CCC: Justice by opinion poll?

CCC - Dog-whistle politics and worm polls

The Desert Rat was gob-smacked when he read in The West Australian yesterday that the Corruption and Crime Commission had released a poll saying 96% of those polled supported public hearings. Does that mean they believe Neil Fong and Jim McGinty should have given their evidence in public, humiliated like Brian Burke and Julian Grill – rather than in unexplained and very convenient secrecy, especially for the Attorney General Jim McGinty.

The poll also suggests 80% thought that the CCC would properly investigate complaints. That is a unimpressively low number given few people really understand the expensive and incompetent efforts of the CCC - to date.

More galling is that the CCC should be polling at all. Most of these polls are usually done for window-dressing - rather dopey, meaningless performance indicators in Annual Reports. The contractor know it is in their interest to deliver the best possible results, if they want to continue getting the annual work, They are usually self-serving nonsense and a gross waste of taxpayer's money.

To use this polling in a public relations campaign, as some credible evidence that the CCC is doing a good job, is pathetic, and shows the spin monkeys and media harlots are now running the CCC image makeover sideshow.

What will we have next, the Supreme Court polling the public about it verdicts and whether the public thinks it is doing a good job? Will we have Chief Justice Wayne Martin QC commissioning polls on the judgments of the Supreme Court? Any judgment of the Supreme Court should stand on its own merit. Are we now to have justice by opinion poll - all with McGinty's silence or blessing?

Similarly, the CCC reports and activities should be judged on their particular merit - their thoroughness and accuracy, not by some phone poll done on the cheap to tell the public how wonderful the CCC are.

With respect, the Attorney General Jim McGinty should read Len Roberts-Smith and the CCC the Riot Act and tell them to stop using these crass meaningless polls. While McGinty is at it he should tell Commissioner Major-General Len Roberts-Smith not to waste taxpayers' money on Eastern State's OC’s opinions as to whether the Parliamentary Inspector Malcolm McCusker QC is able to look at the evidence when forming an opinion about CCC inquiries and reports. Another fat cheque from the CCC to add to the $90 million already wasted by this discredited, lame-duck institution.