2nd March 2022
Do you get the feeling that corruption is on the increase?
If you do, then you would be right, and not alone, according to the annual 2021 Global corruption perceptions index published by Transparency International.
The index measuring corruption perceptions across 180 countries shows Australia has crashed out of the rarefied prime top group, which still includes New Zealand, to drop by twelve points, a significant downward move.
This index has recorded a trend for Australia that is not pretty accelerating in the wrong direction.
The current measure should have our leaders scurrying for a solution.
The index is based on-
“Unfair and opaque political financing and undue influence in decision making and lobbying by powerful interest groups” in some democracies including Australia may have resulted in the increased perception of corruption, Transparency International says.”
There is something disturbingly familiar with the definition by Transparency International that will resonate very strongly with every Victorian, irrespective of their political bent.
As previously published by the CAA, corruption is estimated to cost each person $4000, so for a nuclear family, Two +Two, that estimate equates to $12000 P/A, a cost most of these families could well do without.
We know that corruption in this State extends well beyond this definition, but we do not see an appetite from the ruling Politicians to address the problem, perhaps because it may adversely impact them?
It has undoubtedly impacted those Politicians who have been exposed, albeit at an unbelievable snail’s pace, by the responsible authorities.
The way these authorities are going, many of the miscreants will be either retired (on a fat pension) or expired permanently by natural attrition by the time the process grinds to a Court.
Looking at many of the alleged corrupt practises identified and the relevant offences perpetrated, it beggars’ belief that responsible authorities can be so inept at charging suspects.
The CAA has a number of retired Police in its midst. All have at some stage charged and achieved convictions for offences parallel to those exposed in current corruption investigations. The number well into the thousands over an extended period, so they have an insight into the process.
A complex investigation may take some months, but once a ‘prima facie’ case has been established, the suspect is charged, and the Courts then deal with the process from there.
As reported in the Herald Sun on the 2nd of March under the banner ‘Rogue car dealers, exporters caught up in major crime probe.’
Competent Police investigators charged forty- three (43) people with two hundred and fifty (250) offences, sized twenty-five vehicles (25) worth more than $1.75m – and that investigation took just four (4) months.
The difference between the two comparison groups is with the Rogue car dealers, police would be dealing with hardened criminals where the second group are predominantly first offenders. However, they have unlimited legal support and Political influence. But that is no excuse as legal representation cannot and political influence must not alter the facts, and facts are what achieves a conviction.
Some of the allegations which have exposed possible offences are very straightforward and could be processed by a first-year constable. Still, the authorities procrastinate for years either by incompetence or a lack of conviction to prosecute those that sign their paycheque.
The responsible agencies cannot hide behind COVID; this failure to act against corruption precedes the Pandemic. Any adverse impact of COVID would expose gross mismanagement of the authority.
We often wonder whether this failure to act, is deliberate and is corrupt itself.
This Andrews government has taken Victoriastan to a level of corruption not seen in Australia previously.( And that includes NSW under Wran and QLD under BjelKe-Peterson)
But where is IBAC? They spend millions on surveillance and legal fees to catch the minnows, but the big fish never get to court, then blame ‘lack of funding’!
If the Liberals are serious about exposing and prosecuting corruption, they should promise to double the IBAC budget.
