Reuters Poll Trend is back in business, presumably resuming its old methods of providing a weighted aggregate of results from Newspoll, Morgan and ACNielsen. As such it tells us nothing we didn’t already know, but its trend line is a handy thing to have. The current finding combines three weeks of results and has Labor’s two-party lead at 56.6-43.4, down from 57.3-42.7 previously.
Couple of legal matters to attend to:
• A legal challenge is proceeding against Labor’s 74-vote win in the seat of Chatsworth at the March 21 Queensland election. The LNP cites incidents of double voting and a strong overall result for Labor on absent votes as evidence of fraud. I’ve got a hat waiting to be eaten if the challenge is upheld.
• Gary Clark, husband of the former Lindsay MP Jackie Kelly, has been given the maximum fine of $1100 and ordered to pay more than $2000 in costs for his role in the distribution of fake pamphlets purporting to be from the “Islamic Australia Federation” in the week before the federal election. The ABC reports Magistrate Geoff Bradd aptly observing it was “difficult to think of a worst case of breaching the electoral act”, for which the penalties would seem to need strengthening.
• Note posts below on the latest state Newspoll results for Western Australia and South Australia.
ltep
[Your wifes’ money is not your own.]
Please tell me you are not seriously suggesting that it is not in my interest for my wife to earn $35,000.
Psephos
[But since the job of an MP’s staffer is to do whatever the MP wants and enjoy the MP’s absolute trust, it may well be that a family member is the best, or perhaps the only, person qualified to do it.]
If that is the case, why has Rudd banned his Minister’s from employing family members. And taxpayers aren’t paying staffers “to do whatever the MP wants”. They are not his/her personal slaves, although it seems that is how they are treated.
SNIP: See article 2 of comment moderation guidelines – The Management.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) guidelines on Conflict of Interest state clearly ‘there is nothing unusual or necessarily wrong in having a conflict of interest. How it is dealt with is the important thing’.
I think I heard Bob Brown saying that the Green Senators electorate allowances were paid into a “party fund”?
Is this a better way? Fund the party not the individual member?
An MP is given an allocation of public money to employ electorate staff. Their duties are not defined – what they do is entirely at the discretion of the MP. In fact, an MP’s job is not defined either, apart from attending parliament. If an MP chooses to spend his time in the south of France, and directs his staff to spend their time organising his stamp collection, that is entirely his business. Only the voters can judge whether that was appropriate conduct for their MP. In practice, most MPs spend most of their time working to get themselves and their party elected or re-elected, and themselves promoted, and their staff spend most of their time doing whatever will further that objective. I do not see what “conflict” is involved if the people he employs to do that are his relatives, his friends, his factional allies or people he picks at random off the street.
[If that is the case, why has Rudd banned his Minister’s from employing family members.]
To get the press off his back.
[Is this a better way? Fund the party not the individual member?]
It makes no difference to the issue under discussion. It’s just spending public money for party purposes as a group rather than individually.
J-D
[How it is dealt with is the important thing]
Yes, if you can keep it quiet about your spouse’s 35 grand you got her from the public trough, then no problem.
🙂
That’s right though – there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with a conflict of interest, and there are ways of dealing with many of them. The age-old local councillors’ trick of absenting oneself from a meeting during a vote on your development application is one example – although as shown recently in Wollongong, this doesn’t always remove all conflicts of interest!
And employing your spouse from the public purse isn’t one of those conflicts that can be simply ‘dealt with’.
I reckon the Member for Robertson would be a bit more choosy in the staff she employs. 😉
Psephos
[Dio -If that is the case, why has Rudd banned his Minister’s from employing family members.]
[To get the press off his back.]
Or is it because it prevents the sort of unethical behaviour that may well suffer the consequence you mention:
[Only the voters can judge whether that was appropriate conduct for their MP.]
Crikey, it’s no wonder we need corruption bodies when the level of ethical awarenes among political types is apparently so appalling.
If you object to this arrangement, the correct course is to argue for the abolition of paid electorate staff, not try to regulate who those staff are. That would be a logically consistent position. Arguing that it is immoral to employ your wife with public money to put party flyers in envelopes but OK to employ random person X to do so is ridiculous.
