The Linton Astonisher once had a thought that we should get rid of all political parties. That turned out to be a bit pie in the sky as political parties are the only ones that can form a government after an election. One can imagine the problem with 156 individuals all wanting to be the Prime Minister. I still believe it would, and should, apply to the Senate so that politicians would begin to represent their state and not their party very few Ministers and no Prime Ministers have ever come from this Upper Chamber anyway.
Individual members could coalesce around the laws and poilicies and vote in favour for only those policies they believe are best for their electorate, their state and not hjave to worry about the threats from Whips and other party leeches that ‘you’ll never get power if you don’t toe the party’s line’. They don’t seem to realise there is more power in the hands of a few crazies like Palmer and One Nation than ever being in government itself. You can be a pretty small tail and still wag the dog pretty vigourously as so ably demonstrated by the tree-hugging Greens.
Now you might be astonished to read that I believe we could also save a lot of taxpayers money by not allowing government employees to throw our cash to the wind in frivolous spending sprees. It is common knowledge, and I experienced it year after year when I was unproductively employed, that an attitude of use it or lose it becomes a common practice at the end of year civil servants sale.
This entails getting rid of any money you haven’t spent by the end of the financial year in the fanciful fear that you won’t get as much money next year. This is a furphy of course but is bandied around all government departments at all levels. Stupidity would reign if budgets were cut and then had to be increased again six months later, but then again stupidity is almost the exclusive domain of civil servants and pollies and in all three tiers of goverment, or as Golden Pains calls it ‘community leadership’.
As a genetically programmed tight-wad I always treated my budget as almost my money and did not just spend it in a cavalier fashion. By the end of each financial year I might have had about $500 left over and I had mandatory instructions to spend it. As a result my office had enough stationary to last the next decade and every year I had to buy more productive items, it stretched my imagination to the limit.
What I did need was a new computer but there was never enough in the kitty to buy one. My pleas to put the money aside for the next year fell on deaf ears of course, funding from Community Services to N.G.O’s had to be spent without arguement and apparently on their part without conscience. It ended up by my applying for a special grant to buy a computer which could well have been funded from existing money and not yet another drain on the taxpayers purse.
‘Jesus! It’s only taxpayers money …. not yours’ was one response from my funding body.
So there we have it. The taxpayer around the end of June every year helps to pay for bonding exercises (see also wankers games), staff picnics and movie nights to develop relationships between the wage-earners (a.k.a dinner, movies and a free booze-up) or even paying for sessions called ‘personal development’ (including palm reading and star-sign interpretation) and in extreme cases large amounts can be exhausted on entire week-ends at a spa or other health resort (in my case it was a long-weekend at a Mount Victoria Boutique Hotel) and given such names as Peak Organisation Conferences (in my case the Office of the Catholic Archdiocese of Parramatta) where we learnt more about celibacy and family counselling, or Advanced Community Development where we learnt how to sway the system towards giving us more money to spend on frivoulous personal pursuits disguised as work.
The ultimate answer is to freeze the budget at a certain level for four years (a much favoured number for governments) and enable departments and individuals in the community sector to earmark the money that is left for use the next year. It would have the effect of making civil servants more accountable and economical when spending our money.
Over the next four years the Auditor-General could check the frugality of departments, their ability to use our money wisely and ensure that tenders for building works or provision of expendable supplies are within the same playing field as the private sector. When a normal house can be built for $150,000 why should the government pay $350,000 for the same project. When a good set of bookshelves cost around $3,000 why should Senator Brandis spend $14,000 on the same thing let alone a previous Prime Minister spending $5,000 on a desk which was priced at $2299.00 on the showroom floor. You would have heard about Gillard’s $100,000 School Tuck Shop about the size of a standard single garage.
Now its up to us, after all its our money, to start asking those ‘born to rule’ what they might do about this blatant waste of money. Little wander we are going further into debt at government level, they just don’t know when to stop spending.
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