In December, 2018, Prime
Minister Scott Morrison announced the creation of a new anti-corruption
commission mostly because of sustained pressure from crossbench MPs with the
balance of power. The Labor Party, the Greens and some minor parties have long
campaigned for a corruption watchdog, and have argued that current systems are “woefully
inadequate”. Morrison had long regarded a national anti-corruption commission
Several years ago, I travelled to the Gold
Coast in Queensland and stayed in a motel just behind Main Beach, and at high
tide I had to stand with my nose almost plastered against the window of my room
to see the sand on the beach, it had retreated so far. Indeed, we were able to
get down to the beach in only a few places because so much sand has been washed
away that at the back of the beach, just below our motel, was a 3 metre high sand
Here we go again. In early March of 2020, I
posted a list of instances of corruption by coalition governments, mostly from
the federal government, but some from the state governments1. Not
long after that was posted, it was necessary to begin another compilation as
the instances of corruption continued piling up. That second effort was
published at the end of April, 20202. Only a couple of days after
Editor
of the Guardian, Lenore Taylor, has written a superb piece on the craft of
journalism1, part of which I have quoted elsewhere on this blog2.
This quote in part encapsulates her thesis, that journalists should be most
concerned about facts and that when politicians make a statement, journalists should
assess those claims and not simply transcribe them; i.e. not be a stenographer2.
Something similar has been stated previously, often
You may have noticed
in recent years that the use of the epithet ‘unelected experts’ is becoming more
common among the covid-19 deniers and climate change deniers. The apotheosis of
the unelected non-expert, Gina Rinehart’s Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) has
tried to spin a Pew Research Centre survey, which showed that 88% of
Australians believe representative democracy is good, into something supporting
John Kehoe is a senior writer for the
Australian Financial Review and writes on economics, politics and business, and
surprisingly, epidemiology. I say surprisingly in the latter case, because he
has pontificated on epidemiology in a tweet in reply to Nobel Laureate Peter
Doherty. Doherty tweeted:
Among all the vegetables in the crisper
drawer of Sky After Dark (SAD), Paul Murray has a regular spot, I believe; and like
all the other people there, he is a right wing nutter. However, he has just
come out with something so astonishing and hilarious that it makes you wonder whether
he is in control of his faculties, or what level he reached in his education. Like
many in the Liberal Party, he is foaming at the mouth to try to damage Victorian