod for its own back. Thus Telstra came into a monopoly. They were always going to make it difficult. If we look at the return on the asset base, for Telstra, it makes a monza from its copper cable.
This is a nation of 20,000,000 people and the number of consumers that make an electricity company profitable here pale into
insignificance against the Telstra market domination. An 8.2% government issued infrastructure bond, with a maturity date eight years out would be a high quality investment. The actual earnings of the entity would be between 20% - 30% after costs and and 15% - 18% after taxes.
It is a brilliant equation. The opposition parliamentary parties and the small independents would be neutered on their criticisms. Telstra wants in. Why? Because they know that what I am writing here is the future.
Again the commentators, and experts, who profess a political canniness about waht government may do, about the economy and about most things of importance,
have been found to be off the mark.
As usual they are all focusing on the money. Radio talk jocks, with demonstrably limited experience, awareness and knowledge, and those seeking
to gain notoriety, and a voice, in the debate,
demand that the government convince them. As if they are within that select group destined to be the appointed protectors of the public interest.
Many are barely able to conceive the technology let alone assess viability. Where were they when the recession was knocking loudly?
The mass record of analysis, of experts and critics, across the spectrum, is quite frankly
very poor in comparison to mine.
However that is another issue.
The government's proposal will gain both credibility, and support, provided that the underlying intent is to open up the communications market and
break Telstra's damaging, and anti public interest, monopoly. To add an investment sweetener would be another fillip. If, as a supplementary outcome, it was to get
rid of the company's senior management, and current Board (as at April, 2009) along the way, that may be a benefit to, and please,
shareholders and raise value, or not. I am long time Telstra customer and I could care less if they disappeared. They express little regard or communication with me perfering to be hidden on the net.
I am an Optus user also and they by comparison are talking to me quite regualraly.
They give a better service. Yet again that is another issue. It depends on your personal view, and experience, of their performance
and capacity. You may not have been ridiculed by an unknowing, unaware, Telstra spokesperson in a parliamentary forum like I have been. Am I bitter not in the least. When they were
booted out of the tender I noted it was because they thought they were above the process. I complete tenders everyday and I have to slave through and present a full complying document numbering thousands of pages, not a handful as Telstra presented.
Good riddance to bad rubbish and on ya bike amigo.
Off the blocks, and fast away, in the critiquing, and carping, was the Opposition spokesperson on telco stuff,
The Honourable Senator Nick Minchin, denigrating the proposal, with not too much aparent thought
and deep analysis as to the veracity and substance of their argument. Senator Minchin is the former Minister who spruiked the wonderful benefits of developing a light metals industry in Australia including
the
failed magnesium support, and investment, strategy of the former Howard liberal coalition government (2000 - 2003). Wasn't he thinking of putting $A200,000,000 up to a magnesium company in Queensland back around 2003?
The sometimes odd Senator Fielding entered the argument, with typical disconnect between intellectual, and sustainable, economic analysis,
theory of the ill informed and shallow drivel. He likes to get into an argument eraly to maximise his profile and that of his 1.6% or thereabouts, member of the Victorian state electorate.
What the relevance, and linkages, between the Family First policy platform and that of this debate, and proposition, is not clear.
The Greens are yet to raise their demands and tru to link the whole thing to climate change, environment, sustainable cities and blue sky.
Nick Xenophon the other independent Senator was more circumspect. He will look at the debate carefully and pose probing questions.
The government knows that he is a credible player in the debate as is National Senator
Barnaby Joyce, who can do the numbers. Brnaby wil be on board all he wanst is the service at his constituents' doors.
Then out popped Malcolm Turnbull, reinforcing the perception that he is not up to the challenge with his poorly framed response and typical reliance on a bygone era and reputation. A reputation now shredded by the greed, stupidity and afilures of others.
He asserted, without any proof, that the government's proposal for a
commercial vehicle to build and operate the fast speed network, with open access, would require a very large number of
users to pay rates per month north of $A150.00. On this basis Malcolm, and the liberal party, would oppose privatisation of
the nation's electricity system, lead by the state of Victoria, in the nineties.
On that logic there would be insufficient users as customers to all of the competitors. The electricity transmission grid would be too
expensive to provide the network supply infrastructure to the participating electricity distributors and retailers. Then we have the discinnect between current date and the history of their pronouncements. There are plenty of examples of
malcolm, and others, jumping on the Internet value argument cliaming that Australia needs a high spped broadband to enhance its competitive position in the world.
There are examples of them soothsayng how many small businesses could arise, and grow, little entreprenurs beavering away out in the bush and regional areas.
People conducting business from anywhere in the nation. They have sparse, and selective, memories. Apparently Australia can only ever do anything innoavtive or mildly logical if its cheap.
Thus the Snowy Eelectricity Scheme, the State Electricity Commission of Victoria and telecom, as examples would never have got off the ground on the current thinking. $A48 billion, woe betide us all and shock horror.
What if the radio talk jocks, and the other poundits, were to actually develop another method of objection, and critique, than the
expedient, and evocative, response - what about the cost? What about it? It is a commercial vehicle and investment proposition. We shpuld never build another power station, another mine, another rail line or any
other blooody expensive thing.
Politicians and their advisers have a record of failing to connect the dots of a nation's activity, and policies,
and translate arguments across similar sectors. Eelectricity and telecommunications are similar in their behaviour, cost and outcomes. They both
power everything.
The Opposition argument, of Malcolm Turnbull, will be found to be spurious and all the labor government has to do is use
the electricity privatisation as a foundation model and
guide along with good design, commercial acumen and evaluation. In the next eight years technology will change just as the cost of the PC has dropped to small change. People need to be aware of this.
When Malcolm Turnbull was challenged with the claim that Optus stated that he, and Senator Minchin, were
wrong he resorted to (a) denigrating them as having an interest and (b) referred to his business qualifications, and success,
and the expertise, and so very reliable, and skilled merchant banking industry analysts. We know how good they are. They now require the governments of the world to save them first least the financial foundation of the
world as we know it, ends.
The government should, and is, go for it. They should disregard the demand that the talk radio hosts be convinced and the pthers who have very little intelelctual property to contribute.
It will, in the long run, be a far better investment, and economically valuable asset, than the claims made, and decisions, by the former Prime Minister for selling off ownership, and the public
(Mum's and Dad's) investing in Telstra. John Howard, and his liberal coalition colleagues, paied 100% of public funds, to
build a railway from Adelaide to Darwin as one of his nation building legacies.
That was a wonderful investment, was it not Senator Minchin, Malcolm Turnbull? Let us have something other than humbug to chew on in this debate.
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A LACK OF INTEGRITY AND ETHICS
Australian politicians and their staff, lying and misleading, the public
" Trip denial 'a lapse in judgement'
Leo Shanahan, Canberra, March 30, 2009,
ACTING Prime Minister Julia Gillard has dismissed Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon's failure to disclose trips to China paid for by
businesswoman Helen Liu as a "lapse in judgement".
With the Government continuing to defend the embattled minister, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's office has denied it had any knowledge
of an internal defence investigation into Mr Fitzgibbon, but
is refusing to say if any other minister's office had concerns raised with it about the minister." (source: Fairfax: The Age, Melbourne, Australia,
http://www.theage.com.au/national/trip-denial-a-lapse-in-judgement-20090329-9fkj.html
"And if the Prime Minister’s chief spinner Lachlan Harris denied the story when initially put to him by Steve Lewis,
it’s a remarkable act of self-directed stupidity." (source: Kevin Rudd: the PM who can do no wrong,FRIDAY, 3 APRIL 2009, Canberra correspondent
Bernard Keane, Crikey: http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20090403-Kevin-Rudd-the-PM-who-can-do-no-wrong.html)
"A fireside chat in the Oval Office. A visit to Number Ten. An audience at Buckingham Palace. And one of the biggest
headline from Kevin Rudd's two-week trip abroad is a "mile-high meltdown" from when he tore into an air hostess on board his
VIP flight to Papua New Guinea earlier in the year. The "hostie" could not provide him with
a special non-red-meat meal, apparently, so he reportedly spat out the prime ministerial dummy and reduced her to tears...
Perhaps there's a nagging sense that he sometimes seems more energised by his job when he is outside of Australia rather than within it - the feeling that Australia is not really big enough to accommodate his talent. Your comments please.
As for the mile-high meltdown? We all have tempers, but his is particularly interesting because it stands at
odds with the public geniality which he tries to project, and which partly explained his political rise (those chummy,
regular early morning appearances on Channel Seven's Sunrise programme were vital in showing that he could appeal to middle Australia).
A while back, a Labor insider described to me a meeting with the Prime Minister at which he erupted into a "child-like tanty" [a tantrum] when
someone crossed him. The episode speaks of a politician who has always found it
easier to command respect for his intellectual prowess rather than attract genuine affection...
13. At 3:24pm on 04 Apr 2009, TheFirstRalph wrote:
5: Dennis, yes we do all have bad days but to bully a person that can't fight back in a way that would get you arrested on
a commercial flight is a different matter. It would also be easier to excuse if Lachlan Harris, the Rudd?s spin doctor hadn't
denied it happened, and been forced to change his story it only after the RAAF brass contradicted him. (Source: Nick Bryant, BBC - Nick Bryant's Australia,
Mile-high meltdown
Nick Bryant | 01:44 UK time, Friday, 3 April 2009, http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/nickbryant/2009/04/milehigh_meltdown.html)
Rudd short with the truth: Turnbull, Lenore Taylor | April 04, 2009
Article from: The Australian
MALCOLM Turnbull said Kevin Rudd's initial denial of a mid-air outburst towards a female RAAF cabin attendant,
before his eventual admission that it happened, was further evidence the Prime Minister "only tells the truth when he is forced to".
The Prime Minister's office initially denied Mr Rudd had berated the attendant on a trip from Papua New Guinea to
Canberra because his requested meal had been unavailable." (source of extract: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25287004-5013871,00.html")
These are just some of the recent examples (March - April 2009) of the manipulation and denials that now permeate every crevice of Australian public life. When the most senior
people in our institutios and business lie and mislead they say to the rest of Australia, and its people, it is pokay for you to lie and misrepresent the situation. We should have little respect for anyone who acts in this fashion and
those who have to deal with these people should consider being very careful about trsuting them. The
decline in ethics
permeates the nation no moreso than in the
parasites' nests of Australian political office.
Footnote: A parasite, used in the above context is, to my mind, an unelected person,
working in a political office, paid from the public purse, who is not subject to
the codes of conduct of the public services of the relevant jurisdiction and who places their political masters' well being, or their work role,
above the public interest, above ethics and the nation's democracy and parliament.
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TRUE COLOURS: THE LABOR GOVERNMENT STUMBLES BEGIN
The labor government has begun its social and thinking re-engineering and Kevin Rudd is seen for what he actually is
The fact that
the Chinese attempted to comprimise his communications, mobile lap top and
presence at the Olympics he resorted to the bureaucratic response. He quoted verbatim a security document as if that is substantial evidence and indisputable fact and a protection.
In the world of bureaucrats
words are comfort, and powerful instruments, to be quoted. Kevin Rudd is a bureaucrat not a Prime Minister of individual, persoanl substance. He relies on oratorial eloquence and is not all that good at it.
He is not compelling. The worthless cant he put forward, in his diatribe about how he is not worried about China spying on him, about
a focus on security and best effort is hollow.
Mick Keelty, the federal Police Commissoner, had ensured that anything the Prime Minister or government may offer is trite against the fact that
a person was beaten to death at Sydney Airport. The Prime Minister has failed to act and is a contrived political persona, who resorts to the weasle
words of bureaucratic thinking and motherhood. Here, look is the published words, the policy, the mantra, the gauarantee, he runs it off at will.
The media are obviously incapable of seeing what Kevin Rudd sees, the critics are off the mark, here it is he says -in black and white on paper.
We wrote it, and it is therefore substantial and effective. It is evidenciary and self fullfilling because we wrote it and published it.
Never mind that a man died in front of people in Sydney airport, The Prime Minister and his minions take safety, and security, very seriously.
Mr. Rudd, I feel, is full of it. It will notv take the electorate too much time to come to this conclusion.
In his world that is the evidence words on paper. he has no orther resort, he waits for each enquiry to print its report.
He will alter his spiel, and quote from new
sources. His thinking is ordered and academic. It is a deep understanding of the system. It is humbug dressed up.
It is about resaerch and having information, it is about analysis,
It is subject to conditions like the advertising small print that cons us all.
It is sad that a great place like Australia should endure mediocrity in its political leaders and now be captive to perhaps nothing more than a twat. History will tell but that is too late.
Every government in Australia could actually be a oncer, except that hubris, and self interest, precludes
the two major parties from stitching it up each time. The rule of George Bush proved this concept. Winning political office, in any individual or holistic
electorate, is a product of money and external talent, not the quality of political candidates.
Malcolm Turnbull should know this given his background. Yet he is not indicating that he gets it.
We
can put anyone, with a reasonable personality, communication skill and presentation ability,
into any parliament or a whole party into government,
anywhere in the nation,
at any election. It is quite simply a product of money, lots of money and reach into the voter's world.
There is a company caled
Horizon
that has a a research methodology that can assess electoral suport for a candidate without the need for
expensive, and often,
inadequate conventional polling methods. This information coupled with the communication's strategy delivers the outcome.
It is just a matter of how much money the aspirant wants to spend. For this reason independents, and small parties, rarely achieve success.
However human foibles
stymie achievement.
Individuals within political parties, large and small, it seems, would rather
maintain their
personal positions, and power,
than risk losing their personal status by winning government or putting the party interests above their own.
The
NSW labor party is the leading example
of this selfish behaviour, in an Australian parliament.
Because of this the quality of democracy, here in Australia, is less than it could be and the
parliaments are an unrepresentative, engineered, system of self interest and political graft. There are insufficiuent independent oversight bodies to reign in the politicians, who do as they please.
The declaration of personal interest, by members of parliaments, as well as donations and campiagn funds, is a sham and
largesse is accepted as part, and parcel, of public office. Graft, and the private support of members of parliaments across Australia, is hidden away and used when needed.
When the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was confronted with the Minister for Health the Honourable Nicola Roxon, approved (march 2009)
a rise in private health insurance charges whilst presenting a justification for increased costs.
"Families to feel pain as private health cover fees rise, Article from: Perth Now, (http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,23330699-948,00.html,)
Michelle Draper, Jeff Turnbull and Jane Bunce, March 06, 2008 04:13pm
"AUSTRALIAN families with private health insurance will pay about $100 extra a year in fees after the federal government approved higher premiums.
The fee increases announced today were another blow for Australians struggling to meet soaring mortgage
repayments after the latest in a string of interest rate rises.
Consumer groups said some families would struggle to pay the average 4.99 per cent hike in private health insurance
on top of rising grocery, petrol and housing prices.
The fee rises, which come into effect on April 1, are expected to cost Australian families an extra $2 or more a week.
Federal health minister Nicola Roxon said the government had managed to negotiate the funds down from the average 5.21 per
cent rise they were seeking, although one fund was still asking for an "extremely high'' fee increase."
This rise allows the funds to continue to pass the costs for the embedded fraud within the Australian private, and public health systems to the public.
This fraud encompasses the manipulation of
reimbursement claims, through item number manipulation, banking benefits for the future and overt and covert fraud by providers.
The patient may or may not be party to these practices which will be exposed in May - June 2009.
The Australian Minister for Employment Participation is Brendan O'Connor,
appointed on 3 December 2007. The position is within the portfolio of the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Julia Gillard
and is administered through the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. This role is a junior ministerial one. There is an irony in the
portfolio nomenclature - Employment Participation. It is a spin name, created by the parasites working on the public purse whose role is to
mislead, and dissemble, using weasle words, slogans and
slick titles. The Minister has announced a renaming of the employment services, again with another spin title - Jobs Australia. The Minister
talks of efficient systems.
