not sure if this will make you feel any better, but while Quinceland journos were failing to cover Mr Fitzgerald’s speech, it got plenty of coverage in Victoria, and nationally (ABC news etc, Australian).

As long as youse have the internet up there, or can listen in to radio broadcasts from over the border (like Eastern Europeans secretly listening to BBC or ‘Voice of America’?) you’ll be able to keep up.

If you see editions of the “SMH” or “Age” with whole sections blacked out on the news-stands, be alarmed.

I’m recalling what happened to Time Magazine (or was it the FEER?) in Jakarta, when it ran a story about “Madam Tien Percent”.

Earlier this week it turns out that couple of Geelong Council workers were sacked for corrupt conduct over what amounts to using some leftover bitumen to fill a pothole in a non-profit club’s carpark for which they did nopt seek but later recieved — a free steak sandwich.

Now while at one level one can see the principle involved, and perhapos a general caution was in order, it seems to me that this fails a number of tests of criminal conduct. Where was mens rea? They didn’t contemplate a reward, and initially declined it when offered it sometime later, did the work in their lunch break and used resources that would have had to have been discarded. They could easily have believed their work was a public service. As far as I can tell, no person was harmed by the acts. There was at worst, a potential for harm, which could have been addressed by a memo to all staff — a teachable moment to quote a currently popular phrase.

If it was a crime, it was an utterly trivial one and the sanction was out of all proportion to what happened.

Clearly, changing governments every two terms is not a sufficient answer, and certainly not in an Australian context since, fairly obviously

a) People are quite rightly reluctant to vote someone in who is politically incoherent or favours undesirable policies. That’s one reason why we have governments that stay in for successive terms. Moreover as Fitzgerald noted, the defeat of Goss after an unholy alliance between the conservatives and the police unions was a setback to reform and good government, and presaged the return of the ALP which he now sees as contiunuing that unhealthy trend

and

b) There’s no institutional way to force out governments who have stayed on too long or to compel people to chuck them out. You can’t really allow government power to pass to the judiciary. That would be to create a kind of secular theocracy, if one can utter such a thing.

It seems to me that the real questions concern the processes *antecedent* to government — selection of candidates and of course, the contexts in which they are selected and secondly, the extent to which governments in partnership with business can hide its activities in real time.

On this latter point, I am heartily sick of the whole ‘commercial in confidence’ thing. It seems to me that the only people who can’t know what is going on are the people who most need to. Most tenderers would have a very good idea about the terms of rival bids — and indeed, sometimes they have themselves colluded. Were I in charge, anyone tendering for government work would be told at the oputset that the documents would be public knowledge from the outset. If they didn’t like that — too bad. All contacts between ministers, regulators and potential suppliers would be on the public record. And while cabinet discussions would be in-confidence until a decision was made, the criteria for selction would be transparent from the start.

It could well be that such provisions might lead, in some instances, to the public getting a worse deal than they could through existing usages, but it seems to me that even if this were so, it would be a price well worth paying in the long run, since we could have greater scope to critique peoposals and improve them before literally and figuratively, these were set in cement.

It is important, IMO, for those of us who favour a strong public sector, to ensure that its operations both in practice and in perception, have the highest standards of probity and that there is no room in practice for anyone to claim that leaving delivery of important public goods to the private sector will produce superior outcomes in virtue of being private alone. Disgust and apathy are corrosive of good public administration, however well-founded these attitudes might be.

Fran

“That’s bullshit. No-one on my staff would have said that to him and if he’s talking to the sort of people that said that, I mean he’s talking to drug-affected people in the Valley,”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/31/2642095.htm

‘Despite months of publicity about the Tony Fitzgerald lecture… all local TV and radio failed to cover Fitzgerald’s speech about the state of Queensland …all the telly lovelies (were) speeding to cover Anna Bligh opening an anti-corruption conference

That conference is an initiative of the QLD, NSW, and WA’s CMC ICAC CCC bodies, the conference web page advertised Tony Fitzgerald’s lecture, the conference proper didn’t start till the next morning, which is when the program indicated Anna Bligh would be opening the conference.
The only conference thing that was on while Tony Fitzgerald was giving his speech was the opening cocktail party, obviously a much more attractive proposition for the news crews than a dry as dust lecture.
Usually it’s turning up even at the opening of an envelope, with Qld’s fourth estate it’s turning up only at the opening of a bottle. I’m sure Craig (13) was at Tony’s talk, not the canapes.
But you gotta give it to Quincies for their sense of humour: nominating Terry Mackenroth as a Q150 State Icon shows a certain chutzpah: The Big Brown Paper Bag perhaps?