Having Lost the Plot, Infrastructure Australia is Doomed

The Commonwealth Infrastructure Priority List is due for de-listing, according to John Austen (“Time to call time on Infrastructure Australia”, Pearls and Irritations, October 8, 2021). With Intergenerational and Auditor-General reports it shares the fate of public administration ignored by the public. We ought to be interested in what projects the government wants to spend our money on. These are big ticket items but who could name the top three at either Federal or State level?

A lack of direction from the Commonwealth Government seems to have produced lethargy in response, the citizenry being unfazed with opaque vision and a loss of confidence in merit as a transparent selection criterion. For a government that tries hard not to govern (small, very small government) it is hard to present big picture thinking on infrastructure. This is an area that offers the greatest bang for buck if your game is pork-barreling. Even the big idea of inland rail is more chess piece (probably the knight as it can move around corners) than excitement trigger, as have plans for very fast train services (which Austen refers to as a fantasy). Projects like the Maldon to Dombarton freight rail link have won votes fraudulently many times over without result.

Establishing a priority list is a great potential safeguard against corruption through preferment, if only we knew it. Such lists are prioritized and sorted into near, medium and long-term periods. Projects advanced in the queue are signals of interference by vested interests. A properly constituted National Integrity Commission could develop a corruption quotient to forewarn of inherent corruption potential. Transport and Communications is the sector most amenable to infrastructure planning so needs to be watched carefully. It is the same kryptonite that developers are to local government.

The benefit of national projects is intended to be enjoyed nationally, though Melbournians might not be too warm towards Sydney’s West Connex. The regions clamor for compensatory provision to enhance their capability and inter-connectedness. Proposals such as transplanting some naval facilities from Garden Island in Sydney Harbour to Port Kembla suggest upside for multiple locations and a more fitting welcome for cruise ships (we don’t want to ‘stop the boats’ but rather berth them). The Maldon – Dombarton interrupted project aimed at getting freight off the roads, providing benefits to many road users. TODs (Transport Oriented Developments) are still favored for adding value to existing infrastructure, both public and commercial.

As Austen says, to achieve productivity Infrastructure Australia should recommend a “policy of interoperable – standardized – transport networks to support interstate and international trade and commerce”. That it has not done this is an argument for its abolition.

So, euthanize IA already. But what will replace and perform its intended function? Where could it nest that would give infrastructure less chance of being weaponized for corrupt purposes? I like Austen’s suggestion of the Finance portfolio, subject to Auditor-General surveillance and reporting. Public enquiries would also foster citizen engagement to the extent that many could say, yes, they can name the top three projects on the Commonwealth Infrastructure Priority List and when they are slated for commencement and completion. Vale, IA.

Waiting for your reply Scott

It’s really quite simple Sco-Mo. Someone, in this case a key international organisation seeking to save the planet, invites you to a world conference. It is polite to respond with your RSVP, particularly when you are advised of the event with perhaps a year’s notice. You say thank you for inviting me, I would be pleased to attend and look forward to further information so I can be well prepared to participate.

Anything less is just rude Scott. They are still waiting for your reply. You continue to live your life at 5 minutes to midnight and prioritise political advantage.

Job-keeper Accountability Fiasco

How long can the conservative myth of superior economic management be sustained? Having already overestimated the original disbursement of Job-keeper allocations by $60 billion (46% error), the federal government has gifted about $25 billion to unqualified enterprises. Intended to maintain a snug relationship with employees, Job-keeper largesse has been pocketed by companies who actually made a profit during the pandemic crisis ($13 billion) or whose profit did not fall by the required 30% or 50% thresholds ($12 billion estimated).

Should the government perceive an overpayment by Centrelink the client will be pursued, sometimes unto death. The response to the unethical gaming of Job-keeper by unqualified companies was to make light of the presumed unwitting error. Just keep it, no harm done. This response takes the presumption of innocence to new depths and has one surmising if it was a deliberate transfer of wealth to those needing it least from those who need it most and will obligingly spend it. We are left to wonder if this government is deliberately corrupt or just devastatingly incompetent.

Is there a logic that would support a decision not to claw back ill-gotten money? The Australian Taxation Office will not release details of recipients whose estimates of impending doom were grossly over catastrophized. Temporary respondent, bus road-kill minister Birmingham, regards questions on this as “smartarsed”. Is it impudent to want to know how and when taxpayers can recoup their $25 billion of public debt? Public criticism could further erode trust in government, placing it under the same ethical umbrella as banks and politicians under scrutiny for corrupt practices. That is, we should presume they’ve done nothing wrong until it is, inevitably, proven that they have, and meanwhile not dent our confidence in government.