Humbug. There is no substance in this and the amount of money soent by
the Department and the government on thinking of this name would boggle the mind. It is a waste of public monies when a government
spends effort trying to erase the former
governments footprints. These elected officials do not care. Their personal, and party, political interests are superior to the public interest.
If you listen to Brendan O'Connor it is apparent that he is a parrot. He trots out the spin lines without any contribution from
his own intellect. He is a minion following the
senior Minister's directions and the Office of Prime Minister. He cannot substantiate an argument. He is short on detail.
Reegineeering employment sevices will, ironically, cause the unemployment of several hundred people. O'Connor when queried on this
claims that these people have skills that are in demand and they will get jobs.
" Jobs 'at risk' in Network tender, Nicola Berkovic, Dennis Shanahan | March 30, 2009 Article from: The Australian
"THE Coalition has urged the Rudd Government to consider suspending its $2 billion Job Network tender,
warning that thousands of people would miss out on retraining and assistance in finding work as the dole queues lengthened.
Opposition community services spokesman Tony Abbott said many of the 600,000 clients of the Job Network
would miss out on crucial services because of government bungling.
"A very large percentage of Job Network sites are going to be closing down in the next couple of months," he told the Ten Network.
"There will virtually be no Job Network services in these sites in the three months it takes to close the existing
ones and the further six months to start up new sites."
In the past week, some of Australia's biggest and best-performing job agencies have been told they have lost their government
business to provide employment services to the unemployed, as two new British providers enter the market.
Employment Minister Julia Gillard yesterday defended the Government's handling of the tender,
saying it was being conducted at arm's length and that it would be improper for her to interfere." (source: The Australian On Line,
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25260876-5013404,00.html)
Jobs being lost but detailed account delayed, Stephanie Peatling, April 2, 2009
AT LEAST 60 organisations employing hundreds of people have lost government contracts to run
employment services but the Federal Government has refused to confirm the extent of the job losses.
The Minister for Employment Participation, Brendan O'Connor, announced yesterday that the tender
process to select which companies will run the revamped job-seeking program, Job Services Australia, had been completed.
But he would not provide details about which companies had lost contracts or quantify the number of people
who would be out of work, saying further details would be announced today.
"What I say to those unsuccessful tenderers and those staff is we need their skills," Mr O'Connor said. "We want them to stay in the sector."
He said 72 per cent of companies already running employment services for the Government had won new contracts. But he
would not comment on the suggestion that this meant between 60 and 70 companies no longer had contracts." (source: Sydney Morning Herald, http://www.smh.com.au/national/jobs-being-lost-but-detailed-account-delayed-20090401-9jre.html)
This is motherhood tripe and demonstrative of the quality of the Ministers that govern the nation. Invariably, government is a mangerial exercise within a political straight jacket.
So may parrots in public office unable to
elocute substance and prosecute a compelling, and truthful, argument.
China sells weapons to terrorist nations. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd rails against terrorists. Yet he is silent on this
proposition regarding China. Many countries sell weapons including Great Britain. They end up in the hands of
terrorists. China engages in torture, breach of human rights and is a
communist, authoritarian government that tortures its own citizens. Rudd supports China why? For profit, for trade and for pure politics. He is in this regard ignorant
and immoral.Mr. Rudd embraces a more prominent role for China in the International Monetary Fund.
This is the immorality, and double dealing, of politics.
China rebuffs Rudd over Tibet dialogue, Dennis Shanahan | April 10, 2008, Article from: The Australian
"CHINESE Premier Wen Jiabao is ignoring calls from Australia to engage in a dialogue with the Dalai Lama over the question of Tibet.
Mr Wen met Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for two-and-a-half hours today for discussions which were described as "good and solid".
But Mr Rudd admitted that they failed to see eye-to-eye on the question of Tibet, which the prime minister
yesterday described as "quite a significant problem".
"It's quite fair to say that the Chinese government in their discussions with me ... their position today was consistent
with the position China has adopted in recent times," Mr Rudd said.
He said he had a responsibility to put his position and he had done that.
"We have a challenging period ahead of us on this question," he said. "We have a different view, that is quite plain."
But the leaders have also agreed to ratchet up the relationship on climate change with a new ministerial level partnership agreed upon.
Mr Rudd said the two countries would have a semi annual dialogue based on intensifying cooperation on reaching a post-2012
agreement on climate change as well as ways of developing cleaner energy technologies.
The countries also agreed to "unfreeze" negotiations on a free trade deal between them."
(Source: The Australian, http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23515071-601,00.html)
The Prime Minister has a strong background in Chinese diplomacy and is well versed in the culture.
This may be his archilles heel if he beleives that he
has their measure. The situation of Minister for defence Joel Fitzgibbon is not his problem alone. Anyone who is a student of Chinese history and politics knows well that
high ranking Chinese citzens overseas are a mine of information for the government. Anyone occupying a position even down to student level in universities is also of interest.
A sophisticated human and machine surveillance network encases the world.
Obviously the Australian
government cannot entertain the crack pots who would have us stop trade, and investment, with China. The proponents of such responses are not unedaucted.
The Greens and the Democrats border on the illogical and irresponsible. Yet there is a telling argument that western nations tolerate China's
abuse, spying and general nasty, and highly, ignorant behaviour because they want the money.
There is no ethics in politics, trade and economy. The proposition of regulation of human nature, greed and stupidity as a means of fixing the economic, and financial,
crisis is doomed to failure.
Then we come to Mr Rudd himself and his public persona. This has some very interested. What motivates a person who is at the top of their
career to abuse, or treat others contemptuously? The
Prime Minister is said to have had a hostess, on the RAAF Prime Ministerial jet in tears because she could not fulfill his culinary wishes. He did what one of his federal politicians did, abused people and he demanced that
she attend anger classes. Will Kevin Rudd attend anger classes? Of course not he is the boss and bosses can act as despicable at they choose because they have pwoer.
Kevin Rudd has no personal power, he derives it from others.
Listening to his explanation I gained the impression that
he was bored with the episode and dismissive of the whole affair as an inconvenience hardly worth his attention. He is engaged in heady issues and is at the forefront of saving the world's economies.
For people in his position such matters are trivial. In response to questioning of his behaviour, he replied that Prime Ministers make
msitakes and if he had offended anybody he apologised. making mistakes and being sorry is the new mantra of the political leader
which worked so well for former Queensland Premier Peter
Beattie. The Prime Minister is also said to have harshly berated (again displaying contempt for)
Senator Fielding in front of others who are not members of parliament. The Senator is not well liked by the two major parties. His elocution and analytical skills are deemed to be wanting and his stance and arguments on
significant legislation before the Senate does not stand up to deep examination.
These glimpses of Kevin Rudd, the man who works hard to create a whole other persona,
are telling. It is easy to stick it to the people who cannot resspond. Lapses are to be forgiven. Rubbish. The abuse of a person under any circumstance demaonstares that the abuser is
not a leader worthy of respect from others. Pomposity, and arrogance, are too often accepted traits of our political leaders. Academics,
sociologists, political commentators and human behaviouralists are starting to
take an interest in the managed facade that may be Prime Minister Rudd. This should trigger a warning of a growing, high risk
to the Prime Minister and his minders.
The federal political arena is not a state political arena and
it should be rememberd that Mr Rudd has minimal experience at the federal level having come out of the public service. He is surrounding himself with apratchiks from the states and
this will cause ructions, and changes, in the Australian Public Service. On the face of it public servants are a-political,
only on the face of it. We can look at the Federal Police Commmissioner as representative of the hierarchy. Mr. Keelty thinks that the response of the federal police at Sydney airport was within the accepted tolerances.
A person was beaten to death in front of travellers at Sydney airport but the police response is acceptable to Keelty. This is the same person who spent an enormous amount of resources and
police time dwelling on an innocent doctor in Queensland, Dr Haneef, resulting in his deportment. This failed exercise cost the tax payer about
$A7,000,000. Now the government will have to pay compensation. Is this within tolerances? Kevin Rudd has failed to show decisive leadership in relation to Mr Keelty who in his role is an
ever present danger to the well being ordinary people in
Australia.
Despite these inconsistencies, and poor record of actually doing something other than giving away money (a powerful aphrodesiac, and pacifier, to the electorate), the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (April 2009) enjoys a 70% approval rating according to the political pollsters.
From whom? Unthinking Australians who are void of awareness and prone to off the cuff perceptions with little evidenciary substance? This is a bullshit
popularity rating. The Prime Minister I think has an actual approval rating more llikely to be around the 50% - 55% range.
This is largely helped by an Opposition political party
which lacks a strategy, oratorial skills, has no great debaters, little if any deep, innovative and lateral thinkers, within its ranks.
It is not in search of any because the political system is about waiting one's turn. The political polling methods, and selection of who is asked,
are flawed and the questions are trite. The polsters stated that the Queensland election would be close. It was not and Anna Bligh was returned to office as this commentator predicted with a healthy margin.
Public opinion lags the polls and the Prime Minister is on slide to a
hiding regarding China, the economy, social engineering in climate policy, education and employment.
During the electioneering Kevin Rudd said that there would be open government and changes to freedom of information. That was a silly thing to promiose and there are many advisers who are counselling against such
wild abandonment. Fate will spell the outcome. China will do something that cause major incident and pause. It may be Tibet, it may be in pacific or it may be an avaricious hunt for world resource domination and pricing control.
The claim that the OzMinerals take over was rejected because the Chinese could look over the fence at Woomera test range from the mine border on farce but are demonstrative of an underlying mistrust.
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PRIME MINISTER RUDD'S RISK ORIENTATION
Ministerial accountability, reality and ethics
The Australian labor Party across Australia has a
problem with ethics, accountability and responsibility.
The current Defence Minister Joel Fitgibbon (March 2009) knows the parliamentary rules for declaration and yet fails to register substantial gifts.
When questioned by the media on Thursday 26th March 2009 he describes how he failed to register receipt of small gifts (plane tickets to China
and a suit), he misrepresents the position in his parliamentary role. He then issues statement apologising. The Minister is lacking
ethical integrity,
describing how he made a mistake. The Prime Minister says that he is doing an exemplary job. The Prime Minister says that it is right that
the Minister apologised, apparently on the oredrs of the Acting Prime Minister. Prime Minister Rudd seems to place political
expediency above ethical integrity. He also has a narrow perspective on performance of the Minister'[s role in the Department. It is not all that flash let alone exemplary.
The Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, has held a secret meeting with Chinese officials
which raises questions as to reason and purpose for secrecy. Some contend that this was done due to the impending visit to the United States.
The reason is known only to the Prime Minister and his confidantes.
Extract source: "PM Kevin Rudd keeps Lodge talks with Chinese secret, Cameron Stewart and Michael Sainsbury | March 24, 2009, Article from: The Australian
AS far as Beijing was concerned, the discreet lunch held at The Lodge was a case of exquisite timing.
With Kevin Rudd about to visit Washington for his first meeting with President Barack Obama, who better to bend
the Prime Minister's ear than the propaganda chief of the Chinese Communist Party, Li Changchun. ......
Normally such a meeting would be big news, but it wasn't because the Australian media was not told. ... Yet China's state-owned media was ushered into The Lodge and Mr Rudd was splashed across the Chinese press with footage of his talks on the nation's main television station CCTV.
As a result, hundreds of millions of Chinese knew more about Mr Rudd's diplomatic activities than did his own countrymen." The Australian newspaper.
Once in the United States, Prime Minister Rudd heartily endorsed the Obama administration's Fiscal Package, relative to toxic assets, going as far as stating that it would work.
What if it does not? The theory is that assets will be taken from poor US citizens, property, packaged into securitised invsetment opportunities. Greedy investors from the private sector salivate at
getting a house for a few hundred or few thousand taken from the purchaser by the morally bankrupt US banks and on sold to
the morally rank and disgusting invsetors who live off the unfortunate.
This is typically American capital greed and fiscal enslavement, dressed up as for the benefit of the nation.
According to the politicians, and the financial wizards, the neconomic crisis is due to slack regulation and
the desire of consumers to at first wildly spend and then to commit another sin by not spending. What about corporate debt and greedy, inept management and boards?
The Prime Minister of Australia heartily endorses the process. He also is gung ho on being in Afghanistan with the US. Apart from the US appalling
record at overseas military exploits, Afghanistan has a history of defying the most militarily endowed. The body count will escalate and the infidels will triumph.
Apparently fighting an unwinnable campaign alongside the US is better than common sense and looking after the lives of our military or is theree a reasonable level of collaterla damage in Rudd's world of diplomacy?
He really should look at himself. Mr Rudd takes too many risks. The message behind all of the current financial wheelings, and dealings, is that the wealthy,
and developed, nations and the power collective membership
are to be protected at the expense of poor countries and peoples. The whole approach is reprehensible and the Australian Prime Minister
deserves to be humiliated by the impending failure of this "toxic activity". The Reserve Bank of Australia has its head in the sand and its analysis of the future as at March 2009 is
substandard and blinkered. There will be a rise in defaults and drop in property values as the market deteriorates and an Australian bank, local governments and other institutions and financial
enetrprises, take a hit on derivates. The debts of the poor people in the United States should have been paid with the trillions given to the US banks. On the military campiagn Australia and the Us would have to invade pakistan and stop the insurgents there to affect the outcomes in
Afghanistan.
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IGNORE MALCOLM TURNBULL'S PROPOSITIONS
Malcolm Turnbull says (March 2009) that he is about creating the economic climate whereby people can take advantage of new jobs that
will be created. He says that new banks will arise and that once the balance sheets of corporations are restored Australians would be well posirioned to take advantage of the new era.
He talks of the sound Australian economy and hopes that Kevin Rudd will learn something from President Obama. What might that be? How to misinterpret the world, and America's place in it? Or perhaps
how to adopt an immature and childlike belief and hubris.
Mr Turnbull does not quite expand on what Mr Rudd may learn Unfortunately Malcolm Turnbull has either overlooked, or having ignored the signs,
not told Australians, what is
coming. Then again listening to him he
may not even know. A debate about whether a small business is signified by 15, 16 or 20 employees shows us the quality of our policy makers and members of the
federalo parliament. A total of 225 amendments by the opposition members in both houses, to the labor industrial relations bill, Fair Work, March 2009,
were largely around minutae. A search by some politicians for relevance where they otherwise would have none other than by mere election to the
parliament. Senator Fielding demponstrates the paucity of talent and ability to negotiate which are all too often the trade mark of small parties like Family First and One Nation.
Fielding claims to have broken the back of alcohol's domination of our society? Another Senator appeasr to be deaf and unable to hear the clanging bells that go on in the house when a vote is imminent. Nigel Scullion says that he did not hear them
because he was in a stair well. What rot. The bells permeate the building. Many parliamentarians can be dismissed as crowing about things of which they know, or understand, very little.
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PREDICTING A MODERN BOXER REBELLION
People familiar with the
history
of the Boxer rebellion will realise what I am implying. Political statements, and soothing responses to the USA, were at stark contrast to what was happening behind the '
scenes. Opportunists in the corporate world across the gobe, talk of China emerging.
However I
contend in my predictions web site
that China is emerging not in the way that the speculators are expecting.
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WHAT ABOUT AUSTRALIAN LOCAL GOVERNMENT EXECUTIVE PAY PACKETS?
March 2009: Why concentrate on
pilloring executives for their pay scales
when local government executives may be receiving exorbitant salary packages? There are some well above the
Australian median salary range for local government.
"
THE chief executive of Brisbane City Council now earns more than the Prime Minister after she was awarded a staggering $70,000 pay increase.
Jude Munro recently received the inflation-busting 20 per cent increase - despite the economic slump. She now earns $410,000.
Last month Ipswich City Council executive Carl Wulff also enjoyed a $73,000 pay rise - a 26 per cent boost - taking his wage packet to $350,000.