[I reckon the Member for Robertson would be a bit more choosy in the staff she employs. ]
lol indeed ruawake – very good! Now don’t get me started on BN. You know I live in the electorate. 🙂
Absolutely Fabulous!!
[Joanna Lumley poised for victory as Gurkhas win their battle to live in UK – They risked their lives for this country. Today, Britain will finally give the Gurkhas the recognition they deserve.
In a major U-turn by Gordon Brown, it will be announced that the Nepalese soldiers and their families have won the right to live here.
Campaigners led by Joanna Lumley are due to be told the good news at Downing Street this morning. ]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1184803/Joanna-Lumley-poised-victory-Gurkhas-win-battle-live-UK.html
It was shameful and purely racist act by the previous British Govts. A Gurkha corporal died last week in Afghanistan.
[Or is it because it prevents the sort of unethical behaviour that may well suffer the consequence you mention]
What sort of unethical behaviour does it prevent?
[Arguing that it is immoral to employ your wife with public money to put party flyers in envelopes but OK to employ random person X to do so is ridiculous.]
Again we come back to whether you are happy with nepotism using public funds. I disagree with nepotism. Many politicians from both sides are happy with it, as are many bludgers.
[Crikey, it’s no wonder we need corruption bodies when the level of ethical awarenes among political types is apparently so appalling.]
I’m not talking about corruption, I’m talking about how an MP chooses to spend their time, and their staff’s time. That’s entirely a matter between the MP and the voters.
[Again we come back to whether you are happy with nepotism using public funds.]
Employing one’s relatives is only bad if it is done to the exclusion of better qualified people. What constitutes “qualifications” for the job of working for an MP is entirely a matter for the MP’s discretion, since the job has no formal definition. If loyalty and discretion are the primary criteria, as they frequently are, one’s relatives may well be the best qualified people.
The Reuters Poll Trend shows that Brendan was doing a better job than Malcolm.
[t’s no wonder we need corruption bodies when the level of ethical awarenes among political types is apparently so appalling.]
Agreed. No wonder MPs have blurred vision when it comes to public funds and personal funds.
OK I’m off, so further discussion on this fascinating subject will have to wait until tomorrow.
[further discussion on this fascinating subject will have to wait until tomorrow.]
No it won’t wait for your return. We can carry on perfectly well without your presence.
[WASHINGTON (CNN) – As Congress prepares for a weeklong recess next week, Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee have armed themselves with a special weapon to deal with a possible Republican effort to delay getting a major piece of legislation out of committee by Memorial Day.
Democrats on the committee have hired a speed reader to read the more than 900-page climate change bill if necessary.
A request to have the entire bill read aloud is a prerogative Republicans have a right to invoke which could be used to frustrate Committee Chairman Henry Waxman’s deadline of Memorial Day to get the committee’s work on the bill done.
Even with the use of the speed reader, reading the entire bill could take the equivalent of more than a full work day of time.]
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/05/20/dems-hire-speed-reader-for-climate-change-bill/
Lots of individuals and organisations are given public funds to get a job done
and it is mostly left up to them to decide who to employ to do it. Eg, a doctor may get medicare funds to look after the sick in a country town. Do we care if she employs her husband as the receptionist? Eg, a small business gets a grant to allow marketing of its products in Japan. Do we care if the business owner employs his wife to go on a trade mission with the funds? Eg, the education dept employs a consultant to write a report on how to get more students doing maths. Do we care if she uses some of her money to get her kids to compile lists of school addresses?
These are all organisations using public funds to employ relatives. An electoral office is just the same.
From Crikey:
[“Beer mat Mum” follows media script to perfection, by Andrew Dodd
Are we so prejudiced nowadays that any Aussie who is arrested for a misdemeanour in Asia is front page news? The beat-up about the Melbourne “beer mat mum”, Annice Smoel, suggests the Australian media will grab any chance it can to condemn the authorities particularly the judiciary of our Asian neighbours.
The Daily Telegraph’s headline on Tuesday summed up the tone with “Beer mat mum faces Thai jail hell.”
