The identity of Christian Porter’s anonymous donors for his disastrous attempt to sue the ABC is clearly an extraordinarily sensitive matter.
Porter has already wrecked his political career in order to keep their identities secret; his plan to simply declare he’d been handed the money and think that was good enough for disclosure purposes was deemed, even in the most corrupt federal government since Federation, to be not good enough.
Who are his donors? Prominent billionaires? Media moguls? Organised crime? The Chinese government? Vladimir Putin? Who knows. Not even Porter, he claims, and he doesn’t want to know.
It’s not just Porter who is hypersensitive about the exposure of his mystery donors. Yesterday we found out that Scott Morrison is too. He humiliated Speaker Tony Smith rather than allow Porter’s blind trust declaration to go to the House of Reps’ Privileges Committee. Smith had found that there was a prima facie case for Porter’s referral for a breach of the Reps’ resolution on the declaration of members’ interests. Of course Smith did, because it was blindingly obvious that Porter’s alteration to his register of interests created a perception of conflict of interest.
Morrison prevented Porter’s referral, an unprecedented act — and richly symbolic of just how odiously corrupt and contemptuous of scrutiny this government is.
The Privileges Committee isn’t a senate committee, or chaired by an independent or an opposition MP. It’s chaired by a government MP — Russell Broadbent — and the government has the numbers on the 11-person committee. But even the prospect of Porter being examined by a Coalition-controlled committee was too much for Morrison.
Perhaps the prospect of Broadbent — a veteran MP of decency, substance and independence — chairing the inquiry filled the smirking, amoral vacuum we call a prime minister with horror, redoubling his pathological hatred of accountability.
Just who are Porter and Morrison protecting, sufficient that one will sacrifice his ministerial career and the other will throw his speaker under a bus? Why are their identities worth hiding at such great cost?
That, surely, is the most fascinating question in federal politics — not the climate policy circus of shit-flinging apes that is the National Party or Morrison’s latest effort to encourage everyone to forget the debacle of the vaccine rollout.
But it appears to be of zero fascination to much of the press gallery. The print media virtually ignored the overruling of Smith, despite its unprecedented nature and what it revealed about the government’s sensitivity about Porter’s donors.
Journalists, editors and producers still retain an institutional power to decide what qualifies as a “yarn”, and what doesn’t. And Morrison’s protection of Porter was deemed to be not yarn-worthy by newspapers — despite having all the ingredients of one, including a clear narrative of cover-up and political personalities.
Is it that the corruption and hatred of accountability that marks the Morrison government is now so routine that it doesn’t warrant coverage? That Morrison and his cronies are expected to behave this way, so it’s unremarkable when they do? Is this how corruption and cover-ups become normalised at the highest level of politics, with dozens of small decisions about what’s newsworthy in media bureaux?
Still, just because a question is ignored doesn’t make it go away: who are Porter and Morrison protecting at such cost, and why? What leverage or power do these donors have to elicit such protection? What else can they demand?
This is a thoroughly squalid government, the worst ever seen in Canberra. And its puppetmasters deserve outing.
Bernard well knows why the mainstream media isn’t covering this issue, and those reasons are Rupert Murdoch, Peter Costello and Kerry Stokes. He also well knows that if it was Labor that took a steaming dump on democracy, parliament and transparency, it would be wall-to-wall coverage on air and in print.
As I type, the cowed, complicit ABC has nothing on this issue on its home page, the ‘News’ section has a single story, three from the top, framed in such a way to give the impression that the government is acting on this issue (“Government to establish broad inquiry …”) and there is literally nothing in the ‘Analysis’ section.
This is a huge story, and it is simply being ignored or at best downplayed by what passes for our mainstream media. It is a part of a deliberate, co-ordinated and sustained attack on Australian democracy, waged by the current incarnation of the Liberal party and willfully, actively abetted by the very estate that casts itself as the bulwark against such attacks on our polity.
Frankly, it’s terrifying.
Under the leadership of Gaven “Less political news thanks” Morris the ABC has lost a lot of people who used to champion. Not sure how or even whether it can get that trust back, short of a Liberal loss and then a purge at the ABC of its Murdoch enablers.
The Liberal party’s behaviour has worried me for years, since Morrispin knifed his way into the PM
job it has had me terrified.
Agreed.
Twitter lit up over it, but the mainstream media was very quiet
Here you go – ABC this morning. Should be repeated on 7.30 tonight.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-21/this-government-has-trashed-transparency:-geoffrey-watson/13596562?utm_source=abc_news_web&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_web
Geoffry Watson asking for any Liberal with a skerrick of decency and honour to do the right thing, cross the floor and save our democracy.
I wonder how long it will take for this to trigger another funding cut and/or a further loading of the ABC’s “executive suite” with Coalition and Murdoch/Costello/Stokes cronies.
It’s already begun. Tony Abbott has teamed up with the IPA and over a dozen conservative MPs, not to mention Murdoch press people, to launch a new podcast “highlighting the problems with the ABC”. I fear for our democracy.
