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EVIDENCED BASED - MY EYE December 2009: Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, in a speech extolled his preference for evidence based policy decisoons. " Evidence-based policy, January 30, 2009, From a speech by Kevin Rudd: A third element of the Government’s agenda for the public service is to ensure a robust, evidence-based policy making process. Policy design and policy evaluation should be driven by analysis of all the available options, and not by ideology. When preparing policy advice for the Government, I expect departments to review relevant developments among State and Territory governments and comparable nations overseas. The Government will not adopt overseas models uncritically. We’re interested in facts, not fads." (Extract Kevin Rudd speech, source: http://criticalsnips.wordpress.com/category/evidence-based-policy/) It has come to pass during 2009 that Kevin Rudd says much but actually may not adhere to his own advice and demands. There is not mcuh about Kevin Rudd that is evidence based in his Prime Ministership. There is no evidence based analysis, and evaluation, in the national Broadband Network, a crystal balled project championed by the Prime Minister at $A42 billion. There is no evidence based analysis in his support for submarines which Australia cannot man because it has too few submariners and cannot use its purpose built navy submariner training facilty. There is no evidence based analysis, and evaluation, in the Rudd Education revolution, building school halls and physical structures is not educational nor revolutionary in n ature. There is no evidence based analysis, and evaluation, of the proposed Emmission Trading Scheme and value of free permits and subsidies given to push through a politically motivated agenda. There seems to be no evidence based analysis for Mr Rudd's support of the Australian Federal police found to be wanting in Australia's federal court. This appears to be a dangerous agency, for some, operating under poor management and oversight. This agency is responsible for a gross injustice on Dr. Haneef, perpertrated under the former Howard government and ongoing injustice under the Rudd government. The agency seems incapable fo accepting decisions and criticism choosing to do its own to the detriment of the quality of policing, and justice, in Australia. There is no evidence based policy analysis, and evaluation, in Stephen Conroy's internet filter legislation. There is no evidence based analysis, and evaluation, in Kevin Rudd's, and anthony Albanese's support, for a possible curfew at Brisbane airport and the one operating at Sydney airport now. Nor was there evidence based analysis, and evaluation, in the large money of taxpayer's money given to a car company for a green car that would be ut of date technologically even as it was released amd something that the company was designing and building anyway. " Labor's $70m hybrid gift to Toyota, Philip King and Matthew Franklin From: The Australian June 11, 2008 12:00AM, CAR giant Toyota had already decided to make a hybrid version of its Camry sedan in Australia and did not need the $70 million of taxpayer-funded subsidies promised by the federal and Victorian governments yesterday. Kevin Rudd, speaking at a meeting with Toyota executives at their Nagoya plant in Japan, yesterday pledged $35million to the company from Labor's new Green Car Innovation Fund as an incentive to assemble the vehicles at the Altona facility in Victoria. Victorian Premier John Brumby matched the $35million figure. But the funding promise has been undermined by local Toyota chiefs, who told The Australian the decision to make petrol-electric hybrid Camrys in Australia had already been made and was due to be announced "within months". Toyota Australia spokesman Mike Breen said the subsidies meant the announcement was brought forward. It would have gone ahead without the $70million cash injection, which was not critical to the proposal, he said." (source: The Australian Newspaper, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/labors-70m-hybrid-gift/story-e6frg6of-1111116597496) Prime Minister Rudd, Minister Anthony Albanese and Innovation Minister Kim Carr do not overly impress as innovators, who rely upon and use evidence based methodologies. Having looked at their time in office I do not think that history will record them as change agents likely to make Australia an innovative nation. The Emmissions Trading Scheme, and the Labor Government's, love affair with the Climate Change fad points to quite the opposite. Where is the government's argument that Climate Change is irrefutable? Suddenly we have 2 degres as the measure of the future of the planet. I do not think that Senator Carr is an innovator though he has the title in his Ministry. He is, I think, a democratic socialist engaged in spreading income amd wealth. "Values may endure – whether they be a commitment to fairness and equality, or simple pride in the work we do. But everything else is subject to constant change and, if we get it right, continuous improvement. Because social democrats understand that people have lives outside the marketplace, we also understand that no reform program – no innovation agenda – can be complete if it serves only economic objectives. Our kind of innovation must always have a social, cultural and political dimension as well. If we wanted to sum up what a social democratic innovation agenda might look like, we could do worse than revive the Dutch Labour Party’s old commitment to the “spreading of income, knowledge and power”." (Source: Senator Kim Carr (158) Home › Publications › ATSE Focus › 2009 › Senator Kim Carr (158), "Innovation and social democracy underpin successful societies", Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, http://www.atse.org.au/index.php?sectionid=1349) He would seem to possess the same protectionist ideology, attitudes, and barricades, to commercial development today, as he did ten years ago. Kevin Rudd's government is engaged in neanderthal economics ad policy development. Mr. Rudd, on theb face of it, prefers endless committee investigations and enquiries to fast, and direct, action. When we add climate change, and labor's ETS (see below) we are in for a shocking time here in the "she'll be right, lucky country" . Anthony Albanese, and Kevin Rudd's, electorate are impacted by the Sydney and Brisbane airports. They pander to their constituents and bugger the outcome. If Mr. Albanese was an innovator, free thinking, infrastructure Minister, and not a aself interested political manipulator, he would have lifted the curfew on Sydney. If people want to live near, or buy residences, near an airport, then tey should put up with the consequences. But no. They are stupid, and we all have to bear their personal circumstances, as a yoke upon growth, for choosing to live there. Tourism, and state development, should not be held to ransom by the few. Surprise, surprise, there is to be a study of the Brisbane airport under Minister Albanese's portfolio management. An exercise supported by Kevin Ruddd. Another enquiry from Australia's most enquiring Prime Minister. What a surprise if a curfew is recommended. Kevin Rudd is on record spending his own money to try and implement a curfew at Brisbane, before he became Prime Minister. "Prime Minister Kevin Rudd flies back to Australia this morning at odds with the Queensland Premier and Brisbane Lord Mayor over the need for a night curfew at the city's airport. A new Aviation Industry White Paper due this month is believed to recommend "periodic reviews" of the need for a curfew at one of Australia's fastest-growing airports. Only Sydney and Adelaide airports now have night curfews, restricting night flights between 11pm and 6am. Premier Anna Bligh yesterday emphatically ruled out the need for such a curfew in Brisbane. "The Brisbane Airport currently does not have a curfew and we don't think that it needs one," she said. "Our view is that one of the great strengths of the Brisbane Airport, particularly in an international sense, is that we can bring planes in here at any time of the day or night. "And realistically if we didn't have those hours available we would miss out on a lot of international visitors.'' Mr Rudd, who rose to prominence in his Griffith electorate when he campaigned on aircraft noise, believes it necessary to test the need for a curfew at Brisbane Airport. The Prime Minister explored the idea as an opposition backbencher, reportedly spending $30,000 of his own money in a court battle against the second runway in 2007." (Source: Brisbane airport curfew debate takes off TONY MOORE, December 3, 2009, Brisbane Times, http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/travel/brisbane-airport-curfew-debate-takes-off-20091202-k67n.html) The colours of Kevin Rudd, and his senior Ministers, are showing up now. Kevin's slip is showing and it is not a nice set of legs. The federal labor governmment is demonstrating that they are likely to be an immense danger to the ongoing development and reform of the Australian economy, in 2010 and beyond. Voters should begin to calculate the consequences, and costs, of keeping the federal labor party in power at the next election. Tony Abbott (though I am not so sure of the impact of Mr. Kevin Andrews, Mr. Phillip Ruddock and Ms. Bronwyn Bishop on his front bench team), is looking a strong chance. Mr Abbott will have to unload the baggage of the past to capitalise on the opportunity. But does he have the leadership clout, or tactical sense, to do this? (Kevin R Beck, Mosaic, December 2009) |