If claw back provisions were not in place because it may dissuade businesses from applying, that logic suggests businesses want to scam the system and we must not stand in their way. We are reminded here that some businesses will engage in fraud if permitted by opportunity and a pathway to deception. This is in keeping with the PM’s tendency to squirm, wriggle, subvert, spin and redefine. If the question put to him is too embarrassing the tactic becomes “I don’t accept the premise of your question”. In the case of Job-keeper criticism he trots out how he’s not into the politics of envy. Could someone tell him this is not about envy but justice and equity, or does he not understand those concepts?

Josh thinks labor wants to make lawbreakers out of businesses. Well, if the cap fits, Josh may have to accept the evidence that many indeed are lawbreakers and have conspired to be so. His compelling logic was not applied in the case of robodebt, which is manifestly unfair. The Treasurer has pre-emptively defended fraud and enlisted support from the ATO. Would a federal Integrity Commission find anything wrong with this? Let’s name them, shame them, impose some enforceable undertakings on them, and fine them.

So next election, remember these superior economic managers sprayed debt like liquid fertilizer and will not countenance spending on ordinary citizens because that would be reckless.

David Muscio

11 October, 2021

Scott-the-Announcer

Scott-the-Announcer

A moniker not as frightening as those of your lineage like Vlad-the-Impaler or even Attila-the-Hun, but Scott-the-Announcer fits you Sco-Mo. You’re fond of making announcements, not so good at action. I recall that, as a child, I formed the view that, with their apparent readiness to leave the field of play during test matches for trifling excuses, that English test players were cricketers that didn’t really want to play cricket. I muse that you are a politician that really doesn’t want to govern, aspiring only to be there. I thought of you when reading Bleak House by Charles Dickens (1853) today with this description: “I cannot imagine a countenance and manner more singularly expressive of caution and indecision, and a perpetual impulse to do something he could not resolve to venture on.” (p236) His name, ironically, was Mr Crook.

Low expectations are usually met in abundance. You promised nothing in the way of an agenda and you have duly delivered on your promise. Thanks. I sense you are quite impressed with your latest three-word slogan of “technology not taxes” to take to the next election. However, the reality is more like “cudgels not counsel” as you search for political tools to combat every threat that fails to disappear from your rear-view mirror, while ignoring the claims for just treatment of individuals. Those problems are only framed in arrears because you didn’t see them coming and responded too late with a political band-aid.

When you thrust your paucity of leadership upon us, Scott, we knew two things about you that may have given rise to some reasonable expectations as to how you might operate as a Prime Minister. One claim to expertise was your engagement in marketing, so much so that many refer to you as Scotty from Marketing. Imagine our surprise and dismay then when you so badly mis-handled messaging for our Covid19 crisis. The second aspect of your personal profile was that you had a passionate engagement with Christianity. Again, surprise and dismay when it became clear that you encouraged and operated within an ethics-free zone. You are a self-made man clumsily constructed.

While you say you don’t wish to give oxygen to “the politics of envy” you are exposed as one who clearly favors the interests of the wealthy. Indeed, you have sought to give them an even greater share of the common pool. There would be benefit in adopting a more plausible rationale to justify this inequitable wealth transfer. We couldn’t target criminal banks because it might diminish trust in them (and so their malfeasance should continue). Now companies rorting Jobkeeper can’t be named because it may reduce confidence in the Australian Tax Office (so the transparent rip off should continue). Extend this logic to other areas and you might appreciate its absurdity. Again, for me as a small child I bought the logic of the efficacy of elephant repellent (clearly it kept them away) and spectacle-wearing rabbits as self-evident (they ate their carrots so didn’t need glasses). When I grew up I was able to distinguish between correlation and causation. Clearly you and Josh did not eat your crusts as kids as evidenced by a lack of curly hair. You want to dumb us down to accept ridiculous flaws of logic.

You are ever ready to point out negative behaviors you regard as un-Australian while never offering any insight as to the positive characteristics bound up in being an Australian. One hint for you, however, is that Australians have great crap-detectors and they know how to use them. Your guiding mantra seems to be preferment and deferment, advancing the cause of the wealthy and delaying consideration of the concerns of other citizens. We need a government that will pursue grand theft and petty theft with equal vigor, not skewed towards the impoverished and powerless, as with robodebt. Why no Integrity Commission yet Scotty? (surely your chums would never do anything naughty). Why sneaking in a lower cap than promised on compensation from victims of failed financial schemes? Why act so tardily on recommendations for women’s safety?

