Thread by @David_Ritter

Australia has been singled out by Transparency International for ‘systemic failings in tackling public sector corruption’.
Morrison government rorts have gone beyond individual scandals to become something far worse - the strategic wrecking of our system of government:
🧵#auspol

In a previous thread I argued that Morrison & co are ‘wrecking crew’ politicians, actively trashing expectations of government and the idea of the public good.
In this thread, I’ll argue that rorting is core ‘wrecking crew’ behaviour.

https://twitter.com/David_Ritter/status/1508913485626830848?s=20&t=3Hi8Ds1fY3nc94oPJrNJAg

Let’s start with definitions.
According to the @MacqDictionary, ‘rort’ is Australian slang that means ‘to swindle or dupe’.
Typically, ‘a rort is all about manipulating the system to gain a wrongful advantage’: macquariedictionary.com.au/blog/article/7…

A basic principle of our system of government is that public resources and institutions should not be manipulated to give ‘wrongful advantage’ either to political parties, or to individual politicians.
When that happens, rorting has occurred.

The crucial point here is that government resources and institutions exist to serve the public good - rather than the partisan interests of political parties, or the private interests of politicians.
It is vital that our politicians understand and respect the distinction.

As eminent Australian corruption fighter Tony Fitzgerald said some years ago, our ‘system takes it for granted that political power will be exercised by people who know how to behave properly and can be trusted to do so’:
abc.net.au/news/2017-07-1…

Because our system assumes that our politicians will both understand and abide by the rules and conventions of our system of government, we are used to thinking about rorts as aberrant lapses in standards of public conduct.
But let’s go through the looking glass…

What if we instead think about rorting as part of a willful wrecking crew behaviour?
When seen this way, widespread rorting is revealed as contributing to an extreme, deliberate and ideologically driven effort to permanently malform how Australia is governed.

The ideology of rorting is gross self-interest.
No respect for rules that benefit everyone if you can get away with it.
Everyone for themselves.
Dog eat dog.
Winner takes all.
Everything up for grabs.
Truth doesn’t matter if you can get away with it.
Sounding familiar?

The implicit aims of rorting - if seen as part of a deliberate approach to government - are corrosively anti-democratic:
Concentrate power.
Reduce transparency & accountability.
Diminish norms of public integrity.
Capture public resources.
Poison the idea of the public good.

So, rorts are a perverse ‘win-win’ for wrecking crew politicians: the rorters both get their hands on public assets for private or partisan gain; and they effectively weaken trust in government and belief in the concept of the public good.
Now the detail…

Journalists have alleged and documented a large number of instances of Morrison government politicians intentionally manipulating public resources and institutions to achieve wrongful advantage.
Let’s consider a few examples through the wrecking crew lens:

In the Sports Rorts, Car Park Rorts and Community Grants Rorts affairs, when it appeared that public monies were blatantly allocated for partisan advantage, significant damage was done to norms of public conduct. @MichaelPascoe01 is a great read on this:
thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/…

@MichaelPascoe01 nailed the corrosive effect of Sports Rorts on the idea of the public good:
'Scott Morrison told Australia there was absolutely nothing wrong with corrupting community sports grants for partisan political purposes': thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/…

Manipulating parliamentary travel allowances to achieve wrongful gain or advantage is another of the commonest rorts.
For example Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenburg charged taxpayers for a private jet to Lachlan Murdoch's Christmas party:
theguardian.com/australia-news…

As @NickFeik later wrote, the reactions were revealing:
‘How did we get to the point where the misuse of public money by our two most senior politicians provoked neither contrition nor embarrassment, and it scarcely even registered as a scandal?’:
themonthly.com.au/issue/2021/feb…

The widespread use of government advertising can also be considered a rort because of the way in which the system is being used to obtain political advantage.

For example, the Morrison government spending millions on advertising climate action - when they have no actual credible plan or mechanism for getting to net zero emissions - is little better than partisan propaganda damaging public trust in government: theguardian.com/media/2022/feb…

Another common species of rort are the so-called ‘jobs for mates’ political appointments.
In an earlier thread I explained how this specifically diminishes public trust and contributes to the ‘wrecking crew’ agenda:

https://twitter.com/David_Ritter/status/1512555302960648195?s=20&t=Fe32fC0DIvBQnY4-uM7pWg

In some instances, entire parliamentary processes have been co-opted for narrow partisan political advantage - which damages public trust in our parliament itself.
Remember Tim Wilson’s dodgy parliamentary inquiry… into opposition policy? theguardian.com/australia-news…

There are so many more alleged rorts, it is genuinely difficult to keep track.
Drawing on the work of mdavis.xyz satirists at @chaser set out to provide their own 'complete list': chaser.com.au/national/an-ex…

Scale is very important here.
To again quote @NickFeik ‘scandals are nothing new in Australian politics, but the way they have piled up in the recent years of coalition government points to a critical shift in our governance’: themonthly.com.au/issue/2021/feb…

Writing for @crikey_news, @BernardKeane has argued that the cumulative impact of the pattern and scale of dishonesty and rorting is part of ‘a coherent whole: a political style designed to avoid responsibility‘:
crikey.com.au/2021/11/29/sco…

@AMTiernan wrote a fantastic piece in @GriffithReview warning that the scale of the Morrison government's ‘flagrant abuses of and disregard for traditions and conventions’, meant that this could become ‘normalised as the way politics is done’: griffithreview.com/articles/power…

…And that takes us to the crunch.
The ideological functioning of widespread rorts accompanied by an attitude of impunity is to normalise the capture of public institutions and resources for private and partisan gain, destroying public trust and the very idea of the public good.

Remember, the aim of ‘wrecking crew’ politics is that the whole idea of government is damaged and discredited. People stop believing in the power of government to do helpful things - and may even stop believing in the whole idea of the public good: crikey.com.au/2021/12/02/cri…

Infamously, Morrison refuses to support an ICAC with teeth.
According to former judge Anthony Whealy, ‘with a litany of scandalous rorts identified in audit reports, this government wishes to avoid proper scrutiny and being held publicly accountable’: theguardian.com/australia-news…

The Morrison government has even slashed the budget of those existing institutions designed to deliver checks and balances.
As @knausc reported, key federal integrity bodies have suffered direct cuts to their funding: theguardian.com/australia-news…

And, the impact is clear:
In January this year, Australia plunged to its worst ever score in Transparency International’s global Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI): theguardian.com/world/2022/jan…

Then came the follow up report warning that Australia was a ‘country to watch’ - a list that also includes Russia, Lebanon and Kazakhstan:
transparency.org/en/blog/cpi-20…

I am an environmentalist.
I have written this thread, because the failure of government integrity is closely connected to the climate and ecological crises. I will go into this further in subsequent threads.

Rorting politicians delude themselves that everyone is in it for themselves.
This is not true.
Australia depends on dedicated people in all walks of life being committed to something greater than self interest - the public good
This is our true nature.
australiaremade.org/introducing-th…

It is time for action, to enshrine the public good at the centre of Australian democracy.
Thank you to @OurDemocracyAU, @humanrightsHRLC, @cpi_aus and all engaged in the vital work of campaigning for our national integrity.
australiandemocracy.org.au
#OurDemocracy #auspol