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March 13, 2009
Same mind, different mouth
We may be callous, but as the debacles accrue in the communications policies of the Rudd Government - the ludicrous Internet filter, continuing delays and doubts about the National Broadband Network etc. - we can't help but think that Rudd's first act as Prime Minister should have been to institute a night of the long knives in the public service.
It's clear that the same attitudes that made Richard Alston and his successors celebrated idiots in the eyes of the world are continuing to haunt Senator Conroy. Today Conroy announced, with an air of jollity that seemed at best inappropriate and at worst mildly demented, that we'd all have to wait a bit longer while our leaders made up their minds about when they'd even sign a contract for something they'd promised to begin building by the end of last year.
We admit to a certain amount of cynicism about whatever our Communications Ministers say, but when a politician promises to meet a [delayed] deadline "contingent on the complexity of the considerations" we can't help but wonder if they ever had any idea at all of what they were playing with.
The issue is no more complex than it ever was, and far from being amused at the speculation that's arisen from the lack of action, Conroy should realise that he's the one who's wearing the clown's hat and rubber
nose. It says little for his judgment that he's the fall guy for the jokes that are being scripted by a department that has a long, unbroken record of serving custard pies.
Heads, surely, should roll, just as the bureaucrats who have led Rudd into the serial humiliations of the Emissions Trading Scheme should have been rendered surplus to requirements ages ago.
Nothing like that will happen, of course. Rather than providing genuine leadership, the Rudd Government seems to point a finger in the vague direction of a target, fire whatever bullets have been loaded for them and, having discovered that they have a gaping entry wound in their foot, they'll continue limping bravely ahead, in the wrong direction.
Posted by cw at March 13, 2009 05:42 PM
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Comments
Well, it's started.
Posted by: newman at March 13, 2009 10:14 PM