Australia divided by color coded pork

Another day, another chapter in the saga of the corrupt use of Commonwealth funds for political ends. Yes, Virginia, another case of color-coded pork.

The Morrison / Joyce administration divided the nation into three categories – those bought, those potentially for sale, those not worth buying – and steered the billions of taxpayers’ money accordingly.

Over the past eight years, the audacious nature of the coalition’s raid on the Treasury Department through smaller hog kegs, serious defamation, blatantly corrupt use of funds, has turned into full Trump style for anyone who questions the racket or dares to complain.

Along the way, the Prime Minister’s Statement of Ministerial Standards was rendered meaningless and the reason for the government’s fear of a real integrity commission became clear.

The Morrison administration has reportedly been suspicious of backbenchers who go beyond their main talking points.

Dr. Anne Webster, the National Party MP for Mallee, demonstrated on regional radio why coalition members were able to request grants from the Building Better Regions Fund for projects that did not “fully” meet the BBRF criteria.

When asked, Barnaby Joyce, the minister responsible, recycled an answer from the # sportsrorts days – all selected projects were “eligible”.

To borrow from Treasury Secretary Simon Birmingham, who effectively says of #carpork: “It sucks to be you, we won the election,” the government doesn’t even care about a fig leaf anymore.

And why should it? The purpose of overwhelmingly spraying money on coalition voters is for them to spray money overwhelmingly on coalition voters.

The voters who get the money don’t complain, and those who don’t take the bribes – secure Labor seats – won’t decide the outcome of the next election anyway.

What is not considered is what should be the primary focus of responsible, ethical government: the best use of funds for the common good.

Mr Morrison’s joking ministerial “standards” state that ministers “act with due regard to integrity, fairness, accountability, responsibility and the public interest”. It is not “fair” to distribute public money on the basis of voter voting.

The “standards” make it clear that acting with integrity means doing so “through the lawful and unselfish exercise” of your powers.

There’s nothing uninterested in the way this government divides the spoils, from the Prime Minister and Vice Prime Minister to the Treasurer and Finance functions, to the Ministry and the back bank.

As The new daily newspaper reports since the outrageous #sportsrorts scam by sports clubs that the various grants and funds, which are mainly aimed at the political goals of the coalition, now amount to billions of dollars.

“A billion here, a billion there – we’ll soon be talking about real money.”

And there is more on the way.

The BBRF scandal is up to $ 1.38 billion, but round six is ​​still pending in the run-up to the election. This is what the coalition members are betting on.

In the same interview in which she dropped the “pink” and “green” codes, Dr. Webster advises that her team is applying for the next round.

“We are now going to councils and people who want to achieve great things for the community and asking them to get involved and provide this information to them,” she said.

“Of course we have a choice and I want to be able to fight in Mallee for projects that are important to the community.”

The interviewer noted that the deputy prime minister had increased the fifth round from $ 200 million to $ 300 million and that requests were made for more than five times that amount.

“Maybe it has to get bigger if there is still the next general election,” he suggested.

“I know, and we are pushing for it,” replied Dr. Webster.

You can bet it is her, along with all of your colleagues. Government members who have proven impervious to shame may as well try to outdo themselves. Pickleball courts for everyone.

I wasted a few minutes yesterday asking Mr Joyce’s Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications department four obvious questions.

• How many applications and which $ value were rated green by the department (met all criteria), how many / $ were pink (“not quite”) and how many / $ “no color” (not compliant with the guidelines)?
• How many / $ Pink were given out at all?
• How many / $ greens were not granted?
• How many / $ “no colors” were granted?

Hopefully the Auditor-General will ask these questions and get answers in his investigation of the BBRF – which is unlikely to be completed before the election.

I got almost the same empty answer as colleague Josh Butler, complete with the line “Everyone is entitled”.

I didn’t expect anything better, but sometimes you have the feeling that you should go through the movements in principle, just like “the councils and people who want to achieve great things for the community” who are looking for fair federal funding, but just happen to be safe Live work sitting.

They don’t stand a great chance of being treated with integrity because the government that is running this brawl has none when it comes to using public funds for their political ends.

So it is with a division based government, a government that has broken ministerial standards and refuses to consider a decent integrity commission.

The result is that people and communities are ranked secondary in safe Labor constituencies. They don’t count.

“It sucks to be you.”