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| Bruce Flegg trying to look intelligent |
Last week my brother-in-law
got a DCM*.
He is one of
thousands of conscientious hard-working Queensland public servants shafted
by the makeshift mafia currently masquerading as a government. Thirty-something years of loyalty and service counts for nix when you have an arrogant and power-drunk mob in George St.
This, despite a
clear undertaking given before the election that permanent public service
positions were secure.
See this quote from the LNP’s election manifesto - “An
LNP Government will also commit to no forced redundancies.”
This mob has been
in power for a little over a hundred days, but has already gone completely
feral.
The most recent
out-of-control behaviour (just last week) was the spectacle of the LNPs state
treasurer (ex-Copper Barry O'Sullivan) barging into GoPrint and demanding
access to financial records. This character is not an elected member of
government. His sole qualification is his cosy relationship with Bruce Flegg,
Minister for Public Works. The exercise was repeated at GoPlant.
The managers
involved would have been within their rights to call the police to evict him
from the premises. That would have been interesting, given O’Sullivan’s
background as an ex-Copper.
I wonder why he's an ex-Copper. Could it have something to do with penchant
for abusive and intimidating behaviour? Since when in a Westminster democracy has
it been kosher for a party apparatchik to browbeat senior public servants at the
behest of a minister?
This same apparatchik
previously achieved notoriety by abusing, in the crudest terms, a dumped LNP candidate
prior to the election.
Napoleon Newman disowned Flegg on the floor
of parliament, but that looks like about as far as it will go. Whatever
happened to the new wave of transparency and accountability promised prior to
the election?
The rationale given
for O’Sullivan’s intrusion at GoPlant is that he has experience in employing
people with disabilities, as does GoPlant. What is particularly objectionable
about this is Bruce Flegg hiding behind a group of employees with disabilities
in an attempt to rationalise unacceptable behaviour.
Just ask Fran
Vicary, CEO Queenslanders with Disability Network, what she thinks of the new government’s treatment of
Queenslanders with disabilities. From what I remember of Fran (whom I knew as a
student in the seventies) the LNP needs to be very afraid. This person is a fearless
and effective advocate.
I can’t say I’m
surprised by what’s going down. This behaviour is in the DNA of conservative
governments once they’re in power. There’s a characteristic pattern which
involves demonising a target group (refugees, Vietnam Veterans, public
servants – take your pick), and blaming them for gross mismanagement.
As a Vietnam
Veteran, I well remember the treatment received post-service from a succession
of Coalition governments who dropped us like hot potatoes, conveniently
forgetting that they’d conscripted us in the first place.
There’s a streak of
Goebbels in all of this – tell a lie often enough, and people will believe it.
The big lie in this case is that the ALP is to blame for the current chaos.
Funny that – last time I looked, the LNP is in power.
The latest – from the
floor of the LNP convention - is a motion to forbid teachers from relaying
scientific fact about climate change. It looks like we’re heading back to the
days of Rona Joyner and sundry lunatics who were running around loose in the
days of Bjelke-Petersen.
* Don’t come
Monday.