December 2009: Hello again. Are you becoming dessensitised to the babble and clap trap that emanating from the mouths of Australia's senior, and other politicians, regarding climate change? As well as that from the hysetrical proponents who believe that we are heading for a a"catastrophe"? What is the record of these people that they should be beleieved? They say "the science states", the 'science confirms", then we have massive exaggeration and bizarre claims that cannot be tested. Things pop out of politicians mpouths like - the cost of an ETS will be $A500,000,000,000. They respond with glee - there is a black hole of $A250,000,000,000 in someone's costings. Some expert agency has dreamed up a new number and this becomeds fact. There are specialist enterprises in Canberra Australia who do this sort of rubbish calculation for money. Then we have the experts making predictions that are not able to be verified. Things like the sea will rise one metre, all land and houses along the eastern seaborad of Australia will be inundated, the ploar caps will all melt, there wil be no more snow. Now we have Australian Local Government Bodies, and Tribunals, refusing permits to build, and develop, based on these unproven, shrill and ever increasing claims. The Greens demand 40% reductions in greenhouse gas, and carbon emissions, immediatley. We can live in caves under their theories and models. The sun will provide for all. Who picked the base date as 1990? Why is it any better than 1980 or 2009? They are all taken up by the climate change pied piper and all rushing off a cliff screaming calamity. These people are governing the nation! They need medical treatment for their phobias. Many of them lived in the shadows plying away trying to be heard. No one generally listened. They were hardly reported in the media, they were grey and bland. Then came climate change. This has resurrected their status. They can now join the global phenomenon that is the hallmark of everyone. Boosting.The propnesity of massive overstatement. Can't be heard? be outragous, make bigger claims about your expertise, hyper your resume, altenatively turn to fear and loathing. make a bigger more horrendous prediction. Turn to recrimination and disaster, mix it all in, scream from the rooftops daily that the apocolypse is upon us all. There is not much time. Even the most sane can be roped in. Even the Prime Minister of Australia and other nations can be coopted to stupidity if it is "evidenced based science" or alternatively just a smart good looking package that meets his objectives. There are tricks that politicians and other practitioners use - keep away from substance and detail, be general in your claims. use phrsaes that reinforce - "the science", renowned expert, the data, the tooth fairy, the pixie at the end of the garden... things loike that.Oh really. What bullshit foams from the mouths of so many intelligent people. What if global warming was good for the planet? " Global Warming: Not the End of the World as We Know It, By Olaf Stampf How bad is climate change really? Are catastrophic floods and terrible droughts headed our way? Despite widespread fears of a greenhouse hell, the latest computer simulations are delivering far less dramatic predictions about tomorrow's climate. DPA German sunworshippers enjoy a cocktail on a Baltic Sea beach in early May. Germany could experience a tourist boom as a result of climate change. Svante Arrhenius, the father of the greenhouse effect, would be called a heretic today. Far from issuing the sort of dire predictions about climate change which are common nowadays, the Swedish physicist dared to predict a paradise on earth for humans when he announced, in April 1896, that temperatures were rising -- and that it would be a blessing for all. Arrhenius, who later won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, calculated that the release of carbon dioxide -- or carbonic acid as it was then known -- through burning coal, oil and natural gas would lead to a significant rise in temperatures worldwide. But, he argued, "by the influence of the increasing percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, we may hope to enjoy ages with more equable and better climates," potentially making poor harvests and famine a thing of the past." .. The shock produced by the cold was as deep-seated it was long-lasting. When temperatures plunged unexpectedly once again in the 1960s, many meteorologists were quick to warn people about the coming of a new ice age -- supposedly triggered by man-made air pollution. Hardly anyone at the time believed a warming trend could pose a threat."... The apocalyptic mood seems to grow each time the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases a new section of its climate change report. Climate hysteria appears to be more contagious than a flu epidemic. "We only have 13 years left to save the earth," screamed a recent front-page headline in the German tabloid Bild. "If mankind is unable to stop the greenhouse effect by the year 2020, it will bring about its own demise -- and a horribly tortured one at that." Getty Images, Young girls sit on a pier at the beach of Lake Constance during sunset in late April in Langenargen, Germany. April was unusually warm in Germany, prompting speculation the hot weather was due to climate change. But how bad is climate change really? Will global warming trigger plagues of Biblical proportions? Can we look forward to endless droughts and catastrophic floods? Or will Arrhenius end up being right after all?" (Source of extract and full article is available at: Spiegel on line, http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,481684,00.html) "Arrhenius was merely expressing a view that was firmly entrenched in the collective consciousness of the day: warm times are good times; cold times are bad." The greater number of Australians are sidelined either by deliberate exclusion or by their own ignorance and detachment. They are focused on their minutae existence daily lives pressured by having to pay their mortgage and buy their basics and some their luxuries. They swallow the diatribe or they switch off. There are a growing number switching off. The Minister for Climate Change and Water Senator Ms Penny Wong is losing credibility and the Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett is blocking the building of dams to supply hundreds of thousands of people in Queensland, on behalf of a turtle. The strident calamity shouters are indeed challenged souls who are busy painting themselves into a corner. The political room they are in may have to be padded. (Kevin R Beck, Mosaic, December 2009) |
