14th February 2022
We have often written that Corruption is arguably the worst criminal malaise affecting our social fabric. Whether dismissed as Noble Cause, Tunnel Vision, Confirmation Bias or any attempt to justify or explain it, Corruption is Corruption. It impinges on every aspect of our lives and holds back reform and the many benefits it can bring.
However, the average person is somewhat immune to it until it directly affects them. Unfortunately, Corruption is deep-seated, and although usually perpetrated by a few, has catastrophic effects on all of us whether we are directly conscious of it or not.
Recent publicity of the slop, masquerading as food; that our aged must endure in care facilities: that term is used loosely, is an obvious case in point.
This begs the question; would they have to endure this? Had Corruption been dealt with appropriately and ICooks Foods (Slug-gate), the last major competitor to a government entity and the last significant supplier in this catering sector, had not been closed by Corrupt officials.
The sin of this company was success. The Government decided to establish a competitor and used its influence to drive all significant competition, including ICooks, out of the trade. With Local Government, the fix was in, and the demise of ICooks followed the other major suppliers in this area.
The vast majority of meal services in hospitals and elsewhere for those in need are supplied by external contractors to the service provider. Now without competition, the Government-run facility can charge what they like for whatever they like. Perhaps produce slop for exorbitant fees, and they are guaranteed the business. There is nobody else of consequence left to challenge them.
The ACCC has been conspicuously inactive in this matter, and as a result, we see our most vulnerable suffer.
Indicative of most Corruption, the impacts generally hit the most vulnerable and the least likely or capable to resist.
That Corruption and its pursuit cost the public purse millions upon millions each year should be cause enough for public outrage. The lack of backlash from the community can only be explained by a lack of knowledge.
Governments increase taxes to balance their books rather than addressing causes. Corruption would have to be up there as a major cause.
One of the problems is that many do not recognise certain behaviours as corrupt. That is particularly true of the very people we employ to manage and protect us from Corruption and are in the government employ, receiving the ‘Queens shilling’, who are supposed to ensure proper procedures are followed, and honesty prevail.
We believe that the bastions charged with protecting us from Corruption are, unwittingly and in some cases deliberately, acting corruptly themselves.
If the gatekeepers are corrupt, unwittingly, or not, what hope is there?
Awareness of Corruption will empower everybody and provide the basis for people power in an election cycle to use their weapon of empowerment, their vote.
Corruption extends past the ubiquitous brown paper envelopes stuffed with banknotes, or Bitcoin, the more modern equivalent. Still, it includes actions committed against society, often by misguided or incompetent individuals charged with addressing Corruption.
‘Noble cause’ or ‘Tunnel vision’ Corruption can be influenced by normal bias that all humankind is predisposed to.
The key, of course, is to understand that training or an odd prosecution alone will not protect us from these traits that lead to prosecutions and convictions of the innocent and equally protect the guilty.
‘It is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer’ – Benjamin Franklin.
It requires adroit supervisory and management skills, which is sadly lacking in Policing and corruption-fighting agencies.
Management accountability and effective supervisory skills with managers not distracted by internal administrative issues are precisely where the war needs to be won.
These are not nebulous concepts but real and devastating for those subjected to them or the victims whose dramas are manipulated.
The greatest examples of these corruption traits were on full display in the now infamous Gobbo Affair. Serious criminals responsible for horrific crimes are now starting to walk from jails because Police and others indulged in ‘Noble Corruption’.
Failure by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the predecessor of IBAC and the Office of Police Integrity (OPI) were not fully examined, so those responsible for failing to oversee have not been held to account. They failed to do their job, and without consequence, they will fail again time and again.
If you peek under the covers, many of the failed principal players of those organisations have moved long to even more powerful jobs. While responsibility and integrity are not essential dispositions to hold senior positions, the corruption cycle will roll along.
