Morrison withheld so much information and called it an “oversight” to be credible. His whole term in office was the great Australian “oversight”. Morrison leads by a mile as the biggest liar the LNP ever had and is treated as morally normal when it comes to politics
The Morrison government failed to hand over some national security-related cabinet documents from the time of the Iraq war to the National Archives of Australia for potential public release.
Cabinet, won over with no evident demurral, and previously buttered up by oral reports, approved the measure to commit Australia to another failed military mission of murderous, bungling incompetence. The United States would receive no resistance in getting its pound of Australian flesh for an illegal enterprise, and the Australian public, many of whom had participated in some of the largest anti-war demonstrations the country had ever seen, would be ignored.
“The conservative faithful would no doubt nominate any and all of the parliamentary leaders who failed to win government, so the question needs refining: Which leader of the federal Liberal Party has done the most damage to Australia?
Source: “The… – The Fiberal Party of Australia – Lies & Misdemeanours | Facebook
Australia is currently facing the consequences of policy bungling by the former Coalition Government that has left our electricity infrastructure in chaos, writes Paul Budde.
Source: Lost decade of electricity policies could lead to power shortage
This is the Department Peter Dutton controlled I meant didn’t wasn’t it? He had is finger on the pulse of Home Affairs and Immigration didn’t he? Or wishing it was on the pulse of two opers a major decision saying Yes rather than Nope for spud. All forensic examinations by experts reported that these departments were dead and should have been buried. The cause MURDERED by the LNP due to lack of care and policy.
What a fabulous trove The Pezzullo Papers are. The hundreds of recently disclosed text messages sent by the Home Affairs Secretary Mr Michael Pezzullo to a person described as a “Liberal Party powerbroker” are morbidly fascinating. Poor Pezzullo – in a few days he attracted as much public commentary, most of it unflattering, as platoons of traditionally reticent departmental Secretaries would cop in their lifetimes and afterwards.
there is more than enough evidence that the regulation of official behaviour by values and principles, including “stewardship” for Secretaries, and a code of conduct, has been insufficient. Thus, the relevant provisions in the Public Service Act should be thoroughly re-thought with a view to making the rules less ambiguous, possibly more prescriptive and better able to support a non-American kind of public service. ( The Steve Bannon Principle a Partisan Public Service)
Mr Pezzullo’s present prominence is a reminder of the credit he’s been given for his hand in the creation of the Home Affairs portfolio. This may be his gravest mistake as the portfolio contradicts just about every sensible principle of organisation design that can be imagined. It’s as if it had been set up to be the tragic failure it has been. And it’s not as if it is too big – there are many bigger agencies. Nor is too powerful – there are many more powerful, such misplaced concerns likely being agitated by Pezzullo’s pushfulness and willingness to attract attention and create enemies. The real problem is that the portfolio is organisationally nonsensical. Therefore, the Government should take the chance to:
There is more to the Snowy Hydro than cost overruns and endless delays. It turns out a noxious fish could bring the project to a permanent stop. So what’s the scam?
Source: The fish that could bring Snowy Hydro to a permanent stop – Michael West
LNP “Better Money Managers” multiplied the cost of a dud NBN dropping us to 80th in the world’s best technology. They blew Hydro 2.0 out by x10, Robodebt by 2000 deaths thousands of we are mental breakdowns and still counting. The NDIS wasn’t allowed to even get established, and they tripled the Deficit all of this in Billions of dollars and for no long-term benefit.
Dan Andrews bailed Victorians out for $380m saving the state billions in pain because of the false advice and rapidly changing circumstances. The Media on the other hand have slung more mud at Dan for saving us pain than they did the LNP’s loss of Billions by in gifting money to their mates like confetti
Malcolm Turnbull’s Snowy Hydro 2.0 project was touted as $2 billion bargain in 2017. It now shapes as a $10 billion abominable snowman. Peering through a Kosciusko/Canberra snow storm of FOI brush-offs, Rex Patrick asks what is really going on.
Source: Snow Job – Snowy Hydro 2.0 in a fathomless crevasse of costs – Michael West
It’s a pity these Reports are never in Real Time
The steady decay in Australia’s wealth generation capacity continued throughout the Liberal National period, as Alan Austin reports.
THE THREE COUNTRIES which lost the most wealth per person through 2022 were Sweden, New Zealand and Australia. That’s according to the 2023 global wealth report released last week by the research division of the Swiss-based financial giant, Credit Suisse.