Admittedly the story did have a few elements that the media was always going to find irresistible. The novelty beer mat angle was too cute to ignore. The fact that Smoel happened to be blonde was a bonus, as were her four doe-eyed kids. The media quickly adopted Smoel as a sort of everywoman. She became one of us, a fun loving Aussie, held captive to those merciless westerner-hating officials in one of those corrupt and dirty places in Asia and ergo she must be championed.]
http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/05/21/beermat-mum-follows-media-script-to-perfection/
From an unmentionable place called Phuket, where locals got a better name for it. Because that what the tourists, especially Aussie tourists, do, all night long.
[About the only line that suggested something other than the “innocent abroad” theme came in Karen Percy’s report from Phuket on ABC TV this morning which ended with this tag: “But (the whole affair) has also shone a spotlight on the way Australians behave abroad.”]
Amen.
Can anyone decipher Bob Brown on AM this morning?
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2009/s2576726.htm
[It’s no wonder we need corruption bodies when the level of ethical awarenes among political types is apparently so appalling.
Agreed. No wonder MPs have blurred vision when it comes to public funds and personal funds.]
+1.
I’m a bit horrified myself. I was expecting the “Yes it’s a bit dodgy but humble MPs are poorly paid and need a few perks.” Instead we got the “Nepotism is good. Nepotism works” argument.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7upG01-XWbY
[Eg, the education dept employs a consultant to write a report on how to get more students doing maths. Do we care if she uses some of her money to get her kids to compile lists of school addresses?]
Yes, we should care, as would the ICAC in NSW – that, I’m afraid, is corrupt.
[I’m a bit horrified myself. I was expecting the “Yes it’s a bit dodgy but humble MPs are poorly paid and need a few perks.” Instead we got the “Nepotism is good. Nepotism works” argument.]
It’s this sort of self-righteousness that is really annoying. Some people just don’t agree with you. It doesn’t make you morally superior.
Ruawake
Reads fine for me. Which bit confused you?
I read that he wants a set of regulations put in place that dictate what sort of things the allowance is for, so the MP can assess if they are spending the money appropriately.
And he wants MPs to have to say where they spent it and have an auditor look at it.
Diogenes – Do you think in these straightened financial times, now the markets are wrecked, that the Gordon Gecko mantra “Greed is Good!” has been replaced with “Nepotism Is Good!” because the public purse is the only place left from which to extract money?
Thanks JV 27
I realised that my use of the word employ was ambiguous there. I do not mean that the consultant is an employee of the education department. I mean that she offers and advertises education consultancy services and is given public money in exchange for producing a report under a contract. I do not believe it is corrupt for her to run her own consultancy business as she sees fit and uses the funds in the most efficient way possible which may involve getting some paid help from relatives for some simple drudge work.
JV,
As always, so much written, so little said.
Itep
Being right is different to being self-righteous. On this issue Dio is the former, but not the latter.
It was this bit that confused me.
[ BOB BROWN: Well yes and no. The Greens put our electorate allowances into a special bank account and our officers use it for a wide range of things to do with our job as MPs and servicing the electorate. But there’s no way you can find out whether or not a specific spending item is legitimate electoral spending. ]
An electorate allowance, surely, is totally about servicing the electorate? Bob admits that he does not spend all of his allowance on the electorate. 🙁
Dr Good
[I do not believe it is corrupt for her to run her own consultancy business as she sees fit and uses the funds in the most efficient way possible which may involve getting some paid help from relatives for some simple drudge work.]
Fair enough – I presume that’s your draft submission to the Commission? Good luck.
Diog, you better warn Mrs. D. they are heading your way and looking for you.
[NT women flee from Darwin men – WOMEN are leaving Darwin in droves because they can’t find a good man.
Researcher Dean Carson has found despite there being a higher ratio of men to women in the NT capital, single women just can’t find Mr Right, The NT news reports.]
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25516758-5001021,00.html
I think this idea of having politicians have to account in detail for these electorate office allowances is madness. It will be an administrative nightmare with all sorts of opportunities for witch hunts, small tawdry scandals, arguments over the exact meanings of guidelines and employment for lawyers.
Instead, just pay the allowances as extra salary, get them to pay tax and they can spend it on whatever (legal) things they want.
Ruawake
Well… Not really… Remember they’re all Senators so they don’t have an electorate like a lower-house MP.
He is also pointing out the thing that you are complaining about – that there is no regulation over what the money is for nor where is should be spent. He makes the point that without these guidelines there’s no way of knowing what is the ‘correct’ way to spend it. Remember in the current system it’s apparently ok for the MP to just keep the cash.