Where Corruption seems to be blatant and not pursued, accusations of political bias influencing the investigators or the agency are often raised. Maybe in part misguided (that of itself is corrupt) where it may be the ‘Tunnel Vision’ of Investigators or the ‘Groupthink Tunnel Vision’ of the agency management suffering the same malaise that fuels the political bias accusations.
To properly understand this subject, the Public Prosecutions Service of Canada have published an excellent piece on Understanding Tunnel Vision, and like afflictions and is worth a read at
https://www.ppsc-sppc.gc.ca/eng/pub/is-ip/ch2.html
The views in this article are a more eloquent version of the opinions of the CAA.
Understanding precedes change.
There is no such thing as unwitting corruption. It is all deliberate. Some of the most heinous corruption comes from not just governments, medical systems and judicial systems, but also from so called “charities”.
Invariably the cover up of corruption is worse than the original corrupt behaviour.
This is blatant undeniable Government corruption and needs to be called out, a clear breech of the laws government makes under the pretence of equal opportunity when there are no other parties in the market. Greed is an economic abomination- economic tyranny.
I think there is a new definition of the word “corruption” in this current society. It must read ..”Do what you want to do that will benefit yourself no matter the cost and remember to deny, lay blame and dismiss any accusations as purely fanciful”
Having read through the comments on the matter of the demise of iCook and its owner operator Ian Cook, a member of the Dandenong Mechanics’ Institute, and his family and staff at the hands of the State Government and their appointee CEO and staff, the Institute Committee have also mourned the loss of yet another independent and honorable private run operation in the community and the further loss of liberty, choice and integrity in the State of Victoria.
The grasping, suffocating nature of the kleptocracy that is now Government, both State and Local in Victoria has reached into every aspect of social structure and deformed the fabric of daily life in its demented need to control and sterilize how we choose to carry out a future on behalf of the up and coming generations. When are we all going to move properly and significantly against the overreach of local Councils and more importantly the public ‘servants’ who now see themselves as our masters? The City of Greater Dandenong have had much assistance by the State Government to engage in the taking of things in Dandenong and its surrounds, like the Trust that sees the Council as trustees and the Dandenong Mechanics’ Institute and ratepayers as the beneficiaries. Trust theft is a criminal act as is theft by deception currently engaged in. The social experiment undertaken in the late 1950s by successive governments has turned out to be a dismal failure. Now would be a good time to terminate it, along with the draconian powers accumulated by those in power who would benefit by them and the system rebooted back to its default settings as those earlier and more accountable times held. They may be bygone days, but it was an environment that anyone could grow a healthy and inspired future: fertile soil for the young to grow a healthy and productive future. Not like the fouled and difficult soils that we now have little control over. No healthy and bright future for our children can be built on the framework of the catastrophe of a zombie apocalypse style of viewpoint held by those currently in power. Healthy soil is a forever state that knows no time frame or cultural precept so must be kept as intended; polluted soil has no future worth but to grow mutated forms and propagate only the lowest form of life that to clings to it or is sustained by it. We need broad, long term vision and socially driven intellectually based thinking in public or benefactor positions, not close minded vested interest being the motivating force as evidenced by the iCook saga and our Institute’s history, as reason to employ the next rank of public servant. Ian Cook and those who supported him are emblematic of social conscience and frame work thinking on behalf of the community. Why can’t we have more like him and those others in Government? It’s not that hard, as the run I made to become a Councillor of Dandenong proved to be. Now would be a good time, given the preponderance of evidence available to the public in this time of election choices, that a clean candidate with real organizational credentials and an evidenced career of unyielding honesty and spirit driven by social conscience and integrity, would be of greater value for a candidate of choice for the future, instead of the party oriented cluster of yes men and women mostly on offer currently and for the foreseeable future.
Which works best when those steering the bus our children’s future rides on, have their own warped route they follow and are deliberately steering it over a cliff? Clutching our pearls and wagging our fingers or slamming our foot on the brakes and making sure the warped never get to touch the wheel again?