Just weeks ago, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called on workers to show wage restraint as Australia rockets towards a recession...
Mr Wulff and Ms Munro are among a growing number of Queensland council executives now earning record six-figure salaries, including Moreton Bay CEO John Rauber, on $380,000.
Meanwhile, Toowoomba Regional Council is advertising for a new CEO through recruitment firm Hudson. An officer at the firm said the base salary was $300,000." (Source: Hannah Davies,
February 11, 2009, Courier mail, News Ltd, Queensland, http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25036685-952,00.html)
Melbourne City Council CEO David Pitchford is listed as one of the big rollers pocketing over $350,000 plus benefits paid for by the City ratepayers and money collected by corrupt traffic officers. More then John Howard and Steve Bracks. Is he worth it?
David Pitchford was paid a bonus on top of his salary last year even though the Ombudsman found the City Council under Pitchfords stewardship, with the assistance of ex-City Council legal adviser Allison Lyons,
tried to thwart the Ombudsman investigation last year in an attempted cover-up of the crime of ripping off motorists.
Maybe this is why he received a bonus.
The Herald Sun reports:
Councils spend big, Peter Rolfe Sunday Herald-Sun March 25, 2007
BIG-SPENDING local councils are paying senior staff more than the Prime Minister receives.
Flush with funds as property owners pay record rates and charges, at least three Melbourne councils are rewarding
chief executives with pay packages that eclipse John Howard's. At least 12 are paying chief executives more than Victoria's Premier, Steve Bracks.
Melbourne City Council chief executive David Pitchford leads the list of high earners, pocketing a package worth more than $354,000 a year.
Apart from a cash salary of $241,553, Mr Pitchford is also entitled to a 25 per cent performance bonus plus superannuation, a car and expenses.
Mr Howard's total annual package for running the country is just over $309,000.
Mr Bracks is on $235,000 a year.
Monash Council chief David Conran has an annual package of $315,750, including a salary of $250,000.
Boroondara boss Peter Johnstone earns more than $337,500 to administer the suburbs of Hawthorn, Camberwell,
Canterbury and Kew with a 25 per cent bonus on top of his $232,371 base salary plus a car and superannuation.
And Whitehorse chief Noeline Duff earns more than $292,700." (Source:http://melbournecitycouncil.blogspot.com/2007/03/ceo-high-roller-david-pitchford.html,
Sunday, March 25, 2007, CEO High Roller)
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Climate Change Minister Penny Wong not connecting with anyone in particular
Partisan self interests, questionable public service contribution
and
idiots in the climate change
debate mix
The future
according to the Rudd Labor government is based on analysis, and modelling, undertaken by a wide range of sources many of whom
are tied to the ideological mind set of the government. The Australian Treasury is unable to provide a foundation from which the Minister can bring the public forward. This department has a
long history of getting things wrong. The
Australian Government Department of Treasury modelling
is heavily critiqued. Minister Wong, like Minister Joel Ftizgibbon (Defence) both know what happens
when their departments
add to the problems through their service operations to government. It intrigues me as I interact with governments, and public services, that
their quality and depth of research is narrowly focused.
They are aware of forces directly in their face but tend to be oblivious to the myriad of interests beyond their horizon.
Most of those
interests
are not politically threatening since they are not locally based and organised.
They become a worry to certain individuals, and interests, when they are annexed by
local activists
to build on political and social community and other themes and actions, here in Australia.
Then there are those who use
modern technology,
and human
networks,
to influence international, powerful interests,
governments,
and
corporations,
social
activists
and the like, that
can impact Australia's local politics and diplomatic policies and interactions overseas.
Minister Wong has released the government's
Emission Trading Scheme draft legislation.
In the
climate change debate
is further clouded by the
hysterical, and unfounded statements,
of Green Senators in the federal parliament, their supporters and delibeate misleading political partisan propositions.
The business interests are not likely to examine the benefits in the coldight of public interest preferring to frame their responses for self interest cloaked in
emotive spin, like loss of jobs, fear mongering and holier than thou hand on heart take the money and run. We know this methodology from the current behaviour of
manufacturers abandoning ship in Australia
whilst trying to suck up every last public dollar or demanding public funds to hang around.
The greater number of people, in Australia, simply take little interest in anything to do with public policy and government unless it
directly affects them. In Victoria we have the government saying that they will invest a $A100 million, provided the federal government matches that amount, to build a
solar power station. This wonder of technology will serve 50,000 residences. This is the sort of trite and quasi justified irresponsible propositions put about by politicians who want to get on the climate change band wagon and
spruik their credentials. This, like Victoria's energy hungry multi billion dollar, desalination plant is a gross waste of public money.
Over, and above, there is the short sighted electoral process where governments do things that are good for their
next election prospects. They will drop anything, like a hot potato, if it
hurts their individual political control of governments. Thus let's see what they abandon and when.
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Kevin Rudd could help Aldi create jobs
so why doesn't he?
Why do the state, and territory, governments and the ACCC not help Aldi? The answer lies in self interest, anti competitive
systems, a modicum of corruption and collusion at the local goevrnemt level where planning and approvals are the province of a club, of developers and
political party apparatchiks.
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The modern
Boxer Rebellion,
bringing down the west.
The primary objective of banks
enslavement to debt.
The organ grinders making monkeys of Australia, and the world's, governments.
The Reserve Bank of Australia says that opening up the ATM market
for charges to consumers would, via competition, reduce the costs. They also kept interest rates high to attack inflation beyond the necessary time frame.
They also failed to
predict
the current economic collapse.
The Australian Reserve Bank, like the Department of Treasury within the Australian government seem to make some
poor decisions
for the public cost, impacting adverseley on consumers and the economy.
They appear to hardly ever get it right in their estiamtes and assumptions. It i9s generally put about that no one could have anticipated what is occuring now
in the global and Australian economies. This is
not the case. The experts are, to my mind, not very good at
asimilating data, events and activity ultimately extrapolating into a set of future scenarios.
Nevertheless neither the Australian Reserve Bank Board, nor the Treasury Head and senior officers, will be held accountable or
charged with incompetence for they are part of the power collective. The club that benefits regardless of performance or circumstance.
The Reserve Bank, the regulators here and internationally, the past Treasurers of the Australian government since 2000, are an integral
part of the network of collapse of the Australian and world economies. They are an integral part of the corrosion of our democracy.
We cannot vote them in or vote them out.
Our democracy, and citizenship, is flawed and hollow because we have no say.
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The Prime Minister scores a political coup. Those who have lost their homes in the fires of February 2009 will go to the top of the social hosuing
component of the $A42 billion stimulus package.
The former merchant banker Malcolm Turnbull proposes that the rebuilding be a in aseparate package.
Why?
Visit the Foster Home
of the Victorian Bushfire. |
Do Senior Executive Service members (SES - not to be confused with the State Emergency Service)
of Australia's public services provide real value for money?
I do not think many of them at state, and federal, level are delivering the goods for the salary they are paid.
The Australian Treasury has a poor record of
predicting
the future. Model away you hundreds of keyboard pushers and see if you can at
least get somewhat close, once! Surprise us.
On the face of it, it many of the public service departments in state, territory and federal government,
appear to be unaccountable. They are performing taks with ever increasing failure rates, and offering advice, whilst avoiding any risk of
being held to that advice and absolutely no risk of being held personally responsible.
My rather caustic attitude has arisen from watching senior public servants
in Senate, and other Upper House, hearings. It comes from communicatin with them regularly to receive no reply, an uncomprehending reply or
a lot of drivel that misses the mark. Occasionally I get a surpirse.
I perceive many of the senior executives to be smug,
engaging in gratutious self indulgence in the lime light ofn their own rarity. The public services of Australia are a hot house of their making, gestation and
longevity.
They rarely demonstrate invaluable public service, but rather mastery of the
rarified world of pompous public service, internecine politics and government sycophancy. They are government servants and the public comes well and truly last in the pecking order.
Many of them decide what they will answer and what information they will provide to the parliaments.
I think anyone who declines to answer a Senator or an Upper House member of a parliament adds to the corrosion of democracy and the denigration of
parliament. It is a contempt swathed in
the bankrupt proposition of confidential advice to government and arrogance.
How do the Australian federal, and state Department
Secretaries,
compare with Australia's most under paid, most valuable, and most laudable,
public servants?
Obviously they cannot even come close to the sacrifice of the
men, and women,
who face Australia's greatest terrorist - the bush fire. They are volunteers or lowly paid, by comparison, public servnats on the front line.
Opposing this are the very senior public servants, across Australia's public services,
are paid a large salary whilst
delivering questionable value in public benefit and manipulating the public process of Senate enquireies and
the operation of parliament. TThey cannot run transport, health, education and community care such as child protection.
Yet they remain aloof and unaccountable.
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February 2009 government stimulus package and Julie Bishop
The liberal opposition has decided to block the Rudd government $A42 billion stimulus package.
The opposition spokesperson on Treasury Ms Julie Bishop has ket again demonstrated unsuitability for this important role in parliament.
She exhibits a cavalier regard for poutting points forward with care. On radio (Wednesday 4, February 2009) she stated that $A200 billion dollar deficit would bankrupt Australia.
This is blatantly false, designed to create fear in people who are not well versed in the value of the Austalian government sector and economy.
I marvel at how easy it is to turn a deficit of a
massive number to a surplus for a new government. Wunder tresaurer Costello ssemed to have this extraordinary talent. Or did he?
Ms Bishop implies that Australia will be in debt for the next generation. Yet the Howard government, according to their own legendary claims,
reversed a deficit of near $A100 billion that they inherited from the Keating labor government in 1996. Mr Costello took the budgett to
surplus in a matter of a few years. Ms Bishop also disregards that a large
proportion of the proposal is directed at asset building particularly in the education sector. This means that the $A42 billion
will not be wasted as hysterically being
promoted but will be offset by gains in social, intellectual, human and
economic capital.
The current modus operandi of the modern politician in the labor and liberal parties is one of lying and misinformation,
spin and all too often, carelessness. Ms Bishop treats the electorate abysmally as if we are stupid and unable to rember and think.
When such tactics are used it is usually because the perpetrator lacks the intellectual depth to argue the case proficiently.
malcolm Turnbull was a merchant banker. He worked in one of the major entities that today stands humiliated as a leading participant in the
global economic collapse.
He is thus tarred with a brush of questionable capabilities and one of the areas where he is suspect is in economic and financial
analysis and planning.
He says that the government's proposal is wrong but does not celarly explain why. he also states that he has a better proposition
but again can not elaborate.
He is lucky. He left the financial world to take up a pubic office.
If he were still in the field of finance and banking he may well have suffered a different financial fate.
Ms Bishop might consider returning to
practicing law and one hopes that she is more talented in arguing case law than finance and economics. At last we have thrown of the shackles of always seeking to manufacture a surplus and
are engaged in nation development through investment. The scrooge economics of the modern government have held Australia back and the illusion of
wealth has been shattered.
| |
Waiting for a stimulus package February 2009
Waiting for another failure. Various sectors of the Australian business community and the traditional economists and
experts are clamouring for an injection of money from government. The theory is that consumers must be stimulated and that spending must occur.
The scond theory is that the economy must grow. If there is credit available business invests and grows and conusmers buy. But waht if the greater number of
consumers cannot buy? What if the government spends on infrstructure will that create jobs and spending elsewhere? Yes but with limited effcts.
Then there is labor's hoary theory that everytome there is a downturn and unemployment training is part of the required panacea. Never mind that it is a placebo.
Shallow
competency based training,
the fall back, and harping position,
of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. This is training largely focused on the people who will not deeply educate themselves.
Theer is an associated theory that people undertaking such skill training can be migrated to some other sector of employment.
Let us look at this scenario. A large number of people, with incomes between $50,000 and $150,000, mortgaged the equity in the house they either owned or were paying off because
the assumed value had risen steeply. Interest rates were cheap so they used those funds and borrowed to
buy an investment property or to
renovate to a larger scale dwelling. In many cases the debt on the property portfolio was above 100% of the real value. Then they used credit cards to fund
the additional lifetsyly, wekly payments, school fees and partying. In many cases the credit card debt ballooned beyond $10,000 to $20,000, $30,000 and
believe it or not $40,000. Then it crashed. The interests cannot go back up because tens of thousands will be bankrupted and yet there are
a lot of people who earn their living from interest on funds. It is a vicious circle, a trap from which there is but one escape route.
Due to the debt trap and the vic ious cycle described above there are not enough consumers with the ability to
spend left in the Australian, and probably many other economies. Their debt is too high and their disposable income is gone.
The value of their assets is depleted. So creating credit access, and stimulus, will not do the job.
So what must the governments of Australia do?
They must reduce the debt to a manageable level first and foremost. This is an anathema to the market purists and the Australian Treasury.
Pay off taxpayers debt partially? Why not? They did it just before Christmas. Is it better to give
taxpayer funds to thieving and robbers in the commercial world? The bankers got themselves into this, let them crash. The
governmment can look after the savings in them as it has done through its guarantee. Take all of the savings out into a government bank.
laughable as this would destroy the bank base.
So there we have it a vicious set of alternatives and scenarios, none of which are palatable. Brought about by crooks, charlatans,
greedy fools, the uneducated,
the unwary and the uncaring. Governments, regulators and the public service were asleep at the wheel. They bleat that no one could have predicted what we have now. That is quite simply not true.
Correspondence flows into government offices and parliamentarians every day. It is read cursorily by people with limited lateral thinking, experience and knowledeg.
The governments, their advisers and the public servants and the experts simplt did not look, read or take notice. They still will not. Their egos and positions are blocking the
dialogue and the communication.
If the government does not reduce debt quickly
what will happen?
|
Why don't they get it? Everything is over priced!
Read what is
coming? Reality.
Australia is over regualted by zealots in the bureaucracy and our major infarstructure is
subject to gaming.
The bureaucrats are paranoid about competition and access. They create false markets and
barriers to investment and growth. They are stifling the nation at state and federal level. That will
have to change.
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January 25, 2009: The Fallacy of Endless Growth
Economists, politicians and investors keep talking of returning to economic growth when the
current(2009)depression ends as if it is quite soon. What if we are still in this mess in five years? The seeds of the proposition (theory)
of endless growth were sown in 1971 the Americans and driven by
their self belief and massive commercial engines.
"The American people have been told by no less an
authority than the President's Council of Economic Advisors that, "If it is agreed that economic output is a good thing it
follows by definition that there is not enough of it" (Economic Report of the President, 1971, p. 92). It is evidently impossible
to have too much of a good thing. If rain is a good thing, a torrential downpour is, by definition, better!
Has the learned council forgotten about diminishing marginal benefit and increasing marginal costs?" (source: STEADY-STATE ECONOMICS
By Herman Daly,
Chapter 5: A Catechism of Growth Fallacies
"The part played by orthodox economists, whose common sense has been insufficient to check their faulty logic,
has been disastrous to the latest act." (J. M. Keynes, 1936).
Consumerism became the centre of the theory and this requitred a focus on monetary policy. The consumer is required to spend forever, rather than save,
so the theory attacked the savings and superannuation basics. Some countries such as Australia had politiical leaders who could take a helicopter view, Paul Keating, Australia's Treasurer,
for example. The labor government of Hawke Keating brought in mandatory contributions to super. However Keating knew the level of 9% was not enough.
John Howard, and Peter Costello, by comparison did not and so spending has outsripped savings.
Governments (run by rating agencies who scare them with bogus AAA ratings and whose predictions and assessments were, and are still,
spurious) babbled on about surplus. This was, and still is, according to the free enterprise proponents, preferable to investment in public assets.
Privatisation cannibalised the asset base of countries in search of never ending profits.
Governments embraced the privatisation and "public private partnerships" voodoo put about by the
masters of the financial universe - consulting firms and investment banks. They too cast the bones, and spoke voodoo.
