Corruption in WA Politics

Is corruption a real issue in WA politics?

The Desert Rat takes a casual interest in Labor politics in other states and it seem to him that the Tasmanian and NSW Labor Party politics are two states where serious levels of corruption are endemic. More on that in later posts.

Western Australia is a rather timid place when it comes to accommodating corruption. In 35 years of what may be called insider politics, the Desert Rat has not personally seen any corruption except inside the WA police force where it was part of the cover-up of misdeeds culture of the hierarchy. That process saw small time offenders resign from the force with the threat of prosecutions or where the big fish were protected because they had the "dirt" on most of the hierarchy. The hierarchy wouldn’t risk the scandal.

The fact that we don't have poker machines in Western Australia says a lot about criminal influence in Western Australia, and, there isn't a snowflakes hope in hell of getting them into WA. Our Lotteries Commission is still publicly owned so that the public get the benefits of that form of gambling. Despite the efforts of Packer and others the moneyed interests have not been allowed a free-for-all at the Casino.

The Desert Rat thinks that these sorts of attitudes reflect the lack of criminal corruption, as they would be some of the first destructive indicators that showed the influence of moneyed interests and organised crime on politicians. Corruption in WA politics is negligible.

Western Australia has had its share of entrepreneurial egomaniacs from time to time, that have had the ear of government, but the Desert Rat does not know any Minister or member of parliament that has ever taken a personal bribe. Politics is all about networking and friendships. Those in the loop and those in control of the infamous "numbers" generally call the shots. Influence can be wielded by big wheels or small wheels. It is the connections or networks that matter. A particular activist or conservationist can have more influence than the CEO of BHP Billiton or a property developer.

When the Gallop Government (alias the McGinty regime) set up their political caste system after 2001, they eschewed contact with the important business sector in Western Australia. Such was their antipathy to commerce and business that the result was the explosion of lobbyists, as business needed to get back in the loop to be heard and get decisions. Business and commerce under McGinty’s Socialist Labor regime were the "untouchables". They were unclean.

The growth of lobbyists did not necessarily mean corruption took place. The Desert Rat is of the view that there is little if any corruption in Western Australia.

The sad part about the Corruption and Crime Commission is that they don't understand how politics functions practically. Under Jim McGinty’s stewardship of that incompetent and lugubrious monolith, the CCC has given the opposite impression. Like Don Quixote, the CCC has been "tilting at windmills." Making representations to Government is not corruption; it is a normal part of the political process.

Despite spending or wasting nearly $90 million on the CCC we have not discovered any bribes, any coercion, any threats, or any criminal conduct by politicians or ex-politicians. What we have seen, heard and read, is a CCC political sideshow which has been exposed by Malcolm McCusker QC as grossly incompetent.

This sideshow has served Jim McGinty's interests well to date. Not one Socialist Left Faction Minister or Left Faction ex Minister or Left faction lobbyist has been investigated by the CCC – let alone humiliated.

All Jim McGinty's main opponents in the ALP have been scrutinised and humiliated.

This state of affairs has been presided over by that parody of an Attorney General Jim McGinty who still claims the CCC is doing a good job. Well, yes, if you think recklessly destroying people lives and reputations and businesses is a good.

The media now understands the dynamics of this evil process we have seen spawned in Western Australia and it is beginning to gradually sink into the public’s mind.

The real "corruption" as the Desert Rat sees it is when Alan Carpenter suddenly announces that he thinks Malcolm McCusker QC should be allowed to scrutinise the CCC evidence in his reports. Carpenter got off the fence and supported McCusker, albeit very briefly.

Why the sudden change of heart?

ALP polling showed 85% of the public surveyed believed and supported Malcolm McCusker and not the CCC.

There is no conviction in this manipulative type of superficial politics. It exists in a moral vacuum.

McGinty's Emergency Department Mess

Running Amok in Emergency

Self-appointed Emperor Jim McGinty reminds the Desert Rat of the scene from the Wizard of Oz when the great curtains in the Emerald City are finally pulled back.

Dorothy and her friends find ..... nothing. Just a small, anxious figure who had until then been able to project a big, confident illusion.

