moving forward.
On Sunday, Bridget McKenzie finally resigned from the ministry – setting off a leadership battle in the National Party in the process – but not for stealing $100 million dollars of Sports Australia’s money to run a re-election slush fund. It was a technicality, her membership of a clay target shooting club to whom she gave a grant constituted an conflict of interest in breach of the ministerial code.
Continue reading “You can break the law. Just don’t break my rules.”
Last night, Daniel Wild, the Director of Research at conservative think tank the Institute of Public Affairs, published an article on Sky News in which he argues that Senator McKenzie is the victim of a “political hit-job” carried out by the ANAO at the request of shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus.
Mr Wild is wrong and his article shows an incredible lack of research and a lack understanding of how the ANAO, the public service and Australian democracy work. This post will explain why he is wrong by annotating the entire article.
Continue reading “IPA researcher Wild doesn’t understand the ANAO. Or democracy. Or much of anything, really.”
When a public servant appropriates $100 million in government money for dishonest purposes contrary to law, we call it theft; a criminal offence which carries a maximum penalty of ten years in prison. When the public servant’s boss – the Minister – does it, however, it seems we’re not supposed to care.
Continue reading “Lock Her Up!”
Whenever an incident of wage theft is publicised, we always hear the business lobby screech that the union movement’s proposed criminalisation of wage theft will “discourage entrepreneurship” or some other nonse argument. Of course, this ignores that businesses are required to exercise due diligence when doing basically any other transaction – so why not wages?
Mina Zaki, Liberal candidate for the federal seat of Canberra, may or may not be an Afghani dual citizen. We don’t know for sure because Zaki left a key piece of documentation off of her disclosure with the AEC. Here’s why she should, despite her objections, tell us more.
Continue reading “Why we can’t take Mina Zaki at her word on her dual citizenship”
No one realised at the time but Malcolm Turnbull forcing his detractors to sign the infamous letter against his leadership last August has proven to be one of the best tools of the election for those fighting from all directions but the right.
Continue reading “Without realising, Turnbull made the best move of the election”
Clive Palmer, for whatever reason, has been trying to resurrect his abortive political career even though the electorate said good riddance more than three years ago.
Continue reading “Countering Clive Palmer’s unwanted Comeback”
Unless he’s joining up with Lee Rhiannon, I don’t wanna hear any current or former Green refer to themselves as anything other than a tree tory.
Continue reading “Jeremy Buckingham proclaims himself “Independent Real Green””
To suggest that Malcolm Turnbull’s week has started badly would be an understatement. After arrogantly suggesting that the Super Saturday by-elections would be “close”, now he has to deal with a corruption scandal many months in the making and yet another thorn in the side of his Government’s offshore processing policy. And it’s only Tuesday.
Continue reading “Death and Pestilence: Three Days In The Life Of Malcolm Turnbull”
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull today announced that the ministerial code of conduct will be amended to explicitly prohibit sexual relations between Ministers and their staff. The problem? It doesn’t actually fix the problem that the people have with Joyce.
Continue reading “Sex ban is a band-aid solution, corruption ban would be a cure”