December 2009: Malcolm Turnbull was a successful lawyer and merchant banker before he became a politician. He worked his way through the Australian Liberal Party to achieve high office as a Minister in the John Howard lead government and the leader of the Opposition in the Australian parliament. However when the test came for him to stave off circumstance he was found wanting. He lost the leadership. The media, the commentators and the pundits, assume a transfer of capability. They confuse success in one sphere of endeavour with an imbued capability of success in another. A sort of ipso facto. This is not the case. Those who can navigate the political party factional maze and the corrupt processes of rise through the Australian politics sewers, rarely demonstrate the qualities to be exceptional leaders. The talents required to get ahead in business, and politics, are distinctly different to those qualities required to inspire and lead, to occupy public office. There are exceptions, and Paul Keating was one. We rarely test the politicians and the bureaucrats, we cannot because they create an impenetrable world of barriers. Those of us, who spend our days, weeks, months and years, dealing with governments, bureaucracy in Australia, know well that the people we deal with rarely do theior homework. One might give them the benefit of the doubt that their lives are busy. However we do not have to doubt that their intelligence gathering, knowledge of the world beyond their immediate walls and tendency towards myopia is real. This is frustrating for those who wish to achieve somethign particularly saving public money, changing poor policy or advising on fruitless, or dangerous, pathways. The Departments of governments vary in their capacities and willingness to participate with those beyond their walls. The states and territories are the worst to deal with and suffer greatest from insular views and myopia. At the federal level the Department of Health and Aging is among the most myopic. They have very little idea of what will bite them. Now we can assume that the Department of Climate Change, under Minister Penny Wong, is closing on health as a very insular and myopic agency. They have no idea of the mosaic of interest and how they mesh, or collide, for or against, government policy. This is not a labor government thing it was the same under the liberal - national coalition. They came out with glossy policy action plans like the Australian Light Metals strategy. They pontificated winners and a future that never materialised, costing the nation tens of millions. They were ably supported in their fantasies by big business interests and the Queensland government as other states, and territories, tried to get on the band wagon. They were oblivious to beyond the horizon interests and strategists working on behalf of other interests So it goes with the Department of Climate Change and the government's Emmission Trading Scheme. Minister penny Wong and her team are oblivious to the hidden strategists who have contributed to opposion. Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd says that the government was remiss in not explaining it to the people. This is simple folksy theory and rubbish. This implies that the ordinary person in each electorate, with no interest other than their hip pocket, are the ones to be convinced. Spend time on that and fail. This is insularity, and myopia, on full dispaly. He, and those who cannot believe they have failed, think this is a glitch, a road bump. perhaps they think that they can just pull out a good communications campaign and a lot of spin. Well they cannot. We, and others, will collectively devastate the government's current ETS plans and make their ETS look like the the contrived economic fallacy, and fantasy, that it really is. If this ETS gets up it will destroy so many lives and like priavtisation wreak havoc on sections of Australian society. We will kill Kevin Rudd's ETS here in Australia and internationally. The labor party, similarly with the liberal party, seems to never learns its lessons. Is it that Kevin Rudd, like those before him, is surrounded by poorly experienced, very myopic advisers and strategists, whose failure to see over the horizon is evidenced in most of Kevin Rudd's failed promises and strategies. They make a rod for their own backs when they lock out those who would ty and assist in getting something up on anything in the public policy sphere. They seem oblivious to the proposition that in today's complex global networks, and relationships, are vast, sometimes very strange bedfellows, and often well resourced. Now even the individual, experienced, smart, tactical and well served by technology, has become a force to be reckoned with. The government's plight is not about not having a plan B, as the media suggests. The Australian media can be Canberra centrist, as insular, and mypoic as the government, and bureaucracy, it reports and comments on. In many respects it goes beyond the capacity and skill of Penny Wong and her team. It may, intr alia, be very much about a combination including mypoic perceptions, of portfolio Ministers, advisers, consultants and bureaucrats and their capabilities to discover the things they do not know and really strategise. Instead of trying to resurrect their piece of ETS crap, they could open real discussion whilst listening with open minds seeking alternative solutions. I am not interested in being convinced about their ETs because it is a crystal ball theory created by people with no reputation for accuracy or prescient prediction. I do not that they are likely to change their ways, or their methods and nor are they likely to take anyway outside their view of relevance to take part, so let's dance. (Kevin R Beck, Mosaic, December 2009) |
Did they deliberately set out to mislead us? It is not clear how Kevin Rudd arrives at strategy and who has influence? It is clear that the Australian labor party, or for that matter also the liberal, national and greens parties, have substandard intelligence gathering networks and systems. If the labor party had a sophisticated mechanism in place then they would not have been blindsided by Tony Abbott. They would also be well aware that the Australian electorate is not on board with the government's ETS (Emmission Trading Scheme). They would also have a better understanding as to where to gather their information and identify the protagonists and the barrier creationists. The government's Emmission Trading Scheme is under serious threat internally within Australia. Climate Change and Water Minister, Senator Penny Wong, has not covered all the bases and has failed to clearlt articulate the scheme. To simply put a "spin" argument on the web purporting to be a full justification is not the manner in which this issue should be approached. There are hidden forces, and interests, who intend to stymy and kill off the government's ETS. The process adopted by Kevin Rudd, regarding policy development is a myopic and bureaucratic one. The Australian media has focused on Mr Rudd's propensity for the "research and enquiry" based approach. What they have not looked at are the pitfalls in this approach. The practically oriented, invariably those who may have little regard for, or little deeper education, may eschew Mr Rudd's approach. They may prefer historical experience "If practitioners shun theory then they must rely on experience as a guide to action. In deciding on their response to a problem they draw on a range of options suggested by previous experience with that type of issue. However, “it is wishful thinking to assume that experience alone will teach leaders everything they need to know” (Copland et al, 2002, p. 75)." (in Theories of Educational Management, Tony Bush, http://cnx.org/content/m13867/latest/) The Climate Change Department of the Commonwealth government may have failed the Senator in its role since it is a new and powerfulk department at the apex of government policy. What has been the focus of this agency? "Niskanen argues that the size of the discretionary budget (Y) reflects the reward structure in the bureaucratic environment...Niskanen begins by showing that bureaucrats maximize personal utility (wages and perks) by maximising the agency's budget. Actually, he corrects this statement. Instead: bureaucrats maximise objectives defined in terms of the agency's discretionary budget. (The discretionary budget is the difference between the budget parliament gives and the cost to the agency of producing its output)." (Source: Niskanen: Bureaucrats and politicians, Journal of Law and Economics 18 (December): 617-43.) "In an address to senior public servants in April 2008, the Prime Minister observed that, ‘evidence-based policy-making is at the heart of being a reformist government’. I want to explore why that is profoundly true; what it means in practice, and some implications for those of us in public administration. In doing so, I will draw on the experience of the Productivity