The Future Fund
June 2nd 2008 20:15
Janet Albrechtsen has an interesting article on Government spending. It is unlikely to attract the attention it deserves because fiancial issues only exercise people's minds when there isn't enough money to go around. The accumulation of savings is a less entertaining prospect that fixing injustices or helping the environment - though not it seems Orangoutangs - by initiating big community building projects.The idea of a large surplus sitting around doing nothing in particular must be burning a hole in the figurative pockets of some in the Rudd Government.The apprehension that it is "our money" is a powerful political force in favour of spending up on favourite projects.
With the ability to control disbursement of enormous amounts of money comes power - and lots of it. This is something the union movement has always known, as Albrechtsen points out. Pesistent allegations, and frequently proof, of corrupt practises in the ALP point to a culture that justifies the use of money in furthering an individual's or a group's power base and ideological agenda.
Every Opposition calls for open Government and transparency in decision making - until they take hold of the levers of power. First of all they realise that not everything should be made available to the Fourth Estate - which is pursuing its own - not always honorable - power agenda. The old saying that both the making of laws and the making of sausages should be kept from the public has more than a modicum of truth about it, especially if you define the public as the press. Most, though by no means all, rhetoric about open government is futile.
Next they realise that it is in the interests of them and theirs to wrap the cloak of secrecy around every decision even when it is plainly unnecessary and unjust to keep people in the dark about important decisions that concern them intimately. There is a point to transparency in decision making, especially when it's about money. The combination of money and power - not to mention ideology - is apt to corrupt and to corrupt very quickly. Light shone into the cockroach infested recesses of ALP factional politics is necessary for Australian democracy - and its fiscal future. Sweetheart deals, on-selling arrangements for mates, undermining the competitive process, under-the-table kick-backs, indefinable quid pro quo arrangements for support at the right time, judicious shafting for not toeing the factional line, elephantine memories - all these are part and parcel of the culture of self-perpetuating oligarchy that forms the mindset of the ALP.
Just remember that these people will be making decisions that affect the ability of all of us to cope with an increasingly uncertain economic future. We really do need to keep an eye on them.
With the ability to control disbursement of enormous amounts of money comes power - and lots of it. This is something the union movement has always known, as Albrechtsen points out. Pesistent allegations, and frequently proof, of corrupt practises in the ALP point to a culture that justifies the use of money in furthering an individual's or a group's power base and ideological agenda.
Every Opposition calls for open Government and transparency in decision making - until they take hold of the levers of power. First of all they realise that not everything should be made available to the Fourth Estate - which is pursuing its own - not always honorable - power agenda. The old saying that both the making of laws and the making of sausages should be kept from the public has more than a modicum of truth about it, especially if you define the public as the press. Most, though by no means all, rhetoric about open government is futile.
Next they realise that it is in the interests of them and theirs to wrap the cloak of secrecy around every decision even when it is plainly unnecessary and unjust to keep people in the dark about important decisions that concern them intimately. There is a point to transparency in decision making, especially when it's about money. The combination of money and power - not to mention ideology - is apt to corrupt and to corrupt very quickly. Light shone into the cockroach infested recesses of ALP factional politics is necessary for Australian democracy - and its fiscal future. Sweetheart deals, on-selling arrangements for mates, undermining the competitive process, under-the-table kick-backs, indefinable quid pro quo arrangements for support at the right time, judicious shafting for not toeing the factional line, elephantine memories - all these are part and parcel of the culture of self-perpetuating oligarchy that forms the mindset of the ALP.
Just remember that these people will be making decisions that affect the ability of all of us to cope with an increasingly uncertain economic future. We really do need to keep an eye on them.
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