The Little Men Leading Australia: Astray
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Have you ever asked yourself, as an Australian, why our leaders make such bad deals on our behalf? Why don’t the gas companies mining our gas pay taxes and royalties equivalent to the billions they make from selling our national resource? Is it corruption or the result of their inadequacy? The little men leading Australia: Astray. The emerging contract details around AUKUS only reinforce this woeful deal making by our politicians and bureaucrats when dealing with international representatives. Is it the result of long standing national low self-esteem, gullibility, corrupt practices or a combination of all of these elements? Whatever it is, they are seriously underselling Australia and letting us all down at the big table where these things are negotiated.
Former Australian Leader Now Works For The Americans
Scott Morrison, the former PM who led the AUKUS negotiations and took much of the credit for this very expensive nuclear powered submarine deal – now works in the United States.
“Mr. Morrison now serves as Vice Chairman of American Global Strategies and is a member of several Strategic Advisory Boards in the private equity sector as well as at the International Democratic Union, the Center for a New American Security and the Hudson Institute China Center.”
This is how it works for many of the politicians, who were at the forefront of deals and decisions, in that they end up on the payroll of the companies involved in profiting from them. It is not uncommon to see these individuals benefitting post-politics in positions at multinational mining corporations or within the industrial defence complex. They call this the revolving door in the careerist world at the big end of town. Personal ambition is rewarded for deals that dud Australia and rip off its citizens. These Australian leaders are not governing for all but for themselves and a select few who will benefit from the largesse directed their way.
Australia’s AUKUS End Of The Deal Woefully Poor
Australia, like most Western nations, suffers from macro-corruption. The definition of this involves big ticket deals in the tens and hundreds of billions of dollars. These amounts are so eye wateringly huge that the average punter cannot fathom them. Therefore, the deal sweeteners to politicians and senior civil servants go by unchallenged. The NACC or SNACC, as they call it, is so secret in its utter failings as a check on corruption that it garners little to no attention from the media and public. The little men leading Australia: Astray. AUKUS is an illustrative example of this, as defence spending is famously wasteful and largely unaccounted for via any reputable oversight. AUKUS is a $368 billion deal for nuclear powered submarines from the Americans and the Brits.
“A closer inspection of the details and timelines did confirm that we would not actually get any submarines until the mid to late 2030’s. In fact, we would not receive the ones we would be building probably until the 2060’s. Australia would be relying on picking up one or two second hand subs from the Yanks, if they could spare them because they were running pretty low on them for their own defence needs.”
Macro Deals Rife For Corruption & Incompetence
Democracy is a form of government, which promises representation of the people by elected leaders on their behalf. However, things like national security and contractual arrangements with multinationals mining our resources are not shared in detail with the citizenry. These are considered the exclusive domain of a select few charged with their responsibility, supposedly on our behalf. The secrecy and lack of transparency makes these deals the perfect home for both macro-corruption and incompetence. The little men leading Australia may not be up to the task, especially when it comes to negotiating these mega deals. The available evidence from these LPG gas deals and AUKUS clearly show that to be the case. Where is the accountability? Who is overseeing their performance in the light of international norms? It seems that Australia is being treated like a backwater and its leaders as fools.
“The public owns the gas under the ground. Royalties are the fees mining companies pay for the right to use this gas. However, most multinational exporters pay no royalties, and minimal tax. In the past four years, $149 billion worth of liquified natural gas was exported from Australia royalty-free.
The Australia Taxation Office (ATO) has called the oil and gas industry “systemic non-payers” of tax. “
Politicians often point to the jobs created by large resource mining projects as justification for them. However, the reality is that more Australians work at Bunnings than are employed in the LPG gas fields and ports. The mechanisation of mining has seen the drop off in employment opportunities in this sector.
GDP figures for the nation include the dollar value of the resources extracted, even when, we, the people, don’t receive royalties and taxes from them. Is this another politician’s smoke and mirror’s scam being perpetuated upon the Australian people? The little men leading Australia: Astray. These little men pat themselves on the back for their role in increasing the GDP of Australia. You and I, however, get bugger all from the hundreds of billions generated tax free by these multinationals.
When are we going to hold these leaders accountable?
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of Money Matters and America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump.
©MidasWord