Dr Good.
Agreed 100%
Dr Good
Nice false analogy.
[Lots of individuals and organisations are given public funds to get a job done
and it is mostly left up to them to decide who to employ to do it. Eg, a doctor may get medicare funds to look after the sick in a country town. Do we care if she employs her husband as the receptionist?]
Once the Medicare funds are paid to the doctor, they are his/her personal income from personal exertion. He can spend them how he wishes. That is completely different to an MP being given $35,000 of public money to employ staff.
ltep
[It’s this sort of self-righteousness that is really annoying. Some people just don’t agree with you. It doesn’t make you morally superior.]
Most people who have things pointed out to them that they disagree with find it uncomfortable and annoying. Especially if they are defending something like nepotism. Your level of discomfort is irrelevant to the merits of the argument.
Dio and co are right. It’s undesirable for MPs to be able to use public money to employ their immediate family. I’m not sure that it’s a conflict of interest but it’s certainly a rort.
If an MP wants to use his/her own money to pay Mum to look after things, fine, go ahead. If a Party is prepared to pay for this so that one of its number feels suitably cared for, so be it. But the taxpayer shouldn’t have to fork out for this.
Senators have electorates – they are called States. 😛
If the MP was given extra taxpayer funds to employ someone else to do the work because the family member sat around bludging, then that would be wrong, unethical and corrupt.If the MP is happy with the work of the family member and is being paid no more than the taxpayer funds, then that is OK.
Dr Good
I think a set of guidelines would be nice though. Maybe a list of things not to do with it… Like keep it. Perhaps left over money should go to charity?
Ruawake
Yes… I am sure Bob Brown and the Senators spend all that money in the States and Territories they don’t represent!
Perhaps they have given it all to communities in the Northern Territory?
In this case the MP is not creating an extra position, the position already exists, the employment of a family member is just that, an employee in a position that exists.
[Diogenes – Do you think in these straightened financial times, now the markets are wrecked, that the Gordon Gecko mantra “Greed is Good!” has been replaced with “Nepotism Is Good!” because the public purse is the only place left from which to extract money?]
Except that this has been going on for decades, in good times and in bad.
IF the MP judges that his/her spouse/daughter/son is the best person for the job – and honestly, if your spouse/daughter/son can’t earn $35 000 doing something else, ‘best’ is possibly not a good description – then that’s up to them. It’s then up to them to justify it to their electorate.
If their electorate thinks its OK, that’s their decision.
Most councils I know spend lots on council jaunts. Ours didn’t. When a new councillor started doing so, the other councillors wanted to intervene. I pointed out that he wasn’t responsible to us, he was responsible to the ratepayers. The most we could do was inform them about it, and if they didn’t like it, they wouldn’t re elect them.
He justified the jaunts on the grounds of networking and skill development.
He may have been right, and the rest of us wrong.
I try not to rush to judgement on things, especially in areas where I have little or no expertise.
I have been an electorate officer. You’d only do it for love.
[Ruawake
Yes… I am sure Bob Brown and the Senators spend all that money in the States and Territories they don’t represent!]
Astrobleme, sometimes I think you have difficulties with comprehension.
Bob Brown and Christine Milne’s constituents are the voters of Tasmania. Therefore, in theory, their electoral allowances should be spent servicing the voters of Tasmania.
Whereas I’m sure what happens is that part of those allowances do go to funding party activities in other states, where they don’t have senate representation.
I’m not necessarily criticising them for that, although it is surely unethical to spend money intended to service a state which you do represent on one you don’t.
But, as previously established, I don’t know anything about ethics.
Dio 40
You’re wrong about GPs. The costs of running a practice are taken out of medicare (and other) earnings as tax deductions with the GP only having to pay tax on what is left afterwards. So the practice employees are effectively being paid directly with public money. I also know it is surprisingly common practice for GP’s relatives to be receptionists or practice managers.
Zoomster
Did you read what Ruawake was writing? If so you would have seen I was being sarcastic. I was pointing out that it was extremely unlikely that the greens didn’t spend the money in the states they don’t represent. There are Greens from other states than Tasmania too.
Also note that it is Bob Brown who wants to have guidelines and accountability here – he is asking for guidance. He wants there to be accountability.