26th June 1999
Generally speaking, the new age enemies of ordinary Australians are politicians and lawyers. A long time ago, both groups were much higher on the scale of public respect than they are today, particularly lawyers. The lack of strong leadership among both groups during the last twenty-five years has led to an alarming decline in morality and ethical standards. Our MPs unmercifully rort the system for the basest of reasons and there is almost a need for a special prison to house the lawyers who rip off their clients' trust accounts and commit a variety of other frauds. It seems to be no coincidence that many lawyers become MPs!
All Australian MPs are guilty of ripping the taxpayer off through their superannuation scheme which I call super rort. They are at once employer and employee and make their own rules, often trying to pass favourable legislation in respect of their super schemes in the early hours of the morning, as they did not so long ago in NSW. On the question of their super, all MPs are united. A lot of the adversarial antics in parliament is window dressing for the mugs - the voters. Remember the famous 'little crook' insult hurled at Bob Hawke by Andrew Peacock in parliament? A couple of weeks later, both men were photographed, arms around each other at a yearling sale on the Gold Coast!
MPs get a pension for life that starts at about $45,000 per annum if they survive for 8 years or 3 elections, whichever come first and they access it immediately while we mere mortals have to wait until age 55 or more. The pension can pass on to a spouse after the death of an MP. The pension is reduced by only one sixth and is not extinguished until the death of the spouse. Double dipping is rife with a history of MP pensioners getting their snouts back into the public trough by virtue of working as political advisers, consultants and getting plum overseas postings. Most private and other public sector superannuants get only about a fifth of what the MPs get. 'Inside Canberra,' a weekly newsletter carried out research in 1996 that revealed that 18 former federal MPs paid in a total of $1.7 million that will bring them returns of $30 million during their lifetimes!
It is impossible to freely obtain information about super rort. A wall of silence has been thrown up by MPs and the bureacracy and no MPs will break rank, including John Howard who has said that he will not review the scheme. Labor remains strangely silent on the issue. Recent draconian razor slashing in federal MPs' offices saw their daily newspaper allocation cut from 3 to 2 and their office pot plant entitlement reduced! The independent Ted Mack was the only MP who spoke out agaqinst the scandal and he walked away from $1 million dollars' worth of benefits to prove his point. He now looks forward to the aged pension!
Lawyers who have lost a lot of their easy and lucrative work like wills and conveyancing, circle like sharks around potential sources of fees, a lot from publicly funded legal aid. Many of them have become ambulance chasers and their recently allowed advertising demonstrates this. They encourage class actions and are almost always the winners, despite which way the decisions fall. The areas of Native Title, immigration and refugee legislation are proving rich pickings and many lawyers stand to make millions at the expense of us all.
MPs scold and urge us to accept 'change' and berate and denigrate us if we use the word 'protection' in an economic sense, yet they stubbornly refuse to set the example in these areas, declining to accept change themselves and hiding behind the protection of their super scheme. It seems a hopeless cause with no champions. Why hasn't David Oldfield taken up the cudgels on behalf of the many battlers who voted for him?