Underneath all of this sat the theory of developing economies and consumer aspirant demand. Places like India and China with huge populations clamouring to reach the
American consumer dream and have the feckless technologies of the
Ipod, MP3 players, the latest phone, the talking rock and the ever better devices, cars and symbols of wealth. The poor, well they could get credit and aspire. The second plank was productivity.
There could be no wage rises threatening profirs unless there was a countering productivity trade off. Voodoo theorists love this. Public servants, human resource managers and con artists at the management level
created measuring systems and did what good staticians do, they created the result that management, politicians, the ratings agencies and the markets wanted. The third foundation was to create new financial instruments because finance, services and trinkets would be
the new economic growth machines, not manufacturing. At one instance, in the late nineties fools prophecied that the "www - internet" would
reshape us all, replace reality, bricks and mortar. There was the tech wreck, in the late nineties, which might have warned the average but in the convoluted and
mosaical structure of the new paradigm the warning was lost. The finance sector grew hundreds of times faster than any other. The world casinos of the stock exchanges were pumping. We were driving our economic machines in the red zone day after day.
Then they invented the risk reduction platform. This took very bad debts, investments and the poor credit stuff and sliced each into slivers.
These slivers were put with mediocre, and some better performing slivers. The
aggregate would thus spread the risk to minimal proportions. The theory was that the risk could never be realised in catastrophic terms.
If any failure occurred then only a sliver to two would be affected.
massive capital amounts were hoarded (hedge funds) and used to manage and play the stock casinos. Short selling to make a profit was rampant.
Justification was that short selling exposed flaws in the value of enterprise and that it exposed porr performers. This was all nice and good if
everyone playing the market knew this. Many investors were self appointed personal game players enthralled by their new electronic access to the stock exchanges.
Trading became a challenge and a pass time enhancing socila position, conversation and sometimes wealth.
Huge bonuses, and the demands of poorly educated, and greedy, investors turned management to the short trem. CEO's and Borads that challenged market theory, the voodoo economics, the
mantra of surplus and the driving at high speed and revving were dispensed with. The demographics of stupidity, that is the population is a pyramid, with the brightest and smallest sector at the top, had sway. One could be both rich and stupid on a scale that would ultimatley bring the
whole lot down.
Today, in 2009, we have all of the above in play intertwined with theories and practices, that are reasonable, or bunkum in part or whole.
- The consumer is king and that if we give the consumer
money they will spend and we will return to normal, they way it was
- Business needs endless supplies of credit and living within the means of income and expenditure is not a worthy objective because that stifles growth
- All governments must have surplus
- saving stifles growth and mandatory superannuation at 15% is by inference bad because it increases costs of employers
- It is better to have a buisness operating to employ people on some wort of wage rather than not operating at all
- Corporations are real persons with real rights and the corporation muts be protectdd at all costs
- Monetary theory and fiddling interest rates trumps fiscal (Keynesian) theory and practice
- ratings agencies are the fount of all knowledge and governments should dance to their tune
- Politicians should be paid less than people in the private sector because the latter are worth more as a public benefit
- banks are pivotal and the bankers are, as above, experts, worth more and generally right
- Privatisation trumps public ownership
- Institutions, acdemics and the chattering classes, should be marginalised particularly by governments.
- Training in shallow competencies, short skills, and business demanded scope, prepares a nation for growth and challenges
So we need to examine all of the above and any I have missed that are pertinent. While doing this we need to challenge
the foundations, theories and practices and beliefs that underpin the way we work in society and the mosaic.
"To ascertain the state of an economy most analysts rely on a statistic called GDP (Gross Domestic Product). This statistic is constructed in accordance with the view that what drives an economy is not the production of wealth but rather its consumption. In short, what matters here is demand for final goods and services.
Since consumer outlays are the largest part of overall demand, it is consumer demand that sets in motion
economic growth — so it is held. ... By focusing exclusively on final goods and services the GDP
framework lapses into a world of fantasy where goods emerge because of people’s desires. This is in total
disregard to the facts of reality i.e., the issue of whether such desires can be accommodated. All that matters on this view is
the demand for goods, which in turn will give rise almost immediately to their supply. Because the supply of goods is taken for
granted this framework completely ignores the
whole issue of the various stages of production that precede the emergence of the final good....
However, it must be realised that at no stage does the so-called “economy” have a life of its own independent of individuals. The so-called “economy” is a metaphor — it doesn’t exist.
Through lumping the values of final goods and services together government statisticians concretise the fiction of
an economy by means of the GDP statistic. Furthermore, by regarding the “economy” as something which exists in the real world
mainstream economists reach a bizarre conclusion that what is good for individuals might not be good for the “economy” and vice versa.
Since the “economy” cannot have a life of its own without individuals obviously what is good for individuals cannot be bad for the economy.
The GDP framework cannot tell us whether final goods and services that were
produced during a particular period of time are a reflection of real wealth expansion, or on account of capital consumption....
We can thus conclude that the GDP framework is an empty abstraction devoid of any link to the real world.
Notwithstanding this, the GDP framework is in big demand by governments and central bank officials since it provides
justification for their interference with businesses.
It also provides an illusory frame of reference to assess the performance of government officials. "
(source: Is GDP an economic fallacy? Dr Frank Shostak, BrookesNews.Com, Monday 3 September 2007).
FALLACY 1,
U.S. Goods Cannot Compete Effectively with Those Produced by
Cheap Labor in Countries Such as China
FALLACY 2,
Immigrant Labor Confers Economic Benefits on the Host Country
FALLACY 3,
Globalization Acts to Raise Living Standards in the West
FALLACY 4,
Countries Forming a Common Market Reap Economic Benefits
FALLACY 5,
Rent Controls are Necessary during a Housing Shortage
FALLACY 6,
The Fact That Womens Earnings are Significantly Below
Those of Men Is Evidence of Discrimination
FALLACY 7,
A Reduction in Building Costs Will Reduce House Prices
FALLACY 8,
Jobs Are Lost When a Factory or Business Closes Down, and Vice
Versa
FALLACY 9,
A Competitive Private Enterprise Economy Tends to Produce
Economic Efficiency
FALLACY 10,
A Subsidy to University Education is Justified Since it
Promotes Equality of Opportunity and Confers Benefits on
Society as a Whole
FALLACY 11,
The National Debt Is a Burden on Future Generations
FALLACY 12,
Inflation Is Caused by an Excessive Increase in the Supply of
Money
FALLACY 13,
The Rate of Economic Growth Over Time Is a Good Index of the
Growth of Peoples Satisfaction
(Source of the fallacies above: Thirteen Persistent Economic Fallacies, E. J. Mishan
ISBN: 0-313-36605-5, ISBN-13: 978-0-313-36605-5, DOI: 10.1336/0313366055, Praeger Publishers
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January 20, 2009: SO WHAT WILL THEY DO?
The world governments will have to buy the debt of a large section of the world population
with regard to
home ownership, perhaps credit, and other core items which are bankrupting economies. The governments should not buy 100% but they can buy the
differential between what the house is actually worth and the
unsustainable value they paid less any funds/convertible assets they may hold.
The basis of the decison as to how cuh should be the economic evaluation of the
multiplier of what a house is worth in the average suburb. It is worth 5 - 9 times the annual average income. Thus a person who earns $50,000 should be able to buy a house
valued at $250.000 to $450,000 maximum. One house, not two and not houses for investment. Those who bought for investment and not for living should
not have their excess debt proportion paid. This is not a concept this is what the governments of the world will have to do.
As for shares and other instrumenst they were all overpriced.
They will not return to where they were and will be probably 50% of the values we have seen during the boom years.
International banks are withdrawing renewal of loans to Australian businesses. Since the banks are do not have the billions to replace those funds the government will have to turn to
the superannuation funds. They too have been hard hit. The rules will have to be changed to allow funds to make loans and investments.
Coupled with this will have to be a series of supporting measures.
- The mandated contribution from salary and wages must rise by at least 1.5% preferably 3%, providing a wider capital base to offset risk.
- The funds must charge a premium for the risk and service of 0.25% to 0.50% above market rates the international banks may have provided
- Federal, and state, governments must enter into a partnership to provide guarantees protecting peoples' superannuation
- Lower the fedral government 15% tax contribution rate or abolish it and provide incentives for people to take cash annuities and not lump sums when they want to retire
- Provide incentives for people to stay in the workforce
- The Australian community at large needs to be developed for tourism instead of a focus on the coastal regions and major cities.
The market segments overseas require greater srutiny to match destination and experience to the segnments.
Mass marketing advertismenets are not effective.
The Australian regional travel infrastructure, facilities and services, to take tourists to outer communities is very poor and over priced.
The services are low grade. State governments have faield to build rail lines or closed them in a corrosive impact on development and a stupid fixation with surplus as it suits their political agenda. Now surplus is irrelevant as they face annihilation.
Places like Port fairy and Warrnambool, Ballarat, Cowra, Kyneton,
Camberra, Cooma, inland from the coastal regions, the coast of South Australia, Margaret River, Cable Beach, Mornington Peninsula,
the wilderness of the Northern Territory and Queensland and the outback are gems that are wasted through neglect, poor resource allocation,
by myopic policy, investment and decision making.
Vested interests are controlling and stifling development, opportunity and innovation.
There is a great gap between the incentive, and capacity, of communities with many remainng in the doldrums and others steaming ahead on their
initiatives and talents using what they have with effect, on small, medium and larger scales. Others suffer internal restrictions e.g Swan Hill,
Bega on the south coast of New South wales or Portland in Victoria, where
industry has branded the town and is seen as the economic dominance with tourism, food and
hospitality relegated down the list. There is actual antipathy to tourists in some places.
- The Bendigo Community Bank concept needs greater expansion, and support, from Austarlia's governments.
- The stranglehold Qantas has on air travel needs to be broken by government decision to open up markets and locations.
Incentives for others to come in quickly must be provided
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January 18, 2009: Federal parliamentarian
Joe Hockey
would be a good
Premier for NSW in 2011
or sooner, if the good labor members of NSW parliament were to
resign on mass as an altrusitic public interest gesture.
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January 10, 2008: What is
coming
in the next three to six months that will impact Australia and its governments?
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January 6, 2009: Australia's Treasurer, Wayne Swan, says that Australian banks are all top notch. But are they all in the same
condition and do we know everything?
Australia's banks are not all that forthcoming about their status and particularly their exposure to calamity for example
sub prime and securitised instruments. Not all four big banks (National Australia, Commonwealth, Wespac and Australia and New Zealand Bank are surely not all in the same
rosy situation. Is one of them keeping something from us? We will know very soon which it is and what it is. Could it be the Board, and management,
fear a response from consumers,
or a political reaction under the Australian government deposit gaurantee? Are all of the Australian banks operating their loan books
to the full capacity or is one, or more, not lending all that much? Is the economy being oiled by the Australian government and
not by the banks as well?
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January 2009: Elusions, delusions and a glass of Sherry
Some years ago, Senator and federal Minister
Nick Sherry
went through a dark patch in his life. He recovered and went on to
become a federal Minister in the Rudd Labor government. The Senator is responsible for the vital portfolio that covers superannuation. It is not clear
why he is qualified to hold this portfolio since he has not demonstrated a demonstrable vision, let alone an understanding of the criticality of the role that
super plays in the economic landscape of Australia beyond providing money for retirement.
Nick Sherry is a member of the tribe that openly reviled, and dismissed, Paul Keating's blue print for Australia's future using superannuation as the
pivotal tool. Following the defeat of the Keating labor government a spineless, and decrpeit labor party, cowered when anyone barke at them.
They were, and are a sad lot. Perhaps Bill Kelty alone is the epitome of loyalty. He was, and is, like Keating, a deep critical thinker. That is abnormal in Australian politics and society
in general. There is a myth that the Australian voter is sophisticated in their political assessment. That is simply rot. Barely 5% of the nation's population creates everlasting and beneficial change.
There are dills earning large amounts of money on all sides of politics, business and community. They occupy positions of power, and influence, and some (like John Howard and peter Costello)
do ever lasting damage, no matter how the spin doctors and acquiescent media dress up history.
When John Howard broke his promise to migrate the current system above an employer required 9% contribution, Nick Sherry and
his labor colleagues were mute. Not every employer contributes. The employer contribution is not only mandated in awards.
All other employers put it in as part of the annual
monetary (salary) package. A lot of people are funding the compulsory contribution themselves up front.
As the private sector debt ballooned, Howard and Costello played the entrenched promotion of political self interest, and political bile and bastardry,
ahead of the public interest.
Despite their crude efforts, and the lack of will of the labor party to challenge them, industry super funds blossomed.
Vested interests, ably supported by the liar spin doctors (parasites) of the
public purse that inhabit Ministers offices, tried desperately to destroy the foundation of Keating and Bill Kelty's creation - compulsory
contributed superannuation. When Nick Sherry was spokesperson, before the Rudd government came to power, he did little to challenge this bastardry of the power collective.
He really is a poor performer hidden away in the government spin doctor machinery.
One trillion dollars of investment potential was created in a little over decade. It might have been $1.5 trillion if not for the myopia of Howard and his Treasurer.
As Howard and Costello trumpeted their attack on public sector debt, in the back room $A600,000,000,000 shackled the nation.
Howard came to office on the back of the foolishness of the Reserve bank of Australia which put interest rates up, crippling growth.
Bill Kelty, a member of the RBA, during Keating's Prime time as Prime Minister, opposed the interest rate rise. Today history may judge him as the most intelligent member of that
Reserve Bank of Australia, Board. The RBA is given to much credence, and pumping up, by
politicians and an unenquiring media. The sport of predicting a new rate movement has become the primary motivation of commentators.
They, the RBA, totally failed to
to anticipate the financial tsunami.
Perhaps even more critical, for the nation, they (the RBA, the labor party, media, commentators and most of the voting
population) failed to grasp, comprehend and embrace, Paul Keating's vision,
just as Nick Sherry appears to have failed to grasp the importance of the level of contribution to
superannuation. All that Rudd has is the surplus and that is in itself fictional too.
Sherry and the labor government need to come to terms with the criticality of the balance between savings and consumption.
When to save and when to spend. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd may have been gullibly
sucked into spending $A10 billion of the public's money on a Christmas splurge.
The current
(false) assumption is that the economy can be saved by spending. The second (false) assumption is that there can be constant growth. The third is that monetary policy is
a panacea tool to rectifying problems and changing behaviour or at least modifying it.
Altering the cash rate is tinkering and the amount of interest (monthly payments) by home buyers, and its effect on the economy,
is over stated and definitely over emphasised.
Treasurer Wayne Swan may yet turn out to be a hidden visionary, grasping knowledge of the more complex issues that his colleague Minister
Sherry does not demonstrate. The employee contribution into superannuation must increase. It must increase in 2009 and soon. It must go to 10% immediately and then to 12% and to 15% and then 25% by end of 2010.
The proposition that the nation cannot afford this is a demonstrable lack of understanding of the facets of the real economy
and a failure in complex thinking and analysis. Federal Treasury, under Ken Henry, is not a shining example of critical, lateral and visionary thinking. The media and analysts have not
picked up on the mediocrity of his stewardship of Treasury and the constant failure to accurately predict. Politicians, and bureaucracy, is a self interested club in which the media (press gallery) are willing and complicit players.
Let us observe if the Prime Minister has the fortitude to challenge the club and break from past practice.
Nick Sherry cannot be left in charge if superannuation unless he offers an intelligent vision and plan.
In the near future China will revalue its currency. It must turn inward, quickly, to domestic investment and stop selling cheap
(exchange manipulated) exports on the world market. If it does not then its people will suffer and many may even starve. There is growing unrest.
The revaluing will cause a major problem for Australia (particularly commodities) not to mention the rest of the world.
The proposition that India, and China, are the power houses of the future that can shield Australia (even the world) is another myth peddled by
experts.
