The Liberal Party has escaped accountability for its corruption for too long and the Australian public should speak up now, writes Grant Turner.
ON ELECTION NIGHT 2019, Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared: “I have always believed in miracles.” His triggering smirk morphed into something akin to a genuine smile on that night, his joy at winning the unwinnable Election was there front and centre for all to see.
The 2019 Election will indeed be a much discussed and disputed event. I suspect this for several reasons: some will say it was because Bill Shorten didn't have the personality or the cut-through to a win, others will say it was because the ALP went way too hard on policies that threatened the life-long comfortable receivers of their chosen governments largesse. The ALP may also have offended some possibly greedy, well-off folk with its desire to change franking credits, negative gearing and capitol gains tax.
Regardless of that, the inevitable result was that it allowed the ALP to become an easy target for a Crosby Textor type LNP scare campaign. Many will claim it was due to the compliant and, at times, complicit media and the way they parroted the LNP's labelling of those policies as taxes allowing the Government to get away with a ridiculous, blatant lie along with the associated scare campaign declaring “as a fact” that Labor was going to increase taxes by $387 billion. This was a lie that went mostly unchallenged as the ALP had little airtime and sadly, when it did get some, didn't see the importance in calling it out for the completely and utterly false claim it was.
Many will argue it was the billions of taxpayer dollars spent on a pumped-up pork barreling scheme, corruption on a scale that had never been seen before in Australian political history that they got away with (yet it continues to this day).
The truth behind the 2019 Election may very well be revealed in years to come. One can only hope it's during a royal commission into the LNP Party and its ever-growing list of questionable acts and serious failures of government that have, to date, never seen it be held accountable for.
The LNP has had no problems in the past calling for royal commissions. They called one into Pink Batts, regarding the roll-out of Kevin Rudd's home insulation GFC stimulus package, along with the sad deaths of four workers that passed during its implementation. Many inquiries were held into Pink Batts prior to the LNP's calling of a royal commission, with many reports and findings tabled.
Some found mistakes were made in the haste to roll out the GFC stimulus which in reality became an economy-saving – some might argue a nation-saving – stimulus package. The ALP accepted they had made mistakes and it learnt from them as shown by their implementation of lasting safety measures and changes within the home insulation industry.
A cynic may suspect the LNP called this Royal Commission solely to put Kevin Rudd in the witness box to create that negative “guilty as charged” media vision, all for pure sickening political purposes. They used the sad deaths of four workers to facilitate its attempted political assassination. The LNP also called a Royal Commission into the unions to put Bill Shorten in the witness box (for the same above reasons), all over a ten-year-old Australian Workers Union paperwork dispute, something that occurred prior to him entering politics.
They also put Julia Gillard in the witness box (for the same above reasons), accused of corruption over a 20-year-old, $5,000 kitchen renovation that supposedly happened, again, prior to her entering politics.
As you can see, the LNP doesn't hesitate to call royal commissions for political point-scoring. So, I wonder, will the LNP be so understanding of the need for a royal commission when a future ALP government calls for one to have a serious look into the current-day LNP and its smorgasbord of corruption and misconduct?
Corruption stories now have become a daily normalised event in today's LNP. Imagine what the power of a royal commission could do in getting actual honest answers to the myriad of questions surrounding the blatant rorts and pork barrelling. It would be effective against things like Watergate, the endless blatant lying, the sickening cronyism and the ever-growing list of absolute governmental failures like Robodebt, hotel quarantine, the vaccination rollout, aged care or the COVIDSafe app.
Maybe a royal commission could look into Murdoch’s relationship with the LNP and then ask Peter Costello about Nine Entertainment and its relationship with the LNP, not forgetting to ask Kerry Stokes about Seven West Media’s relationship with the LNP, too. The dilemma for a future royal commission would be deciding what to investigate as it is spoilt for choice in selecting matters to look into. They will be limited to select only a few as it would take a lifetime to attempt to investigate all of the things I've listed let alone the many others that I haven't.
If you just chose one single matter mentioned above on its own, truth is that any one of these matters are far more corrupt and worthy of a royal commission than a ten-year-old paperwork dispute or a $5,000 20-year-old kitchen renovation. Anyway, back to Morrison and his “miracles”.
I wonder how many Australians, many of whom are kept so flat-out busy keeping their families together, bills paid and kids schooled, seriously suffer from time constraints that only allow time for six-second MSM sound bites to inform their news and views. How many would be aware of how this Pentecostal PM has managed to stack his Cabinet and his Party along with many supposedly independent government entities with like-minded fundamental right-wing evangelical “Christian” types?
I wonder how many Australian people understand the crux of what our PM’s Pentecostal religion preaches and advocates for and what truly drives our PM and what he truly stands for and believes. This is something I implore all Australians to look into.
The truth of the Morrison Government was revealed in the 2021 Budget in that it caused the LNP to go against everything they've stood for over the years (debt and deficit disaster) with its billions of vote-buying spending, now money dumped on women's issues all whilst still having Christian Porter and Andrew Laming as sitting members of the LNP. Then there's money for its failure on aged care which they hope will be forgotten by replacing billions they had previously removed and, of course, they'll put money they'd removed back into childcare.
Australians need to realise that we now live in a world where marketing, media and data lead targeting supplied by Crosby Textor types now determine who governs and wins our elections.
Our Pentecostal PM is a master of spin and preys on those he sees as easy targets. He is backed by a strong PR team of over 40 people and a compliant and at times complicit media that back him to the hilt.
I'll leave you with a piece of biblical scripture from Matthew 7:16:
‘You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?’
The mind boggles. I suspect that Morrison and his well-worked media PR team along with his evangelical mates may very well cruise to the next election victory unless Australians wake up.
Talk to friends and acquaintances, direct them to independent media outlets for real news, speak up against the agendaed media oligarchs and do something to fight against this runaway corrupt government.
Who knows? Maybe we all might all experience an actual miracle when we see this failed ad man PM and his media team booted from Parliament.
Grant Turner has a strong interest in politics and fairness in society and believes in honest independent media. You can follow him on Twitter @gruntat.
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