Those dreaded independent inquiries


It’s been a bad morning for brand Labor. Pesky independent office holders in Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane have provoked the kind of headlines politicians try and avoid. Try this one for size:
18-06-2010 couriermaillies
Queensland’s Crime and Misconduct Commission has not missed Premier Anna Bligh with a disputed claim that it was not correctly consulted prior to the reappointment of Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson.
Whether it was actually just a misunderstanding or something far worse does not disguise that the Premier’s Government was one running scared of upsetting members of the police force when it came to dealing with the aftermath of the 2004 death in custody of Palm Island man Mulrunji Doomadgee.
It would be hard to disagree with the headline in The Australian over a comment piece by Tony Koch that there was “a failure of leadership and integrity.”
18-06-2010 australiandoomadgee
Meanwhile in Canberra Federal Labor was having trouble of its own with the Auditor General Ian McPhee whose evidence to a parliamentary committee exposed the lie that he was a willing party to Labor’s broken promise over the vetting of taxpayer funded government advertising.
18-06-2010 ageandlaborscandals
18-06-2010 auditorgeneralianmacphee
Rounding out the day’s headlines telling of Labor lies and political deceit was the main story in the Melbourne Age describing how the Victorian Ombudsman will be investigating planning decisions on the Hotel Windsor redevelopment.
All in all it is a sad picture of the way Australia is governed.

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