Barnaby may be a little worried that a Commonwealth investigative body could look at how well he has dealt with public resources. Moving a Commonwealth agency to his own electorate continues to look pretty poor.
Our federal politicians clearly find the idea of stepping back from the hog swill challenging.
Câmon man, thatâs getting a bit low, isnât it? Whatever you think about how he conducts his private life, I doubt that you can credibly build the case that his actions in that instance were either corrupt or the business of a hypothetical FedICAC (or perhaps we should call it Ipecac).
Both the above and the actual case at hand (Gladys + Daryl) illustrate why a person would reasonably have concerns about the intrusiveness of an investigative body with untrammeled powers.
Ipecac should not follow the NSW model. It should instead learn from its mistakes.
This is a wholly unsatisfactory argument when it applies to us - it can be used to justify unlimited surveillance and intrusion into your life, and pretty much is.
If I think that it is inappropriate to apply it to me then it would be hypocritical of me to demand it of politicians.
In fact the âfearâ for an MP would be that poorly defined (vague) anti-corruption laws are retrospectively weaponised. I doubt that anyone can say in advance precisely when pork will in the future be found to be âcorruptâ and when it would not.
A pork-workaround might be for a candidate for an electorate to promise something to the electorate if the successful candidate. Since the candidate clearly canât meaningfully promise anything to any other electorate, it might avoid any scrutiny over whether the pork is âcorruptâ.
We donât need new laws to define or to punish corruption what we need is somebody with the resources whose job it is to go looking for it.
No change to retrospectivity of law is required, where statuary limitations already apply I see no need to alter that. However, if corruption may have taken place n years ago and could be charged within current law then such a Commission ought to look into it. The idea that everybody gets a free pass by preventing that from happening may be very attractive to the perpetrators but it isnât justice.
Hey what? What if the candidate is a sitting member in the incumbent Government? In the ministry, or Cabinet, or even party leader and Prime Minister?
Clearly, their influence and decisions cover much more than their local electorate.
I perhaps should not have used the word âretrospectivelyâ as it could tend to suggest âretrospectivityâ. I meant: An action occurs in 2012 and itâs now 2021 - 9 years later Daryl Maguire hasnât been prosecuted for anything, much less convicted.
I see resignations but I donât see guilt. I donât see a system that is âworkingâ.
It is easy to take a partisan political position and declare that Maguire is corrupt. It is harder to say specifically where the boundaries are. If it were so clear cut and easy, you would think that something could have been achieved in 9 years.
During an election campaign there is no such thing as either a sitting member or an incumbent government, in a sense. The government is in caretaker mode. No pork may be allocated. Only promises can be made for future pork, if elected. (I know that the term âsitting memberâ is used frequently but it would rarely be accurate in practice. Once the election is underway, they are all just candidates.)
At the end of the day, even the Prime Minister is just a candidate to represent an electorate (well, in the lower house anyway). The PM will be chosen at a future time by the elected members of the âsuccessfulâ party.
Anyway ⊠A candidate canât say to another electorate: If you elect me, I will give you this pork. It makes no sense to say that.
The point is that it breaks the implication that awarding pork not in accordance with need, when electorates are compared, is by definition corrupt.
Most employers would show him the door for such behaviour. Is it illegal? Almost certainly no. Unethical, and inappropriate use of authority? Whether intended or not, thatâs what it looks like - and the look is what matters.
As for pork-barrelling, it would be nice to see some decent measures against it but it would also be extremely surprising.
You are entitled to your opinion. As for me I believe character is a constant, regardless if it is public or private life. I might be a minority but I think he exhibited an all about himself and nothing about others, supposedly dear to him. I would thus not trust his instincts or behavior to be any different in any forum. With a code he was obliged to live within? He could well think he is above it.
You would be well served to review the previous Liberal government in Victoria. They demonstrated when there is a will there is a way. The ALP might or might not follow, but recent history is what it was. Defending less than honesty and integrity is not somewhere I would go, and I accept there are differing views on what that means. Some would see nothing more than BAU.
Trivially all events are in the past. So how does the Commission decide which are to be investigated and which not?
Yes, but 9 years??? We can do better than that, canât we?
Very opaquely.
Well not really - in the context of a discussion about ICAC and ultimately criminal prosecution.
In politics the âlookâ (the optics) will certainly be made into an issue. In law the look can be âoff colourâ but being on the right side of the âlineâ is what matters.
I really donât think it is appropriate for Ipecac to be enforcing the âbonk banâ, and bugging MPs bedrooms to find out who is âdoingâ whom (and yet in NSW that is more or less what we got).
Unless of course you think that Ipecac should be policing the âlookâ.
In NSW this week many people are scratching their heads and wondering whether NSW ICAC is working for the people of NSW.
In SA this week they are legislating to rein in the powers of SA ICAC.
Perhaps at a Federal level Ipecac has taken too long to come to fruition and the pendulum is starting to swing back in the other direction.
