Don't we have enough trouble already?

Australia is experiencing enough problems without having to endure exposures of an unnecessarily cruel and incompetent deterioration in ethics and management standards. The economic damage alone is mind-boggling. 

There is a pop saying and song from the 1970s, “don’t do the crime if you can’t pay the dime”; which in this case is “if you refuse to pay ….”. That is producing an intensive counterattack which might be said to relate to “people in glass houses should not throw stones”.

PMs Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, and NSW Premiers Mike Baird and Gladys Berejiklian, have been ducking and weaving in response to publication of my analyses, cherry-picking and thieving as they go. The long string of instances dispels any possibility of coincidence. 

The most recent is the series of questions I put about bushfires, sports rorts and COVID-19 responses. The common factor is what Morrison calls his Bubble but “cave” would be more appropriate as there is no light. The same group of people make mistake after mistake without any provision for “repair”, hiding “facts” (and deferring Parliament and the Budget), and refusing to explain such things as:

• Why the quantum of his payment to pensioners is one-third the US’s
• Why his spend was 13% of the annual budget against about 50% in the US
• Why his big cheques go to Big Businesses while SMEs have employee subsidies but not period costs – a sample of tourism operations shows wages to be 40% of annual costs, therefore 60% is a proportionately greater burden
• Why he refuses to release COVID modelling results unlike just about every other country
• Why $100 million whoopee money has been provided to buddy consultants for a PR brochure and $3.5 billion for a metro that will not work and probably won’t be built.

But then, of course, Morrison had another closed-door meeting and plucked $130 billion out of the air, for unspecified Jobkeeper purposes to which he added free child care, while his close partner in political embarrassment, Berejiklian, is now giving $10,000 towards operating costs to small businesses which suffer a 75% reduction in revenue. This will be complex to administer and to determine eligibility; and the amount is small relative to a loss of nearly $60,000. About 25% of SMEs had turnovers of less than $50,000. Will it save 1 job in a small business whose 20 cost maybe $1 million?

Berejiklian is committing the innerwest, “Morrison’s Backyard” (St George/Sutherland), the Northern Beaches, and outer growth areas to inexorably increasing congestion and motoring costs. All three NSW major ports are strangled;  the Metro and trams are doubling the annual rail operating loss – going on to quadrupling it; while Inland rail and fast trains are getting further away from reality.

The Turnbull/Morrison mates in the Bubble are each paid almost $1 million a year. If they think I’ll stay quiet while they sit on my money, they are delusional.