Silver linings: Cash, appointments and a fistful of dollars
Silver linings: Cash, appointments and a fistful of dollars
The recent appointment of six Liberal-linked candidates to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal has raised some eyebrows, especially so close to an election
The bureaucracy has been cannibalized after decades of applied pressure on core institutions by the major parties who load tribunals, panels, bodies and boards with politically affiliated allies. This ethically pockmarked practice has more recently been weaponized by the Morrison government and is now openly displayed in such a manner that is quite alarming to anyone concerned about political influence and cronyism in our democracy.
Unspent emergency response funds, caravans still in the ruins of Mallacoota, slop and wheel barrows are currently rolling around the second infiltration at Lismore, while homeless families are about to get kicked out of caravan parks for Victorian easter holiday folk, and this flailing government, spiraling towards election defeat in a matter of weeks, signs six contracts the size of Patrick Dangerfield at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. These appointments include former NSW minister and class commentator Pru Goward ($329,930 and $391,940 p.a), former WA state MP Michael Mischin ($496,560), and a bunch of handpicked LNP acolytes hurriedly stacked into the AAT, in front on our eyes, amongst all the others, on the eve of an overdue election.
The AAT conducts independent merits review of administrative decisions made under Commonwealth laws, it’s one of the few instruments to review decisions made by governments and ministers. So why is anyone with party affiliation allowed anywhere near these roles? Surely these important positions might be best suited to the vast list of people with enormous talent that come from outside the realm of political compromise, people that would be better placed to independently review government decision-making.
In between the global panic and despair, as we defend ourselves from a pandemic and crowd fund our own disaster recovery, this government has been busy hammering a form of cronyism into the body of this countries independent infrastructure the like of which we have never seen. According to Mark Dreyfus, eighty five appointments with LNP links have been soldered into the circuitry of the AAT since 2013, among the countless others clasped onto the running gear of our nations independent mechanisms.
Some of these familiar candidates don’t have law degrees, nor preferred experience in some instances, so why are they picked by people that do? Why were they picked over impartial candidates from the public who possess these qualifications? Our leaders talk of the meritocracy, “you have a go, you get a go”, they pay lip service to equity, equality and fairness, and harp onto the illusion that Australia is the lucky country, yet they trickle down these new norms to the people on the ground who have trouble believing government does good things anymore.
Let’s not forget the more recent appointment of former Murdoch trust fund gatekeeper and newly appointed chair of the ACCC, Gina Cass-Gottleib (500,00k+?), now grand arbiter of our much maligned consumer watchdog. We should acknowledge the 3-year renewal of Liberal aligned musician Tina Arena, despite attending her previous commitments at the Australia Council less-than-once in a Sorrento Moon. We should lament John McVeigh given the support role to an oil and gas lobbyist running the Murray Darling Basin Authority and the foul odour of hydraulic fracturing fluid they bring to our vital waterways, seeping into the artesian basins and waterways of this desert land.
If you look further afield, Michaela Cash has essentially created an archipelago of fiefdoms dotted across key appointments that determine the future of our nation. In 2021, she rewarded at least thirteen LNP satraps to “plum jobs” in some of the critical engine rooms that drive fairness and integrity in this Pavlovian democracy.
Check out these jobs for mates, roles like: Small Business Ombudsman (Former Victorian Liberal MP Bruce Billson - $360,250), Administrator of Norfolk Island (Former Tasmanian Liberal MP Eric Hutchinson - $304,830), how about something like Age Discrimination Commissioner (Former Senator and Peta Credlin mentor Kay Paterson - $360,250) or Director of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (Victorian Liberal politician Mary Woolridge $360,250) If that doesn’t float your boat, how about something less intense like the Independent Food and Grocery Code Reviewer (Howard cabinet minister Nick Minchin - $1,499 per day), or maybe Minchins previous role as Consul-General in New York now graciously occupied by (former NSW Liberal Premier Nick Greiner). Always something for former political compadres.
Adding to the whopping 20 appointments with an employer background installed in the Fair work commission appointed under a decade of this government, when she sees fit, Cash, our mongoose-attorney-general, the governments officiator of law with a mandate from heaven, can do things like anoint “term of natural working life” principalities to Sophie Mirabella and Alana Matheson, worth $387,960 per annum. Contracts that extended until 2047 for the latter! How?
Quarter-million-dollar-plus jobs available to party friendlies for 25 years, while for the rest of us brace for dear life, as the cost-of-living increases and stagnant wages bear down, and the decades of apathetic social motionlessness caused by negligent government compounds, extruding the compassion and goodness out of our society.
The major parties both use this unethical process effectively both federally and locally, selecting preferred and sometimes underqualified candidates to lucrative and influential positions to secure power over our independent processes, tarnishing the effectiveness and objectivity of these institutions in the process. By controlling the gates to the bureaucracy, the major parties, with the aid of favourable ears in these institutions, take away the contribution of independent community voices by denying them passage to roles that they should be preferred for.
And what will the opposition do if it gains power? What is the other hemisphere of the major party brain thinking as it looks to secure an election victory? We have not heard much from the ALP on this issue, it seems to imply be part of the major party furniture, the fact may be, that it really is a mechanism for the major parties to hold sway over the heart of decision-making in this country, limiting alternative voices and controlling the levers, weirs and floodgates that are in place to regulate our society. Critical infrastructure is being sabotaged by the people we entrusted to protect it. Shonkyness on steroids.
The hypernormalisation is made easier with the bespoke support of a tailor-made package from the Murdoch led corporate media tetrarchy, a design set in stone by the lack of alternative offered from the lifeless analysis of our only form of defence; our public broadcaster.
Never before have a people felt so held hostage by a government around an election date. Tax payers delve into their recent memories to try to reconcile with the overt display of shadow election campaigning and ministers hovering around the country on government purse, looking to smear every smudge while they dangle an election over our weary heads.
That’s the way it really is in a nation of endemic cronyism, outstanding and currently untouchable corruption, major parties beholden to the businesses that encourage the seamless connections between government and regulator, between MP and public board, an endless cycle of favour and political thievery, an act of societal sabotage. Scott Morrison and his government are augmenting the fundamental pillars of our society, stacking independent bodies, tribunals and regulatory arms in order to confuse and degrade our independent regulatory capacity. We must demand the major parties end this destructive practice.