When it comes to a New South Wales-Commonwealth match-up on sleaze and corruption, we’ve got two competitors in peak form.
Gladys Berejiklian is now a byword for sleaze in a state made famous by persistent corruption. And Scott Morrison leads the most corrupt federal government since World War II.
But there can be only one winner when an uncleanable force meets a rotten-to-the-core object.
NSW
Phew! Where to start? Berejiklian goes hard out of the gate with a long-running “close personal relationship” with boyfriend, Berejiklian sackee and prize shonk Daryl Maguire, whose Walter Mitty-meets-Eddie Obeid dreams included selling access to the premier and name-dropping ministers for property developers eager to influence decisions while Berejiklian turned a blind eye.
If that icon of total corruption Joh Bjelke-Petersen made famous “Don’t you worry about that”, Berejiklian has made her own bid for Wikiquote history with: “I don’t need to know about that bit.”
It wasn’t all Maguire. Berejiklian pork-barrelled a council development fund to favour Liberal electorates and her office tried to shred the relevant documents, only for forensic IT to recover them, leading Berejiklian to declare that there was nothing illegal about pork-barrelling and everyone did it.
In this, she was just following the lead of serial Coalition pest and Nationals leader John Barilaro, whose personal highlights of the year included a failed attempt to stand for a federal seat (he didn’t fail to win, he failed to stand) and a couple of attempts to wreck the government, along with protecting farmers from the tragic and horrific consequences of koalas being allowed to live.
The only reason Berejiklian still has a job, of course, is that her most likely successor, Dominic Perrotet, is embroiled in his own scandal over the deep cesspit of governance that is state workplace insurer iCare, which included having to dump his chief of staff and breaches by Perrotet of rules around staff employment.
Elsewhere the Berejiklian government blew more than $53 million overpaying for a slice of toxic land at Camellia and refused to provide additional funding to the Independent Commission Against Corruption when it was investigating Berejiklian. Then there’s the lingering fallout from the outrageous corruption of water rights purchasing in the Murray-Darling Basin that went on under the Coalition.
In most years, Berejiklian would be looking for a spot in her office for the Sleaze of Origin trophy — perhaps out in the lobby where so many developers and other rentseekers have come looking to wield influence.
But she’s up against a potent foe: Scott Morrison.
The Commonwealth
Morrison, of course, began his prime ministership declaring that he’d look after the Liberal Party’s mates — and he’s lived up to that commitment every day.
Fossil fuel donor mates allowed to write the government’s gas-led recovery policy. Liberal Party mates looked after with huge, no-tender government advertising contracts. Liberal donor mates at Austal looked after with manufacturing policy decisions. Coalition candidate mates looked after with rampant rorting of the Community Development Grants and sports grants programs. Official Coalition propaganda arm News Corp looked after with gifts of tens of millions of dollars.
And then there were the cover-ups of and distractions from scandals. The cover-up of Alexander Downer and John Howard’s roles in the bugging of Timor-Leste via the harassment of Bernard Collaery and Witness K. The axing of the investigation into possible corruption at Home Affairs and Austal. The attempt by the head of Prime Minister and Cabinet to denigrate the auditor-general’s sports rort findings. The mysterious failure to prosecute government ministers and their staff for clear breaches of the law. The attempt by Alan Tudge to force a journalist to delete embarrassing footage of Christian Porter, and the attempt by Paul Fletcher to intimidate the ABC over Four Corners.
Plus bog-standard scandals like the astonishing 1000% mark-up on the Leppington Triangle for a Liberal donor or the expenses scandal at ASIC. In normal years they would be spectacular highlights but this year were just variations on a theme.
So who wins?
Berejiklian, with a strong all-round performance of sleaze and her bold declarations that pork-barrelling is fine, would edge out Morrison — except for one factor.
And that’s Morrison’s national integrity body, for which we’ve waited two years but, in its proposed form, would actually help cover up corruption and subject serving law enforcement officers in the AFP to far more stringent oversight than politicians and public servants.
Morrison’s stroke of genius — an anti-corruption body that would actually help corruption — is what matches and defeats Berejiklian.
Morrison goes through to the final by the narrowest of margins. But surely all can agree — it was a contest for the ages.
Tomorrow: Dan Andrews goes head-to-head with Scott Morrison in a corruption cage-match that can have only one winner.