I now offer you a winning formula so listen up Scotty. If you want to win the next election you need to start placing yourself on the right side of history in relation to climate change and at least fake some sincerity about combating corporate malfeasance. You need to purge some of the dead weight of imbecilic conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxers from the loony right. Respect expertise and encourage your colleagues to do likewise. It is a tough ask for a government without integrity to establish an Integrity Commission but go on, have a crack. Claw back Jobseeker largesse from companies that didn’t comply (remember, you do that with ordinary taxpayers) and pursue corporate tax dodgers.

Look ahead to problems rather than through the rear-view vision mirror as they pass you by. You don’t seem to see issues coming. You really need to fix that, perpetually late as you are to ah ha and playing catch-up, administratively and ethically. You’re doing it again by not releasing the names of companies who fraudulently claimed Jobkeeper. Don’t just open your mouth to change feet, go beyond system one thinking (Kahneman) before you speak. Get on the front foot on issues of particular concern to women (to be “fair dinkum” is definitely Australian) and initiate reform. Our attention might then be drawn away from continuing rorts long enough to vote for you, but I hope not.

David Muscio

9 September 2021

Insidious Normative Corruption

Insidious Normative Corruption

We walk past it mutely, signaling our tacit acquiescence. The perpetrators of corruption are not visibly embarrassed by detection. They are no longer given reflective pause by the memes of yesteryear, such as Jiminy Cricket exhorting us to “always let your conscience be your guide”. Government administration has become an ethics free zone. Undeterred by media criticism, emboldened by public indifference, political corruption is now a journey rather a series of random episodes. We have, collectively, normalized deviancy in public administration.

The cancer coursing through the body politic is now in stage 4. Corruption as interference in due process breeds powerlessness. Whether earnestly addressing objective criteria for selection under a sham merit principle, or conscientiously attending to exhaustive criteria for a community grant, fair consideration is denied. The message conveyed is that you need an angle, a critical influencer.

It is now naïve to believe in democracy, so eroded is our faith in its operations. We must say no, blatant as well as covert corruption, is unacceptable. The antidote to systemic corruption is not simply the turn of the electoral cycle. There must be other ways to communicate to a sitting government that we find its custodianship on our behalf to be inadequate. Politicians, alone among citizens, expect praise when their malfeasance is deemed not illegal. We deserve and should expect better.

Not Unprecedented

In the NSW State Archives summary of the “Spanish” Flu of 1919, the first government proclamation closed libraries, schools, churches, theatres, public halls and indoor places of entertainment. Two days later on 30 January, three proclamations were issued:

  1. Mandatory wearing of masks to cover nose and mouth.
  2. Public gatherings prohibited.
  3. No crossing the border from Victoria to NSW.

Twenty pounds imposed for breaches was a hefty fine in the money values of 1919. Today’s border closures were therefore not unprecedented as access from Victoria to NSW was denied.

What the Dickens is wrong with Americans?!

Reading Martin Chuzzlewit again (Signet classic edition 1965) 53 years since my first reading, I was struck by Dickens’ observations of the American character. Writing in 1842, he seemed to sum up how the collective psyche was sucking the nation down the vortex of exceptionalism and insularity. Dickens’ principal character inquires of his host (p569):

“Are Mr Chollop and the class he represents an Institution here? Are pistols with revolving barrels, sword-sticks, bowie-knives, and such things, institutions on which you pride yourselves? Are bloody duels, brutal combats, savage assaults, shooting down and stabbing in the streets your institutions! Why, I shall hear next that dishonor and fraud are among the institutions of the Great Republic!”

He records the following exchange (p581) between Martin Chuzzlewit and his travelling companion Mark about the iconic emblem of America:

“Why I was a-thinking, sir,” returned Mark, “that if I was a painter and was called upon to paint the American Eagle, how should I do it?”

“Paint it as like an eagle as you could, I suppose.”

“No,” said Mark. “That wouldn’t do it for me, sir. I should want to draw it like a bat for its short-sightedness, like a bantam for its bragging, like a magpie for its honesty, like a peacock for its vanity, like a ostrich for its putting its head in the mud and thinking nobody sees it—-“

“And like a phoenix for its power of springing from the ashes of its faults and vices and soaring up anew into the sky!” said Martin. “Well, Mark. Let us hope so.”

