A year or so back I clicked on a link in an email and absently agreed to receive notifications from lobby group Change.org about the petitions they host.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Ever since then I’ve received a steady flow of messages imploring me to add my name to this cause or that.
After a few weeks of these urgent entreaties (they’re always urgent), I found my revolutionary zeal had faded and I took to deleting all Change.org emails as soon as they arrived.
All except one. It lobbed in my inbox a few months back with the irresistible title, “Stop all payments to non-currently serving politicians.”
It simply called for the scrapping of “all entitlements, payments, allowances, including travel allowances, for politicians who are no longer currently serving the Australian public.”
Amen. Now you’re talking. That’s my kind of petition. I’m in. Where do I sign? Click - send.
It remains the only online petition I have ever signed. I’d sign it over and over again if I could.
To me few things are as galling and lurid as politicians receiving payment for jobs THEY NO LONGER PERFORM - for the rest of their lives no less - and acting as if this is perfectly fair and reasonable.
It’s fricken not! It’s a rort so cinematic in its scope that one can easily imagine a cast of puffy, red-faced politicians guffawing about their rat cunning in the members’ dining room, quaffing brandy and chomping cigars while the little people slave outside to generate more tax.
“Why don’t you just resign Witherby? You’ll still earn as much! Bah-ha- ha-ha- ha-HAA- HAAAA!”
While this unmitigated fraud upon fairness benefits federal politicians elected to office before 2004, there are a lot of them and it costs you and I $45 million every year to bankroll their post-parliamentary lifestyles.
Although some retire, it’s worth noting that many of these people reap this bullshit bounty after either quitting, being thrown out of office by a dissatisfied public or disendorsed by their party.
Like former speaker Bronwyn Bishop! She was passed over for pre-selection by the Liberal Party ahead of the July 2 election. Don’t weep for her though; Mrs Bishop will reportedly be receiving around $255,000 in taxpayer coin every year for the rest of her hoity-toity life.
All she has to do is ... err, absolutely nothing. Oh hang on - yeah, she has to decide on how to use up the 10 business class return airfares she and other senior ex-pollies are “entitled” to every year as well.
Labor, Liberal, National etc ... they’re all guilty of this gluttony for funds. No wonder trust and respect for politicians so low.
But if there’s one thing even more outrageous than these indefensible pensions it’s when ex-politicians receive a bloated, never-ending pay cheque and a you-beaut, well paid job in an exotic location to boot.
Again, all parties do it. It’s called ambassadorships for the boys (and girls).
I nearly puked when it was announced that Joe Hockey would be Australia’s ambassador to the United States when he quit parliament, leaving behind a crap budget like a stinky mess for others to scoop up.
The man who told us to tighten our belts because “the age of entitlement is over”; the man who said a fuel tax was not regressive because poor people tend not to own cars; the man who believes the solution to cracking into the insanely expensive housing market is to “get a good job that pays good money” ... this man was being rewarded for quitting parliament with a $360,000-a- year glamour posting to New York? On top of his life-time pension?
Get me a bucket.
But there’s one thing even more outrageous than Ambassadorships ‘R’ Us and double dipping on our tax dollars and that’s seeing the recipient of such publicly funded largesse kicking back over beers while cruising around Europe on a multimillion dollar luxury yacht with a bunch of Australia’s richest and most privileged people.
Despite my initial annoyance that the government had deemed Joe Hockey the best suited, most qualified and deserving person to be Australia’s Ambassador to the US, I had kinda moved on. But then last week - wham - photos emerged of Mr Ambassador laughing it up on an exclusive Mediterranean cruise to celebrate billionaire transport magnate Lindsay Fox’s birthday.
Mr Hockey wasn’t the only high-flier on hand for the hijinks; golfer Greg Norman, actress Deborah Lee Furness, former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett, media thingy Eddie McGuire and West Australian mining baron Andrew Forrest were also among the guests.
Although there was nothing whatsoever illegal or corrupt about any of this, and while Mr Hockey is perfectly free to socialise with whomever her pleases, the pictures made headlines right around the country. Even The Australian smirkingly dubbed Hockey - photographed grinning and clinking beer mugs with billionaire Forrest - “the ambassador for fun”.
If this is all perfectly sweet, then why all the press? Because it’s a particularly crapful look, that’s why. I reckon Australians have a right to think that we’re paying Joe Hockey $360,000 a year (over and above his pension for the job he used to do) to rub shoulders with influential Americans - not the cream of the A-list from back home.
And given he’s only been in the job since January I’m surprised he’s accrued enough annual leave to go on holidays, if indeed he’s having more than a few days off.
Yes - he’s entitled to travel wherever he likes, be friends with anyone he damned well chooses and attend any bash he wants to. But next time he goes off partying with Australia’s top one percenters I imagine he’ll ask his mates not to share photos of the fun on social media.
Heaven forbid Australians are reminded of the gaping divide between life at the top of the public money tree and those of us who fertilise it with tax receipts.
So the next time you’re driving a taxi, teaching a class full of children, laying bricks, cutting hair or slaving away in a factory or warehouse remember that the tax you’re handing over is helping pay people for jobs they’re no longer doing.
And if you’re at all interested, I believe the Change.org petition to scrap life-long pensions and perks for ex-politicians is still live.