CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
After a long election campaign of promising to lock up crooked politicians, The Australian government is set to introduce its long-awaited Federal Corruption Watchdog legislation after briefing caucus on Tuesday, with crossbench members from both the lower house and the senate calling to be consulted on the proposed model.
Of all the deliverables on Prime Minister Albanese’s to-do list, the passing of a Federal ICAC should be the easist to get over the line.
Not just because political corruption is absolutely rampant at both a state and federal level in this country, and not because it’s almost impossible to argue against stopping corruption – but because the last government lost twenty seats for not doing anything about it.
With a new crop of Indepedent MPs absolutely committed to keeping the bastards honest, and a new Labor government that has spent so long in opposition that most of their dodgy ministers got bored and decided to ply their trade in the banks and mining sector, it looks like a pretty scary time to be anyone responsible some of those hundred million dollar pork-barrelling grants that were being handed out like smarties under Morrison’s spectacularly corrupt Christian dictatorship.
However, not all Independents will be blindly voting for this new plan.
The Honourable Robert Katter III MP, the maverick crossbencher from the Gulf Country has told the Betoota Advocate he wants assurances that this watchdog isn’t going to turn into a witch hunt that punishes proud Queenslanders for getting stuff done.
Speaking over the landline earlier today, Katter says there needs to be some cultural massaging in this new legislation, and these southerners need to realise that we do things differently up North.
[Read Bob Katter’s short but concise comments in the headline of this story]