Source: Global wealth report confirms Coalition incompetence right to the end
She’s suing who?
Former Defence Minister Linda Reynolds has recanted her Supreme Court evidence that she was never told by a chief of staff that Brittany Higgins had disclosed “I remember him on top of me”.
The work of the “better money managers”
The Australian public service cohabits with copious consultants because of three hiring freezes imposed by Coalition governments over the past 10 years.
The Abbott government froze all hirings in 2013 for 18 months, resulting in the loss of about 11,000 jobs; the Turnbull government did it again in 2016, but more targeted – it only applied to a few departments, and 5000 jobs went; the Morrison government imposed another freeze in 2020 in response to COVID-19 that went for six months and resulted in the loss of about 3000 positions.
Source: Alan Kohler: The delusions and madness of crowds of consultants
Source: “The… – The Fiberal Party of Australia – Lies & Misdemeanours | Facebook
One of the attractions of paying outside consultants for advice is that, to ensure repeat business, they tend to tell you what they think you want to hear. Whether in auditing or consulting, the notion that anyone can buy genuinely independent advice is a delusion.
Somehow or other, the “smaller government” policies of recent decades have left many businesses believing they are no longer required to obey the law.
Source: PwC Scandal: Accountants used to be boring, then the government asked them to do its job
It started with John Howard
It was a curiously shallow and unsophisticated Bill, which did not even bother to hide its malicious intent. Each of the recommendations was ‘loaded’ against the elderly, and the Opposition of the time was ineffective in their efforts to mitigate the harm of the Bill, even if they had wanted to. It was led by Kim Beazley, and he was powerless at the best of times, let alone when he faced Howard’s massive majority.
Source: John Howard wrecked Aged Care for all Australians – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Stuart Robert proves himself to be Peter Dutton’s challeger to being the worst Minister ever appointed to an Australian government
“People pay their taxes in good faith to Canberra, they do not expect to have substandard procurement arrangements and no conflicts of interest declared or disclosed.” Shorten said the government would consider the report, and called on Robert to explain why certain contracts failed to meet the standards. Dr Ian Watt, the former head of the public service, completed the review and looked at contracts awarded from 2015 onwards.
we have heard from the architects, those charged with the responsibility to provide essential social services to all Australians, and who instead left us with a decade-long legacy of abject failure and wilful neglect on a multi-faceted grand-scale of human pain and suffering.
Source: Robodebt’s architects suffer temporary embarrassment, its victims are gone forever | The Shot
Robodebt the cyber-machine pretending to take values out Welfare decisions. Only a Penacostalist could come up with a smokescreen like that. Let the computer be the judge said Pontious Pilate Morrison “I wash my hands and stand aside of any decision”
If public trust is to be restored, at the very least, the people responsible for this major breach of the law, the illegal Robodebt scheme, should face the hardest penalties available under our legal system.
Source: No accountability or public shaming for Robodebt criminals
Politicizing the Public Service and private consultancies must end
It shouldn’t be necessary, but it is. Today, independent member for Mackellar, Sophie Scamps, is introducing the ‘Ending Jobs for Mates Bill’ which intends to legislate a transparent and independent process for major Commonwealth public appointments. Callum Foote reports.
Pink Bats were fairy floss compared to Robodebt carnage and denial. We can still here the echoes of outrage and the demands the LNP made back then to the accidental unorchestrated deaths of 5 workers. The ALP didn’t “double down” like Stuart Robert who is still a Cabinet Minister in Dutton’s shadow front bench
The former PM and all the architects of this unlawful scheme which drove thousands to despair and suicide must face consequences for their part in Robodebt. Managing editor Michelle Pini reports.
Source: Morrison, Robert, Tudge & Co should be in the foetal position over Robodebt
A public service culture of reward and punishment could have led senior officers to stay quiet about the unlawful robo-debt scheme, a royal commission has been told.
When problems with the scheme were revealed, former minister Stuart Robert wanted to “double down” rather than apologise and correct the error, the hearing was told.
When the program was discovered to be unlawful, Leon advised Robert that the department should apologise to customers, admit the error and inform the public of steps to correct it.
She remembered Robert replied: “We absolutely will not be doing that. We will double down.”
Leon said some ministers suggested ending the robo-debt program while not repaying debts or telling anyone unless people appealed, but she felt this was inconsistent with legal obligations.