Commission—which with its predecessors has been at the heart of evidence- based policy-making in Australia for over three decades—to distil some insights into what is needed across government generally if we are to be successful. It is as important that we have a rigorous, evidence-based approach to public policy in Australia today as at any time in our history. This country faces major long-term challenges; challenges that have only been exacerbated by the economic turbulence that we are struggling to deal with right now. When the present crisis is over, we will still have the ongoing challenges of greenhouse, the ageing of our population and continuing international competitive pressures. We should not underestimate the significance of those challenges, which place a premium on enhancing the efficiency and productivity of our economy." (Source of extract: Contemporary Government Challenges Challenges of evidence-based policy-making, Gary Banks AO, Australian Public Service Commission, http://www.apsc.gov.au/publications09/evidencebasedpolicy.htm) Thus we might say that the Prime Minister is more academic than bureaucrat, though there are overlaps in the profile of each type. In the case of the Australian ETS proposal there is little evidence to show that the examination, and choice, of this particular mechanism (ETS) to address climate change was academically, bureaucratically or politically astute. Because a topic is complex and detailed, that should not mean that there is no attempt to explain it. The government's behaviour in ths regard bears examination and demands explanation. The Honourable Minister, Senator Wong, appeared to my mind to speak all too often in generalities bristling with political barbs. Then the government, and particularly, Mr Rudd and Ms Wong, intertwine Climate Change and the ETS as if they are homogenous and synonymous. This is not merely disingenuous it bordres on both misrepresentation and questionable behaviour. The ETS has nothing to do with climate change. The ETS is a contrived (creatd) market instrument. The theory is that price and market forces bring about emmissions reduction, investment in renewable energy and changes in behaviour. "ETS will kill Tourism, Transport and Trade, By Viv Forbes Saturday, Canada Free Press, September 12, 2009 Emissions trading schemes proposed for the western world will guarantee another global financial crisis for tourism, transport and world trade. All carbon control schemes have at their core two essential features aimed at reducing man’s production of the harmless gas, carbon dioxide. Firstly, increasingly severe rationing of carbon dioxide (CO2) releases. And secondly, taxes on all permitted emissions and punitive taxes on any excess. They are all Ration-and-Tax Schemes and they will all enforce arbitrary reductions by 2020. But not one car, truck, bus, train, plane or ship can move without producing CO2. There is no possibility that this will change significantly before the doomsday year of 2020, just a decade away. Therefore neither Australia nor New Zealand can cut CO2 emissions by 2020 without slowly strangling all those industries that rely on moving people or goods. Our politicians should be asked, individually, what food, mineral products and travel they propose doing without in order to meet the 2020 cuts specified in their Ration-and-Tax Schemes. Australia and New Zealand comprise four lonely islands in the vast southern oceans which stretch from Africa to South America However, world population, political power and finance are concentrated far away in the Northern Hemisphere. Apart from a few stock horses used by drovers, the occasional sailing yacht, some suburban bicycles and some hydro power that moves trains, our transport fleets rely totally on petrol, diesel, gas and coal. There are no solar powered aeroplanes or sail powered ocean liners – all produce CO2. Neither country can import tourists, get mineral and food products to their cities or export goods to world markets without producing CO2." (Source of extract as cited, An Honest Climate Debate, Exposing the truth about the Man-Made Climate Change theory, http://anhonestclimatedebate.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/ets-will-kill-tourism-transport-and-trade/) Kevin R Beck, Mosaic, December 2009 |
Is it about climate change scepticism or ETS scepticism? Kevin Rudd likely to create an Australian economic crisis November 2009: Why is there an assumption that if people oppose passage of the Rudd labor government's ETS legislation that they are climate change sceptics? These are totally unrelated spheres. Perhaps Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and Minister Penny Wong, should look at their failure to fully explain, and educate, the population on what precisely is intended by the ETS and how a contrived market can lead to a direct impact on global warming? They might explain why they think that an ETS is the way to go? Because the rest of the world believes it to be so? The EU model is not all that flash and has not delivered. Jyoto has not delivered. The proposed Australian ETS model, and the assumptions of Treasury and the advisers, who have put the ETS market model together are open to challenge. They are, in many respects, nothing more than theory, and guess, with big numbers attached. They guess the impact, the outcomes and the costs. This is a dangerous way to determine, frame and implement policy. The Rudd labor government, and the Australian government Treasury, and public service agencies, collectively have no strong record of assessment, with demonstrably accurate modelling. Yet we are to rely upon a crystal ball government modus oepnadi, and set of arguments, and the creation of a contrived market. In the mid nineties the Australian electricity market model was created. It failed to reach any of the expectations of costs and revenues. It was contrived just like the ETS. In today's modern governments the policy makers and the bureaucrats prefer to focus on "nebullous future" predictions over current every day pressing matters. It is far easier for people, who may be struggling, bereft of ideas, and plans, to address immediacy and today's problems to instead to turn to things that cannot be measured and challenged accurately. To blow up the hysteria and the urgency to move attention away from general failure of government. Billions are thrown around as if the billion is equivalent to a mere hundred in our minds. A billion today! That is nothing! Governments can manufacture a surplus with the sleight of a pen. They cannot deliver effective water, health, education and transport services so they turn to things that are nebulous. Things based on theory and that will not make them immediately accountable. Tings that are impressive and to which can be attached evidence from people whohave been in the twilight rabbiting away. They come into the light and go crazy with teir warnings, predictions and theories. One upmanship takes over the more mundane processes of a boring life. Prime Minister Rudd, and colleagues, prefer to take a stab at guessing the future. So we see extraordinary claims, and fear mongering, competing and nmore bizarre theories and claims published on the government climate change web site. If we do not do something now the cost in ten, or twenty years, will be x billions of dollars. If we do not do something now all of Australia's sea coast will be inundated. We are seeing government bodies such as in Victoria (VCAT) making decisions on planning applications using guess technique assessment methodology: what will happen on the Australian coast some decades into the future based on inarguable propositions that the sea will rise 0.7 centimetres. These are quite stupid deliberations and costly soothsaying. The Australian ETS called the CPRS has put a cap on carbon price of $10 a ton till 2012. By doing this; the CPRS is not creating a market at all, it is creating a centrally planned market economy for carbon. On top of this the government decides which industries are part of the CPRS and which are not; which industries get free carbon credits and how much. In addition, it is allowing overseas carbon credits to be bought in Australia to the tune of 100%. What this means is that carbon reduced in other countries as part of their ETS can be bought by Australian companies and they do not have to innovate to reduce their carbon output. By putting a cap on the