I would agree that the Andrews government has exacerbated an already diseased system, although the disease itself was deeply entangled in the system of bureaucracy that Victoria and other States have allowed to grow since the 60’s and 70’s. The Empire builders have been busily beavering away establishing a network “outside” of the controls normally in place as checks and balances, in many cases selectively removing peripheral checks and controls in a slow and insidious fashion designed not to alert or signal the creeping changes set for advantage their future selves. In our case, Mechanics’ Institutes across Australia, but more so in Victoria, have been the victims of illegal absorption and hostile take overs to meet a program of social engineering designed to minimize dissent amongst the populous and to downgrade capacity in education of the young to debilitate the ability to fight back. As the grey men and women in the back rooms of government would have it, all ethical and legal controls have been dialed down to the now virtually useless controls that no longer have a relevance of disciplinary requirement to keep the psychopaths now overwhelmingly in control in government circles and entangled industry out of the public purse and held back from other more terrible abuses. Mr Putin currently enjoys the types of controls and powers that these despicable types would covet. In a recent application to IBAC, where a breach of trust, theft by deception, harassment of citizens, human rights abuses and other illegal actions by City of Greater Dandenong CEOs, Councillors and staff were raised and evidenced by the Dandenong Mechanics’ Institute- IBAC stated that ‘it was not in the public interest” to take the matter further. Where a 26 million dollar theft and fraud is occurring and citizens are being hounded and abused by the perpetrators without any fear of investigation or action normally reserved for other criminal types: one wonders how much further the oligarchs of Australia can expand their personal Empires while the citizens sit on their hands and continue the mantra of “oh but there is nothing we can do to fight a Council”? It is imperative that the message gets out, that while it is happening in singular and masked attacks on the individual generally, that these attacks on the ratepayer can and will get to every ratepayer and that the momentum of government abuses must be brought to an end before it completely destroys our children’s and their children’s future or capacity to engage in a productive and unmolested life. The monstrosity that has been the attack on the Dandenong Mechanics’ Institute started in the 1870s and is still ongoing today. These vermin, like other parasites once they have any form of free rein, never rest or stop until they are forced to stop. So far, like any terminal cancer, it has been left to eat away at life’s core stability and structure by inept and like minded interference. We now see it quite prominently above the surface as any advanced tumor, because it was not removed when first noticed deep in the recesses of local government operations. It’s about time we engage the aggressiveness these cancerous elements apply in bureaucracy, who rapaciously and glacially apply and display in operation and excise them from any chance of community control and mutation before our ability to control those who are our supposed servants become our penultimate masters. Even if the Liberals come into power as has been the case many times in the past, with no additional controls being in evidence even when they were in power, we must take a new path to permanently address the current cancer, to control and keep in permanent remission the mutations that are eager to develop in the future by these self interested and self serving genotypes. They are easily identified, so they should also be easily removed or controlled.
I have been gagged by the Victorian Legal Services Commissioner because of corruption allegations I have made concerning members of her office and others (see https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6904602915747590144/).
I will have a great deal to say on the corrupting of the Victorian justice system in due course.
I too am a former VicPol member, now a legal practitioner.
Unfortunately, Australian governments, especially State governments in Victoria and Queensland believe that they are above the law and can do what they want, when they want with no consequences. The current corruption watchdogs setup by these governments are ‘toothless tigers’ and do not adequately investigate their government masters. They must be made completely independent from government to be able to do their jobs and they must employ the best and most diligent investigators, not failed investigators from other jurisdictions. There are too many examples of terribly flawed investigations from these corruption watchdogs and this is because their leaders and investigators are poor practitioners and not at the top of their game.
I so agree with all of the comments and the absolute need for an end to corruption.
If we find ourselves though in murky waters with organisations such as change.org that decide what cause is worthy or not and take off certain initiatives just because they can – leaves us questioning even more.
The masses have not mattered to the elite (rulers/governments/banks, etc.) in a very long time and it will need every single one of us to come together just like on this platform. Yet we need so much more, we need personal contact, personal commitment and many different ways other then on a platform that is just as corrupt as the exact issue that is being promoted.
All ‘systems’ are collapsing and we need to think of new ways to fix the issues at hand – we need a new set of eyes and ears and hands. As Albert Einstein called it out; ‘Insanity – Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results’.
I know of similar stories like yours, Peter and I feel very much for you. We are currently connected with the ‘Slug Gate’ story….
Hoping that people will connect and find solutions to get us all out of the hands of the few for the good of this world and for the masses. Happy to get involved any way I can.