There will be a revaluation of rents in Australia as property values fall, quite dramatically. They will not fall by 6% as some forecast but in some areas by 10% and in other areas property will plummet,
in February and March 2009, by 25% perhaps, in some localities, more. A large number of real estate agents (2,000+) and financial planners (3,000+) will lose their jobs.
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December 2008: Telstra CEO, and Board, gamble with wrong Minister
He bites
Below in this web site I raised the question, what is it that Senator Conroy does, as Minister for
Telecommunications and the Arts? I should have done more research and I would have discerned that the qualities of a politician to be a Minister in a government
may have little to do with actually understanding the portfolio and in the case the technology. It has more to do with the underlying political skill.
Stephen Conroy is a seasoned political bare knuckle labor party machine man from Victoria. He cut his teeth on the taking and givng what the
pwoer brokers of the party and the apparatchiks had to deliver. By comparison Sol Trujillo, the imported CEO of Telstra, and its Board members, are pussies.
For years now Telstra's management have thrived on arrogance and ignorance, adopting a thuggish aproach to customers, competitors and to
government. Now, when it comes down to the wire they have played a very poor strategy. The expert panel, established by the Minister, to asess the offers
to build Australia's national broadband network have notified Telstra that they are out of the bid.
The CEO, Mr Trujillo says he is not worried because he can go back to the negotiating table. The media echoes this poor judgement.
Mr Trujillo and his advisers seem oblivious to the probity and rules of the Australian government tendering system and processes. These are jealously guarded by
public servants and there will be no coming back to the table. Instead the Board will now have to strategise completely differently and try and keep Telstra
together. Senator Conroy's skill lies in the surgical reconstruction of those who may think they are players in his world.
Telstra's domination of the Australian
telco market has just ended. Senator Conroy is likely to dismantle their play ten taking away their national railway train sets. The transmission network they use
to bludgeon everyone. It happned in electricity in Victoria so why not try it in telecommunications? Quite logical and economically and socially viable, in fact good or the
country.
The Board now has to look to
CEO's tenure
to save their political, and commercial, hides and personal reputations.
I no longer need to ponder what it is that the
Honourable Senator does, I now know. Senator Minchin, a former Ministe of the Howard government should keep quiet and not clamour on about
rubbishing the Minister remonstrating about Telstra having to be in the
future negotiatioons least the spotlight fall on his own performance as the Minister for Industry and Scinece and his failed Light Metals Strategy.
When Telstra barked at the Howard government they (the Minister Helen Coonan and the Cabinet) whimped it and cringed off. Senator Conroy,
on the other hand, discussed it with the cabinet and the Prime Minister, and then bit them.
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December 2008: The Australian labor government unveils climate change
ETS scheme
As the Prime Minister took the podium and announced the carbon plan in Australia the
audiuence was hushed. He stated the targt and
a woman screamed hysterically. He rude tirade adequatleuy depicts why the greens and
the extreme environmentalists are not taken seriously in the parliament and ultimatley in the places where decisions are made.
Armed with nothing more than rampant ideology and fed oxygen by an uninformed, unenquiring media,
tshe is a forerunner of what is to come. Security is being boosted around Australia's major emission generators.
The Australian government plan calls for a minimum 5%
reduction in greenhouse emissions within a range up to 15% by 2020.
The 5% is easily achievable for Australia's energy generators including brown, and black coal, power stations. There
need be no major cost increase upon consumers becaue of this scheme but they
will try and use this to increase their revenue charges claimimg the
ETS
as a justification. The energy regulators, in the states and the National Electricity Market,
will need to be well versed and also be vigilant.
In Victoria Australia the largest generation base is in the brown coal laden Latrobe Valley. Here the greatest
impost may occur because brown coal is
one of the hardest fuels to burn. The effeciency of power stations varies but is at the low end.
Economics plays a big role in decisions and one power station may opt for
megawatts output, when they refurbish turbines and boilers, with trade offs against efficiency
because they want to make money from the electricity market. It is efficiency that will affect the emissions.
One of the oldest stations in the Valley has markedly improved its efficiency.
At the other end of the scale it appears that one of the generators hardly tries to improve efficiency.
Perhaps the owners are not inclined to spend money?
One issue that must be addressed in the oevrall national approach is to bring the disparate state scehemes into kine or shut them down.
There is much inconsistency between the states and their schemes and within this is volatility, and morbidity, of the price
of credits. The NSW gas scheme has seen the value of a tonne of carbon offset drop from
$A14.00 to about $A5.00 due to very poor regulatory oversight and general gaming. For example
the replacement of traditional light bulbs with new incandescent globes.
Working the system has enabled the
price of credit to be impacted due to the timeframes allowed for the globes impact in to the market.
There is low, if any,
inducemnet to invest in renewables as credit unit values have declined there also.
There was a rush by state government agencies, without adequate planning and understanding, to get into the trendy emisssions trading market.
It was sexy and new. These failures and poor management must be avoided. The state public services cannot be relied upon to be innovative or at the
cutting edge. The capping of a tonne at $A40.00 under the
Australian government plan provides a valuable guide when looked at in terms of the context.
Now we can wait for the bleating, misrepresentation, gaming and
cries of foul and threats to emanate.
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BAD LUCK KEV AND WAYNE
Strategy of giving the low income earners a cool $A10
billion to spend for Christmas will fail
What an irony. The whole failure of the world
systems of capitalism, banking and commerce, resulted form the unbridalled spending by those who could
not afford it. Monetary policy alone has failed as an instrument and yet the Reserve Bank of Australia and the current
federal government of Kevin Rudd continue with the fantasy and lowering interest rates.
Perhaps they have not counted? There are far more people earning income from
deposits and investments, now having their interest cut, than there are people with mortgages that can be altered. Is the Austra;lian government Treasury
actually that incompetent that it cannot count and is the Reserve Bank that myopic? Do they think that lowering interest rates
flows on anywhere effectively?
Only a mix of fiscal Keynesian methodologies and monetary policy may work. And one supposes that is the
objective of Kevin Rudd and the team in exhorting the recipients to go on a spending spree. What about those who have money? Lots of it.
Do Kev and wayne think they are a shoo in? Typical labor party narrow sighting. Hit the ones who can least afford it and con them.
Malcolm Turnbull, and the federal opposition, are totally irrelevant here. Their probems are not the National Party and Barnaby Joyce. He is highly regarded as a conviction pollitician.
The others are not. M. Turnbull needs to get an idea, or two, to offer to help Prime Minister Rudd, and his team,who seem to be
supported by a public service devoid of any ideas or accurate analytical capabilities and private sector associations that are seemingly
as inept and devoid of analytical and thoughtful talent.
So what will happen when the money arrives in the bank accounts of the recipients? Well they will spend, and shock horror,
a thousand retail outlets will still close across Australia, a multi dozen of car dealers will still close and thousands of people will
still be out of jobs in early 2009. The experts at the helm of the major enterprises and the Australian government Treasury
have demonstrated the limits of their skills.
Everyone is a champion in the power collective of government, and business, when all is well. Then when it all goes to hell they are
still champions, and experts, to be listened to.
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CODE OF CONDUCT NOT NEEDED IF PARLIAMENTARIANS UNDERSTAND ETHICS
AND POSSESSED A
MORAL COMPASS
The speaker of the federal parliament, Harry Jenkins, has opined that there may be a need for a code of
conduct for Australian federal parliamentarians. This haas come about as a result of the actions of labor party member,
James Bidgood.
Mr Bidgood was elected to parliament in November 2008 and is from Queensland.
He photographed a man threatening to immolate himself within the precinct of parliament house and negotiated to supply the media with the photograph.
I would argue that there is no need for a code of conduct if people actualy had
ethical values
and possessed a moral compass. It appears that there is a decline in ethical values and an understanding of fundamental behaviours.
Democracy is a double edged sword. Every citizen of age has a right to vote for a representative in their parliaments. Thus we wil have a cross section of membership.
Similarly the political parties will have a cross section. Liberal party politician Joe Hockey seems to think that Mr. Bidgood is not fit for parliament and this would fly in the face of
the basic proposition set out above. James Bidgood might be viewed as strange and ignorant of some fundemantals
" LABOR MP James Bidgood, the first-time MP under investigation for selling pictures of a protestor attempting to set fire to himself outside Parliament House, has declared the global financial crisis an act of God.
Mr Bidgood, who was carpeted by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd over his actions yesterday and apologised to Parliament, makes the new claims in a DVD.
In a speech to a function held in Parliament he argues that Christian marches for Jesus in London caused the October 1987 stock market crash.
He also predicts the end of the world and one world monetary system.
"I believe when Christians pray, God does things. I believe what is happening today is as much to do
with God in economics bringing judgement," he said.(Source: Courier Mail.com.au,December 04, 2008 02:30pm)
"I believe there is God's justice in action in what is going on here. We haven't seen the end of it.
The ultimate conclusion is like I say, we look at Bible prophecy, we are going towards a one world
bank and a one world monetary system. And if you believe the word of God and you read Revelations...you will
see clearly what is being spelt out. We are in the end times." (Source: The Australian On Line Newspaper, Samantha Maiden,
Online Political Editor | December 04, 2008)
Being strange does not necessarily designate someone as unfit for parliament and Mr Bidgood's views may be off the wall but there are people who
probably believe what he says. Mr Bidgood no doubt causes problems for the Prime Minister. How Mr Bidgood
analyses, researches facts and votes on issues may bear questioning and deep examination. Should he be denied sitting in parliament or be expelled from the labor party? The former is not an option and the liberal party's
cant can be ignored. The latter would not seem an option either. To expel Bidgood would necessitate looking at the sanity, and modus operandi, of
other religious believers that sit in our parliaments including the Prime Minister. As for ethical values, Mr Bidgood is not all that different to a large number of members of Australian state parliaments
particularly labor party members of the
NSW parliament.
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JULIE BISHOP - A CONFUSING PERSON IN AUSTRALIA'S FEDERAL PARLIAMENT
Ms Julie
Bishop
is the Deputy Leader of the Australian liberal (opposition coalition) in the
federal parliament an the shadow treasurer. She is a former Minister of the Howard government. One might have thought that a lawyer/barrister and former managing partner of Clayton Utz in
perth might be a bit of a star in the world of politics. Yet there is no striking elements of her previous Ministerial activities or current performance that lend itself to that
proposition. Most recently (November 2008) in parliament question time she harped upon how
Kevin Rudd had stated that he was a fiscal conservative, or some such piece of typical (meaningless) rhetoric,
when he was electioneering. This was a waste of
question time which is not unusual in Australia's parliaments. Politicians (particularly the government side of the day) rig the operation of parliaments to their self interest, not public benefit.
Now he is having to spend the surplus and the budget might go into deficit. This seems to fixate with Ms Bishop.
She offers no deeper analysis or critique other than
failed attempts at attempt at ridicule. Perhaps she might plagiarise other material and use it in her attacks in parliament to beef them up.
Ms Bishop might look to another career other than politics. It is not clear why she should enjoy such
senior roles
in the Australian federal liberal party.
Her time as Shadow Treasurer is
almost up
and Malcolm Turnbull, the leader must look to putting a new face on the front bench.
It cannot be all that difficult to confront the Treasurer Wayne Swan, whose stmbling arguments mixed with garrulous, unenlightening and tortuous meandering, leaves great gaping holes in his
credibility as an effective economic manager. The proposition that Andrew Robbis suited to the shadow Treasury role raises the
assessment process used in politics and the criteria that denotes capability. Mr. Robb is a strategist who delivered the government to John Howard in the past.
His performance as a Minister in the Howard government, most notably his citizenship test and generally displayed lack of compassion for refugees and people seeking a abtter life may well have
equipped hom for the inner circle of John Howard, Alexander Downer, Peter Reith, Phillip Ruddock and the oike but there was little evidence of a
high performance in a Ministerial role.
The quality that does stand out for Treasuer Wayne Swan is his persistence in the face of rodicule and criticism. There is no doubt that he applies himself diligently and passionately to the task
There is evidence that he may grow into the role. In the interim his struggle along that pathway is excruciating to watch and to listen to. The substance is yet to come. In that regard (substance)
he is not alone. The Prime Minister has spruiked volumes of hollow rhetoric and motherhood.
Maybe labor and liberal are not all that far apart in specific characteristics.
The personal view of performance tends not to take into accountbtheir hidden and less obvious roles as representatives of which many if not all are very good.
My annoyance and derisive criticism is fueled by the operation, and manipulation, of parliament. And the archaic mandate where the respective
leader requires the resignation of a
person from a role because they cross the floor and vote their constituent's will. This requirement smacks of an arrogant fiefdom that corrodes our parliaments.
.
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OOPS WE MISSED IT! THE AUSTRALIAN COMPETITION AND CONSUMER COMMISSION
November 2008: Note the juxtaposition of words that emphasise importance. Competitions erves the con sumer.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) headed up by Chairman Mr Samuel, is to my mind a fraud and needs reforming with a new laterla thinking (non clubby)
independent Chairman. The ACCC has focused on cases like prosecuting package manufacturers that have
ripped what? $A700M off consumers
All very admirable. The ACCC have been keen to support fuel watch,
grocery watch and have cast aspersions on the integrity of some of the retailers of food and groceries in their enquiry and castigated farmers.
Meanwhile the Federal Court of Australia has dais that there is nothing wrong with petrol sellers ringing around to get prices
and thus the ACCC it seems is worthless against the
big refiners and oil companies. So what about all of that? Well people, with jobs, can probably pay for all of the rorts
and the petrol prices but what happens if they cannot work in order to get money to pay for those rorts? What happens if the second person in afamily ot the second parent cannot work because there is no childcare? They lose and they go on welfare and we lose.
The ACCC allowed ABC Learning to dominate so mcuh of the child care market in Australia
that when they collapsed, in November 2008, the effect is that parents may not get child care to work and thus cannot pay for
the rorts.
So which was the more important of the ACCC's watches? The ACCC did not get it and ABC was allowed to become the major and now
... it is broke and some of its centres are running at a loss. So who is to blame, the past or present governments?
No, I would say the Chairman, the Commissioners and the Management of the Australian Competition and Consumer
Commission. They allowed ABC to grow and swallow and did not sound a whistle. So spare me the accolades for the ACCCC
and reappointment of the Chairman. The current world crisis is demonstrating the real talent and capabilities of all of the big names in industry, commerce and institutions.
All of them are real flash when it is going swimmingly but when the veritable hits the fan what are they like and how do they perform for the money?
They do not seem to fit the media profile do they? Then they come to government cap in hand - bail us out please, please, it is not our fault ...
give us tax payer money or the whole world will end tommorrow!!!! Gee we didn't know
or
we did not research and get it...!
The combined hymn echoes through Australia's parliamentary corridors, "We are the kings of commerce and industry,
hey, but we are the experts, we know what to do,
we have learnt a lesson and we can reform ... we can be really new and
on top of it .... here are the solutions .... among other things we the ACCC, now know not to let a child care provider have that
much of the market. Sorry about that lapse it will not happen again, promise. Let's see, hey, give
us money and we will fix it? $A22Million of tax payer funds to help ABC Learning look after kids so parents can work to pay the rorts we cannot fix or have discovered .
That's a good number until Christmas. Excellent.. thanks ...
Is Prime Minister Kevin Rudd part of that power collective club and easily manipulated by smooth talking? I do not think he is and nor is Deputy Prime Minister and Minister Julia Gillard.
(Kevin R Beck)
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ABANDON SHIP SHE'S GOING DOWN
New South Wales and Australia
November 2008: The
NSW government is going to take the state
down and then Australia with it. The slide and scope is
predicted here.
So why can't the government giving $A10 billion to people stop this?
Simply there are too many retail outlets and centres per head of population and they must be cut loose to be
culled by the realities of the market.
