Some Australian Values?
Australia- Certified Banana Republic Or World Class Efficient Democracy?
Is AWB and Institutionalized Government Corruption Being Cunningly Buried
The omissions in the Cole commissions terms of reference should be raising some questions in the US and other countries and clearly the Australian government is counting on a white – wash, and the value of time and short memories to protect the insidious corruption over decades, from being more thoroughly exposed as being worse than the third - world they are always also using as scapegoats to hide a homegrown culture that has over decades contributed to entrenching a corrupt unaccountable class of bureaucrat and Australia’s growing foreign debt among many other economic deficiencies. The fundamental reasons for the perpetuation of these insidious monopolies will not get exposed although eventually we will attempt to publish on this subject. Naturally we don’t expect to receive government assistance for the research and work.
The Cole commission into the UN oil for food corruption should at least look at some related history for confirmation of the dominant culture that exists throughout these bureaucracies across Australia and why. That they decline to is more proof of the royal coverup through the use of a constrained royal commission as a convenient vehicle. With the help of the local media monopoly the public can be manipulated to believe the government is acting in the public interest. Fooled again!
It might take a look at the ANAO reports about MRC and AMLC about 10 years ago, two typical corrupt SMA (Statutory Marketing Authorities) bureaucracies that have flourished for years under both the Coalition and Labor. The ANAO produced 2 reports on this SMA although their efforts were typical in that they were meant to convey the impression voters were being protected. In this example it is noteworthy there were no charges of any kind against participants and in fact the main players typically moved on through the network, which also includes AWB and other relevant bureaucracies. In other words they were all rewarded for their corruption over more than a decade, including it should be noted and as in AWB, the in-house lawyers. They know they are immune from prosecution of any kind. The public gets conveniently bamboozled! It needs a compliant media to achieve this so successfully. (One of a number of reasons why media oligarch Kerry Packer deserves a state funeral according to Howard – and the shadow government would do the same for the same reasons.)
In all likelihood Cole probably doesn’t want to dig too deep because once again the local law profession might get a bit more of its image tarnished. Howard’s cabinet is dominated by lawyers so there would be a natural mutual interest in avoiding over- explicit exposure in this regard. Once again another example of how logic and probability are selectively applied in the “public interest”.
In fact the ANAO and their state equivalents are a good source of information that contributes to a form of history of documented evidence of how inept and profligate Australian bureaucracy is. (see quote below)
Basically SMA’s have been a means for the political status quo to fund their power but the National Party (previously the Country Party) have been setting themselves and their mates up by allocating each other positions in these networks of GBE’s for favours for decades. The corruption really took seed and became deep rooted during the labor party tenure from 1983 onwards. Unfortunately the true nature of these entities can never be exposed to the voters and it should be curious to anyone why there have never been any academics zero in on this subject. (Not to mention the media of course but we now know why this can never be expected to happen.) They have the potential to produce a steady stream of Phd’s. Clearly digging too deep and documenting it is not a good career move. And it is not surprising to find an academic stating on TV that to a certain extent corruption should be tolerated. Not surprising as Australian universities have dubious ethics in a range of areas in that regard. Many of the product end up in government where the networks of insiders get extended and so forth.
Emeritus Professor Helen Hughes has published some controversial information and on Austrade/DFAT but it is understood this presented security of tenure risks over a long period. Austrade has been a corrupt unaccountable bureaucracy for at least 2 decades and continues to squander billions on their empire and dual career paths for mandarins. Undoubtedly as an export incentive provider they have used these billions to assist AWB over years and should be subpoenaed. ( No coincidence Minchin moved so quickly to prevent it.) DFAT had control of the UN oil for food transactions from the first week the relevant resolution was passed by the UN and anyone wanting to participate had to deal with DFAT and their corrupt and wasteful bureaucrats. They used this status to also filter participants and if anyone not part of the network wanted to engage in oil for food business they could be eliminated by DFAT/Austrade whereby their network would engage in the business opportunity handed to them by others. Plagiarism and misappropriation of business intellectual property is common across this mafia of public and private bureaucracy. Undoubtedly it includes a string of compromised legal professionals and therefore it can be understood why the terms of reference are so limited. Senator Minchin (a lawyer!) has used (abused) his status as a peoples representative to gag parliament and any bureaucracy that might be relevant to fully informing the Australian voter. In fact it’s likely Senator Norm Coleman was gagged as a favour also? Nice timing!