The government has “significantly underestimated” coal and gas emissions in its Safeguard Mechanism to curb big carbon polluters, according to new analysis by Climate Analytics. Callum Foote reports.
Source: New Report: coal and gas emissions “set to soar” under Safeguard Mechanism – Michael West
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet’s brothers are still fugitives in hiding from a corruption inquiry and the NSW Liberal Party still has 20 seats to fill with candidates with the state election only 4 weeks away on the 25th of March.
Lind Reynolds and Scott Morrison sing from the same hymn book
In a four-hour interview with The Weekend Australian, Senator Reynolds claimed to be the victim of a “political hit job” designed to bring down both her and the former Morrison government.
Source: Linda Reynolds breaks two-year silence on Higgins rape scandal
The controversial robodebt scheme would have been fundamentally changed or stopped altogether had independent legal advice been sought on the issue, a royal commission has been told.
The commission examining the Centrelink debt recovery scheme was told such independent advice would have “reputational damage” to the government and the departments administering the program.
Former Social Services principal legal officer Anna Fredericks told the commission that obtaining independent legal advice on the scheme was sought, but tensions between the Department of Social Services and the Department of Human Services prevented it from occurring.
“If independent legal advice had been sought at the time and had full scope and awareness of the program, I have no doubt they would have come to that view (of it being unlawful),” she said.
“It would have undoubtedly led to a redesign or cessation … it would have likely caused reputational damage to those two departments but also to the government.”
Source: Robodebt advice would cause damage: lawyer – Michael West
“Had there been public ventilation of what the AAT was ruling … there wouldn’t have been an instant change to or abandonment of the scheme but it would have been a lot quicker than the three or four years that nearly half a million people had to suffer the unlawful raising of debts,” he told the commission.
Source: Robodebt scheme ‘set off alarm bells from the get-go’, inquiry hears – ABC News
after the people of Australia resoundingly voted against the LNP in order to kick that repugnant little war mongering garden gnome, John Howard to the gutter, did the LNP learn a single thing about humility, compassion and not to use war, hate and xenophobic racism as a distraction against their inherent corruption,…
Does Australia really want a repeat performance by these lying, conniving parasites whose only legacy is $1 trillion in debt whilst thumping their chests and cynically bragging that they are the “best economic managers”!!!!?
The resounding answer should be:
NO! NO! DEFINITELY NOT!
Bloody hell!
Source: The LNP: Do they ever learn? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The Liberals have a history conducting politics at a cultural level Morrison saw political advantage of dividing the nation during the Cronulla riots and he continued to apply it with “stop the boats”. Multiculturalism was never an LNP value as much as it was a political opportunity. The Lebanese Muslims Chinese Africans Indigenous Australians all felt the two-face sting of the LNP handshake. If and when for a moment they were seen as an economic benefit it came with a smile quite readily followed by a political slap in the face. Dutton was a master at spreading Liberal hate.
The Liberals have been urged to rebuild the party’s relationship with members of Australia’s Chinese community as a key priority in the wake of its election defeat.
Source: Anti-China rhetoric damaging to Liberals – Michael West
Morrison the Salesman
. In the first six months of 2022, the previous government was the biggest advertising spender in the country.
When the Christian Right dominated the Government and SCOMO danced like Rumpelstiltskin in front of our cameras other things were going on.
Following the disappointing conclusion to the Bruce Lehrmann trial, it’s important to remember the toxic culture developed by the Morrison Government within the walls of Parliament House.
In this article from 2021, Dr Jennifer Wilson examined the breeding ground of assault and harassment that led to the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins and possibly others.
Source: Rape, masturbation and lewd acts all part of Parliament House under Morrison: FLASHBACK 2021
A senior public servant told a Social Services official to tone down language indicating the robodebt welfare management scheme wouldn’t be lawful before it was introduced.
Andrew Whitecross, from the Social Services department, told the royal commission investigating the scheme it “couldn’t be clearer” calculating welfare debts based on an average income would require laws to be changed in 2015.
The scheme, which went from 2015 until 2020, wrongly recovered more than $750 million from 381,000 people, with a number of victims committing suicide while being pursued for false debts.
Mr Whitecross strongly advised against using income averaging in 2015 and said he was surprised to learn the scheme was implemented the following year.