Next the pool of talent occupying our businesses, governments and agencies is too narrow and lacking in the necessary skills to handle this situation. They are all
stars when the going is easy. So Australia must
tap its talent bank
quickly and draw on a wider base of thought, ideas, skills, experiences, lateral thinking and
contribution. Kevin Rudd's creation of a new web site to establish dialogue, will not do that. Nor will having a wet behind the ears
Chief of Staff with the exeperiences, and hard to determine capabilities. The Prime Minister's office is as
exciting as a cold cup of tea.
If you have had anything to do with any of the recruitment agencies and the
policy meanderings of the governments of Australia you will be aware that this is a mammoth task since they are oblivious to
this need.
They act as if there is a choice of candidates and a wide pool of talent to draw upon. The humna resource industry in Australia lacks
credibility, vision and capacity. The companies are suffering in the hands of people who are incapable of managing and leading. The nation
wil suffer dramatically for failing to value its human assets.
The older generation, across a wider sector of the nation, must be called back to arms.
Infrastructure spending should proceed a pace by all governments. John Brumby, Premier of Victoria, should carry his own weight instead of
bleating for a contribution
from the federal government. The lieks of Minister Tim Holding should get a grip on reality and think about his statement that if people want
new beaut water systems then they have to pay. The reason there are no adequate water systems in Victoria, and in Melbourne,
can be sheeted home squarely to the labor state government
and his colleagues. Now he lectures in his new portfolio, his last one was not a record of high achievement.
Why not dam the flooding rivers of East Gippsland, like the Mitchell River? That seems all too easy.
The government refuses to engage in a debate about that, so typical of the
nature of our governments and bureaucracies. Instead they want to take water from a parched area of the state.
Is this stupidity or do they know something that is not obvious to others? The
government, and the utility, prefer to engage in thuggery, allowing people to be arrested for asserting their voices and protesting.
What a flakey lot the labor state government Ministers of Victoria, NSW and the nation generally have turned out to be. Western Australia's new liberal government are emulating the model.
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LET'S NOT CHALLENGE THE PUBLIC SERVANTS
November 2008: There is a convention in the governments of Australia that the public servants are not
to e questioned openly as to their ethics, work capacity and value for money. The attack must be directed at the relevant Minister. This is quite frankly a systemised practice of corrosion and corruption of democracy and the
right of the people to know.
The Prime Minister rises, and fluffs himself up like a bantom rooster. he looks accusingly at the leader of the oppsoition and demands to know if he
is impugning the reputation of the head of Treasury. This man is now one of the most well known mandarins in the nation,
Dr. Ken Henry. he himself has been prone to becoming ruffled and precious when questioned vigorously and impugned in the Senate. The thing is that
Ken Henry gets a lot of money and he is not openly acountable and able to be examined except by the club.
The club is the public service secretaries and the head of Prime Minister and Cabinet.
He heads a department renowned for poor research and analysis. This is not remarkable, or exceptional, since the Australian Public Service's
research, knowledge and intelligence
gathering analytical capacity has declined and is now, in my view, sub standard. There are too many contract experts employed who are not expert.
They are paid millions. For example research Booz Allen and KPMG payments for their work on the Australian government Access Card which was
abandoned by labor becaus ethey thought the analysis was suspect. Labor Ministers and advisers would not actually know becaus ethe labor party itself has no high quality research and analysis other than
polling opinions. They employ spin doctors in lieu of anlaysts and quality practitioners.
The payments total, how muc? Fourty million, more? For no outcome.
Treasury has failed to get remotely close to the annual estimate of actual revenue, failed to even remotely
predict
any aspect of the current world financial fiasco (2008).
They have a growth rate predicted for 2% for Australia as at November 2008, when it should be about 1% or 0.9% negative for the first half of 2009.
They are, overall, a department that cannot be relied upon for accuracy and prescience. So why should the parliamentary members not question
the information and performance, the capacity and even the integrity of their work and tat of the Secretary.
Treasury's most recent reserach, and analysis, effort is the
Climate Change
economic
modelling.
The paper is an execercise in pure fiction. It predicts situations
some fifty years into the future, some ten years, some five and probably even tommorrow. It is laughable but also dangerous. Very dangerous.
Treasury has no credibility in predicting how much revenue the government will get from year to year, what the growth rate
and inflation rates will be from day to day.
It is a costly department that no doubt does other things than crystal ball, and palm, reading.
Perhaps they should concentrate on the real world and the
process services they undertake regarding machinery of government and leave
deeper research,
and analysis,
to others, who may have a better record.
It seems that government has at last cuaght up with my analysis.
Now given Treasury's record one might think that politicians, namely Ministers, would be wary? But not Ministers Penny Wong and Peter Garrett. They are creating policy frameworks and spruiking the story, waving the
Tresaury report. They are as credible as Treasury and I think both should be ignored. They have not yet figured out how, and who to engage,
in the debate.
They are two dangerous people, in Ministerial roles, creating a speculative future. The bantom rooster is right behind them.
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BIG INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, VESTED INTERESTS AND SENATOR WONG
The Australian government has huge information technology centres.
They are growing more, they breed like rabbits. The move to central architectures suits everyone particularly the vested interests. The very big computer companies. They
not only sell billions but also infest the Australian Public Sevice departments. Their server farms chew up energy and
emit greenhouse gases like there is no tomorrow.
So what will the Climate Change and Water Minister, Ms Penny Wong, and the Cabinet Ministers do in rleation to carbon trading
the EMS and limiting their own swarms?
Will they confront the ever growing monolith of the APS sever farms and the embedded infornmation technology giants and demand
that the public service, and the parasites on the public purse, cut back on the impost within the government and reduce their footprint?
Or will the public service be exempt in the public interest? I think the Minister and Cabinet will whimp it and the big corporates and internal interests will prevail.
Ministers Lindsay Tanner and Senator John Faulkner have already had a look at the cost of information technology and they know that it is
fruaaght with self interest and the maintenance of the status quo plus some. The growth of information technology in the public srvice is
an exercise in manipulation without being corrupt. It is a sweet thing. Cream for the big corporates. Bad luck for the tax payer.
But have the Ministers, and the Prime Minister, and State Premiers, and Chief Ministers of the territories, considered that
federal and state governments, and their agencies and the big information technology companies, within and without the public service,
(web service providers like Microsoft, Google, Telstra and Optus etc, and the big corporate computer installations in private and public corporations, universities,
are all
among the great polluters of the Australian economy
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RUDD, SWAN, HENRY AND INDIGNATION
"The Honourable Gentleman should not generate more indignation
than he can conviently contain." (Winston Churchill) So it was in the Australian federal parliament in the week of the 19 October 2008
when the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd responded to the leader of the Opposition's question regarding Dr. Ken Henry (head of the Treasury) and his advice to cabinet, with indignation.
Was it contrived, feigned or real? Who can tell? Politics is such a dishonest profession.
The Prime Minister does not have the stature, or eloquent turn of phrase, to carry off contrived indignation.
If he was truly
enraged then he needs to work on the presentation for it was lamentable and shallow.
He, the Treasurer Mr Swan and Doctor Henry had decided to gaurantee all bank deposits.
If these three did not know the outcome of that decision and its full impact then
they are deficit in their knowledge of the financial market and lateral thinking, or they re poorly advised and maybe
Treasury is inept. The latter, based on Treasury's past
record of analysis and predictions, is a high likelihood. There was a run on investment institutions.
Now the government is thinkng about imposing a fee for the
gaurantee. This still does not rectify the problem. The message from the government is that investment accounts are different to
bank deposits, but "we understand your pain". Truly?
Politicians are members of the elite. They are not battlers. The Prime Minister, Mr Swan and Treasurer Ken Henry enjoy substantial salaries and careers.
Such people are disingenuous when they say bthey understand the plight of pensioners.
Swan's first response was a usual limp one.
This man still has me wondering why he is thought to be qualified to be Treasurer? He stated that he was seeking ugent advice
from the regulators. There are a growing number of
people who think the Treasurer, Mr Swan, is not up to the task.
It is interesting how people in positions of power will claim full expertise when everything is going well. In the preelection campaigning Rudd made it unambigupous that he
thought he was the best man to perform miracles, keeping a lid on grocery and petrol prices, handling the coming diffocult times. Even though he was unable to
articulate what thos times might be. They will also say that if things become diffocult only they can
make the hard cecisions and will know what to do.
Really? They all now seem to have been found to be severely wanting when the abnormal hits the fan. Government Ministers, regulators, commentators, chiefs of industry and so on.
The politicians, the advisers, the public servants and the experts bleat that this is a unique set of events. That no one could have
predicted the events of the end of 2008.
This is not so. They simply did not,
others did
and wrote to the Ministers and the bureaucrats, and/or the media and/or published articles.
They were ignored. The external no bodies are always ignored.
We are now seeing the full extent of their lack of
competencies and in some cases their bluster and arrogance used to mask their failures. Empty rhetoric flows like the cow dung it is.
Now adays senior public servants like to give interviews and speeches but are incensed if they are challenged in the political arena.
Theye are incensed if they are questioned too robustly in the Senate. They like it both ways.
They play politics but are a - political. They hide behind a contrived code of conduct and a set of agreements and protocols.
This is pure theatre for the gullible and uninitiated.
Observing Dr. Henry in the Senate Estimates was an nothing more than an exhibition in body language and human behaviour. What are you implying Senator? Dr Henry lunged forward in his seat.
The Senator had said that the response had not rung true? Was the Senator casting aspersions on Dr Henry?
He seemed very precious as to his position.
One could be forgiven for forming the view that senior bureaucrats, particularly the mandarins of the
public service, have little regard for the process and the participants. There always to my mind is a veiled air of arrogance and even contempt displayed by senior federal
public servants, not only for politicians but for those they perceive as beneath their attention or not worthy of a meeting or even a reply.
"All political parties die at last from swallowing their own lies." John Arbuthnot, Scotland). Thus we see the decline of the liebrals first, at the federa;l level, and then labor across the states and territories.
The problem for Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan is that events are bringing their credibility decline forward at a rapid rate.
The opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull, is doing what all oppositions do.
He is "devoting his chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule, and both commonly succeed, and are right." (Mort sahl, US comedian). British Actor,
Patrick Murray, said "politicaisn are like nappies. They should be changed regularly". Unfortunately it is difficult to change the incumbents of Australia's politics since democracy has been
stolen from the people by the two major parties.
As for wayne Swan's clarifications, and responses, they are an exercise in tunnel digging. John Quintan a British political commentator said that when politicians see light at the end of the
tunnel, they order more tunnel." There appear to be no lights on in Mr Swan's tunnel systems. Democracy is the pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance (H.L Mencken, US political commentator) and the
ignorance is on display this week in Austra;lian federal politics and bureaucracy. When there is an expectation fo some momentuous statement, at the Press Club or in the parliament,
we wait with baited breath. We expect the ocean, we expect something big, something colossal, but we are served instead with some agitated water in a sucer (French criric Louise Schneider) and it is tepid water.
Now we wait for the brilliant policy response to the problems created by the government, for the private investment funds and the convoluted parroting of the spin lines.
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GILLARD TROTS OUT LABOR'S HOARY TRAINING THEORY
Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister for Education, Employment and some other huge portfolios,
Ms Julia Gillard has resported to labor's hackneyed proposition that
training is a salve, and solution, for people who become unemployed.
According to this theory the unemployed person accesses one of the many vocational education, and training (light weight -
quick fix, mediocre based) programmes which will somehow
provide them (miraculously) with new skills to get
a job in a completely different field of endeavour. This has been labor's ideological dream for some twenty years now. It has, among other things,
produced a nation of under educated, semi skilled workers who continue to be at risk of loss of employment every time there is a down turn.
It has helped fuel a growth in casual and part time employment. It has exacerbated Australia's decline in quality education and curriculum. Comptency baseed learning does not challenge
the development of deep critical skills and learning needed for career and sustainable employment
options but still Ms Gillard and the ideologs persist. This is
not an education revolution.
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LARGE NUMBER STILL OBLIVIOUS
Bank Preys Upon Consumers with New Credit Card
Perhaps the most striking of all the ignorance, or disregard, of the coming events is the issuance of new cred crads by Woolworths and the National Australia Bank.
Woolworths is offering no interest charges on its card until February 2009.
The NAB is offering a National Australia Bank
and Qantas(advertised October 18, 2008) frequent flyer linked card. Already Australians are amongst the highest users of credit cards in the world with up to 14.4% of many
peoples' net incomes devoted to
paying the interest on these
merchants of avarice.
The banks make a fortune on credit card fees and charges. They are viewed as being engaged in usery by those
who know the effects of this rampant issuance.
They prey upon the
weak and the desire for consumption.
Even as Kevin Rudd uses $A10 billion of public funds, and garantees deposits, in all banks the NAB sends its message of disregard and
ignorance. It wants Australians to binge even more. People want to get free travel and goodies and they spend. The card gives minimal reward points to lure.
Kevin Rudd should withdraw the gaurantee from the National Australia Bank if this is their attitude.
But we know this cannot happen. They are simply an ignorant lot to be publicly condemned. Maybe they are just unaware and silly.
It is very difficult for those who have ever lived through a recession to comprehend what is coming.
The youth of today have grown up with a paternalistic government that has told them that life was meant to be comfortable.
This has been reinforced by the
advertising of consumption. Spend, spend, spend.
Today, for our economy to function, everyone must spend and to reach the required level they must enter into debt. Debt is made to cheap to entice them.
If they pay down their debts and do not spend then we slide into calamity.
We have created a monster that controls our government and our daily lives. What alternative is there?
Is it necessary to have growth of 2% year after year? The government largesses has delivered a wonderful surprise to many people who would not have had the
resources to brighten their lives at Christmas. This money must be spent. Fortunately a large number of Australians have been trained to cosnume without a thought of tommorrow.
Still there are those who either do not get it or are prepared to punt. On a Saturday in October 2008 a woman, and her husband, bid for a house in melbourne. They pay $A30,000 above thye
vendor's hope.
They made the decision to sepnd an additional thirty grand because the Reserve Bank had reduced interest rates by 1% and they had heard there would be more cuts.
They made a bad call. Real estate agents across the countrty are still clinging to a dream past that the prices people have paid for houses in Australia reflect value and are the
benchmark upon which to go forward as if noothing bad is, or will be, happening. The houses sold in the past two to three years, are over[priced between 25% and 560%.
The single young worker is also oblivious to a great degree. Some in casual work or in unskilled employment are very worried.
However the young professional thinks that there is a blue sky all the way. Unemployment will rise towards 10% and forecolsures on houses will rise by 5% to 6%.
Even if people who bought the houses survive the loan storm their house will be valued below what they borrowed. Not some of them all of them.
Those who renovated will find that they have over capitalised. Rents will fall.
Mobile phone companies, and elecronics manuafcturers, game machine makers and the home entertainment
sellers all think that their sales will be maintained. The end of the love affair with technology is nigh. People will not be
able to afford them. Telstra's income will fall dramatically along with Optus and a phone company (probably 3G)
will disappear from Australia.
There is no saviour and the days of Keynes are upon us.
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MINISTER TALKS RUBBISH RE: GOVERNMENT WELFARE SMART CARDS (ACCESS CARD)
But so what! Alternative opinion falls on deaf ears.
Every year that the Rudd government does not introduce a
smart card
for social payments adds $A200 to everyone's financial bills not to mention the fraud and the possible savinmgs of tens of millions of dollars on the cost of
aged and anachronous information systems.
The Access card tender of 2007 - 2008 cost industry tens of millions but the publics ervice and politicians
dismiss this stupidity and waste as irrelevant. There is no onus on banks, and other enterprises, to introduce smart cards
whilst the government uses low level insecure methodologies which fail to protect public funds expenditure with the best available yechnology.
The government has swallowed a public service line that fraud can be reduced by tweaking internal paperwork and cumbersome information technology
systems. Smaret cards would attack the power base (control) of internal information technology divisions and incumbent external companies operating serviuces under contract on government agency premises.
Banks themselves maintain their
internal credit card checking systems, again under the control of information technology divisions, that are costly. They are charging these activities to customers.
Perhps the Minister does do not see the link between sound policy forcing innovation, and efficiency, across the nation on institutions that maintain the status quo for their exclusive benefits.
The labor policy is both myopic and
retarded in lateral thinking analysis.
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RUDD BREAKS MOULD THIS COULD BE A TURNING POINT
There has been extensive, and prolonged criticism, of the Prime Minister and his stytle of going about
government. The hallmark of his tenureship up to October 2008 was to arrange an enquiry and to proffer arduous convoluted expolanations with little substance action.
Then it all changed. In a decisiove show of leadership the Prime Minister moved to gaurantee all deposits in Australia's banking, building society and credit unions, for three years.
To also gaurantee insurance claims. No doubt spurred on by the calamity he made it quite unequivocal and clear. The Treasury should have
argued strongly that the original gaurantee of $20,000 was fraught with problems. Perhaps they did, who knows? In any event the Prime Minister did not prevaricate unlike his international counterparts who
stumble around listening to, and taking advice from, the collective that put the wolrd in the current predicament. In the United States the greed and avaraice of the Wall Street banker and
trader has been submerged. Yet they still participate salivating at the propistion of getting their hands on billions.
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SOME IDEAS AND CONTRIBUTIONS
A Government and bureaucracy out of touch with reality, lacking in awareness
The Rudd labor government seems to approach policy actions with a minimalist
effort going for the least risky or half hearted attempt to alleviate angst. This can be seen in their response to the inadequate pension rate having admitted they could not live on the weekly pension.
They come across as
half baked. For example take the bank deposit gaurantee. Mr Rudd announced that the government would gaurantee deposits for each person up to $A20,000. Then he had tio call a cabinet crisis meeting to
discuss not only world events as the Treasurer is overeas, but also discuss raising the gaurantee even before the legislation was dry on paper.
The government, Ministers and senior bureaucrats are somewhat out of touch miscalculating the outcomes of such a proposition. Those with more than $A20,000 would split the deposits between institutions.
The Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and Climate Change policies will have
to be revised and shelved for the time being. Water policy, is a patch work quilt of disjointed approaches, where states cannot agree, and is likely to fail in solving the crisis
in the short. medium and longer term. Build a dam on the Mitchell River, in Gippsland, stopping the flooding that ravishes the
community, and pipe water to Melbourne and into the Murray system.
The Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard talks of unemployment below 5% in the near future when in fact it will rise dramatically in 2009.
It will go to about 7% or 8% perhaps higher. There is an education revolution without the revolution.
Hyperbole, rhetoric and gobbly gook statements based on out of date information, poor modelling, assessment, and analysis,
by people with no experience of the world we are now seeing and or the one that they want to create.
It is not just the labor government, it is the Opposition also, under Malcolm Turnbull. It is a political system of government
where the parliament is neutered. It is
focused on point scoring, and self grandiosement, for poll results and game playing, sport for the media.
The spin doctors', and advisers', traditional methods are worthless now. Controlling the news cycle is passe'.
WHAT TO DO?
What if the government created an investment strategy to attract deposits into banks and other
approved funds, and allowed tax free status on the earnings?
Why is interest on bank savings taxed? Why are earnings on superannuation taxed? Get rid of these taxes.
Australia has an aging population and yet the policies of Austrlia's governments are predicated on
the middle aged and working classes. These policies have fuelled delusion and excessive debt and
a dependancy on government.
There are too many talented people excluded from participation in government, democracy and community.
The government could undertake a stock take of Australia's talent, not in the anonynmous sense but with targeted real
information gathering, seeking our
the
hidden human capacities.
The census can be modified to incorporate a separate qualifications, resume, skills, and experience,
section with an optional identity provision. This information can be fed into a database and indexed with keywords that enable governments and agencies rto seek out the hidden expertise and draw upon a wider talent base.
This may break down the stranglehold of limited participation and same old, same old, appointments and representatives on committees and studies.
Widen the
Senate and House Standing and Enquiry Committees to include citizens.
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CLIMATE AND WATER MINISTER PENNY WONG NEEDS TO GET REALITY CHECK
The Honourable Senator refuses to accept that the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) will not be starting in 2010.
In a lame response to the proposition that the current global financial crisis decalres an ETS dead in that timeframe she says that the
conditions and impacts of the crisis will be "factored in". How, using what methodology and approach. It is an easy throw
away line that may demonstrate a lack of awareness, and grasp, of the ramifications.
Climate Change
policies may be scientifically grounded, and driven, noble and altruistic
but they are also ideological and dangerous when taken in isolation. Many of the strident voices have been clamouring in the background for decades
unheard and ignored. Then suddenly they are given credence and coverage by the media and governments. Would they not use every tactic at their disposal to
ensure that their glory road is achieved? The Greens particularly, and the academics, trodden down under the Howard era of denigration are
now loosed upon society.
Are we to assume that
the Prime Minister is going to use his exceptional diplomatic skills to bring the world's major polluters, political and business interests on board?
Or will he, and his Ministers, ride over the abyss along with the nation?
Both Prime Minister Rudd, and Minister Wong, must be aware of the up front, out in the open opposition, and the covert
over the horizon forces of resistance
being marshalled to frustrate.
That these impacts, when they are not dfeined, or known, will be "factored in" is quite simply rubbish.
The Minister has to realise that she can dictate her position and even mandate, and move
along the pathway to, an ETS all she likes but if the support is not there then she is in dire straits.
There wil be no ETS in 2010 and the forces opposing her objectives are far more powerful than a Minister of a government.
The proposition of a $A20.00 per tonne carbon tax, within a manufactured bureaucratic model, is an act of sabotage of the Australian economy.
The track record of prefabricated theoretical models created out of the mind of bureaucrats is not good. One only has to examine the privatisation claims for benefits flwoing to the
Latrobe Valley and the citizens of Victoria from sale of their electricity assets, and the semi demi national electricity management model, to see this criticism played out.
The privatisation of public transport in Victoria and the general performance of the NSW bureaucracy reinforce the proposition that Australian bureaucracy is a dangerous entity.
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GAME HOTS UP AND IT IS MORE THAN CLIMATE
PRIME MINISTER IMPACTED BY THE MOSAIC COMPLEXITY
THERE WILL BE NO EMISSIONS TRADING SCHEME OPERATING IN AUSTRALIA BY 2010
October 1, 2008, the world economy has plunged into crisis.
This event was
foreseen by this commentator
over a year ago. However in the modern age one has to have the appropriate job title to be recognised
as a person to be believed or listened to. I have no such title. I am just a representative of a number of companies plying the
halls of politics and bureaucracy.
There are more prestigious card carriers in this domain.
Kevin Rudd's style of managing significant issues is indeed interesting and contrasts that of the
previous Prime Minister, John Howard. There is much debate in the media, and among commentators, around the rumours of bureucratic control, chaos and
lack of experience in the Prime Minister's office and in cabinet generally. There seems to be a majority of state based machine men, and women, being parachuted into the
key positoons of government. I have already commented on the proposition that state politics, and government, is nothing like federal.
The Commonwealth is more sophisticated, and professional, but the skill in the public services is diminished. There are too many contractors of questionable skill and experience and a lack of broad awareness and
experience of the world beyond the corridors of policy. When one goes to meet these people they have rarely if ever done their homweork.
It is not necessary for them because the meeting is a courtesy, a talk fest. They serve the Minister. The proposition that you may be there to
warn of consequences, propose knew ideas or even frustrate them seems beyond their thinking and perhaps
comprehension. Individuals are generally dismissed unless they are multi millionaires ro carry a big business card.
To understand the underlying themes of this web site and the motivation and thinking of its owner (Kevin R Beck) and the conclusions and statements made herein, one has to look at a number of other web sites within the Mosaic Portal Network.
Kevin Rudd and labor are hostage to events past and future, and manipulations, set out in my
predictions web site
This site in turn is linked to the wider
Mosaic Portal Network
which contains a number of
sites dealing with politics, strategy and vested interest. It tracks significant public issues and provides in depth commentary and source information on major public idsues and the
performances of Australia's governments and corporate sectors.
The problem that labor, and all modern governments, and political parties, face is the ever evolving
vested interests that work to counter the policies and actions of governments. We will seee them in action in the
climate and ETS debates.
The predictions site looks at climate change, investment and
finance, economy and such forces as a cross pollinating mosaic. The question may well be: Are Kevin Rudd, his staff, the labor cabinet members and political members of the house of parliaments, and their
hand picked strategists and advisers equipped to deal with this complexity? The yoiung turks in his office will be eatn alive.
This is not a question for the labor paryy alone. In 2008 the new members of the Senate arrive. Labor must negotiate with them. The prospect of the Greens exercising the balance of power is frightening.
They have limited resources, a lack of experience and knowledge and much of their perceptions about energy are fiction and fantasy. The two independent members (Fielding and Xenophon) are similarly under resourced and inexperienced.
What if external parties, beyond the parliament, were already negotiating with the minority Senators? What form would those negotiations take, what would be the trade, for what purpose and under what motivations?
Is this fantasy, fiction or
fact?
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INFORMATION TO ASSIST YOUR UNDERSTANDING AND DELIBERATIONS
MAJOR SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ISSUES FOCUS
ARTICLES ON CLIMATE CHANGE, CLEAN COAL, NUCLEAR, WEATHER AND MORE
KEVINRBECK MOSAIC NETWORK: INFORMATION ON CLIMATE CHANGE
AUSTRALIA - CARBON POLLUTION REDUCTION SCHEME GREEN PAPER
Department of Climate Change, Australian Government,
The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Green Paper canvasses options and
preferred approaches on issues, such as which industry sectors will be
covered and how emission caps will be set. It also includes ways to
address the impacts on Australian households, emissions-intensive
trade-exposed industries and other strongly affected sectors.
Click Here
HOODWINKING THE PUBLIC ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Received Email: July 22 July 2008: To Kevin R Beck
With the release of the green paper today you will no doubt pursue recalcitrants who back the doom philosophy
of that evil element – carbon. The reference I gave you this morning presents a better approach to reducing
the carbon excesses, viz. Ibbotson’s “Newcastle Protocol” instead of “Emissions Trading”, if in fact this is what you may want to do.
You will also realise now, (after reading selected parts of
Ibbotson), that anthropogenic CO2 is not even significant in global warming, particularly
when you put water vapour into the equation. The experts do not want to talk about this because it is
uncontrollable, (non-anthropogenic), and there are no easily available government funds to support the academics and scientists in R&D in this field.
To give you a snapshot of the specious nature and uselessness of this
whole exercise I suggest you read some of the papers of Gary Novack.
Click Here
The public is really being hoodwinked and the pollies are sure to strut their stuff in their inimitable and puerile fashion.
Do your homework and your platform will be technically unassailable.... Keith
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ROME BURNS AND THE POLITICIANS....? (October 1, 2008
The shadow treasurer, Julie Bishop, constantly demonstrates a
lack of attention to detail that makes her look a dill. She should be offering ideas and solutions instead of wasting our money trying to score worthless
political points.
Malcolm Turnbull devotes his energies to claiming
that he put pressure on Australia's banks to pass on the bulk of the
interest rate decrease (0.8% of 1.0%) made by the Reserve Bank (October 7, 2008). The Treasurer Wayne Swan talks of Malcolm's ego.
What is not clear is: do either of these two have any ideas what to do? Do they have propositioons and solutions? Are they engaging in a
dialogue with the nation (asuming that
a few people take the time to lisen) as to what to do? No. They are consumed with their self interest - winning points. Malcolm wants to make Rudd's term a once in a life time experience and Wayne wants to stop Malcolm.
Malcom Turnbull has the experience, and the intellect, to undersatnd the economy and the business and banking financial systems. What are Wayne Swan's qualifications?
Mr Swan appears to struggle. First he was all gung ho about inflation, He did not see
any of this coming.
Neither did his advisers and public servants. Why not? Could it be that they are not undertaking comprehensive analysis using insightful tools and
intuitions? They are from Treasury, Finance and other departments and other places.
The government has access to so many experts. What is the definition of an expert?
Experts are everywhere. Governments and corporations use them, the media,
public and private entities. They inhabit universities.
They inhabit disciplines.
Philip Tetlock,
a psychologist with a Phd from Yale has spent much of his time at the
Universities of California, Berkely and Ohio. What makes him unique in the world of academic research is that he produced a seminal and intensive study of the
world of experts of all types, and assessed whether they are any better at their activity than a novice such as me (KEVINRBECK).
Philip has published his research in "Expert Political Judgement: How good is it? How can we know? (Princeton University Press).
His research translates to any society and this case I have compared it to how things work in Australia.
The Australian Financial Review published an excellent synopsis (Friday 25 November, 2005, Review 3) of his research in an article written by Paul Monk, who is co-founder of
Austhink Consulting
and author of "Thunder from the silent zone: rethinking China". Tetlock's work can be applied to the
unflinching claims of the Howard government for its Workplace Relations Reforms, justification of war in Iraq, economic policy, investment in R&D and other pet projects and its ideological
pursuit of dross. Similarly it can be used to debunk economic forecasts, political analysis and a host of other "crystal ball" style pronouncements that are used to sell services,
dress up stories and drive home points. The research exposes the human tendency to rely on an expert, particularly one with a job that suits and a title to go without.
The history of their performance and other traits are never considered nor remembered. He says that "experts are attempting to do with confidence what they demonstrably cannot do very well at all.
They make lots of money and kudos from dubious forecasts without ultimate accountability. They are well suited to being politicians particularly Ministers in Australia's governments and
consultants and advisers in Australia's top tier companies and public sector enterprises.
They are partisan, rarely admit error or they will give a dozen explanations as to how they got it wrong.
Governments, shareholders and businesses lose billions year after year but continue to draw on their services.
Monk quotes Tetlock, "we keep running into ideological impasses rooted in each side insisting on being the only judge of its own beliefs and forecasts".
Does that have resonance, or sound familiar, in your workplace, communities, in political rhetoric and justification, on television and everywhere?
Tetlock found that experts on their home turf made neither better-calibrated nor more discriminating forecasts than did dilettante trespassers. Monk says that Telock found that it made virtually no difference
whether participants had doctorates, whether they were economists, political scientists, journalists or historians, whether they had policy experience or
access to classified information, or whether they had logged many or few years of experience in their chosen line of work.
There was no correlation between ideology and accuracy of judgement or precision of forecasting. The experts tended not to adjust their beliefs when the evidence came in
but to rationalise or outright deny their errors. Is that familiar too? Seems our politicians have this gene.
The dominant danger he concluded was hubris closed mindedness, dismissing dissonant possibilities too quickly.
Resistance is fierce particularly from those with grand reputations but humble track records.
Tetlock did find that exacting research using scientific and other proven techniques
based on solid empirical evidence and statistical analysis and checking, using large volumes of data and input over time did impact on the
accuracy and quality. This is the
intrinsic objective of the design of the Mosaic Portal.
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AGAIN SWAN RAISES ISSUES OF HIS CAPACITY
LABOR PARTY BRANDS SUCCESS AS QUESTIONABLE IN CHARACTER
If we take Premier Rann from South Australia and Treasurer Wayne Swan literally then
we should be suspicious of people who are succesful financially. According to their thesis wealthy people should not be senior party leaders (e.g Malcolm Turnbull) and
the wealthy have no right to representation. Parliamentary leaders, according to the labor party,
must be of the hair shirt variety. This does little to explain Kevin Rudd's ascendancy but hypocrisy in politics is a given.
According to Swan true politicians must be battlers having risen up
hating anyone who is not of their ilk. The best candidate for the labor party appears to be one that has ridden
on the back of union members' fees or the public's money.
Having lived of a basic wage, or having one's snout in the union membre, or public, trouogh, is a heartening and valid experience.
The most important qualification is not skill and ability it is the etherial, even romantic notion,
of relating to the battlers and people on struggle street.
According to the rhetoric of the senior practitioners, of the Australian labor party there are no others of
consideration inn the electorate than the nebulous working families. In Wayne Swan's perspective there are no
pensioners, no single parents, no self made men and women. If there are they are not worthy of having a representative.
There are
only the people with house mortgages, the under educated, or uneducated, the lazy and gratuitous,
the hangers on who feed off others. Those who have extensive credit card, and other debts,
and who live in the suburbs and work for the man. They are the ones that are most affected when the local
(should not be operating) busines like car manufacturing falls over. Mr Swan lauds the battlers who cannot be
bothered undertaking life long learning, who want to live in the same place, refuse to move to
work anywhere or to chase a job or who bleat loudly when
bad times are upon them.
These are the people who take out exorbitant loans to keep up with the Joneses and who want it all regardless of
circumstance. The rugged, and sweaty, souls who, having created their own plight and circumstance, must be assisted at every turn by government using the money taken
from people who have the temerity or the luck to have made something. The labor party takes
from those who
do not need government assistance and having done so ridicules and denigrates.
For decades I have had a leaning towards the labor party having worked in the public sector, in utilities (power and mining),
in government schools and
tertiary institutions and health and telecommunications, manufacturing and other sectors. The labor party at state, and federal level,
has had a number of parliamentary members across Australia whose
statements, and attitudes, have alienated me to the point that I find them overly obnoxious and boring. Wayne Swan is one of them.
This is not to say that
the conservaitives do not have their own similar types. I cannot imagine what qualified Kevin Andrews to be an Immigration Minister
or Andrew Robb who invented the citizen questionnaire test. There are so many questionable characters on the consrevative side of politics.
I have
little time for Mr. Howard and Mr. Costello based on the previous government history regarding refugees and immigration. There was no real reform of the economy other than a GST.
The Green Senator Kerry Nettle rants, and raves, about the Garnaut report and the recommended
5% reduction in emissions within the governments policy for
climate change
This Senator demonstrates that she may have
little understanding of the impact of her fantasies. According to the hard line environmentalists we face destruction, must live hard to cater for future generatoons and lower our standards
of living and income based on a theory and crystal ball predictions.
Still these latter members of the federal parliament are not in government and are not the policy creators and implementers in 2008.
If Wayne Swan applied himself to demonstrating that he is meticulously learning his portfolio, and honing his negotiation skills, required to deal with
a hostile Senate and capricious set of independent members,
Australia would be better served than his listening to his cant about the wealth Malcolm Turnbull may have.
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WHAT AUDIENCE IS SWAN PLAYING TOO?
Wayne Swan, the Treasurer in the Australian government ridiculed Brendan Nelson
the leader of the Opposition, who has a proposal to put a private member's bill before the House, for a $30.00 weekly rise in the aged pension.
The issue of the adequacy, or rather gross inadequcy, of the government pension has been a hot political issue now for weeks.
Like the retailers who think that every woman is a size 8, to 12, in terms of clothing and ignore the wider growing market of bigger sizes, so
too does
Wayne Swan not appear to realise that he is playing to a small audience. Is he playing to his parliamentary colleagues, to the politics of the occasion
and/or the press gallery.
If he is then he is headed for a fall. Does he think that playing hard ball on the budget garners brownie points against starving pensioners?
As his key argument in the parliament Mr. Swan gloats that Brendan Nelson is not in government, mocking the proposal
with the line that Nelson cannot deliver because he is
not the government. Kevin Rudd, and Wayne Swan, are the government and the pensioners can eat cake. What a piece of work this very average Minister of government is.
The struggling pensioners have a majority of support from business, institutions, a few thinking and caring politicians,
and the community at large. Mr Swan does not. The aged are a growing segment, there are an ever increasing number of relatives, young and old who will remeber this clown of a politician who, instea of
governing with care, engages in pompous shows of demeaning rant and irony.
Brendan Nelson at least has one idea. What does Swan have? A taxation review that will report in February 2009. Apart from the annoyance of his antics and drivel I wnder if he has a sense of reading the future or just trundles along
oblivious to the proposition that he will have to recant and face humiliation.
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AGED PENSION BENFITS WILL INCREASE WELL BEFORE NEXT YEAR
The most senior members of the Rudd labor government, are either disengaged, and detached, or
simlpy politically naive. Stupid might be a rude overstatement. They are among others, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and wayne Swan.
They have each stated, in various ways, that they could not live on the age pension that
is paid to Australia's senior citizens by the government. Why would these clowns on their million dollar pensions
make such idiotic observations to the media?
There is a salient fact that everyone should remember. Most Ministers in governments do not make decisions out of the norm, and outside,
of the
bubble they create in their own policy self interest and processes. Kevin Rudd has a review (of course)
in progress and that review is to report back in February 2009.
That is the bureaucratic approach to decision making. Use someone else as the scape goat for justification. This is
yet another example of government from the man who is fast becoming Mr. "all talk and little action." He, and the other twits, are happy
to make such observations while people
go hungry and struggle through life. Mr. Rudd, and his cronies, along with many parasites of the major political parties
have made an art form of "snout in trough". Not for them the life of an ordinary pensioner.
However in this modern age, ridicule and public anger, makes the politician reconsider their arrogance, and obstinate, rhetoric.
Thus Mr. Rudd will make a gesture.
It will at first be limp and then more stronger as the spin meisters in his department, and the party pollsters,
tell him that he is being ridiculed everywhere. Heartless, uncaring, mean, and maybe just a little dumb?
So how many people will starve today on the Rudd labor government's inadequate pension?
Of course he cannot simpy raise the level of the pension. There are predators out there who make a living off housing pensioners for
a set percentage of their income.
Any rise in the pension and the accommodation providers will take their cut.
So Mr. Swan will have to innovate. That is a real worry. I am glad I am not on a pension.
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IS MINISTER ALBANESE GULLIBLE AND/OR TRANSPORT DEPARTMENT INCOMPETENT?
The Minister for Transport, Anthony Albanese, recently blocked increased competition on
the Pacific arline route, dominated by Qantas. This is the decison of a Minister in the government of Kevin Rudd, where the Prime Minister
has on every available occasion
stated that he is modern day fan of competition and economic growth. Words, word and more words.
So what was the basis of Minister Albanese's decision? Was it Qantas's claims
on their exposure and the national interest? Was it his department's stellar research and compelling advice? A kid can make a fool of a lot of grown ups
who are paid to know better.
What is the value of Qantas' domination of this market to the nation, or rather what mighht be the cost? What about $A150,000,000?
Am I and others being ripped off by Qantas assisted by a government Minister
(Source of extract below is "Geoff Easdown, September 11, 2008 12:00am, Herald Sun Newspaper Melbourne<)br>
QANTAS ticket sales on the Pacific route defy claims by the carrier its share
of the international passenger market has fallen, a study has found.
Canberra's aviation bureaucrats have been told the national carrier
charges passengers more to fly to Los Angeles and that its dominance of the market has strengthened.
Data produced by aviation whiz kid Khoa Huynh, presented to the Federal Government
task force on national aviation policy, argues that a 6.3 per cent fall in market
share since privatisation was more than offset by Qantas' success in taking advantage of a growing market...
Long-distance ambush: Aviation whiz-kid Khoa Huynh, 22, says the Qantas
stranglehold on the Australia-US route is costing up to $150 million a year."
Would Qantas mislead, spoin slightly or put their gloss on the real situation?
"Qantas, in its submission, says the Australian industry
risks being marginalised if the nation's carriers are unable to capture a healthy
share of international market growth. It says the industry will then find it increasingly
difficult to invest, create jobs, operate marginal routes, serve regional destinations and support tourism. " (Source:
08 July, 2008, Pressure builds to give SIA Pacific access: http://www.travelmole.com/stories/1129837.php?mpnlog=1"
Regardless of who may be telling what, with such compelling impact, the Minister has been made to look like a goose,
by the inadequacy of his department.
However having been involved in dealing with federal governments, and other agencies, and the Ministers of Australia's governments, and working within
the public sector, at state and federal level, for the past 18 years
it is not surprising that the Minister would be stranded like this by his department.
When you go to meet them, public servants, Ministers and advisers, there has been no research, and no preparation, by them.
Former federal member Carmen Lawrence once told me that
I was expecting too much of the labor party to engage in deep analysis and research because it had no sophisticated intelligence
gathering system or research base in place.
The public servants, the politicians and obviously the Minister, simply rely on the person who seems most credible.
In most cases this is the business card carrying, senior executive of the brand corporation.
That is unless they are from Telstra, then everyone is suspicious. Actually the embarrassment, to my mind, could not have
happend to a more deserving member of Australia's federal parliament and Minister of the
Rudd labor government.
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THERE IS NO TWO WAY DEBATE ON A CARBON POLLUTION REDUCTION SCHEME
The Prime Minister stated in a recent speech (August 2008) that he wanted to have a debate
with the Australian people about climate change. What does that mean? Through the media, which is slanted and incompetent, captive to the
thrall of the spin and carefully chosen science? Does it mean that he will go to town halls and face questions? Does it mean that the public service secretaries will
change their (perhaps) arrogant isolationism (where they only deign to meet whom they consider to be of equal status) mannerisms and meet with
critics who are ordinary people, not from business, with
a senior position? I would hazard that the senior managers of the public servuces in Australia have no
intelligence gathering units within their departments. They have a communications (spin and public relations) section
but collectively they do not have a group who undertake real research about what is being marshalled, actioned, or implemented,
to oppose any of the government's policies or even their own
departmental objectives. They subscribe to media cutting, and monitoring, services.
It is clear that the
state and federal bureaucracies are not going to assist the facilitation of information, or access, to consultation in any meaningful or
comprehensive way.
The Department Secretaries will have their communications sections load highly censored reports, and materials, on the web. That is their idea of
consultation and maybe there will be a committee or two.
Senator Penny Wong, Minister for water and Climate, has demonstrated that the government will hide
information, and reports, in relation to water issues, and stifle debate, when she defied a senate direction to hand over such material (September 2, 2008).
The Government's Green Paper on Pollution Reduction, of about 600 pages, has no figures and no modelling within its covers. It is largely
useless, and
nothing more than a methodology - desk research paper. Public submissions close mid September 2008.
The modelling on impact will be available in October 2008.
Treasury modelling may be available in November 2008. I doubt that it will be published until it is massaged, and polished, to suit. It may not be published at all.
This is not an exception for the public service, or a government in Australia. One comes to expect such anomalies and disregard for the quality of governance and integrity in office.
Kevin Rudd wants us to agree to an
Emissions trading scheme
as the major solution to addressing climate change.
How is a trading scheme a solution
to reduce carbon pollution?
"Not so fast. Carbon offsets — and emissions-trading schemes,
their industrial-scale siblings — are the environmental version of subprime mortgages.
They both started from some admirable premises. Developing countries like China and India need
to be recruited into the fight against greenhouse gases. And markets are a better mechanism for
change than command and control. But when those big ideas collide with the real world, the result
is hand-waving at best, outright scams at worst. Moreover, they give the illusion that something constructive is being done.
A few fun facts: All the so-called clean development mechanisms authorized by the Kyoto Protocol,
designed to keep 175 million tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere by 2012, will slow the
rise of carbon emissions by ... 6.5 days. (That's according to Roger Pielke at the University of Colorado.)
Depressed yet? Kyoto also forces companies in developed countries to pay China for destroying HFC-23 gas,
even though Western manufacturers have been scrubbing this industrial byproduct for years without compensation.
And where's the guarantee that the tree planted in Bolivia to offset $10 worth of air travel, for instance, won't
be chopped down long before it absorbs the requisite carbon? " (Source fo extract: Carbon Credits Were a Great Idea,
But the Benefits Are Illusory, By Spencer Reiss,
Wired Magazine
"Cap and trade is not the answer: an open letter To the global warming committee of the Sierra Club: 31 January 2007
The Sierra Club is one of the few large environmental organizations that
traditionally has been skeptical of pollution trading. That sound policy, we understand, is now under debate.
In addition to concerns outlined below, the proposed new trading policy which the Global
Warming Committee is debating would conflict with a number of already established Club policies: the policy
on polluter pays, the policy on environmental justice, the policy on community right-to-know, and the policy on corporate accountability issues.
The Sierra Club has played a critical role in the negotiations of a bill in California, AB 32, which set the most
ambitious targets for greenhouse gas reductions in the country; the debate over pollution trading was a pivotal part of the measure.
The outcome of that debate is clear: all feasible measures should be taken to reduce emissions prior to implementing any market mechanisms,
and in the implementation of those measures environmental justice communities must be included in the decision making process and protected.
Because cap and trade programs enrich industry, industry wants to perpetuate the myth that cap and trade is the only way to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions.
In reality, many things are being done to reduce greenhouse gases in the U.S. and so far, cap-and-trade
has been among the least used mechanisms adopted to get the emissions reductions needed. And where it has been used,
experience suggests it will fail to effectively achieve emission reductions." ...
Trading Programs Benefit Existing Polluters in the Developing World .."
(source of extract: Transnational Institute
The government Ministers in charge of this rushed, and reckless, proposal obviously have not studied the national Elecetricity Market (that is not) and the
practice known as "gaming". When electricity trading came into vogue many commercial entities, who did not own power stations, electricity or energy assets of any type set up trading desks.
They began to gamble the price of electricity buying and selling generation and retail supply packages, hedging and trading for the sake of money (profit). They were not interested in the
outcome for consumers and the nation. Similarly many are waiting to enter Kevin Rudd's carbon trading market to make money.
They are there in market to earn profits, not reduce pollution. A market that is contrived, and isolated, limited to Australia.
The Opposition in the parliament, under Mr. Brendan Nelson, managed to blunder on the response and the leader became the story rather than the missing figures and modelling in the Green Paper.
No media have canvassed the proposition that a trading scheme will not reduce pollution or that it might fail. Thus we have a policy and action plan being developed without any ckluea sto what it
might cost or what the impact might be. The policy, like much of Kevin Rudd's policies, is about bending and shaping,
punishing energy intensive industries on an upward slide effect. We can perhaps expect the disappearance of manufacturing base industries - paper, chemicals,
cement, smelting, steel, power generation and mining.
Investment in industry and personal assets will be devalued. wayne Swan's own swan song, repeated time and time again, along with Mr Rudd's, of taming inflation will be
rendered hollow rhetoric as inflation dragon breathes real fire in a dyig economy. For what? A degree or two in temperature change if the world got on board with climate change
reactionary policies. Public ignorance is rife. This is the greatest impacting policy ever proposed by a government of Australia. It is being rushed through to a 2010 start up date. In charge of this is Senator Penny Wong, a person with
no background in prodyction, enregy, economics and business of the type that will be destroyed. She, with selected cabinet memebers, under the iron rule of
the Prime Minister, will make arbitrary decisions about who gets a permit within their industry classification. There will ne winners and losers. The losers will be the small to medium businesses.
There are a plethora of taxation subsidies and schemes across Australia designed to reduce pollution and Emissions.
These apparently are failures in the eyes of the benders and shapers who will go forward though they may be blind to the consequences and outcomes. The ETS will reduce demadn and
stymy spending. The ETS is limited to large enterprise and it is these that will fail under the burden of the ETS tax. This will
cause the pain to the small to medium services that rely on them and the employees who earn wages through them. Petrol and diesel suppliers will
have to bear the brunt of individual use of motor vehicles by each and every person who drives.
The Australian government, under labor
and Kevin Rudd, is gaming Australia on the international stage.
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Let the dance begin