The way these SMA/GBE’s work for the National Party and their liberal party mates is not well known for obvious reasons. Basically a network of farmers (many are the descendants of early recipients of rural holdings for political favours so the culture is strong and of course valuable) have become entrenched over decades (there are many typical examples in state and federal government) and they use their incomes and perquisites from careers in politics and/or positions on GBE’s/SMA’s to subsidise their farming assets, because many of them are unable to make decent returns year in and year out off the land, and so to avoid getting in the handout category that many farmers are, they become part of this group and network. The extra (always large from government directly and indirectly) incomes are used with their farm assets to tax shelter themselves and also accumulate more farm assets from distressed farmers who are not part of this network and of course cannot be part of it and have no extra incomes at least of comparable value. The full extent of these government funded networks and how they benefit these politicians and mandarins (and their respective parties) has never been researched although it as an area we hope to publish on once we find sufficient resources. Perhaps the only way to get diversity in Australia (and expose the status quo and their control and corruption) is to go through media in other countries and develop an independent local media.
John Anderson the previous deputy PM is also typical and under the circumstances is yet another of a long list of stakeholders who should be subpoenaed. Many of this cohort have not farmed during their lifetime and this group has became known as the Pitt and Collins Street farmers. (No coincidence a Victorian wheat farmer is chairman of Telstra and was head of the NFF previously!) But most Australians have never understood how it really works. Again for obvious reasons! And one of the results after decades is that the bureaucrats (technocrats) gradually became part of their group and got control of the day to day running of these SMA’s - for loyalty rewards - and bureaucracies and expanded them so that the politically involved farming establishment and the technocrats could both milk the system. They have grown since and so has the corruption as a result. Without accountability in the sense that none have ever been charged but instead rewarded, the troughs have gotten deeper with more snouts to feed. Eventually corruption became institutionalized and systemic as a consequence of an incestuous network of monopolies. Unfortunately over decades these vested interests basically divided farmers into an in-group and an out-group. Looking too hard at such an insidious collection of monopolies has been persistently avoided by both major political parties and with the result the corruption as elsewhere across Australia’s bureaucracies, became part of the culture as it is today and will remain so. Unfortunately they can’t seem to distinguish between normal business practices and corruption. (A product perhaps of Australia’s universities as noted).And the public only ever gets to see deliberately confusing fragments of it such as now with AWB. Undoubtedly Cole is meant to blindside the public and it can be said with certainty there will be no charges made against any participants. Logically if there were Cole and the government would be exposed in a court and the terms of reference would have to be expanded, which would implicate all of those both the government and Cole have chosen to protect currently. Under the circumstances better to bamboozle the gullible public! Keep everything away from a court at any cost.
There will be a report, of course, but no China- equivalent trials of bureaucrats will happen here, now or ever. None of them lined up in chains in a court unfortunately.
Mr. Downer (DFAT) for example is a farm asset owner and uses the incomes from political positions (apparently his wife is in on a second government income source also?) to subsidise his family investments. (By the way this status also conflicts with the making of more equitable public benefit laws but for another time perhaps). Basically this is why so few of them in fact actually attempt farming as a full time career. Why bother when there are so many troughs available. Given the difficulty of consistent returns from farming they know it is a priority if they are to retain and build their agricultural assets, to collect other incomes and of course being government they can make them appear as required. So a path into politics and SMA’s has been a first priority and many of them know little else. If they leave politics they almost always do so with a lifetime indexed pension plus various positions in these SMA’s and related bureaucracies and consultancies. It is clear there is a lot more at stake here than AWB’s corruption!
