Some years ago, a plumber was telling me when they came back from the local pie shop with lunch to that day’s worksite, they heard someone inside. The plumber and his trades assistant were the only people scheduled to be on site that day, so they split up, covered both entrances to the building and discovered someone removing the copper pipe the plumber had spent the morning installing. The Plumber called the Police and detained the intruder. While waiting for the Police, the plumber asked the intruder what he was doing stealing copper pipe from building sites and was flabbergasted by the response, “
I was recently made redundant and taking copper pipe and selling it was the only way I could think of to make an honest living”.
The mindset of the intruder seems similar to that of a number of conservative political leaders — the ends justify the means. An investigation by the Department of Home Affairs determined that former
Prime Minister Morrison
pressured public servants to publicise the interception of an asylum seeker boat on the day of the May 2022 federal election, a damning report has found.
But the officials in Home Affairs had acted with integrity and refused to amplify a media statement they were forced to write about the Border Force operation unfolding on the high seas.
The report into the extraordinary circumstances surrounding one of the last acts of the previous Morrison government was prepared by the secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, Michael Pezzullo AO.
The Liberal Party then sent text messages to ‘undecided’ voters early in the afternoon urging a vote for the Liberals and Nationals to ‘stop the boats’. Apart from the obscene use again of human suffering to make a political argument — something all Australians should be ashamed of — the action breached the Coalition’s 8-year facade of not commenting on ‘on water matters’.
Former Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews claims that no ‘caretaker’ conventions were breached, something that the investigation questions. According to media reports, the Coalition was pressuring public servants to upload a ministerial statement by Andrews, promote the boat arrival on social media as well as briefing ‘
selected’ reporters.
A departmental statement was eventually issued minutes after Mr Morrison announced the interception in his final press conference as prime minister, but the report concluded officials refused requests to post it on social media or send it directly to journalists.
The report also reveals public servants were pressured to upload the statement online, with a publishing delay leading one ministerial staffer to write "a lot of people are furious”.
Fortunately, the public servants understood impartiality.
Alan Kohler recently wrote in
The New Daily about a discussion he had with US Economist Professor Joseph Stiglitz. Stilglitz has apparently never been a supporter of the conservative ‘freedom’ and ‘
small government’ ideology
“This is a revolution. We are at a juncture in history where the tide has turned. Forty years of ideology of markets and experiments in many countries has failed. The last straw was COVID-19.”
By which he meant, among other things, that America’s market-based economy was unable to supply its citizens with masks and they had to get them from China. And the mRNA vaccine breakthrough was the result of government money, not private enterprise.
Other market failures cited by Kohler are Germany’s reliance on gas from Russia, currently subject to supply restrictions due to ‘maintenance issues’ and the USA importing baby formula as the company that had half their market was forced to close down until product safety could be improved.
Kohler then considered other options and wondered if the small government ideology was religious after all. He quotes a small part of Morrison’s recent 50 minute ‘sermon’ at a Pentecostal Church service in Perth
“God’s kingdom will come. It is in his hands. We trust in him; we don’t trust in governments. We don’t trust in the United Nations. We don’t trust in all of these things, fine as they might be, and as important as the role that they play. Believe me, I’ve worked in it, and they are important. But, as someone who’s been in it, if you are putting your faith in those things, like I put my faith in the Lord, you are making a mistake. They’re earthly. They are fallible. I’m so glad we have a bigger hope.”
A concerning statement from a current Member of Parliament and on a par with a lot of conservative politicians from the USA. According to Kohler, discussions with unnamed members of the Morrison cabinet suggested Morrison was a ‘believer’ when it suited him, so that wasn’t the reason for Morrison’s behaviours either.
Morrison, like Abbott and Howard have attempted to remake the ‘broad church’ of Menzies’ Liberal Party into a far more conservative and narrowly focused organisation. Current Opposition Leader Dutton shows no sign of encouraging greater diversity of thought or action in the current Parliament than Morrison did when Prime Minister. Is this due to a religious belief that God rewards those that trust in him or is it a case of doing whatever it takes to gain and retain power along with the trappings that are afforded to the powerful.?
What do you think?
Current rating: 5 / 5 | Rated 31 times