He told the commission he’d had a meeting with Social Services’ Cath Halbert and Human Services’ Mark Withnell in 2015 where he outlined income averaging wouldn’t be legal. He said Mr Withnell was frustrated with the feedback because it could mean a promised $1.2 billion saving wasn’t achieved.
Of the saving, Mr Whitecross later added: “It was a sense … this was a number that had come out of a methodology, but the number itself was a goal of the process”.
The commission heard he was told by Ms Halbert that DHS deputy secretary Malisa Golightly “didn’t want us to go in so hard” with feedback income averaging was illegal.
Asked by senior counsel assisting the commission Justin Greggery if he had pushed back, Mr Whitecross said he had but she had continued to ask him to change the language.
Source: Top officials shut down robodebt criticism – Michael West
It was alleged, that up to a million Uyghurs were incarcerated in camps but this proved to be no more than an extrapolation of numbers by a researcher and amplified in a UN meeting; never by the UN. In order to justify this outrageous claim, it was necessary to find prisons to incarcerate a million people, which, over time, grew into many more.
An Australian think tank (ASPI) entered the fray and identified “camps” across the region. Except that they didn’t. A region so large needs boarding schools and residential factories. The same region, because of a destabilised and radicalised minority, some with terrorist tendencies, also needs security. So, everything with a gate, fence, security presence and dormitories when viewed from satellites, was identified and analysed, by a young man at ASPI, who has never set foot in China, as being “a camp”; 380 of them! In the list, to give him credit, there are some prisons. But in a region with 25 million people and a terrorist problem, that’s hardly a surprise.
Source: Challenging the “Uyghur genocide narrative” – Pearls and Irritations
Neoliberal policies have resulted in an imbalance in Australia’s wage system with a disproportional increase in senior management financial rewards, writes Dr Klaas Woldring.
Source: Vast executive salaries: undemocratic, unethical and unproductive
How quid pro quo works, and donations remain unrecorded. The ALP on the other hand suffers the slings and arrows of private mainstream corporate media. The ABC was exclused.
Josh Frydenberg sallied forth with a fulsome pat on the back this week … for himself.
“The Coalition’s ‘world-first’ Media Bargaining Code was a ‘success’,” pronounced the former Treasurer. A success indeed; a terrific success for the Coalition’s media mates Rupert Murdoch, Peter Costello and Kerry Stokes.
To be fair to Josh, he was only repeating what was in the press. Josh’s “media reforms” had forced Google and Facebook to pay millions in cash (secretly) to Big Media. In return, the News Corp, Nine, Guardian Australia and so forth sang the praises of Josh’s “world-first”. Manufacturing consent is a breeze, you just have to pay people.
Almost a year to the day after the Commonwealth Ombudsman requested a review – and following repeated inquiries from The Klaxon – the nation’s most powerful department says it has found seven officials who may have been illegally paid for holding two jobs.
Source: PM&C officials who oversaw alleged illegal payments told to lawyer up
“Well, a lot of the individuals who would end up receiving these notices would be – the onus of proof on what they earned over the period of time, stretching back potentially years, would be a level of proof which they simply would not be able to substantiate. And unemployed people are, almost by definition, they have very vulnerable cohorts within them, and that there would be people who would enter into agreements to repay debts, which they had not incurred in the first place, and I felt that the practice as a result was unethical.”
Source: Robodebt: can you recall a greater failure of public administration? – Pearls and Irritations
The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet has been ordered to hand over the Gaetjens Report into the Sports Rorts Affair after a two and a half year fight by Rex Patrick against fake Cabinet confidentiality. Rex Patrick reports.
Source: Prime Minister’s department ordered to come clean on Sports Rorts cover-up – Michael West
What we inherited with the Trumpster LNP
Toward the end of 2019, an article titled Lessons in how to hate China was published in Pearls and Irritations. Those lessons have been learned and learned well. Three years is a short time but the collective memory is also short. China is now the accepted enemy and the likelihood of war is spoken of more openly.
climate crisis and of a hegemonic shift from the US to China. It was an uncertain time and fear was being promoted. Those conditions still exist. The only difference is that the threat from the US and its allies has become more intense. We have learned to hate China and may well suffer from the education we have received.
Source: Learning to hate China – how well have we learned the lessons – Pearls and Irritations
A former Coalition staffer who claimed she was abused while working for the former government has released details of her settlement, as she writes to the new parliament.