Tim Fischer (a farm asset owner) for example went from Minister of DFAT (Cole must get Fischer and Anderson in for questioning if serious) and quit when the MRC and associated corruption was exposed (reluctantly the bureaucrats had to investigate it because some outsiders uncovered the beef industry SMA mafia etc) and was rewarded by Howard with the position of head of Australia’s Tourism Commission and so on and on it goes.
The ozzy media of course rarely if ever exposes this because for example the media oligarchs are profiteering from it. The Packer interests have large investments in Australian farm production and processing and so do some of his long-time mates of the media oligarchy, including Rupert Murdoch. So Australians reliably get kept in the dark about this agricultural industry mafia. Naturally the outcome eventually is going to lead to blatant corruption like the Australian Wheat Board, which by the way was approved for stock market listing based on this corruption and has not been suspended from trading, which must make the ASX look a bit dodgy under the circumstances.
Of course any monopoly will eventually become corrupted and especially when it is tapped into the unlimited resources of national and state governments and protected by successive corrupt political interests.
Howard, Downer, Fischer, Anderson and many others new the AWB was corrupt but in Australia there is a long list of bureaucracies that exist and perpetuate themselves based on corruption. It’s the culture these days and is institutionalized. The norm not the exception! But maybe Cole already knows this so is really putting on a show for public consumption. (Basically their version of what else can they do ?) If history is a reliable guide there could well be many horizontal promotions and lucrative retirements. (Now with the help of the multibillion dollar Future Fund Australians have funded for these corrupt bureaucrats.)
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For the chief of state under modern conditions, a limiting factor is too many subjects and problems in too many areas of government to allow solid understanding of any of them , and too little time to think between fifteen minute appointments and thirty page briefs. This leaves the field open to protective stupidity. Meanwhile bureaucracy, safely repeating today what it did yesterday, rolls on as ineluctably as some vast computer , which once penetrated by error, duplicates it forever.”Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly:From Troy To Vietnam
It might also be said that even if they do understand there is a great deal that is preferably avoided. The AMLC/MRC corruption went on for about 15 years and they still operate on basically the same model. It’s a nice money spinner for many of the same cohort.
Cole should also investigate the SES – Senior Executive Service mafia. Many have used inside information and Austrade’s multibillion dollar resources as one example to underwrite their business priorities. Probably one of the most successful at this game has been a Mr. Bill Ferris ex head of Austrade/DFAT, who has become visibly considerably wealthy through these networks and organizations. Many others exist and they are not hard to find and expose if anyone wants to look, including the local media, which rarely does of course so they have contributed to the development of this culture of corruption and as they benefit from it in various consistently profitable ways.
Over decades as politicians come and go the bureaucrats remain and over decades Australia’s bureaucracy has developed a culture of secrecy, lack of accountability and corruption and cover-up that makes third world countries look tame by comparison. That means they also have a natural affinity to the game and fit in to the demands and needs of Iraq and so on.Of course the Cole commission probably doesn’t want to be guided towards the obvious and that would clearly contribute to proving the culture that dominates Australia’s bureaucracies.
Ausindustry and Industry Assistance are two more examples of bureaucrats with control of the allocation of billions each year but this would basically require a Royal Commission into Australia’s bureaucracy, which is never going to happen of course.
Many of these bureaucrats have enriched themselves as mentioned and developed commercial business interests underwritten both in use and abuse of public financial capital and intellectual capital. To the extent it has also stifled new industry, new job and new wealth creation. To what extent this has contributed to the nations growing A$600 billion foreign debt is not known but could be if anyone wanted to find out and had a fraction of the resources these corrupt governments have squandered over decades.But it is doubtful the Cole Commission has the backbone to dig that deep because after-all it might expose more of Australia’s corrupt bureaucracy and how it directly and indirectly subsidises the perpetuation of the 2 main parties and their power and so on. The status quo couldn’t tolerate that kind of exposure. And it is clear already that the AWB and other bureaucrats and politicians know they will walk away from this outrageous abuse. Banana republic stuff and Australia is going for gold!