I have yet to see a Federal MP do something that I would consider to be corrupt. So to me Ipecac is solving a problem that doesnât exist. I totally understand though that we all mean different things by âcorruptâ.
I am a bit confused by the lack of care about a pollieâs character outside the office, with some who consider their personal and public lives can be totally different. While a bit OT but still relevant. Ignore the summary as it does not reflect the link.
One observation is many countries are perceived to be more corrupt in 2020 than in 2012, and Australia has fallen more than most with a âone wayâ trend. Some countries have improved, and many have gone up and down a bit.
Each can make their own mind on the relevancy or accuracy, but it suggests to me we need an ICAC pretty badly.
From the OED
6.II.6 Perversion or destruction of integrity in the discharge of public duties by bribery or favour; the use or existence of corrupt practices, esp. in a state, public corporation, etc.
There are very obvious cases of claiming allowances etc that the politician is not entitled to, including lying about their place of residence. If that is not corruption then we are not speaking the same language.
Then there is spending very large sums in marginal electorates in defiance of more objective measures of need that has been done many times. Not all pollies benefit personally and directly (but some do) however they all benefit collectively whether they arranged it or not.
Is not spending public money for personal gain instead of public benefit corruption?
Consider personal gain on a grand scale as in the Obeid affair. Selling favours for millions is personal corruption written very large. The players have now been found guilty by a court.
I know that is State and we are talking Feds but unless there is a body to investigate such things or for whistle blowers to report to at the federal level it makes it that much harder to detect and prosecute any such behaviour. The Obeid case was sparked by a whistle blower.
So assuming there is no corruption at federal level and not allowing whistle blower reports to start an investigation will prevent some discovery of corruption, which is exactly what the corrupt want.
There are significant examples of instances where our politicians are asked to be the gate keeper, but able also to act as the fox in the henhouse. When the facts or part truths leak out, it is at best a feast for the press, with any action decided according to the standing of the leadership on the day.
There are difficulties in expecting politicians to be totally independent of party discipline, or reliable in self assessment. Can the voters decide once each term on the merits of each instance? This assumes all the facts of every doubtful circumstance are fully disclosed to the public. It also assumes that by the public adjudicating itâs acceptable to overlook some serious misdeeds, because the alternative choices are worse in other ways.
The Federal Parliament of 2004 might be remembered for many things. There is one legacy that is still on the nose.
The Guardian opened with,
Witness Kâs former lawyer Bernard Collaery has successfully overturned a ruling shrouding parts of his trial in secrecy, after an appeal court found that open justice helped to deter âpolitical prosecutionsâ.
The role of a Federal CIC may be limited in the actions it might take in such matters. It would be useful to see a truely independent party assess whether it is in the best interests of voting Australians to be aware of what happened, and report accordingly. In support of this is an assumption those who raised concerns might have had a better avenue to call out the behaviours that have followed.
Itâs embarrassing that the events occurred. Itâs also embarrassing that the details were later exposed. What followed is even more embarrassing.
The ICAC is not just about criminal prosecution. We have police and prosecutors that can deal with that, but cannot deal with straight-forward misconduct by elected officials.
I would call that fraud (whether itâs by a politician or by anyone else).
I would not call that corruption.
I fully understand that being (re-)elected is a benefit that a politician receives but, in my view, the benefit is too indirect to be called corruption.
This benefit of course has nothing to do with either objective measures of need or the marginal nature of the electorate (or otherwise). At the end of the day any expenditure of public money by the government benefits a government candidate. The extent of the benefit may depend on the marginal nature of the electorate.
And how many federal politicians have âpaid backâ money that they claimed, or perks they received such as a helicopter ride, without any further action being taken?
As for pork-barrelling, itâs fine if you live in a marginal seat that ends up getting the pork that every other voter is paying for. Sure itâs hard to clearly delineate between pork-barrelling and standard âelection promisesâ if you donât try - but why not at least try to stop the waste of my money? I am already careful with the money I actually get paid - I want elected officials to be careful with the money I allegedly earn but am not paid. That doesnât mean government for the cheapest by the cheapest, but it does mean not paying for railway car parks in locations that do not have a railway line!
If we do not try to stop pork-barrelling, we are accepting that every vote counts - but some votes are more equal than others. Is that really what democracy means?
Isnât that a different need compared to the role of a CIC?
A CIC is about revealing, exposing activities or actions that are open to doubt or question, and not otherwise brought forward by the day to day process of parliament?Details that given a choice some members of the parliament would prefer to keep from the voters gaze, or at least in part conceal from scrutiny.
Whether such an authority as a CIC needs further powers to punish, or it is a matter for parliament on the day, does democracy have any say in how an issue is resolved? How the matter has been managed by a CIC or Government of the day is open to assessment by individual opinion. Isnât democracy the ability to pass judgement on the response, rather than the deed?
Quibbling about words and skipping inconvenient points says this has run its course as a discussion that might explain or educate.
