The Rudd Government home insulation scandal seems to get worse each passing day, with new revelations emerging of more mess-ups, more bungling, more incompetency, more job losses, and more lives devastated. Yet no one in the Rudd government seems willing to use the S word.
Imagine if this scenario had taken place under a conservative government: At least four people dead; nearly a hundred houses destroyed by fire; hundreds of thousands of other homes potentially at risk; thousands of jobs and whole industries at risk; billions of dollars squandered: all because of incompetent and out-of-touch government policies.
Imagine what all the lefties and mainstream media would be saying? They would be demanding the scalps of anyone involved in this fiasco. The hounding from the media would be merciless, and the left would not relent until action was taken.
Remember how the very person at the centre of this monumental stuff-up carried on in an act of moral outrage during the 2000 Olympics? There Peter Garrett and his band Midnight Oil wore their “sorry” shirts in an overt act of political grandstanding.
And how many times did Rudd, the Labor Party, and lefties of all stripes demand of Howard that he say sorry for all sorts of issues, such as the treatment of Aborigines? How many times did they ask of Howard and the conservatives, “Why is it so hard to just say ‘sorry’?”
Good question, certainly in light of this Rudd government fiasco. Why is no one now even willing to offer an apology, and clearly use the S word? All we have is excuse-making and cosmetic reactions, such as today’s Labor cabinet reshuffle.
Whoopee, so Garrett gets a minor demotion, a feather on the wrist. He of course should be sacked. And since Rudd keeps saying he is ultimately responsible, he should step down. But nope, there will be none of this. You see, it is hard for them to say sorry. All these lefty moralists are just as unrepentant as any conservative might be.
Andrew Bolt points out some obvious failures in this batty policy: “This scandal is not just about the every-which-way bungling by Rudd’s ‘first-class minister’ of a $2.5 billion free-insulation scheme that has since killed four people, set fire to more than 90 homes, and left 1000 more with lethal faults in their ceilings.
“Nor is it just about a mad money-shovelling plan to stimulate local business and fight ‘global warming’ that wound up doing almost nothing it was meant to achieve, instead blowing up to $400 million on dangerous or useless insulation for some 240,000 homes, and buying shiploads of dodgy batts and foil from foreign makers with dollars meant for spending right here.
“Nor is it even just about the farce of having a make-work scheme that ends with the Government spending another $10 million to ‘retrain’ 2000 of the people it’s just thrown out of work.
“Step back. The fact is this catastrophe is not the making of one hapless minister, but the inevitable and predicted result of rush-rush-Rudd’s entire style of governing. Garrett, this ‘first-class minister’, did no more than Rudd’s will, and in Rudd’s way. And the results are little different to what we’ve seen – or will keep seeing – from so many other areas under the control of this Prime Minister. Sack Peter Garrett? But then Rudd would have to sack himself.”
He goes on to list a number of major problems inherent in the Rudd Government:
First, impulsiveness. Think how Rudd decided to invest $43 billion on high-speed broadband without even a cost-benefit analysis, and after just two mid-air talks with Communications Minister Stephen Conroy as he rushed from one function to another.
Second, rush. Think how Rudd unleashed a tidal wave of extra spending last year – at least $80 billion – with little thought on what it would actually be spent on.
Or how he tried to rush in his mega-billions greenhouse tax on everything this year, long before the rest of the world was close to agreeing to any such tax themselves – meaning we’d simply drive our gassier businesses overseas.
“Third, refusal to listen. Think how Rudd even to this day will not discuss the mountain of evidence that his global warming policies to upend our economy are based on reports from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that now seem riddled with errors, exaggerations, fraud, bias and vested interests. Or how he’s ignored repeated warnings that his $16 billion ‘Education Revolution’ scheme is wasting scandalous sums on school halls and canteens that are not needed, vastly overpriced, or utterly irrelevant to a good education.”
The other features he mentions are equally concerning. Bolt concludes this way: “This insulation fiasco is just the first of Rudd’s many failures already to sink home to a public that’s been happy to give their new Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt. I fear there will be many more like it, some with even billions more at stake. Indeed, I’m now convinced Rudd is at least as incompetent a manager as Whitlam, but with none of Whitlam’s vision. While he still has Garrett to hide behind, this deeply insecure man can only hope you won’t see that, too. But the minute you do, he’s through.”
The left is always happy to take the high moral ground, and go on various moral crusades. But when the shoe is on the other foot, and when they are caught out doing all kinds of idiotic and damaging things, the very word they demand of conservatives seems to disappear from the left’s vocabulary. In my books that is moral hypocrisy.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/batt-fiasco-is-pms-fault/story-e6frfhqf-1225833597182
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