En Passant

Abbott said the problem was not individual parliamentarians but the system of entitlements itself. That is a bit like blaming the bank for lax security rather than the thieves for stealing the money. Certainly capitalist politicians are corrupt. However the whole capitalist system is corrupt. Mass struggle against it in all its manifestations is the answer.

The Australian Federal Police won’t investigate possible misuse of parliamentary expenses independently or systemically. They and the politicians are all part of the ruling class and won’t do anything to undermine the facade of parliamentary respectability.

The Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research, Chris Bowen MP, and the Minister for School Education, Peter Garrett MP, have announced an ambitious plan to improve the quality of Parliamentarians.

Everyone recognises we are tired of the crooks, duds, time servers, megalomaniacs and lazy bastards who make up our parliamentary class. We demand and expect more and this Labor government is at the forefront of delivering on its promises to increase the quality of parliamentarians through its National Plan for Improvement of Politicians.

Here is a transcript of an interview with the Ministers explaining the government’s approach. In the interests of literacy a few words have been changed.

To win back our trust maybe the Parliament should open up all the expense information it has to public scrutiny. It could set up an expense investigation committee to go over all the claims of the last few years with a forensic fine tooth comb.

We have a good role model. The equivalent of the Australian Building and Construction Commission and its draconian powers could be set up to smash alleged rorting by a small group allegedly holding the rest of us to ransom through their allegedly criminal behaviour.

Dave Oliver from the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Dave Noonan from the building workers’ union and Julian Assange might be good nominees to carry out the investigation.

If we were to have a serious debate about standards, the bloodthirsty and vicious nature of Australian capitalism would be first on the agenda. If we were serious about standards, Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott would be in prison awaiting extradition to the Hague for their war crimes and their genocide against Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders.