by PAUL COLLITS – AUSTRALIAN constitutional lawyer Anne Twomey has suggested PM Anthony Albanese is involved in “grey corruption” over his Marrickville Golf Club dealings.
Yet, to most voters, it appears to be pretty black and white.
- And that is the point.
- The problem, as it happens, is us, not the politicians.
- We keep voting in MPs who “get stuff” for the locals – but destroy the nation while doing so.
The Prime Minister’s political crime probably won’t lead to a sacking – as it always did back when Australia was a democracy.
For those behind the times, Australia’s Prime Minister seems to have personally arranged for a $6m grant to his local golf club to which he holds membership.
MISLEADING
I gave up worrying and writing seriously about ministerial accountability some time back. Apparently, there have been 99 cases of Australian ministerial resignations for misleading the Parliament.
I don’t see Albo bringing up the ton.
As an old regional development guy with 25 years in the field, I am more than familiar with local development and community grant scams.
Pork barrelling isn’t new, and isn’t confined to Labor.
I once wrote a piece called “The Adventures of Bridget McKenzie” bout the Nats and pork barrelling.
Remember the gun club? Remember Pork Barilaro, the NSW Nats leader? The whole raison-d’etre of the Nats is to “get stuff” for the bush.
In an especially dark time for Australian democracy, from 2010 to 2013, the House of Representatives was held to ransom by a couple of bush hucksters – called Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, members for Tamworth and Port Macquarie, respectively.
The price of their support for Julia Gillard (and then Rudd II, after the reverse coup) was shedloads of stuff – for Tamworth and Port Macquarie.
They were pretty up front about it all.
I remember when I was standing in the State election in Lismore in 2019, looking up the press releases of the retiring Nats member, Thomas George.
Every single one of his local press releases for about a year or more announced some local grant application success.
This tells us much about the decline of modern representative democracy.
The problem, as it happens, is us, not the politicians. We keep voting in members who “get stuff” for the locals. It is pretty simple, really.
The pollies are just responding to market demand. They perceive that their voters see their role as getting stuff for the place in which they happen to live.
So, they do their bit. It is a giant Ponzi scheme that is impoverishing the country. And debauching our politics.
Why the hell should a voter in (say) Lismore have his taxes spent on a new hospital in Tamworth just because the local member there has the balance of power?
The obvious answer is that he shouldn’t.
This is yet another Faustian bargain. Despite the highfalutin words about local representation and “standing up for your electorate”, it is just a seedy deal between low morality politicians and low information voters.
Not to mention the old cargo cult mentality. Funny that. The term comes from a Papua New Guinean backstory.
Papua New Guinea has just been given (by Albo) $600m to start a rugby league team in the NRL.
Their players will get their (massively inflated) salaries tax free. They are still getting their cargo. Just like all the recipients of the community grants just a little to the south of our Papuan friends.
I think that Albo and his Foreign Minister, Wenny Pong, saw this play as “foreign policy”. Really?
So, this time, Marrickville-wise, we can’t really blame Albo. Of course, we can blame this shit PM for much else.
FAVOURS
But, he is just the last in a long conga line of corrupt pollies trading favours for votes.
It isn’t pretty. Of course it stinks to high Marrickville. But you reap what you sow, in this game. We get corrupt politicians and entire polities because we tolerate them.
And the penalties are relatively light. Bridget McKenzie came back from her gun club ignominy.
She did her (pretty short) sentence. About the same penance as a Pakistani child rapist in Britain.
We see her most days in the Parliament, standing there berating others for their corruption and malfeasance.
No previous case of pork barrelling corruption has brought system change, a cleansing of the stables. So why should this case?
We need to look a little more deeply for the reason for this strangely tolerated and persistent way of doing things.
Albo’s Marrickville stench is a symptom – not the problem.
STENCH
Yet still, were he somehow to follow the 99, we would be eternally grateful. Our worst ever Prime Minister would be mercifully gone. But the stench would persist. Until we wake up to the much deeper malaise.
Democratic theory isn’t what it used to be. This much we know.
Our representatives don’t represent us. They don’t know what true representation means. Nor do we.
The social contract is torn asunder. The interlopers in France tear the joint down because (it seems), the roll-over-and-rape-me rulers haven’t given them enough. Everything isn’t enough.
We are all on the teat, here, too, to a bloated State whose finances and business model are unsustainable.
Fooked, as John Lennon might have said. Who knew?
And who is asking the bigger question? Why does anyone think that we can afford a gazillion Marrickville golf clubs. Over and over and over.
And that is just the point.PC
Albanese is China’s pretty boy – but he has become Australia’s ugly face of communism.