(Above: the Cayman Islands' Future Fund. Thought about a career yet? First learn to bloviate about about the evils of jobs for the boys, the benefits of small government, and the virtues of life in the hard edged private sector. Then go here to apply for a job and work for Government).
With the news that Peter Costello is to take a Future Fund job - here - and no doubt help that great new organisation discover tax breaks even further afield than the Cayman Islands - here - it's time to remember just how deeply embedded a love of socialism and government perks is in the Australian psyche.
The prize prat, and of course chief exhibit, is Costello himself. For all his sanctimonious humbug about free enteprise and the glories of the private sector, he has as politician managed to set up an institution which now provides him with a job, on a board with the curious title "Board of Guardians".
Peter Costello as a Guardian? Only in a bad science fiction movie - call it Time Guardian if you really want a bad Australian movie.
Silly Malcolm Turnbull had to attempt to put some spin on the move:
Federal Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull says the appointment of Mr Costello exposes hypocrisy on the part of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Mr Turnbull says Mr Costello set up the Future Fund and is a very appropriate guardian for it.
But he has told Channel 10 Mr Rudd's decision contradicts his claim that neo-liberal free-market extremism practiced by the Liberal Party had done enormous economic harm.
"So here he is appointing the number one neo-liberal free market extremist to the board of the Future Fund," he said.
"It's a good appointment but it does show what nonsense Mr Rudd has been speaking about the economy."
Um, Malcolm, Chairman Rudd's humbug is as nothing compared to the humbug of Costello, neo-liberal freemarket extremist heading off to preside over public funds as a bureacrat, taking the easy parachute option rather than risk a hard fall to earth in the private sector.
No doubt the Labor party apparatchiks are hoping for a similar soft landing should they ever get turfed out, and then line up cap in hand for largesse from a new government, so they too can do a Brendan Nelson or a Costello.
Yep, not all pigs with their snouts in the trough are in Animal Farm, nor all of the hypocrites. Most of them end up sojourning in Canberra for a brief time, until the nest is well feathered.
And how has the Future Fund helped out the Australian economy by showing an ethical eye to the world?
In the past year, the fund has opened five subsidiaries in the Caribbean tax haven, with which Australia does not have a tax treaty or information exchange program.
At the same the Prime Minister has been part of the global push to crack down on the use of such tax shelters.
The investments were revealed in the fund's annual report, tabled yesterday in Parliament by the Finance Minister, Lindsay Tanner.
The fund does not deny that it uses its subsidiaries to minimise its taxes. These would be due to foreign governments as the fund does not pay tax to the Australian Government.
''The fund seeks to maximise after tax returns,'' notes to the annual report says.
Memo to all Australians. Make sure you maximise your after tax returns, or put it another way pay the buggers as little as you can. What's good for the gander is surely good for the goose.
In the land of the rort, everything's a rort.
Well being a guardian to that kind of funny buggers stuff should be right up bureaucrat public servant humbug hypocrite Costello's alley.
Oh by the way according to the last annual report, there were seven guardians in toto - how many angels can you fit on a board - and total remuneration of the Board of Guardians (as opposed to employees' wages and salaries) was listed as $742,000, for wages, salaries, and superannuation. Oh give me some of the hard hitting neo liberal free enterprise private sector jam baby. (here for the report in large pdf file format).
Meantime, in other news, Piers Akerman reveals himself to be yet again in favor of socialized medicine. (Health Minister Nicola Roxon must go).
It seems Nicola Roxon isn't shoving taxpayer money down the throats of medical specialists fast enough, in what Akker Dakker perceives as a class war, and the result will affect people trapped in the public system, unable to afford the benefits on offer in the private system.
Is it time then for Akker Dakker to come out in favor of socialized medicine, and urge greater payments to doctors through the public system, as well as greater expenditure not just on his favorite themes, cataract removal and hip replacement - his readership has a large old fart demographic - but also the scandalous state of dental care available for those too poor to access private dentists?
It so happens that I'm in favor of socialist medicine, but when I read the cant of Akerman, why am I reminded so forcibly of Peter Costello?
And just to round out those who'd like to tip their snout in the trough, here's a few words from that stern culture warrior Christopher Pearson.
Recently that balding man of short memory Peter Garrett announced he wanted to bury the culture wars of the past, and even set up a Facebook site so that we could all help shape the nation's official cultural policy (Advance Australia Facebook).
Pearson didn't need to jump on to Facebook. He had a number of initiatives just waiting for government money, all listed in A Pair of crucial cultural priorities.
Egged on by Noel Pearson, the list included money for Aboriginal education, and preservation of Aboriginal languages, and Aboriginal painting, and Aboriginal songmen. And then from the other Pearson there was money for choirs and music and literature.
Nothing wrong with any of that, you takes your culture as you like it, and you lobby government to get some funding heading its way, and it so happens I don't mind a little government funding for the yartz, but when I read Pearson, why am I so forcibly reminded of Peter Costello?
Just remember, the next time you bump into one of those dry as dust free marketplace private sector blowhards - often found posturing as a politician or a commentariat columnist - that you need to check their snout.
You might just happen to find plenty of government jam on it, or about to be on it, or planned to be on it, or the snout begging for just a little more gruel with jam and brown sugar to be discreetly spread on it ...
(Below: and proving we can switch metaphors, remember Chuck Jones' great Chow Hound, and not forgetting the gravy? Oh we never forget the gravy).
I liked it.
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