price, by providing free credits as it seems fit, by excluding some industries and providing access to foreign carbon credits the government is acting as a central planner and distorting the idea of a carbon market. Centrally planned economies do not work. A distorted market will not provide the benefits of a free market and in this case it will not lead to reduction in carbon emissions. What else will happen is hard to fathom?" (Source: What will the Australian ETS achieve? or What can a centrally planned carbon economy achieve? Posted by: Suhit Anantula on: November 17, 2009, World is Green, http://worldisgreen.com/2009/11/17/what-will-the-australian-ets-achieve-or-what-can-a-centrally-planned-carbon-economy-achieve/) Malcolm Turnbull, leader of the opposition in Australia's federal parliament, has precipitated a crisis by forcing the convoluted mixing of climate change theory and ETS theory onto the liberal and national party parliamentary members. The media is focused on the leadership issue since gladiatorial contests are far better entertainment tan dry analysis of the facts. In this regard Malcolm Turnbull joins the government in an inept methodology of deciding policy based on evidence and fact. The government would claim that there is evidence. But of what? Climate change, not the prrformance of their ETS. World concensus is that an ETS is the ay to go. World concensus was that we slice and dice debt until it disappeared. What did world concensus deliver? The global economic crisis. Mr Rudd is likely to create, by accident or design, the Australian economic crisis. (Kevin R Beck, Mosaic, November, 2009) |
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November 2009: Rudd and Coterie Unimpressive Why ask New Zealand to take the Sri Lankan rabble parked on the Australian customs ship off the Indonesian Coast? With the exception of the Australian Newspaper, Australian media has generally lauded the operational style of the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and his fiefdom of close apparatchiks. The media, of course, are not going to acknowldge, or admit, that they are captive to spin merchants and psycho babble technocrats who dress everything up as "policy grounded in evidence based research. This is just tripe and is a stolen definition from the book of academic herbs and spells. An examination of Mr Rudd's decision skills and the work of his young gun, advisers, and chief of staff, to date, appears to demonstrate a fundamental failure of basic thinking capacity. perhaps they use tea leave reading, throwing bones, whilst using the passing off arts. Could it be that they have no administration, and management, capabilities beyond the media cycle manipulation? Below in this web site I report the "failed states of Australia", the "non existent education revolution", the "non existent building of aboriginal housing" in the Northern Territory, the "national public housing fabulous sleight of hand", the "non existent grocery watch and petrol watch web sites" and the "carefully crafted, highly selective and misleading, climate change magic pudding." The latter is under the deft hand of thes celte and very foxy Senator Penny Wong. An industrial lawyer who takes no prisoners whilst eschewing any demonstrative, deep thought analysis and eviodence, as to what effect the government's ETS will have on the nation, economically and socially. Now, from the Kevin Rudd, House of Marvels and Magic, we have the "terribly, not so effective, evidence based (yes we can see it and them) boats on the ocean experience. Evidencing stupidity, the Australian government may have asked New Zealand to process the Sri Lankan mob. New Zealand, in case Rudd's little stars had not noticed, or learnt in their recent schooling, is a bunch of small islands with a total population equal to one Australian major metropolitan city. Why would they demean us (who cares about them demeaning themselves) by proposing that soemone else should clean house for the Australian government? The Sri Lankans should be returned to their own country now. What is occurring now shows us that when the real wood is on Mr Rudd he is incapable of innovative and/or Prime Ministerial thinking. The proposition from Stepehn Smith that we have all the patience in the world, implying that such is a valid act of government is quite simply drivel. Rudd's one big bang policy action, the only action, was to spend money when the world financial system farted and shit itself. Now the government is doing the same over the boat people. (Kevin R Beck, Mosaic, November, 2009) |
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November 2009: Failed States and Territories
The Northern Territoyr has given up any pretence that its elected parliament acts in anyone's interest other than their own and the power collective. Blatant stealing of federal allocated funds for purposes other than they are granted is endemic. These monies are used to feather the nests of a cotoerie that acts against democracy corrupting the process and operation. The parliament is a rabble of self interest and the public service is sycophant to the whims of the political and business class. The Australian government tolerates this indiacting that the current Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is both hypocritical and morally questionable. "Nicolas Rothwell | October 24, 2009, Article from: The Australian The Northern Territory is a lost cause. We've had three decades to get it functioning, and now it's time to admit the system doesn't work and needs to be replaced IN Australia we are used to seeing progress in governance, not failure. We expect governments in our jurisdictions that function well, provide efficient services, and maintain a fair match between the rhetoric of politics and the facts on the ground. There is, though, a failed state in our midst. That state is not Aboriginal north Australia, where the social fabric is in shreds and tatters. No: it is the jurisdiction largely responsible for entrenching this degree of indigenous disadvantage: the modern-seeming, self-governing Northern Territory. On the face of things, all the standard attributes of a democratic society are present here in Darwin: a parliament, political parties, government departments, a range of key social institutions that look much like their southern equivalents. But in fact the Territory is best understood as an interlocking set of interest groups. It is heavily dependent on outside funding, the bureaucracy is shot through with politics, almost all medium-sized business relies on public sector contracts and the entire system is founded on the administration of an Aboriginal underclass." ,,,, "The unicameral parliament, housed in a large wedding cake structure, is the most visible of the Territory's failed institutions. On the 33 days a year that it sits, it is a place of confrontation, not a chamber for debate between its 25 members. "With the state sector so all-dominating, and its patronage so rich, political affiliation matters. Why support an opposition party when you will be excluded from the circle of favour that expresses itself in consultancies, contracts and development opportunities? In this environment, a party-state comes into being, and both sides in politics have developed such a regime during their years in power. Bureaucrats carrying out party dictates, politicised appointments to key posts, a climate of obedience, a culture of prudent silence: these are features of the Territory's map. It is easy to blame the present regime for some of the system's more peculiar traits: the creation, for instance, of parallel constituency "offices of the chief minister" in regional centres, staffed by failed parliamentary candidates. But in their quarter-century in power, the conservatives presided over a similarly bizarre "total state", with implicit codes of loyalty and allegiance lying at its heart. Buttressing this inner cement of unspoken ties is a culture of vociferous announcement. At the core of the Territory system is a mind-set reminiscent of Pacific Island cargo-cults. An institution is named, set up, housed and lightly staffed: problem solved. Thus Darwin is full of facades rather than real structures: an Environmental Protection Authority without powers, an indigenous advisory panel without input, a climate change portfolio without policies, a museum with insufficient funds. Such facade institutions, and the philosophy behind them, infect the air. they create a fantasy approach to administration, where Canberra always lurks, saviour-like, in the wings, and the declaration of a policy is sufficient to change the world."