Counting Up The Cost Of Coalition Governments
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Looking back on recent federal governments in Australia is very revealing. Counting up the cost of Coalition governments to ordinary citizens is somewhat shocking. Peter Dutton and the Coalition government awarded a $400 million contract to a company registered at a beach shack on Kangaroo Island – Paladin. This shady entity had no previous experience running offshore detention centres and the Richardson enquiry revealed a dodgy provenance. Further companies engaged by the Coalition to run these refugee lockups on islands have been exposed to have links to drug dealers and arms running. Much of this happened on Peter Dutton’s watch as Home Affairs minister. Dutton talks tough to the media on border security but his track record is another matter altogether. Dirty deeds done really bloody expensively by shady organisations – would be a fair assessment.
Robodebt The Coalition’s Greatest Shameful Act On Australians
Robodebt – the $1.8 billion and counting cost to Australian tax payers is a Coalition monument to their incompetence and ideological warfare committed on ordinary Australians. This betrayal of the people by government and certain senior public servants in concert with PwC the LNP’s favourite consultancy firm is tantamount to the worst excesses of a totalitarian regime. The public still await someone being held accountable for this travesty which caused some vulnerable Aussies to kill themselves over large sums of money they didn’t owe Centrelink. Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison, Alan Tudge, Stuart Robert, Marise Payne, and Kathryn Campbell should be prosecuted for their senior roles in running and facilitating Robodebt.
Half a million ordinary Australians were falsely accused of owing large amounts of money to Centrelink in the Robodebt betrayal.
Fast Internet NBN Derailed By LNP Coalition Governments
The NBN, this Labor initiative to provide all Australians with fast Internet connections was turned into a shemozzle by Turnbull and the Coalition. What could have taken a few years became decades and never delivered what was promised by the ALP. A common theme running through Liberal Party economic thinking is that everything is too expensive for the majority of Australian citizens. Instead they look after a small coterie of insiders, business leaders, bankers, and their mates whilst everybody else can make do with second best. This is the trickledown effect of neoliberal policies in action. The rich get much richer and the working poor get shafted.
The divide between the wealthy 5% in Australia and the rest has widened considerably following 10 years of Coalition government.
The Snowy 2.0 Billion Dollar White Elephant
Snowy 2.0 has turned into another billion dollar white elephant threatening to delay and derail the energy transformation necessary to meet the challenge of global warming in this country. Incompetence and a lack of listening to experts has bogged down this massive project for years. Another Coalition failure.
Slashing The Public Service & Spending Billions On Consultants Instead
The Morrison, Turnbull, and Abbott Coalition governments systematically slashed the public service and diverted that spending to the private sector. Tens of billions of dollars were spent over the years with PwC, EY, Deloitte, and KPMG. The upshot of this meant less public scrutiny on government and less accountability. The relationship difference between ministers and those in the private sector dependent upon getting these large contracts vs a fearless and without favour civil service is substantial. A decade of damage was done to the Australian public service, which made them more servile and desperate for official acknowledgement. The immoral behaviours witnessed by the likes of senior public servant Kathryn Campbell and others in the Robodebt scheme bears witness to this fact. A defunded public service has lost skills and not kept pace with the demands of technology in the world of modern government. This will have to be rebuilt under Labor governments going forward.
It was vandalism committed by the Coalition on a grand scale.
The Lying Culture Of Scott Morrison
Scott Morrison became internationally known as a liar. The compulsive lying nature of former PM Morrison was a big reason why the Coalition were voted out of office at the last election. It was further revealed that during Covid, Morrison secretly had himself appointed to multiple ministries within the federal government. He became, unbeknown to the Australian public, the Minister for Everything. This was a betrayal of the democratic traditions of the Westminster system under which Australia is governed.
“Richard Crofts writes: As time passes more and more of Morrison’s lying is exposed: the far-right pseudo-Christian claims, the divine right to rule, believing he was chosen by God to lead Australia, the miracle of his election… the list goes on. The hubris he displayed was breathtaking. He told lies when the truth was easier, just because he could — a habit practised over many years and he became a master at it. He could have won gold for Australia in the world lying championship.”
“Scott Morrison lies about the economy all the time. He can’t help himself. He tells big lies about transitioning away from fossil fuels and small lies about the role of his office in the way grants are directed to marginal seats. He tells strategic lies about the union movement engaging in “a campaign of extortion” to prevent medical supplies making it to Australia and he tells dumb lies about electric vehicles ruining weekends and even dumber ones denying he said that.
