No wonder the public thinks pollies are crooks

dungfungus said :

John Hargreaves said :

bd84 said :

To be honest Bronwyn Bishop is really a scapegoat for all politicians from both parties. I could guarantee that you could interrogate the expenses of every politician and about every single one of them would have claimed expenses that the general public would find questionable or extravagant.

Until they established robust explicit rules and regulations, that are enforced, about what it acceptable and what is not, politicians will continue on their merry way claiming whatever they can bend to be within the rules. We’ve seen recent court cases involving fraudulent altered claims which have been turfed out by the courts because there was no specific rules prohibiting the politician from making such claims.

Neither party in government has the will to put such controls in place as they have their own interests at stake and they’re the only people who can put them in place. It is a systemic problem that won’t be fixed until such time someone fixes the whole entitlements scheme.

Without wishing to diminish the the argument that many in federal, and I dare say, state politics are taking what they can as often as they can, I can suggest that the feeble justification given to me a decade ago was that pollies have only a three or four year contract and often when they get kicked out they are unemployable so they get as much as they can.

Whilst this may be true in many cases, the major issue for Mrs Bishop was the scale if the extravagance, the length of time she was ripping us off and her indifference to criticism when sprung!

She is alone in that class.

For me though, the first point to the political class putting itself above the people and having different rules. I was always uncomfortable with that.

John has a point there.
I recall having to deal with an ACT MLA who was a Minister at the time on an advocacy matter.
I knew him personally and always addressed him by his first name but on arrival at his office I was told rather bluntly by his adviser that he should only be addressed as “Minister”.
Amazing how the trappings of office change a person’s impressions of themselves.

His advisor may not have known any better. Having worked as an advisor it’s pretty much a no-brainer that as a mark of respect you always refer to people in office by their titles. It becomes a habit. When referring to the guy I advised I always used “the Senator” but obviously behind closed doors it became more informal. Now, if he himself insisted you start calling him “Minister”…now that would be a little off!

John Hargreaves said :

bd84 said :

To be honest Bronwyn Bishop is really a scapegoat for all politicians from both parties. I could guarantee that you could interrogate the expenses of every politician and about every single one of them would have claimed expenses that the general public would find questionable or extravagant.

Until they established robust explicit rules and regulations, that are enforced, about what it acceptable and what is not, politicians will continue on their merry way claiming whatever they can bend to be within the rules. We’ve seen recent court cases involving fraudulent altered claims which have been turfed out by the courts because there was no specific rules prohibiting the politician from making such claims.

Neither party in government has the will to put such controls in place as they have their own interests at stake and they’re the only people who can put them in place. It is a systemic problem that won’t be fixed until such time someone fixes the whole entitlements scheme.

Without wishing to diminish the the argument that many in federal, and I dare say, state politics are taking what they can as often as they can, I can suggest that the feeble justification given to me a decade ago was that pollies have only a three or four year contract and often when they get kicked out they are unemployable so they get as much as they can.

Whilst this may be true in many cases, the major issue for Mrs Bishop was the scale if the extravagance, the length of time she was ripping us off and her indifference to criticism when sprung!

She is alone in that class.

For me though, the first point to the political class putting itself above the people and having different rules. I was always uncomfortable with that.

John has a point there.
I recall having to deal with an ACT MLA who was a Minister at the time on an advocacy matter.
I knew him personally and always addressed him by his first name but on arrival at his office I was told rather bluntly by his adviser that he should only be addressed as “Minister”.
Amazing how the trappings of office change a person’s impressions of themselves.

bd84 said :

To be honest Bronwyn Bishop is really a scapegoat for all politicians from both parties. I could guarantee that you could interrogate the expenses of every politician and about every single one of them would have claimed expenses that the general public would find questionable or extravagant.

Until they established robust explicit rules and regulations, that are enforced, about what it acceptable and what is not, politicians will continue on their merry way claiming whatever they can bend to be within the rules. We’ve seen recent court cases involving fraudulent altered claims which have been turfed out by the courts because there was no specific rules prohibiting the politician from making such claims.

Neither party in government has the will to put such controls in place as they have their own interests at stake and they’re the only people who can put them in place. It is a systemic problem that won’t be fixed until such time someone fixes the whole entitlements scheme.

Without wishing to diminish the the argument that many in federal, and I dare say, state politics are taking what they can as often as they can, I can suggest that the feeble justification given to me a decade ago was that pollies have only a three or four year contract and often when they get kicked out they are unemployable so they get as much as they can.

Whilst this may be true in many cases, the major issue for Mrs Bishop was the scale if the extravagance, the length of time she was ripping us off and her indifference to criticism when sprung!