Like many, this powerful figure once had the Desert Rat's respect. He had the power to make things happen; to do good things. As he took control of the ALP a different picture gradually emerged - the political titan, and skilled strategist became a ruthless and surprisingly incompetent minister. A person who was not a leader, but one of the Stalinist Left who controls using the weapon of fear - a person whose larger than life impression has shrunken and wasted over the last three years.

Was it the cancer of power and insecurity?

Wallowing in a tsnami of mining generated taxes and revenue which allowed expensive announcements, helped disguise the many failures of McGinty's dysfunctional oversight of the Health Department.

Those failure are now on display everywhere. Today's The West Australian carries a report that Emergency Department (ED) doctors at our public hospitals are considering industrial action.

Not surprising to the Desert Rat, staff are leaving the public health system because they are not appreciated. Their motivation to do the extra work needed has been exhausted and destroyed. They don't feel appreciated.

Jim McGinty has consistently and cynically left the Emergency Departments understaffed, as shown by this table compiled from recent answers to questions in State Parliament

Hospital	Budgeted FTE's	Actual FTE's	FTE's Resigned
Royal Perth	122	94	22
Sir Charles Gairdner	114	98	15
Fremantle	103	92	16

They are understaffed by about 25%. No wonder they can't cope and resignations churn the system requiring existing staff to train and train new staff; time that could be better spent doing their job.

SCGH is understaffed by 16 registered nurses; RPH is understaffed by 28 registered nurses and Fremantle by 11 registered nurses. They are all budgeted positions. Little wonder the resignations levels are so high.

Staff that front each day are under enormous pressure. They are assaulted, insulted and unappreciated by the impersonal style of management that Jim McGinty has fostered in the Health Department.

No amount of new legislation or new hospitals in the Kimberley or elsewhere will fix the people management problem in the Health Department. Jenny Pickworth described the fear and intimidation felt by senior management in the Health Department.

McGinty's costly penchant for centralising everything in health has taken management further away from the staff. When you fail to motivate and appreciate staff they soon lose interest. Many hospitals cannot get staff to do after-hours call work in emergencies.

Some obstetrics hospitals are operating dangerously - without staff available for emergency call-outs. No wonder midwives burn-out and retire early.

McGinty's answer to stop the resignations and ease the workload on ED's was to ramp ambulances which was highlighted in this earlier post. Up to a dozen ambulance can be ramped at ED's. All of these ED's are grossly understaffed and well below their budgeted staff numbers.

It is a pity some of the $90 million McGinty has wasted on the Corruption and Crime Commission has not found its way in filling the budgeted vacancies and properly remunerating Emergency Department staff.

The Chaos Theory may work well in physics but McGinty hasn't worked out that it has little application to Health.

Let a thousand flowers bloom

Fear and Intimidation in the ALP

Chairman Mao Zedong was attributed with this slogan as part of a critique and renewal process of the Chinese Communist Party in 1957. The intelligentsia that responded to the invitation to criticise the Communist Party were flushed out and subsequently executed.

The Desert Rat has heard many reports that most ALP members of State Parliament are an unhappy lot.

They are terrified and fearful of losing their upcoming pre-selections.

They are intimidated and scared to speak up in case offense is taken by those in the Socialist Left and their cronies who control the ALP. One false move and their pre-selection death warrant will be signed. It is the same type of fear and intimidation that lawyer Jenny Pickwork said permeates the Health Department.

The Desert Rat imagines they will soon be invited to speak up in the Caucus and put forward their ideas to renew and invigorate the tired and failing McGinty controlled Socialist Left regime. The State ALP members of parliament can't do much about it while the Socialist Left supremo has complete hegemony.

Don't expect any ideas or initiative to come forth from those silent lambs on the Hill (State Parliament). Any dissidents will be flush out and politically executed if they are critical of the regime.

Such is life in ALP politics these days - courage is scarce. As Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar:

"Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once."

McGinty Agenda entrenches ALP control

The Puppet and the Puppeteer

The Desert Rat thinks it is now becoming clear that Alan Carpenter’s dream team of ALP candidates for the State election, is in fact, the choice of McGinty, the real power behind the "figurehead leader".

For a while the Desert Rat thought Carpenter was taking on Jim McGinty; naively trying to assert his own "authority". This would have resulted in the demise of Carpenter as McGinty would have the numbers on the State Executive to butcher any Carpenter’s agenda and destroy him in the process.

