Tag Archives: JobKeeper rorts

Australian Politics

Australia’s lost decade on everything, including climate

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Scott Morrison has had a tough few years. First there was The Great Bush-fire Debacle. He went on holiday in Hawaii. Nothing wrong with that, you might say. Except that he tried to hide the fact that he was away. When he was sprung, he made all sorts of excuses, but in his own special way he made a statement that we will always remember: “Mate, I don’t hold a hose.” That was exceptional in many ways. It showed his narrow, superficial mind, with all its smugness, and complete lack of self-awareness. During a catastrophic bushfire, everybody holds a hose.


The country then discovered that, just before the election, and possibly even after the election was called, he had been using our money to try and buy coalition seats, and also lots of marginal seats they wanted to win. Scott Morrison was caught in the headlights of the sports rorts affair, and in an act of utterly callous self preservation, he threw his Sports Minister, Briget McKenzie, under the proverbial bus. Considering his narrow win in the 2019 election, how many seats were retained, or won, because of the calculated misuse of taxpayers’ funds?


The global pandemic struck next. He talked a lot about following the scientific advice, but his resistance to lockdowns, and his reluctance to provide financial support proved very unpopular. Like a dog after a bone, he sniffed the electoral wind, calculated he was on a losing trajectory, and promptly changed direction. He then pinched Boris Johnson’s JobKeeper idea, at Labor’s suggestion.


None of us knew then that the Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, would do such a lousy job on the program’s design. Ripped off by thousands of companies, many of which paid bonuses to their already overpaid executives. Some even used those taxpayers’ funds to pay dividends to shareholders. That is some form of middle class welfare! Frydenberg now says it would be unfair to ask for the money back. There is only one word necessary to explain this Government’s moral bankruptcy – Robodebt.


Robodebt, where the might of the Federal Government was turned against often helpless, certainly powerless, welfare recipients. Ten year old debts, calculated using a dodgy averaging algorithm, and subsequently found to have been unlawful. The Government denied wrong-doing, as Evangelical far-right governments always do.


In June 2021, Justice Bernard Murphy approved a settlement worth at least A$1.8 billion, payable to those who had been harassed and vilified by their government, calling it “a shameful chapter” and “massive failure in public administration” of Australia’s social security scheme. Wikipedia.


The Ministers who have had their hands on the program include Christian Porter, Scott Morrison, Alan Tudge, Stuart Robert, Marise Payne. There are very few geniuses in that little group. And so far, not a word of apology.


Of course after the horrors of the pandemic, there was great optimism about the arrival of the vaccines. Produced in record time, they did not appear in Australia, for several months. Outbreaks in Sydney, and then Melbourne, took hold. Hundreds of deaths followed, and Scott Morrison then made another of his astounding pronouncements: “It is not a race.” He repeated it, ad nauseum, many times over.


But it was a race, and Morrison and his hapless Health Minister, Greg Hunt, tried hard to cover up their sheer incompetence. But even Blind Freddie knows you don’t just buy one vaccine, when there is a worldwide shortage. And you don’t announce at a late night press conference, that the only vaccine you have on hand, is suspect. Morrison actually destroyed the AstraZeneca vaccine’s credibility, because he panicked. Lately he has been trumpeting how well he handled the vaccine rollout. Really.


Morrison is now on his way to attend the Glasgow climate summit, on our behalf, representing us on a world stage. He will smugly claim that he has an agreement in his back pocket, of net zero by 2050. The only problem is that up to a quarter of the Nationals do not agree, and he cannot legislate the target, because he will lose the vote in Parliament. So he is going with nothing in his pocket, except an unenforceable promise, redeemable in 29 years, by which time the whole Parliament will probably be retired, or dead.


He and the Coalition have been sabotaging our response to climate change since 2009. Morrison expects us to believe that he has done a complete U-turn, in a month, and to now put our faith in him. Sorry, not a believer, Scott. Up to a quarter of the junior Coalition partners, the National Party, does not agree, and have had to be bribed to stay silent. He has not lead anyone, anywhere. He was dictated to by the likes of Barnaby Joyce, Matt Canavan, the former Sports Minister Briget Mckenzie (she who went under the bus), and George Christensen.

We must also remember the sterling efforts of the Minister for Meaningless Climate Statements, Angus Taylor. Angus delivered his sales pitch with passionate fervour, but as we all know, Carbon Capture and Storage does not work, and most of us think bribing the Nationals is actually worse than a carbon tax, because it is using our tax money to support the coal and gas industries. We want to reduce our emissions, not increase them, Angus. Angus is going to Glasgow also, but he is going to spruik for the fossil fuel industry. They might as well take Tony Abbott along with them.