The ABC must be supported – join Friends of the ABC” or go for a once off donation! Please!
There’s not much of our democracy left to fear for. We might as well just mourn it
Thanks DF.
That is the most honesty spoken by a parliamentarian I’ve heard in years.
Demonstrates that even the very few honest, conscientious members of the current government are afraid to disagree with their devious, dishonest leader. No individual freedom for members of this party, just the obligation to support the man who didn’t the know author of the lying filth used to push Michael Towke aside and more recently didn’t know his party’s dirt division was conspiring in the recent NSW leadership change. One presumes he didn’t even know of the knife in his own hand as he uttered the words “This is my leader and I’m ambitious for him”.
Didn’t know about an alleged assault in his Defence Minister’s office for nearly two years, until he read it in the papers.
Fortunately, Gaetjens cleared him of not only not knowing nuttin’ but also when he didn’t know it.
I didn’t think there were any honest members of the current government left. If there were, they have just sacrificed the last of their integrity. There’s no longar a moral left to them.
That would suit them just fine. There’s nothing a criminal likes less than being watched by an honest person
Fascinating question.
Who stands to benefit by throwing ol’ mate a million and who stands to lose by having this exposed?
Start there and you’ll find the answer.
I reckon an investigative journalist or two could pursue this to the end.
I reckon there will be furious work going on behind the scenes to expose this cover-up…
As there should be. There can be little doubt that this has been a scheme concocted with no regard for morality and little for legality. It would certainly be no surprise if this was dirty money coming home from a tax haven. The question the would be “Whose?”
If only we had an investigative journalist at all, let alone having two.
Louise Milligan, or Kate McClymont.
Unfortunately Kate only does her best work when it is Labor. Wish she would go for LNP and Labor!
That’s like saying there are more PoC incarcerated because they commit more crime (from which so many other evils flow) but ore likely because it is more visible when they do it.
The ‘better types, aka born to rule’ have been covering up their malfeasance for a couple of centuries and, dumb as they are, have become fairly adept at it.
I understand it is a group of people and we can only guess who that might be – IPA, Liberal Party fossil fuels friends ?
It’s also quite possible the funds came directly from govt coffers to the blind trust. Their way of funding Porter’s legals using Commonwealth funds.
Either way, what on earth is so special about Porter that they defend him so passionately? Has he got some blackmail under his sleeve? Has he been anointed by influential power brokers to be the next PM and carry on agendas now bought and paid for?
The Speaker should just blow the joint up right now. Write to the GG, request a dissolution, resign his post and his seat with immediate effect. Any/all of the above – Something!
I won’t hold my breath. Wow Australia, just wow.
I think there might be something to your idea the money came from govt coffers. Happy to be corrected, but while there’s been questioning of particular external donors there’s been no asking if the money has come from one or more members of Parliament or a branch – Federal or State – of the Liberal Party. I think an external donor could ride out the storm of being revealed as the donor. It can be seen as a private decision and waved away on that alone. But if it turned out that the Liberal Party was directly involved there’d be real cause to stop the fact getting out.
I’ve been thinking along the same lines. Imagine if the money came from some agency within some department using some sort of “contingency fund”. Senate Estimates start next week. Looking forward to it.
That hypothesis does fit very well the profile of the illiberal party and its current leadership. The ex minister is apparently very afraid of the source becoming known.
Not just the Minister, but the whole Govt.
Interesting thought There. It would explain why Porter’s blind thrust is such an explosive issue. But it doesn’t explain why Porter is so protected. If Labor wins the next election or even looks like it, the shredders will be working overtime.
I’m taking this another power game akin to what we’re seeing in the US from the Republican party. How isn’t this anything other than a contemptuous expression of power? It’s up there with the unapologetic rorting, pork-barrelling, and open corruption. All beyond the standards of what we’d expect from the people representing us, but able to get away with it because the ballot box is the only arbiter…
Sadly very true they are like the Republicans of today.
When Gough Whitlam threw his Speaker (Jim Cope) under the proverbial bus in 1975, it was lead news and reinforced the impression of a government in chaos, en route to oblivion later that year. Cope resigned.
I’m not suggesting that Smith resign. He’s been a decent Speaker, is leaving Parliament anyway and is more entitled to the money than the front bench goons and hacks who sit on his right.
Smith should resign as a matter of principle because the government has lost confidence in him – end of story
Agree completely. Failure to resign further entrenches this government’s abuse of parliament. Surely Smith would prefer his reputation to be enhanced by resigning rather than diminished by continuing on.
Speaker Archie Cameron was on the receiving end of five successful dissent motions from his rulings and didn’t resign: we do Westminster differently here.
The only way The Coalition Government will regain trust in the speaker would be for him to become as thoroughly corrupt as them and as biased as Bronwyn Bishop was.
Smith should resign from the Liberal Party and make Scotty’s grasp on power even more tenuous.