In addition there is sufficient evidence to indicate that AWB (and again probably Austrade/DFAT at least) has had corrupt relationships with Indonesia and China for example over a long period to gain consistent wheat deals. In fact to the extent it has denied the development of more high quality value added industries in Australia and the appropriate export culture. But again the government would not want this opened unless of course it burst open as blatantly as AWB and Iraq has. And if Australia has been supplying wheat to Iraq for 58 years then when did the payoffs begin and are the AWB, DFAT bureaucrats and politicians getting exposed currently, simply carrying the baton that has been passed to them from previous stakeholders? And given the UN bureaucrats have an equivalent culture presented with the opportunity as they so often are, it seems international bureaucracy is more insidious than most people are aware of and in fact has a common agenda based on a fundamental flaw in human nature. Also further proof exists that bureaucracy and its insidious culture has gone global in the fact the Volker/UN oil for food report identified over 50 companies in many countries as participants in the UN inspired corruption and that none except Australia apparently have initiated any form of public inquiry and accountability. However Australia only initiated an inquiry because the Australian Wheat Board was so blatantly a long-term participant and not to do so would have exposed Australia as having blatant double standards. Australian government has a difficult and complex public relations and propaganda exercise to implement to keep the public bamboozled sufficiently to make them believe the rule of law has prevailed. Unfortunately Australians will accept this and if they do decide to do anything about it they will invariably vote for the labor party mafia at the next changing of the status quo. This, of course is no solution, as the labor party mafia during its long tenure allowed the culture to flourish and also led to the majority voting to give Howard and his coalition more power than they have ever had. Australians don’t seem to comprehend that this entrenched political status quo is in effect a form of monopoly that has allowed an insidious corrupt and unaccountable bureaucracy to prosper until it and its corruption is institutionalized and that the only way to eradicate it is to vote for a party that is serious about an Economic Bill of Rights, whereby government can be downsized and made accountable. Failing to do so is likely to see a further erosion of their democracy. Kiss paradise goodbye! But is it paradise or just the perception of paradise as over decades successive governments with the help of their media oligarch mates have gotten Australians to believe that it is? Once again the power of propaganda!
Maybe US wheat growers would be doing Australians a favour if they forced competitive industry development across the wheat (and ag) industry. But the local propaganda machine would probably make sure it was never seen in this context, but as a threat to Australia’s agriculture.
Another Interesting Example Of Corrupt Australian Bureaucracy At Work
The Statistics Made Redundant To Keep Bureaucrats Employed?Centrelink and their extensive secretive and unaccountable network of public and private bureaucracies need a large percentage of society dependent on them. This ensures they can maintain their corrupt empire and grow their multibillion dollar budgets. And they are at it again in 2006 as they advertise to their network of corrupt mates to “tender” for contracts for their version of a jobs network solution. Created by bureaucrats for bureaucrats.
The Jobs Networks (JN), NEIS, CWC, DOES, PSP,JPET and anything else that will keep their corrupt public and private empires like Centrelink going and their budgets spent has also contributed to undermining entrepreneurship and an export culture.
Australians need some answers (but first they need to know what question to ask) about why Centrelink is getting bigger and its budgets are growing when unemployment according to government, has declined from 15% to 5%. If there are fewer unemployed then why does this vast corrupt network of public and private bureaucracy need to be the same size (or larger) as when unemployment was at 15%?
They do not want full employment! The bureaucrats would lose their network and Centrelink empire and they would all need to get real jobs instead of being typical little Hitler’s living off fellow Australian’s. Howard would rather keep propping them up and their corrupt Jobs Network mates with billions than use the money for new industry, new job and new wealth creation. It is now an industry and given ozzy bureaucracy probably can’t be dismantled. So the show continues. They prefer a growing A$600 billion foreign debt than reducing it. Anything to keep the empires intact and now they reckon they deserve their very own slush fund trough - The Future Fund – funded by the majority but unbeknownst to them. Obviously given their handiwork over decades they believe they deserve it.