So the sum total of the Government’s achievements on climate change is essentially in the eye of the Prime Minister – Government by press announcements, which are believed in by no-one, and which are as flimsy as feathers. You have to admire Morrison’s sublime disconnect from reality, and his faith in his own ability to gaslight world leaders, like he tries to gaslight us. Welcome back, Scotty from Marketing, and you, Angus. Top job on all your efforts. How embarrassing. People around the world might think he represents how we think and feel about the planet’s health.

Australian Politics

JobKeeper was just another rort (but big!)

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When this Government decides on a program which distributes taxpayers’ money, it seems that they never start with a blank sheet of paper. The spreadsheets might be pre-populated with Coalition seats, as in the case of the “sports rorts affair”, although some of the cash went to vulnerable seats, which might, under favourable conditions, swing back to the coalition.

The arrival of the pandemic was akin to a miracle, in that it swept in just in time to save Morrison from the escalating scandal, which had already claimed Bridget McKenzie’s scalp. It would have eventually worked its way up to Morrison, because his fingerprints were all over this program. Morrison was implicated as the architect, and the chief beneficiary, of the cash splash.

The timing was, if not close to being criminal, at least cynical and immoral. Just before an election, arguably some crucial funding decisions were taken after the caretaker period began. Caretaker mode means that the Government refrains from making major decisions, because the House of Representatives is dissolved, as is half the Senate. There is effectively no legislative powers, until the next government is sworn in. Everyone in Canberra knows the rules. They also know it is a convention only, so no problem there.

There is another rule, about governing for the whole country. That is where funds are allocated on a needs basis. Not on where you live, or how you vote, but on your needs. So, every one of his team who received, and then announced, their ill-gotten gains had a moral duty to return the funds. But, as it is a moral question, the Morrison Government failed to admit to the rort, and failed to rectify it.

$1.1 MILLION TO UPGRADE AND REPLACE SPORTING FACILITIES IN KOOYONG

That is the headline from Frydenberg’s announcement pre-election. The local member, Josh Frydenberg, is the Treasurer, and he was when this program unfolded. He oversaw $150 million being squandered on buying votes, and he did not object. Was that because he didn’t expect to win the election, and they were shifting the deck chairs on the Titanic? His announcement of the grant to Kooyong sporting clubs was made on May 3, 2019, fully 15 days prior to the election. So much for fiscal rectitude, or for following the spirit of the conventions.

Not only is Kooyong one of the wealthiest areas in Australia, its sporting facilities are second to none. Kooyong should have been the last place chosen, if the program was decided on a needs basis. Do not expect the local member to hand anything back. He suffered a swing of 8.2% against, even with the electoral sweetener.

The car-parks rort was more of the same, except four times bigger, and even clumsier. $660 million was offered to MPs who didn’t even have to ask for the money. The scheme was launched by preparing a list of 20 top marginal seats, and inviting the sitting MP to nominate projects for funding. Both the sports rort and the car-parks rort involved the same staff member from the Prime Minister’s Office.

Keeping JobKeeper secret

So why are we surprised when Morrison and Frydenberg ‘design’ JobKeeper, and lo and behold, the main beneficiaries are Liberal supporters and donors. Already red-faced with excitement at the prospect of their promised tax cuts, here is the Treasurer offering them more free money, with no strings attached. They don’t even have to prove eligibility. All they need to do is guess that their turnover will fall, and the money starts to flow. If they erred, no problem. No need to pay it back, we don’t engage in the politics of envy.

Another quirk of the system is that public companies can be shamed into paying it back if it wasn’t needed, because the ATO released a list of the companies who claimed JobKeeper, but were later found to be ineligible, or not in need.

Private companies were protected by their veil of secrecy, which is even now being extended by the Government. Their latest recruit in protecting the names of the companies has been Pauline Hanson. She was apparently rewarded for her support, by being allowed to announce a Fitzroy Community Hospice upgrade in Rockhampton, to which the Treasurer had pledged $8 million. That is how things are done by this Government. Very transactional.

In his defence to charges that he had mishandled the scheme, Mr Frydenberg said the JobKeeper scheme deliberately did not include a claw-back provision, because it might have made the companies stop and think about their eligibility, which could have caused a delay.

I know, he is the Treasurer, and he does obsess about deficits, and he espouses small government. This was despite $6 billion in emergency funding flowing to 150,000 companies who actually increased their turnover last year. Labor MP Andrew Leigh has called it the biggest waste of taxpayer money in Australian history.

We know from the Parliamentary Budget Office that $13 billion was funnelled into companies whose sales rose during the period covered by JobKeeper, and a further $15 billion was given to companies whose sales didn’t fall by 30 or 50 per cent.

What Australian voters want is an honest Government which does not play games with our money, and does not spend most of its time devising tricky schemes to deceive voters. We also want to know that the Government is fair. Relentlessly pursuing Centrelink clients for tiny debts incurred by Centrelink’s own errors does not align with letting our largest private companies off, when we know many of them did not qualify for JobKeeper, but chose to keep the money, because the Prime Minister and his Treasurer told them they could.

