It’s the secret sexual relationship that sells the ‘Daz and Glad Show’ and elevates it from being merely yet another corrupt NSW politician before the ICAC, but it also distracts punters from the much bigger scandal.
Disgraced former National Party MP Daryl Maguire’s litany of rackets and wheezes are impressive for their breadth and, sometimes, shallowness.
Skimming the Wagga Wagga RSL’s spending on cutlery. Really, Daryl?
For all his efforts though, it’s small beer, the work of a wannabe grifting on the fringes of a vastly more professional and richer industry devoted to influence peddling, insider knowledge and structural corruption.
Actually, it’s more than that: It’s an industry steadily undermining our democracy, weakening our institutions, entrenching and reinforcing privilege.
Over time it perverts government and increases inequality. When insiders keep selling access and influence and the rich and powerful keep buying it and profiting from it, the citizens end up betrayed.
That is the core of the lobbying industry – selling access to politicians and senior bureaucrats, bending outcomes to their paymasters’ benefit. Those with the money get the inside run and the rest can go whistle, all the more so as the public service is intentionally run down.
It’s what Maguire was trying to do in New South Wales. It’s what less pathetic lobbyists successfully do in every state and at a higher, more lucrative level again in Canberra.
The many millions in fees for lobbyists represent billions in outcomes for their paymasters. Those billions tend to come at a cost for those not in on the game.
It’s why former MPs and bureaucrats flock to the racket, why they’re so readily snapped up by the influence pedlars and buyers. As previously reported, the property industry alone plays the influence game to profit by billions of dollars every year.
Whether it is Dazzler Maguire trying to land a re-zoning at Badgerys Creek or Queensland property developers hosting dinners that are coincidentally followed by donations, or top planning bureaucrats sliding in and out of jobs with major developers and builders, there’s a mercenary thread of influence and inside knowledge woven through every exchange of money.
Yet for all the billions involved in re-zonings and the odd “tickle from the top”, it is relatively retail-level structural corruption.
Bigger games are played in Canberra where the federal government is unencumbered by the threat of any sort of ICAC, let alone one with teeth.
Consider both the immediate and long-term cost of the mining and energy industries’ successful destruction of carbon pricing and the resources rent tax, a level of lobbyist and employment infiltration and integration such that it is not possible to determine where the industries finish and the government starts.
John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations site has been running a timely series on LobbyLand.
“Lobbyists are undermining public trust in our political institutions,” the former senior public servant and diplomat turned commentator wrote.
“They are most prolific in Canberra. Lobby firms infest Barton and Kingston. It is easy walking distance to Parliament House, the National Press Club and the major departments,” he explained.
“A real ‘LobbyLand’ with the Minerals Council of Australia, the Australian Medical Association, Lockheed Martin, the Australian Pharmacy Guild, the Business Council of Australia and many more.”
Our defence, health, climate, education and industry policies and spending are skewed by the subtle, and not-so-subtle, efforts of those paid to know whose ear is worth having and delivering access to that ear.
Make massive government defence purchasing decisions one day, work for a defence vendor the next. Nothing to see here.
The wave of privatisation that rolled through VET and aged care – that we are all now paying dearly for – was not immaculately conceived. It was promoted and pushed by those who stood to profit.
A donation here, a lunch there, an introduction and a policy adviser placed somewhere else.
There’s nothing accidental about the revolving doors oiled and maintained by LobbyLand. Think of the politicians from both sides who so quickly score a title and expense account either with an industry body or lobbyist firm – do you believe any of them are on fat six-figures for their wit and insight?
No. They are purchased for their ability to deliver access – what poor little Daryl Maguire was trying to flog. They are hired for their knowledge of which decision-makers count, which careers might be worth promoting, who might need undermining.
The fourth estate is not below LobbyLand’s desired reach, both for buying and selling.
It may have been more obvious in the more relaxed times of the good ol’ bad ol’ days of the long lunch, but fewer journalists required to do more can result in greater reliance on the supposed “experts” who happen to be offering their services with custom-crafted precision.
One of journalism’s weaknesses is that precious few of us are actually expert in any field and fewer again are tending to stick to a speciality long enough to build expertise.
That leaves us prey to the most professionally proffered guidance to help with a mystery as a deadline looms, or to simply be fed stories.