(source of extract as cited at opening) In South Australia the speaker screamed "shut up" to the members of parliament who have allowed the house to deteriorate into a rabble of make testosterone driven hubris. The Premier, Mike Rann, leads people who are thugs in suits. As in the Northern Territory politics attracts some of the lowest moral characters and the ethically challenged on the ladder of society. These precious, shallow, politicians are cioncerned with ego and their own beleived prestidge. THE Speaker of the South Australian parliament has threatened to resign after a second day of uproar over opposition probing of Premier Mike Rann's relationship with a former parliamentary barmaid. "The Speaker, Jack Snelling, stunned MPs, including a visibly shocked Mr Rann, by screaming at opposition whip Ivan Venning to "sit down" after he had complained of a threat made across the chamber by Treasurer Kevin Foley. Regaining his composure, Mr Snelling, a father of five and former union organiser, said: "If I don't feel that I am able to control this chamber, if members continue to ignore my calls of order, I will resign -- I will go over to Government House and hand in my commission. "The behaviour today has been nothing short of disgraceful. It makes me ashamed to be a member of this place." The extraordinary scenes came at the end of a tense question time during which Mr Rann was asked about the payment of legal bills associated with an incident at a Labor fundraiser on October 1. Adelaide businessman Richard Phillips, whose estranged wife Michelle Chantelois was previously friendly with Mr Rann, has been charged with aggravated assault against the Premier. The hostility between the two major parties was palpable as parliament resumed yesterday and the level of anger among MPs rose quickly."(Source: Extract Michael Owen, SA political reporter | October 30, 2009, Article from: The Australian) In New South Wales the media reports that the Premier nathan Rees has resorted to spying on his colleagues. "NSW Premier Nathan Rees has ordered a spying crackdown on his ministers, with special phone-tracking equipment to be installed in their offices. Staff from the Premier's Department have met at least one company to discuss close monitoring of ministerial phones, with a plan to put sophisticated technology into Governor Macquarie Tower, where Mr Rees and his ministers are based. The move has outraged his colleagues, who accuse him of unprecedented interference and rampant paranoia. ''It took [former US president] Richard Nixon 30 years to get this paranoid - Rees has got there in 12 months,'' one said. At the same time, tensions are reigniting between former health minister John Della Bosca and the Premier over Mr Della Bosca's attempts to retrieve private information from his confiscated computer hard drive." (Source of extract: Rees spies on ministersLISA CARTY November 1, 2009, Brisbane Times) One might well query the moral and ethical capacity of senior bureaucrats who would participate in this degradation of the people's democracy. But this is not surprising examing the calibre and operation of the NSW public service where appointment is clearly reminiscent of a by gone "royal court". So as the foundations, and integrity, of our democracies, and parliaments, crumble away in the hands of corrupt and self absorbed egos and interests, the Australian people, and media, are consumed with 78 Sri Lankans on a boat off the coast of Indonesia. Kevin Rudd has mcuh more to deal with than a boat if he is to achieve anything worthwhile in his time as Prime Minister. But does he know what is important? |
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A public service management (CFA and DSE) suffering a lobotomy at the hands of the Victorian labor government Brumby, and the Minister, should have resigned long ago.    |
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Oh please with the obligations, threats and insults Yet again we saw on display the low grade intellect and behaviour of Queensland's prominent citizens. The Premier Anna Bligh has been attempting to change the culture of corruption, ignorance and stupidity that typifies business and politics in that state. She is severely challenged in this goal. " Steven Wardil, September 30, 2009 12:00am, MINING magnate Clive Palmer has blasted Australia's foreign investment policies as "racist" and called on the Government to lift restrictions on China. In speech to the Queensland Media Club, Mr Palmer called the Federal Treasurer "Wayne Goose" and threatened to take the Foreign Investment Review Board to the High Court...."I must say to the Treasurer Wayne Goose, no Wayne Swan . . . I must say that I object to that as an Australian citizen too," he said. The National Party honorary life member's comments come after FIRB director Patrick Colmer last week warned the Chinese not to use the media and lawyers to fight the review board's decisions. Mr Palmer responded by saying the FIRB was a "racist body" operating against the laws of the World Trade Organisation and the Australian Constitution." (Source of extract: Clive Palmer says investment policies are racist, Courier Mail Brisbane, http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26143179-3102,00.html) Noel Pearson says that it is every Australian's responsibility to ensure cultural vitality, economic and personal health of aboroginal people. This is quite simply tripe. For decades in my life I have watched the chest beating and sycophantic "we acknowledge their land" dribble of politicians, and other bleeding hearts, opening mettings, conferences, entertainment, festivals and a new fast food or supoermarket outlet. One can tire of the endless recriminations that arise form those who make their living, reputation and public persona on the back of some interest group or cause. One can become tired of the recriminations against white Australia for having failed the aboriginal people. There is no let up just constant pressure which eventually defeats the cause and turns the average person cold to the plight. The champions of under porivileged causes, and special interests, must send the parliamentary members and the officialdom spare with their endless whining , sniping and critiques. The greater number of Australians, including myself, do not get off their arses and participate in the volunteering and in looking closely at the problems. We sit back and demand governments and the public service do it. In order to ameliorate the antipathy of those who do harangue, money is thrown at them for their lifetsyle participation in forums and conferences. Do the people in the Australian Council of Social Sevices (ACOSS) want poverty to end? Do those who minister, and berate, on behalf of the have nots want everyone to be rich and successful? Of course not, they would have no livelihood and no causes to pursue. They would not be sittin g in the airline member lounges and flying at the pointy end and dtaying in the nice hotels. The nation has spent billions on aboriginal people. yet we never seem to ge the weight, and demands, off our backs. These people want to live in the desert, to drink and be stupid, not to send their kids to school, not go to school themselves, live on the dole and in shanties, let them. When they beat and rape their wives and children then treat them as normal citizens and prosecute them. Everyone wants to get on the band wagon of celebrity high profile causes. Regardless of their abilities, intellectual capacity, knowledge and commitment. Now Missy higgins, an Australian song writer, and entertainer, thinks that she can expand her capabilities to commentary on what is environmentally damaging with regard to gas development in the Kimberley, with self belief in her expertise. What amount of time and research has she devoted to determining the economic and social impacts, against the cerebral cant of environmentalism? She has added her two bob to an endless streqam of diatribe and rubbish about what should be preserved, the odd shrub, a frog, a parrot and other miniscule rodents. Are these people serious? We should live in caves turning the nasty coal power statons off. We should worship the wind and the sun. A little bit of