Australian Politics

Starve, or freeze? Choose one, if you are unemployed

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Sometimes it is hard to believe the “careful money-manager” spin put on Australian federal spending. Especially with all the rorting, and the pork barrelling. A proper look reveals callous negligence toward other Australians, or a really nasty attitude toward those citizens who lack the political muscle, or the platform, to question some very poor policies. These decisions can, and do, change lives.

When the Treasurer of Australia cut JobSeeker back to an effective “starve or freeze” rate, (meaning, if you are lucky enough to have a roof over your head, do you eat or do you use the heater) he certainly struck a blow for budgetary discipline. The main problem was that not only did he consign many of his fellow citizens to making that choice, but by necessity, their children and grandchildren.

You can take the boy out of Kooyong, but can you get the Kooyong out of the boy? Does Josh Frydenberg know anyone from outside his gilded circle? When he speaks of car-parks for commuters, has he ever travelled by train?

Compare his life with yours: – School at Bialik, and Mt Scopus, two elite schools, followed by a gap year playing tennis, and then his two degrees (Economics and Law) at Monash University.

Post grad at Oxford, followed by a stint at Harvard. When he actually started working, aged 28, he did so firstly as an advisor to Daryl Williams, Attorney General of Australia, and then to Alexander Downer, Foreign Minister. His next gig was with John Howard, the Prime Minister.

Such high ranking jobs, for someone who was barely out of school. Obviously he learnt a lot, because his next position was as Director of Global Banking with Deutsche Bank.

As they say, the rest is history. This young man is an admirer of Margaret Thatcher and also of Ronald Reagan. For their economic policies, no less. Did such privilege leave him any options? Does he even know what it is to struggle, even with a relatively good job? Did he labour late into the night thinking of the miserable outcomes he was mandating, for hundreds of thousands of Australians?

Does he believe that repeating “Jobs over welfare” means anything to someone who struggles with literacy, or someone who has no workplace skills, or that other bogey of the Australian right, the addict who cannot find treatment, or maybe doesn’t seek it? Do such Australians deserve a life of misery because some members of the elite see it as a lifestyle choice?

This is where the rubber hits the road. We are all Australians, and surely we believe that no Australian should be left to starve, or to wither on the social vine. Most of us want to pay taxes so that our fellow citizens can at least eat. But, for a certain class of Australian, the poor deserve nothing.

At the same time that Josh Frydenberg dropped the JobSeeker rate, he also dropped JobKeeper. Many large and profitable companies actually profited from the programme, which was designed to keep staff on during the pandemic.

When asked about this apparent profiteering, Frydenberg’s close friend, and leader, Scott Morrison told us “I’m not into the politics of envy.” Mr Morrison dismissed concerns about companies accepting millions of dollars from taxpayers under the JobKeeper scheme, and using some of it to pay executive bonuses and dividends.

“If there are some companies that feel that they want to hand that [money] back, great. Good for them. But let’s not lose sight, in some sort of envy narrative, that that program did not change the course of the nation.” This from the man who presided over the Robodebt scandal, where the Government pursued welfare recipients for unverified, dodgy debts, which were at best doubtful, and proved to be unlawful.

The first place to look for relief, or some ‘common-wealth’ type thinking, ought to be the press gallery. But, with very few notable exceptions, it is really just another collection of educated, mid to upper-middle class careerists, all seemingly hell-bent on a professorship somewhere. So the notion of hard-nosed professionals, calling out inhumane policies, institutionalised theft and misappropriation of funds, not to mention naked cronyism, is the stuff of fairy tales.

Perhaps we could use the Opposition as a brake on the opportunism and the dishonesty; sadly that appears to be a dead-end street. The Labor Party is concentrating on being a small target, so it has ‘lost’ its principles. Past history shows similar day to day malfeasance, although with leaders in the past who seemingly did believe in some form of ‘common good’ purpose. This meant, in practical terms, less obvious contempt for “government for the people”.

Who to turn to? The people, sadly, have taken on some of the beliefs of the ruling party. If you are poor, or disabled, or simply disadvantaged, you deserve to be poor. If you are obscenely rich, God loves you, and you are getting what you deserve.

The only solution would be to start with a National Integrity Commission. Make it hard, and dangerous, for these people to mess with the national wealth. Secondly, perhaps a week spent in one of our provincial towns. A visit to the local food-bank, the supermarket the day before dole day, and lastly, have a look at the local Salvos store.

And stop paying yourselves to go to work. $290 a night to go to work is a disgrace, and it’s not even taxable. No wonder we don’t trust them. And Frydenburg should move seats in Parliament – watching him smirk when Morrison cavorts about does neither of them a favour.