Howard’s coalition crusaders have also found innovative ways to transfer public wealth to religious organizations who are more than happy (given history no surprise and keeping up the crusaders tradition – loot, pillage etc…) to profiteer off this critical mass of 5% (?) to 15% (?) fodder. Recently the Salvation Army Plus Job Network agency was exposed up to its humanitarian eyeballs in corruption as it engaged in illegal activities to divert over A$10 million from government. They repaid the A$9 million and are still in the jobs network. (Rewarding the crimes! Is it any wonder then AWB and the rest of ozzy bureaucracy is so inspired? The trough feeders!) This is equivalent to bank robbers handing their gains back after getting caught. Or, like the few individuals caught by Centrelink cheating the government for a few thousand dollars. Invariably they get convicted and often jail time. Another one of Howard’s religious mates Hillsong also got caught with its snout in the trough. And so on and on it goes. Howard’s old mate runs the Salvation Army!
Australia it seems is now governed by a cadre the equivalent of the three wise monkeys!
What do Centrelink, Australian Wheat Board, Austrade, Ausindustry, Jobs Network, NEIS, DFAT and a string of state and federal bureaucracies have in common? An entrenched insidious corrupt network of zealous bureaucrats and ex – bureaucrats! Underwriting their interests using vast taxpayer resources through a confusing complex array of schemes and programs, reinvented and recycled for the purpose.They are capable of creating any kind of so-called solutions to keep their budgets spent and to protect their jobs! Every week this network of public and private bureaucrats dream up something new to keep their vulnerable victims running around wasting time, money and energy to generate statistics for these counterproductive bureaucrats. An old-boys and old-girls network of bureaucrats and ex-bureaucrats.
As the Cole commission is reluctantly exposing, Australia’s bureaucrats are a mafia and the whole bureaucracy should be exposed through a royal commission. Then what? Smaller and less expensive government of course!
This network is underwriting their own extensive business interests and dual career paths using these billions and Australia’s elected representatives ignore it by constantly promoting skills shortages and other diversions including scapegoating the victims. Despite age discrimination laws discrimination is rampant across Australia and Howard (and Beazley and co) is in convenient denial. They would rather waste billions on useless counterproductive bureaucrats than use funds to create new industry, new jobs and new wealth. No surprises therefore the foreign debt keeps building.The bureaucrats have devised a range of clever statistics generating "solutions" to provide data that ABS ( Australian Bureau of Statistics ) uses to claim unemployment has never been healthier, which the politicians quickly use to crow about. The RBA governor claims at 5 % its as good as it can ever be (what else could he say? Although would anyone trust the opinion of an ozzy mandarin these days? Unfortunately it seems so.) Meanwhile a local academic – a rare example – suggests that unemployment is in fact over 10 %. Which would explain why the Centrelink mafia is still a growing empire with a growing budget. And also reduce the RBA governors version of the state of affairs to the humbug it is. Interestingly these two views were published on the same day in the same Fairfax Media newspaper, the Australian Financial Review, and apparently the content producers are not abale to join the dots in a basic attempt to explain the conflict. But of course this is not what ozzy content producers do, if they want to get a career and protect it. Conform to get in and conform to remain in. Anyone concerned about the nazi holocaust equivalent occurring again should wake up to the fact the same culture prevails in 2006. Perhaps it should be acknowledged as a fundamental flaw in human nature as a survival instinct, which means of course and inevitably such horrors will occur again and in fact have been in one form or another over the past 50 years. It seems governments anywhere are capable of anything to protect empires and the tyranny of the status quo, to repeat history and never to admit to having erred. The formula?
Australian’s seem to have been so succesfully brainwashed over decades they believe they have a world class media that keeps them fully informed, which is probably certain proof of how efficient the brainwashing is.
Massively inefficient (and corrupt) Australian governments now claim 50 cents of everyone’s dollar and this is an increase from 15 cents about 30 years ago. Or, from about A$20 billion in federal government revenue to over A$200 billion per year today. Given such a rate of growth and the dominance of Australian bureaucracy over every aspect of Australia’s democracy, where is it likely to end up in another 30 years? Seventy five cents in the dollar!?
And given the laws that drive Australian bureaucracy to what extent is democracy itself threatened?