public exposure, fifteen minutes of fame, goes to the head. We have celebrities who think they are catalysts for social issues, media shock jocks believing that they can elucidate with deep thought and analysis and pontificate on complex issues. There are all manner of fringe dwellers who live on others' contributions, extolling the nature of things and telling us what our obligations are. In Tasmania we have the never ending example of the politician who wants to make hay from some activity but cannot say what it is, because it is commercially confidential, but it is exciting. "Mr Aird will visit the European headquarters of a major multi-national corporation considering a significant new job-creating project on the North-West Coast. He has been asked to deliver a presentation to the company’s board outlining why Tasmania is an ideal place for it to make a major investment worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Senior Australian Government officials will also join this meeting in a joint effort to demonstrate the Australian case for this project. The secretary of the Department of Economic Development will also attend. Mr Aird said the Government is unable to disclose further details of the proponent or project at this stage due to commercial-in-confidence reasons but will do so at the first opportunity." (Source: Tasmanian government media releases, http://www.media.tas.gov.au/release.php?id=27823, Michael Aird, MLC, Treasurer, Tuesday, 15 September 2009. The typical tripe that media spin types (parasites on the public purse in parliemnatry memvers' offices) put out trying to put substance into something that they should keep their mouths shut about. These people dwell in the nether world. Do they realise that there are enterprising people out there in the real world, who will take an interest in this subterfuge, making it their business to find out what the Minister and public servants are up to? They trumpet the 'secret mission" as some flimsy justifiaction for paying the Treasurer, looking as if he is doing something worthwhile for the state. It is pathetic that open government is not the mandate of those elected to parliament. Instead they employ people to divert attention, trick, mislead, lie and obsfucate. many of the players in our daily lives, seeking to shape and influence, are fringe dwellers living on the creativity of others, ever demanding a share of the cake that they did not create, trying to bask in the sun shine of nearness and relevance. Add to this the worthless efforts of the state public servants in getting anything done and we have a major waste of money, time and effort entrenched in our system of economy, society and government. Malcolm Turnbull, leader of the opposition, tells his party coleagues do it my way or I will resign. Such is the quality of leadership and managerialism in public life. Malcolm's time as leader has not been auspicious. he has failed to articulate any clear thinking on the economic crisis, and the failure of the institutions of which he was formerly a participant. The whole Emission Trading Scheme proposition is based on theory and differing opinions. The Rudd government claims it is clear, we are on our way to destruction courtesy of carbon. These people have been eating magic mushrooms. The crash through approach os typical of the hubris that envelopes governments in Australia. It is an adversarial system, not only within the halls of parliaments but one that taken into the wider world insulting the nation's intelligence and demeaning the democratic processes. climate change the panacea of relevance for the fringe dwellers. Climate change is the cause celebre. The proponents of the theory see this as an opportunity to be relevant and to have their moment in the sun. John Howard's government denigrated academia. Thus they waited. Kevin Rudd is an academic. The peer hierarchy of the scientific world are not about to give up access to funds, credibility, relevance and access. The lower levels of the hierarchy know, as in politics, how the game is played. If they wish to rise through the ranks of academia they must not challenge their peers. They wil lose reserach funding, status and position. So it goes in every facet of society. The sycophants are like the stock market investors they are sheep. Better to be on the bandwagon than off. The academia of economics, overall did not predict, the failure, refusing to challenge the orthodoxy, or challenge, the theory of endless growth. It rises again like a phoenix becuse the same power collective remains. Better to be on the side of common wisdom than not. Thus it goes with climate change. Malcolm Turnbull claims that there is an excess of scientific evidence. There is not. There is the manipulated and the common ideology. Better not to rok the boat than to be irrelevant in politics. Thus is the decline in our democracy and in intellectual debate in Australia. The greater number of us go like sheep to the altar of cliamte change embracing erroneous theories and the world of the average. Towards a system destined for failure, Kevin Rudd's ETS. |
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Australian federal opposition, parliamentary front bench member, Joe Hockey announced the liberal - national agenda for the rest of the federal parliamententary term. They will go to the election with a single proposition. They will reduce the annual budget by $A14 billion. This is typical. Then we have the drivel coming from Sharman Stone regarding the influx of refugees coming by boats. this has always been the principle low grade scare tactic of a morally bankrupt set of politicians. made all the more hypocritical because many in the liberal party disagree with this approach but remain silent looking after their own political career interests. There is only one member of the liberal party in Australia that demonstrates the quality that all members should aspire to. The Victorian Senator Judith Troeth. "Judith Troeth crosses Senate floor to end billing of detainees, Christian Kerr | September 08, 2009 Article from: The Australian:http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26044323-5013871,00.html LIBERAL Senator Judith Troeth today crossed the floor to back government moves to end billing of immigration detainees. The vote has ended one of the more contentious immigration decisions from the Howard government. The Victorian Liberal told the Senate: “No advanced society should have on its books laws like this.” Senator Troeth said figures from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees showed Australia had received just 4500 asylum claims in recent years. “That is 0.5 per cent of the worldwide total and almost all of them did not arrive by boat,” she said. “I challenge the theories of those who want to say that this is opening the floodgates.” The liberals left her to stand tall shwoing the Australian electorate the calibre of their morality, ethics and their lack of spine. Sharman Stone and the front men, and women, of the Australian liberal party (not only in the federal parliament) are a reflection of the declining quality of Australia's national parliament. They are bereft of ideas and thinking. Forget policy formulation, analysis and creative thinking. Mr. Hockey and the moribund liberal party, under Malcolm Trunbull, have no vision for Australia. Similarly the Premier of NSW and the state labor party in government are as vapid, nut unlike the federal parliament, the NSW government is mired in corruption. In South Australia the labor leader Mike Rann treats the parliament as his personal fiefdom showing contempt for process and demonstrating degradation every day he satnds in the house and opens his mouth. In the Northern Territory the government has been given billions a year ago and has not built a house for the aboriginal people under the federal government grant. In Queensland Premier anna Bligh deals daily with sleaze and corruption across the party. "Rudd talks about integrity. It’s lacking in his back yard. It’s also lacking across all the Labor states. NSW reeks. Victorian Labor figures are becoming regulars in the magistrates courts. Tasmania has had some colourful corruption scandals. And The Australian’s Adelaide bureau staff is doing a sterling job revealing the relationships between business and the local ALP. South Australian Premier Mike Rann made an interesting intervention into matters yesterday. His