It’s not as if there are competing opinions in many areas to balance lobbying efforts – most of the lobbying and opinion-forming work is not straight forward capital v labour, Business Council v ACTU.
The influence of the relatively homogenous wall of paid defence and security opinions dominates our media with little alternative.
Or the contest of ideas is vastly unequal – the various shapes and shades of the gambling industry v the anti-gambling lobby.
The Attorney-General’s Department offers a laughably incomplete lobbyist register – quick example, the Minerals Council of Australia isn’t listed – that nonetheless offers 276 business/trading names and 608 lobbyists. That’s a fraction of the real figure but still a multiple of the press corps.
On one side are skilled, focused, well-remunerated and resourced experts in their field. On the other, a thin line of stretched generalists primarily obsessed by politics.
Daryl Maguire and his relationship with the NSW Premier will make headlines for a bit longer and then fade away. The real scandal of purchased power and influence will roll on regardless.
Michael is the contributing editor for The New Daily. Journalist, commentator, speaker, rugby follower, would prefer to be skiing.
His book, The Summertime of Our Dreams, is published by Ultimo Press.
Comments
9 responses to “Michael Pascoe: Forget the ‘Daz and Glad Show’, this is the real political scandal (The New Daily Oct 15, 2020)”
“do you believe any of them are on fat six-figures for their wit and insight?” Best laugh I’ve had today thank you Michael!
But it’s certainly a serious issue. It’s like a cloak of invisibility is spread over the real problem, with Daryl and his ilk left outside to ultimately become sacrificial lambs. Every now and then, someone from inside the cloak accidentally trips up and becomes visible, but on the whole, the system works well for those on the “inside”.
And Pascoe didn’t get into the relative motivations of pollies/public servants v lobbyists. Why would a public officer stick his head up and get involved in all sorts of conflict, risk his job, whistle-blow (we know what happens to them) when he can go calmly along with the flow? Why rock the boat when there’s nothing to be gained and much to lose? (Women included, of course.) Lobbyists, on the other hand, get immediate, multiple rewards every time they pull a victory . . . a few celebratory beers and congratulations at the favourite watering hole (all on the corporate credit card) would be the least of it. There is also the ego-push of having outsmarted another victim, the quiet satisfaction of knowing you’re a winner.
The real problem here is not the people involved, they are human like the rest of us, but that the whole system has been designed, or has evolved, to operate exactly the way it does. Designed or evolved? What’s the difference? In either case, it’s bigger, stronger than us and it will live on triumphant, despite the occasional minor setback.
As always, follow the money . . .
“It’s not as if there are competing opinions in many areas to balance lobbying efforts “
I beg to differ Michael. I’m regularly surprised that the alternative opinions and detail I can readily search up online rarely get a mention in MSM. That’s not surprising with Murdoch but it is with the rest. I often wonder if there’s a policy of not mentioning other sources for fear of losing ever more readers to better informed publications such as this one or specialists. There are also obvious MSM arrangements to reprint from a small set list of of others.
What about a code of conduct insertion requiring lobbyist input in articles to be cited as such ?
For me, the point is that Gladys had a conflict of interest she did not disclose to her colleagues. Daryls, as Michael points out, are a dime a dozen. The risk that Daryl may have had an influence on the premier’s decision making or gleaned information, whether it happened or not, were risk her colleagues, especially her cabinet colleagues should have been made aware of.
Thankyou for not mincing words.
“The wave of privatisation that rolled through VET and aged care – that we are all now paying dearly for – was not immaculately conceived. It was promoted and pushed by those who stood to profit.”
Even 627 deaths and still rising seems not enough to stop the horror show that is aged care? If 627 Grannies, Grandads and loved relatives is not enough to stir the nation – what is?
Small beer indeed, as compared with the wholesale manipulations of Chief Grifter Morrison.
Nevertheless, I am turned off big-time by Glad’s strident protestations that the united people unfailingly adore her undying dedication – or else. The neologism “Armenian wall” rather suggests itself.
But what does the term “Armenian wall” actually mean?
Asking for a friend 😉
By golly Nigel, I was a bit worried there, you were never going to ask.
Armenian wall / (Aust. slang) n. in Australian politics, a purported but preposterous barrier between one’s public and private lives [Modelled on “Chinese walls”]
I might be a cynic but to me this sounds like a deliberate slur on Berijiklian’s Armenian back ground. If so, it is quite out of order.