He says he doesn’t hold the hose. He is the hose and nothing goes
past him. The ghost JFK past directs Morrison not to ask “what will my country do for me” but
“what can I do for my country” and it falls on deaf ears.
The degradation of Australian politics continued this week with the Prime Minister doubling down on his core campaign tactics as he raised a middle digit to the concept of integrity in the use of public funds. Confronted yet again with evidence of corrupt use of government grants, Scott Morrison stuck with the strategy he, his ministers and backbenchers have used ever since his #sportsrorts hit the Auditor-General. Mr Morrison told the National Press Club 23 months ago that there was absolutely nothing wrong with corrupting community sports grants for partisan political purposes, nothing wrong with misleading hundreds of community sporting clubs, nothing wrong with wasting the time of thousands of volunteers applying for funds that would not be granted on merit. “How good are sports rorts?” he may as well have shouted, never mind The New Daily’s collaboration with spreadsheet supersleuth Vince O’Grady to fully disclose the politically corrupt nature of those grants.
Source: Michael Pascoe: Morrison confirms election tactics of lie, deny and deflect
According to their needs not your's Australia
Hours after a newspaper exposé shone another light on the Coalition government shamelessly funnelling discretionary grants to electorates it holds or wants to win, Labor leader Anthony Albanese warned of a “frenzy” of skewed spending before next year’s election. He probably didn’t expect that less than 24 hours later, his prediction would be starkly laid out in black-and-white line items on Treasury papers.
.... the Coalition government has squirrelled away $16.1 billion in public money on decisions it can’t, or doesn’t want to, tell the country about (yet).
Even if the figure is only half that, as claimed by Treasury officials, then the equivalent of nearly 15 per cent of Australia’s 2025 deficit is solely down to election promises.
Source: $16 billion in secret Coalition spending sets up bitter election battle
According to his needs not the Nations
Labor hoped to pick up three key Liberal seats at the 2019 election. Then the money flowed under a series of grants for swimming pools, skate parks and chook sheds.
In Western Australia, money flows into key Liberal-held seats
Finally, the evidence that the investigation has unearthed demonstrates yet again a National Integrity Commission with appropriate jurisdiction and powers to deal with serious or systemic misuse of public funds is essential.
It also confirms, yet again, why the Government’s proposed Commonwealth Integrity Commission is entirely unfit for purpose.
Behind the data reported by The Age and the Herald there are stories. Stories of local organisations in genuine need, who missed out because they happened not to be located in the right seat. Because the concept of actual merit was conflated with merit in the form of a project’s prospects of aiding a politician’s personal chances, or their party’s chances, of election.
Public funds are scarce. They belong to the public. They must be used for proper, public purposes, and improving a person or party’s chances of election are a resoundingly improper purpose.
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