state doesn’t have an ICAC, or something similar. He has said they don’t need one. But he announced yesterday he would back the creation of such a body—if it were done nationally. “I’m more than happy if there is a commonwealth ICAC,” he said. “In fact, I think that makes common sense.” Rudd famously told voters that “the buck stops with me” on health. He promised to intervene if the states could not sort our their hospitals. He seems to be a little more reluctant to act on the matter now, despite his health review. How would he feel about taking responsibility for sleaze? One thing is certain: there would be much less moralising." (Source: Integrity is lacking, despite an outbreak of moralising House Rules Blog | August 06, 2009, The Australian, http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/houserules/index.php/theaustralian/comments/integrity_is_lacking_despite_an_outbreak_of_moralising/desc) At the federal level Mr. Turnbull probably became unhinged when the world as he knew it, through the eyes of a successful merchant banker collapsed in a heap of discredit. All his beliefs shattered and all of the principles, and theories, which nurtured his world, proven to be somewhat haphazard,unreliable, unethical and immoral. He desperately casts about for a credible foundation upon whihc to demonstrate his credentials. The liberals cling to hackneyed and worn economic management as the pathway to greatness and power. The labor party vision, under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, is one of buliding things and dressing them up as revolutionary innovative action. apparently a school hall is an education revolution. It is not it is a stimulus to create work. To dress it up as an education revilution is spin and a stupid lot of twaddle. The govermment members who call it a revolution treat all of the electorate, particularly the majority that vote for them, as if they are as stupid as the proposition itself. Politicians get away with thsi beacuse to many it is irrelevant. Kevin Rudd's poppularity lies not in his leadership and abilities for making parliament of house of quality but bacuse the electorate is ill informed, lazy in examination and demands regarding democracy and often ignorant. Mr Rudd and Ms Gilllard are relying on the states, and territories, to deliver their policy outcomes. This is stupid also. They are flouting responsibility. They cannot (politically) acknowledge that these labor governments, and their public services, are incapable of managing the general delivery of everyday services let alone extra billions of dollars of public funds. This is however a short term consequence because the objective of keeping regional Australia and construction workers in jobs will be met. The government's policy to spend in construction is a sound one, driven by the impacts of the global recession. They, unlike others, in the Australian federal opposition, in the media and in Australian business, trawled the information sources and opinions for disparate jigsaw pieces that might predict where the economy was, and is going. The opposition thinks it is over. Thus Julia Gillard has the unenviable task of keeping in work by a crude and expensive process, being rorted by state and territory governments, corrupt and opportunistic consultants, builders and contractors and very inexperienced, inept public servants. ms Gillard is exposed by her own Department's inability to manage and protect her programme. The Secretary of the Education department has demonstrated no ability to carry out this role. Ms Gillard must bare the same types of insults she metered out in the past regarding the opposition's own project and policy management skills. The parliaments of Australia are ignorant of creative, and quality, government and public service. Kevin Rudd wants a quality federal public service, so he has announced an enquuiry. Such is typical of a person who has not conceived that his own inadequacies will alway hold back the brightness buried deep within the system. An inexperienced, and uneluminating, Prime Minister surrounded by political advisers barely out of diapers. The labor party has few conviction politicians, and deep policy thinkers, left, in any of the nation's parliaments, and the liberals have none on the front bench of any parliament anywhere in the nation. Barnaby Joyce in the Senate is a conviction politician as is Senator Bob Brown. This is beyoind sad, it reflects the ignorance of the Australian electorate who are besotted with image rather than substance. Kevin Rudd's popularity is a thing of wonder. He has demonstrated no substantail policy creativity operating with a single philosophy and ideology, spend money and ridicule using flowery language. The government's policies are bound in wwasle words, lies and misrepresentations. Shallow low grade (euphemistically called) training is presented as a maajor and significant stragey and when it is failing the Rudd government resorts to distortion of truth and bluster. Those who think that government should be something more and that politicians should earn their money are beyond being disenchanted, they are in despair that the nation's house, policy and performance, could come to this. (Kevin R Beck, Mosaic, 2009) |
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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. (Kevin R Beck, Mosaic, 2009) |
cartoon by courtesy of Nicholson |
| 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. (kevin R Beck, Mosaic, 2009) |
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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. (kevin R Beck, Mosaic, 2009) |
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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. (Kevin R Beck, Mosaic 2009) |
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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.) Kevin R Beck, Mosaic 2009) |
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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? (Kevin R beck, Mosaic 2099) |
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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. (Kevin Beck, Mosaic 2009) |
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WAKE IN FRIGHT RAINING ON THE RUDD SWAN PARADE: What is coming in 2009 - 2010 for the economy, government and every Australian |
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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:
not make improper use of:
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. (Kevin Beck, Mosaic 2009) |
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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 Emmissions 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. (kevin R beck, Mosaic, 2009) |
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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, Mosaic, June 2009. |
| 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. (Kevin R Beck, 2009) |
| They are obviously not to be found in Victoria. |
| 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. (Kevin R beck, Mosaic) |
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| 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) |
| 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. (Kevin Beck, Mosaic) |
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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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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. (Kevin Beck, Melbourne, Australia, 2009) |
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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. (Kevin Beck, Melbourne, Australia, 2009) |
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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. (Kevin R Beck, 2009) |
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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. (Kevin Beck, 2009) |
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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. (Kevin Beck, Melbourne, 2009) |
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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. 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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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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