In an Afterword by Marvin Mudrick in this edition (p894) he notes:

“Of course there is also Dickens the intelligent and sardonic reporter, who rehearses, out of his disillusioning tour, an America still uncomfortably recognizable, more than a century later, in its confusion of violence with courage, intimidation with justice, chauvinism with pride, conformity with freedom.”

Today, that ostrich head seems still to be firmly planted in the mud with its backside exposed to ridicule.

A First for Australian Women

Centenary Unnoticed, Unremarked and Uncelebrated: A milestone in the history of the women’s movement

Sunday, 12 July, 2020 is the anniversary the first representation of Australian women at the First Congress of the International Federation of University Women held in London, commencing 12 July 1920. Recorded in the source below, Mildred was my great aunt and Louisa the first principal of Sydney University Women’s College.

McGrath, Amy (1970). A Short History of the NSW Association of University Woman Graduates.

P31 New Association Formed. “In April, 1920, Mrs Bernard Muscio approached the Sydney University Women’s Council with the suggestion that an Australian Federation of University Women be formed, and in June, 1920 a committee meeting first spoke of the hope to “revive interest in the work of the Council by the expedient of creating a graduate body capable of affiliating with the International Federation.”

P33 The International Federation of University Women appears to have approached Mrs Muscio in Australia, for she wrote to the Council of the Sydney University Women’s Council, April 27, 1920, urging them to initiate a Federation of University Women in Australia, and to send a delegate to the International Federation of University Women conference July 1920 (opened 12 July). Sydney University invited her and Miss Louisa MacDonald to attend as delegates.” (Miss MacDonald retired Women’s College June 1919).

Abe’s Ghost Checks In

One hundred and fifty seven years ago, I spoke to you about a great American nation in prospect. It was to be purchased with the blood of those embroiled in the great civil conflagration playing out at that time. It was perhaps naïve to expect a fair society to emerge from such bitterness.

Looking at you now, it seems the shared ideal of freedom and equality has been interpreted as selfish greed and a bristling independence that does not see, let alone care about, the poverty and suffering of others.

While steadfastly believing your nation to be great (and it may be for some), you have ignored your own cultural pathology and insularity. Too many of your own have died at your hands in a continuing parasitic death spiral. The promise of a land of the free has not been realized, thus diminishing the value of the sacrifice of those I honored at Gettysburg. I then implored the living “to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.” It is with overwhelming regret and despair that I note that this great task remains unfinished.

African Americans were then freed from the oppression of slavery to enjoin the great democratic cause with their erstwhile captors as citizens. Why, despite the recent advent of a black president, is it still necessary to cry out that Black Lives Matter?

They died in vain after all, their nation’s promise unfulfilled. “Government of the people, by the people, for the people” has not perished from the earth. It just doesn’t abide in the United States.

Sorry China, Our Bad

China, there’s been a big misunderstanding, it’s not personal you know. Maybe we haven’t been expressing ourselves clearly or showing enough cultural respect? As the Middle Kingdom you may regard Australia as on the periphery of those concentric circles radiating like sound waves from Bejing. Even one of our past Prime Ministers described our position as being at the arse-end of the world. Perhaps we have not been sufficiently obsequious and you require more kow-towing and genuflecting. So sorry, we promise to do better in future.

It seems that just when we need them, we don’t seem to have any diplomats that can, well, be diplomatic. It may have seemed that, when we had a Mandarin-speaking PM, we had this trans-cultural respectful dialogue thing sorted. It appears not. The call for an enquiry into the circumstances of COVID-19 release and spread is not personal but universal. If the origin of the virus was anywhere other than China we would still want to locate the black box flight recorder for the contagion. Our intention was never to slight a powerful trading partner given to petulant paranoid responses to wilfully misinterpreted messages.

Trading contracts involve mutual obligations in order to enjoy mutual advantages. It seems our own trade negotiators have forgotten this and regard you, erroneously, as bestowing favours upon our island nation. We could be china plate mates, but enough of the huffing and puffing. I expect you still want our wine and agriculture and be able to send your Trojan ponies to our universities. So take a chill pill and just think through what is in our best mutual interests. We will make adjustments to the market share of our exports if you force us into the arms of other suitors.

As has been pointed out (Stephen Kupor, Defence council, 30/4/2020) this virus has “killed thousands, impoverished millions, threatened billions and cost trillions.” It is self-evident we would all like to know how this happened, sufficient to ensure against another such impact occurring again in our shared world.