Source: Former Coalition staffer Rachelle Miller releases details of $650,000 settlement – ABC News
Coalition’s failure to tax gas windfall profits cost the nation billions
Coalition’s failure to tax gas windfall profits cost the nation billions
One in five lucrative and powerful federal government board positions have been handed to politically connected individuals, according to a new report warning Australia has developed an “insidious jobs-for-mates culture”.
Morrison’s Social Welfare system in place.
While there is a pause on welfare penalties until 1 August, jobseekers who do not attend their appointments have their benefits temporarily suspended for failing to meet their mutual obligations.
There was never going to be a situation in which there were no deaths. Nobody expects that. However, when so little has been done by the Federal Government to mitigate COVID-19 deaths, it is extremely alarming that the Morrison strategy is to desensitise people to suffering and death, rather than make an all-out effort to introduce every protection against those outcomes.
When your government starts selling you death as the option, it’s probably time to get concerned.
FLASHBACK 2021: The Liberal Government doesn’t care if you die
The government has admitted almost all rooftop solar energy in Australia may be double-counted – a massive emission reduction free ride for Australia’s largest corporations. Callum Foote reports.
Every Picture tells the story Barnaby believes it Morrison doesn’t.
Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce, at the time the Coalition lost the May election, were the most unpopular party leaders since the Australian Election Study began in 1987.
Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce were most unpopular leaders at election since 1987, study shows | Scott Morrison | The Guardian
Exclusive: Figures provided to the Guardian reveal exorbitant legal bill for pursuing cases against Collaery, Witness K, Richard Boyle and David McBride
Coalition government spent $6m prosecuting Bernard Collaery and three other whistleblowers | Australian politics | The Guardian
If this didn’t tell you what Morrison and the Pentecostalists were intent on doing then nothing will. They wanted the end to the separation of powers, go the way of Israel and turn Australia into an Apartheid White Christian State. More so they were intent on doing it by stealth. It’s why the religious discrimination bill was their priority if they had won the election.
With all that’s going on in the world – a pointless war, a global pandemic, rampant global heating leading to increasingly severe and compounding natural disasters, superpowers competing over our region, soaring cost of living, rising inflation, unaffordable housing, poverty, social unrest – the last government spent its dying days fighting for a religious discrimination bill we didn’t need and arguing over trans women playing sport.
This week’s National Accounts show the economy growing solidly. But the growth is mainly benefiting businesses, especially mining businesses, while workers’ wages fall further behind. The
Source: The economy is growing but workers are not getting the benefits – ABC News
Suss Ley “heard and listened” then acted
Recovery plans designed to prevent the extinction of almost 180 threatened species and habitats, including the Tasmanian devil, were scrapped by the Coalition in one of Sussan Ley’s final acts as environment minister.
Australia’s Shame – AG Michaela Cash took lessons from the Steve Bannon playbook. Control the Bureaucracy. Wasn’t that Lenin’s playbook?
Just before ousted Prime Minister Scott Morrison called the election, his Attorney-General Michaelia Cash stacked the Administrative Appeals Tribunal with a host of Liberal Party mates. Political appointments are out of control and the AAT needs to be killed off, writes Greg Barns SC.
Source: Kill off the AAT, it’s stacked with Morrison’s Liberal mates, no longer credible – Michael West
What we inherited from the LNP
The current high approval rate for offshore VET sector student applications from Nepal could raise more risk of colleges focused on selling “work visas” rather than education, writes Dr Abul Rizvi.
MOST AUSTRALIANS would be surprised that over the last two months, Nepal was Australia’s leading source of overseas students, overtaking both China and India.
Source: Student visas: Little more than unsponsored work permits
Busted!! The LNP strategy of putting LNP supporters in charge of Government Departments is straight out of the Steve Bannon, American GOP Republican and Leninist strategies. The LNP was intent on dismantling the Public Service and has been doing it for the past 13 years.
Agency’s statement, which triggered last-minute scare campaign from Liberals, prompts increasing questions about its independence
Australian Border Force did not issue press releases about any of the five boat interceptions it made in the four years prior to its controversial election-day announcement that a vessel had been detected near Christmas Island, prompting further questions about the political independence of the agency.
The ABF is investigating its election-day conduct, which the acting prime minister, Richard Marles, has described as a “disgrace”.
The agency issued a press release as voting was under way, warning of the interception of an asylum-seeker boat off Christmas Island, precipitating a last-minute scare campaign warning voters to maintain border security by voting Liberal.
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