McGinty has now come out in support of Reece Whitby, a landlord, housing speculator and part-time Kerry Stokes employee at Channel 7. Tellingly, this open support from Jim McGinty came after New Right faction leader Michelle Roberts had the temerity to publicly support the right of John D’Orazio to contest ALP preselection for Morley.

McGinty wants the New Right faction’s John D’Orazio shut out of the ALP and ALP pre-selection.

McGinty has now declared he fully supports Reece Whitby as the next Labor candidate for Morley. The likes of Reece Whitby, and Alan Carpenter, will be at the mercy of McGinty because they will never have any personal power base within the ALP.

This all adds credence to Alan Carpenter being the puppet who is just publicaly running McGinty’s preselection agenda. Left faction candidates and Left captured candidates such as housing speculators like Reece Whitby will get the safe seats at the expense of the Centre and Right factions candidates, now that their power base has been undermined by the incompetent and nefarious activities of the Corruption and Crime Commission.

Whitby and Carpenter will never have any power base in the ALP because they have been parachuted in, and so will be beholden to McGinty the Socialist Left.

Pickworth Attacks McGinty

Health Minister McGinty gets some of his own medicine.

The West Australian reports that Jenny Pickworth the Health Department legal consultant who claimed Jim McGinty misled Parliament when he said he terminated her contract, has accused Jim McGinty of "presiding over a culture of intimidation and fear" as well as "misleading Parliament for silly political mileage".

Jim McGinty's stupid remarks had severely damaged Ms Pickworth's reputation, according to Kim Hames the Shadow Health Minister.

After the claimed "termination", Ms Pickworth was offered the job of Director of Legal Services of the Health Department, making a further mockery of McGinty's chest-beating claim!

The article states that Pickworth said "she did not believe he treated his staff well". She said Health under Jim McGinty had become a group of frightened people.

Sound very much like the Parliamentary Labor Party to the Desert Rat.

Ms Pickworth said "If you use his treatment of me as an example it sends a message to the rest of the workforce that you don't stand up to Jim".

The Desert Rat thinks that message won't be lost on Jim McGinty - and it won't be news to him.

McGinty Misleads the House

McGinty's sham claim exposed - no apology to Jenny Pickworth

The Desert Rat was pleased to see Kim Hames the Shadow Health Minister nail Jim McGinty last week over McGinty's statement in Parliament, that two lucrative contracts awarded by Dr Neil Fong "had been terminated".

McGinty made the claim in a speech in Parliament where he said the "Fong era was over" - a cold act of disloyalty to distance himself from Fong's management of McGinty's dysfunctional Ministry.

One of the two contracts McGinty claimed were terminated was for legal adviser Jenny Pickworth. Jenny Pickworth had in fact resigned from her role on the 14th of February when she advised the Health Department that she was no longer available to do the work.

McGinty had not terminated her contract.

The claim, which the Desert Rat thinks was designed to make McGinty look decisive and tough, came back to bite him on the nether region. McGinty refused to apologise for to Ms Pickworth, whose reputation was damaged by the false claim. When has McGinty ever apologised or accepted responsibility for his own incompetent decisions?

Kim Hames told Parliament that it was another example of McGinty's "smoke, mirrors and spin".

The motion moved in the House by Hames accussed McGinty of "misguided priorities", in focussing on "personal vendettas" and "political spin".

Right-on Kim Hames!

McGinty's Backdown on Corruption Comment

Calling the Bully's Bluff

Jim McGinty has denied referring to Brian Burke and Julian Grill in "corruption" comments he made on ABC Radio.

While McGinty's explanation fell short of an apology, the letter from McGinty to Burke and Grill's lawyers as reported in The West Australian, was a clear back down from any inference that Burke and Grill were corrupt or had been involved in any criminal matters. The letter arrived on the deadline for action to be taken in the Supreme Court.

This backdown was a big win by Brian Burke and Julian Grill as most of what Jim McGinty says about the lobbyists is designed to smear their reputations. McGInty seems to include the word "corruption" whenever he makes comment on any matter where Burke or Grill's name is involved.

It called staying on message and establishes a negative connection in the subconscious mind of listeners and readers. Goebells perfected this indoctrination technique.

The public now knows that Jim McGinty has no evidence that Brian Burke or Julian Grill are corrupt.