Since WW2? Morrison heads the most corrupt Federal government in history by a mile. No previous government is in a bulls roar of these sleazes, shonks and crooks,
It’s gotta be Scotty. Every other jurisdiction at least has the veneer of dealing with corruption through their version of ICAC.
Scotty does not. The corruption will continue to fester and will remain business as usual. The fact that it almost seems like the goal of the LNP to have rolling scandals to distract from the other scandals speaks for itself.
That should read “It’s gotta be $cotty.”
The feds. could be said to have passed through the corruption event horizon so that up is down, hot is cold and SmoKo is competent.
As Chuck Yeager discovered (by accident) when passing through the sound barrier, all controls then worked in reverse.
Once that is accepted, it is sweet, silent & nothing to see here.
Definitely Scotty – at least Gladys managed Covid whereas Scotty did nothing except help his mates and donors. Murdoch is so pleased with him that The Australian predicts the Coalition will win two – not one – two more terms in office.
God help us if that happens.
Perhaps that’s why She created Murdoch – to demonstrate the flaw of worshiping Mamon?
I feel sure she will. There’s the not-so-small matter of climate change that hasn’t gone away, and is about to unleash even more sharp reminders that it has to be taken seriously. And a reliance on fossil fools – sorry fuels – just won’t cut it.
She managed Covid up to the Ruby Princess.
No, that was the ABF failure, not NSW Health.
Brett Walker’s whitewash was not able to find that because ABF officers were prohibitted from giving evidence.
The Boarding Officer refused permission to disembark passengers but was overruled by “someone” in Canberra prior to 7.30am on that fateful morn March 23, 2020.
We will never know how many deaths and long side effects were caused by that dispersal of 2,700 infectious persons all around the country.
It was a team/joint effort (also including Quarantine/AQIS – DAWR) – Scotty left Shredderjiklian holding the bag while he threw her under that Walker RC bus, by withholding co-operation from C’wealth Dept’s giving evidence.
Hillsong $cotty FTW with Gladys Feralbinchchicken a clear winner for 2nd place.
These two scumbags should be in jail. Instead they tour the provinces for photo-ops, wasting emergency services workers time.
Morrison, the promoter of the illegal and deadly Robodebt, has the edge over koala killer Gladys…though the longer the spectacularly clueless electorate keep voting for their own punishment, the more I care for koalas.
Crikey! Not just Morrison and Berejiklian. What about every politician who ever stole money from the taxpayer by rorting travel allowances or lying to Parliament or abusing their office for personal gain or the gain of their colleagues? The list would be a great deal longer. We don’t just need a national anti-corruption commission; we need to put an end to the nonsensical proposition that politicians who break rules in a way that gives them a benefit have just been naughty. If any other ordinary citizen (not corporation) behaved like that, we’d be chucked in the slammer.
The msm are lazy but I suppose saving money by using the constant supply of pm supplied photos of him, just about every article you read has them. The bloke who takes them was in quarantine with him for heaven’s sake.
Yep. Corruptly using taxpayer money for your own political advantage is situation normal. Robodebt was something at a much higher level of evil – coldly and calculatedly implementing an industrialised mechanism to extort money from society’s most vulnerable against any sense of decency, legal advice, AAT rejections, public body complaints, and more.
Several people recently have received prison terms of two years+ for rorting Centrelink of $70,000. By my reckoning, the pro-rata prison term for rorting Centrelink recipients of $700 million would then be about 20,000 years (give or take a century or two), suitably shared by all the politicians and bureaucrats involved. But that’s just a dream. We can only fantasise about the smirk slowly draining from Smirko’s face as he fronts his god on judgement day.
Scummo, hands down, no contest. Scummo lies constantly, whereas Gladys at least is honest when describing her rorts. Scummo is easily the most corrupt, secretive, bullying , abusive PM Australia has ever endured. How he is mr66% shows the lack of media scrutiny he should be receiving. He has much to thank that other corrupt bastard Murdoch for sheltering him. Australia suffers.
It’s taxpayer money given to Murdoch that keeps the truth of Morrison’s corruption from getting out to the public.
Yes its like paying for favourable press with Taxpayers money… what a rort.
“Nice little government ya got here. Shame if it received the publicity it deserved…”.
Sorry, can’t do a mafioso accent in type.