What all his economic lies have in common is that they always serve the interests of his political friends and undermine the legitimacy of his foes. The lies aren’t random. They are carefully selected to help depict what he wants to do as being “good for the economy” and anything he opposes as “destroying jobs” and “burdening future generations”. The rhetorical power of economic language is far greater than the predictive power of any of its models. For a government still seen as the preferred economic manager, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the power of economic language borders on magic. Morrison has persuaded voters we’re broke and that expecting better services would send us over the edge.”
Australia, after nearly a decade of Coalition federal governments, had had enough of the lies. The smug, blokey style of the man was an act from beginning to end – there was nothing real about Scott Morrison. He pretended to be a man of the people but in reality saw himself as something much more special. For years, conservative working people were fooled by the Morrison performance and voted for him and his party. Politics is 90% style over substance, unfortunately, and the electorate gets hoodwinked into believing one guy over another. Oftentimes, this is based on superficial looks and mannerisms. Pollies are trained to accentuate certain things by PR experts to make them more popular with voters. Elections are not actually democratic, rather they are popularity contests for these elite candidates. To confuse voters even more these candidates play the anti-elite card in their bag of tricks, because this is another vote winner in Australia in the current political climate.
AUKUS The Submarine Deal That May Sink Australia
Submarines and ship building more broadly exposes the feebleness of our political leaders over decades in Australia. The Defence top job has been a revolving door spinning faster than that churning out PMs in recent times. Procurement of defence hardware is massively expensive in the modern era. Politics plays a big hand here too, as electorates with ship building capabilities demand their time in the sun. The demise of Australian manufacturing over recent decades has diminished our capabilities when it comes to building big projects with high tech elements. Our track record on submarines is a disaster really. We f***** the French over and Morrison’s lies to the President of France will not be forgotten. The national security hawks on the conservative side bang on about the dangers of China but we have left the cupboard bare when it comes to our military presence in the here and now. No new submarines for decades it seems and at a price of some $360 billion – which will only increase substantially, as it always does. Australia, as a middling power, is forever susceptible to the allure of expensive high tech weaponry. Submarines seem to be our weak spot like diamonds are for some women.
University Machinations By Conservative Culture Warriors
The Coalition university policy put ideological cultural war tactics in place by making humanities courses much more expensive than more mindless technical studies. It was done they told us to put a price incentive in place to encourage more higher education students to choose science degrees for the betterment of our job skills in Australia. The evidence now in shows that it was a failure – the numbers don’t lie. It always struck me as a devious and inequitable plan- it was unAustralian! Dumbing down and quietening the young voices on campus, who were invariably anti-authoritarian.
Coalition Economic Policies Now Coming To Fruition
Listening to Angus Taylor speak about the economic troubles Australia faces I am reminded of the saying, “more front than a double decker bus.” This bloke was at the forefront of economic decisions made during a decade of Coalition power. The cost of living crisis, the high energy costs to consumers, the housing shortage pushing up rents – he and his mob were running the show in the lead up to the mess we now face. Economic policies take years to take effect and the LNP were making them over a decade. The lack of action on energy policies and climate change by the Coalition was right up Angus Taylor’s street. The Coalition were a government that did little to confront the challenges Australia faces in the 21C.
We lost a decade on the energy transformation and who knows if that was affordable in the long run. In fact the long run is getting shorter by the day with extreme weather events happening every quarter or so. Floods, fires, floods, fires, and more floods and fires.
Coalition Opposition To Indigenous Voice Referendum
The Coalition in opposition championed the defeat of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Peter Dutton and his National party counterpart led the No Vote at the referendum. Dutton likes to raise the ire of Aussies about Indigenous kids running amok in Alice Springs and Darwin. Send in the army is Pete’s refrain. You never hear anything constructive coming out of the mouth of the Leader of the Oppo. Dutton positions himself as an authoritarian threatening to come down hard on criminals, especially those with darker skin like Arabs and Aborigines. The defender of the status quo is Pete Dutton. Never mind that means disenfranchised people living in communities where there is little work and no infrastructure to support them in doing engaging stuff. Neglecting those on the fringes of society is a recipe for violence and crime. Australia has an ‘out of sight is out of mind’ attitude toward its Indigenous population.
Everyone is too busy trying to afford a deposit on a million dollar home to worry about anyone else. This is the modern Australia we live in and one largely fashioned by Coalition governments over the journey.
Robert Sudha Hamilton
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