(Howard’s little Hitler’s are using anything and everything to ensure they get every citizen with a national smart ID card, which is another example of the measures bureaucracy will take to justify growing empires and budgets.)Never under any circumstances give back one dollar of any budget once achieved; and do anything and everything possible to increase that budget. The empires must grow at any cost.The solution is not so difficult, the execution however presents a challenge.
Who Benefits?
Howards Cronulla Contribution – How Propaganda Backfires?
As the Ozzy media status quo goes through the usual politically convenient exercise to get to the source of the Cronulla rampage, they yet again expose themselves as being programmed to avoid identifying and exposing government as the likely cause. Don’t bite the hand that feeds, just convey the impression.
Howard is the trigger for this rampage and it should be obvious. How so ?
It isn’t difficult but it clearly is for the media status quo as decades of being the profiteering propaganda machine for successive governments has defined their concept of what an open media encouraging diversity of opinion means. Australian’s over decades of this media monopoly have become programmed to accept their narrow view and version of the world, now believing it is the best that can be achieved in a free and democratic society. Such is the power of propaganda!
Howard and his coalition of crusaders have spent a number of years, especially since 9/11 constantly and relentlessly attacking the Mid - East and of course people of “Mid - East appearance”, for obvious reasons. Eventually this self - serving and orchestrated propaganda is going to do what propaganda and brainwashing are designed to do. In this case to eventually confirm to the Anglo-European Ozzy that it will be acceptable to turn on the source of much of what Howard and his cabinet view ( mainly Ozzy lawyers so once again the question of logic and probability), for political expediency, as the scourge of everything these cunning cocooned political manipulators convey as being worthy of being called civilization.Naturally enough as anyone in advertising and marketing would know (and employed by all of the political status quo at taxpayer’s expense) the message will sink in and in this case it has with the added benefit the politicians and bureaucrats at many levels, including state, can use the results to justify bigger empires, bigger budgets and greater control over society. (For example they have by now lost just about all credibility on their expensive, boof-headed war on drugs and needed a new reason to justify bigger budgets and empire building. Communism more or less is attempting to adopt variations of capitalism and so on. Thanks al-Qaeda! The new bogey – man!)The detonator as it were has been the new laws to fight terrorism. There was a long drawn out subtle but relentless government PR campaign and build up to this event and when finalized there was the appropriate additional government propaganda to attempt to prove how necessary they were. (Don’t worry folks we want you to get your moneys worth so we will quickly swoop on identified terrorist suspects). Of course terrorism as it is now understood through media manipulation, has been a boon for governments and many bureaucrats must be secretly grateful it happened along to give them an open cheque book on expanding their empires and increasing their budgets. They are now in full flight and anything goes. It is an unprecedented opportunity for the political status quo and the gravy train of bureaucrats (the insidious new class) and their empires to gain even more control over the masses and no opportunity is being ignored. They now see it as a unique opportunity for an ID card, biometric passports and other such documents, compulsory or nearly so, universal psychometric testing, and more.Howard has proven time and time again that he is either a pathological liar or deviously cunning in his manipulation of and contempt for the Australian people disguised as the opposite. Thanks to the local media monopoly most Australian’s are conveniently bamboozled and as they voted for the political status quo they are unlikely to declare they were badly informed and even manipulated by any vigorous protests against Howard and co.
The Cronulla clashes occurred because of Howard and his relentless self - serving propaganda. And it should be acknowledged. This is Australia’s leadership! To divert the publics attention from identifying this he and his coalition crusaders then immediately scapegoated anything and everything in sight including the state labor party mafia over deliberately manipulating resources to the eastern suburbs areas, which happens to be the coalitions electorate.
Then to quickly use the free to air TV propaganda machine in typical style and enthusiasm and claim Australia is not a racist country. This is what the result is after decades ensconced and encased in the political cocoon that is the political status quo. Anything Howard knows about the Australian people he gets fed to him through layers of sycophants with dual career paths their priority. Variations of the AWB model!
But that he persists probably says more about Australians. And of course voting for the labor party mafia as a solution would be rewarding them for Howard’s and the coalitions prevailing status.
Clever country indeed!