She is alone in that class.

For me though, the first point to the political class putting itself above the people and having different rules. I was always uncomfortable with that.

To be honest Bronwyn Bishop is really a scapegoat for all politicians from both parties. I could guarantee that you could interrogate the expenses of every politician and about every single one of them would have claimed expenses that the general public would find questionable or extravagant.

Until they established robust explicit rules and regulations, that are enforced, about what it acceptable and what is not, politicians will continue on their merry way claiming whatever they can bend to be within the rules. We’ve seen recent court cases involving fraudulent altered claims which have been turfed out by the courts because there was no specific rules prohibiting the politician from making such claims.

Neither party in government has the will to put such controls in place as they have their own interests at stake and they’re the only people who can put them in place. It is a systemic problem that won’t be fixed until such time someone fixes the whole entitlements scheme.

The real problem is the Pollies who think the public are all crooks.

Except of course all those who contributed to their natural ascendancy over us.

The problem is that many of these perks or entitlements are antiques. They have their origins in a time when it took a long time to travel from an electorate in WA to Canberra for example – mainly because there were no commercial air services available at the time! It could take a few weeks for some MP’s to get from their electorate to Canberra. And in that context, many of these entitlements make sense and, dare I say, even appear appropriate.

But times have changed over the past century since many of the allowances were first introduced. Technology has changed so that meetings can be held via phone/phone conference/video link. Travel has changed – and don’t our pollies love their expensive air travel. No longer is it a few weeks by horse or rail with dozens of overnight stops along the way. The only thing that has NOT changed are the ‘entitlements’ – which seem to extend to senior bureaucrats too. I am rather tired of the BS ‘… it has always been that way, it is within the rules” excuse being trotted out. MPs are supposed to be frugal with their spending. The whole system is broken and needs to be overhauled from top to bottom.

People think pollies are crooks because, frankly, I think they actually *are* all crooked. Crooked like a question mark. Driven only by power, greed and narcissism thinly veiled under the guise of ‘serving their constituents’. It has been this way since the Romans. And since the pollies are going to run the ‘review of entitlements’, you can bet I am very pessimistic about how this will all end.

John, I must admit I’m not quite sure what exactly you are saying here…

At one point you say “Both sides are blaming the system. What rubbish!”, indicating that it isn’t the system that is at fault, but rather something else, yet later in the article you’re suggesting that “Fixing and streamlining the system is needed.”

Could you clarify this a bit? What’s the element at fault here, and if it isn’t “the system” how would fixing and streamlining “the system” resolve the problem?

Here’s what I personally think; the reason why “the general public think that pollies are self-centred crooks” – it’s rather simple. It’s because pollies truly are self-centred crooks. But here’s the thing: it’s not the crooks fault, it really is the system’s fault. It’s the system fault in creating an environment so ripe for corruption, an environment that simply put, encourages it.

I’m about to give you a $$$$$$$$$ worth of consultancy thinking to the root cause of the problem. For free. Are you ready? OK, Here goes: Accountability. Boom! (yeah, I know, there’s nothing new here, same old, same old, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t valid or true.)

The political system managed to successfully remove all accountability controls and governance mechanisms for top rated pollies. In an accountability-free environment, a landscape that has no real governance to speak of (or that the governance practices have no real enforceable replications) it would be perfectly safe to assume corruption, i.e., acting in the interest of the self (rather than the public) where a conflict of interests arises.

You truly honestly want to reduce corruption? No problems, all’s that needed is the establishment of real controls with direct accountability and actual implications for inappropriate practices/behaviours. The good news is that we have matured the practice of establishing a governance body to bring control and accountability to the level of fine art. There are heaps of theories methodologies out there we could adapt to fit the Public Sector, all of which are well known and widely used in other sectors to a great success (see governance aspects of P3M3, PMBOK, PRINCE2, TOGAF, MSP and heaps more).

When a pollies would have to answer to an independent, transparent, and fair governing body around e.g., how their last term aligns with their promises and expectations they’ve setup with the public (this includes both election promises and “the spirit” of their interaction with the public for any polly, not just high profile candidates) – I guarantee an immediate cut in corruptive behaviour including huge reductions in misusing public funds (the topic of your article).

And just in case it wasn’t clear: yes, I absolutely know this is all BS. In the real world politics have been exempt from accountability and governance – that’s true in every single country in the world, no reason to think we’ll be any different. Instead, we have ambiguous, powerless statements like “Fixing and streamlining the system is needed” which would make a great soundbite and maybe even a nice headline, but contributes absolutely nothing to changing and improving the political culture and mindsets of our beloved leaders.