WATCH DOG ACTS - PART ONE
Well, it’s
that time again. Another blog post for the few people who bother to read them.
And this month it was hard to go past the rabid mauling Michaelia Cash
unleashed on those who dared to challenge the extremely suspicious behaviour
and cover-up of what can only be considered textbook corruption. Michaelia may
appear shiny and of great worth and importance to some, but just like any other
mica, there’s little of any use or value in fool’s gold.
So what was
it all about? Why would someone with limited evidence of a brain suffer a
brain-snap when asked in the Employment Estimates Committee hearing about why
the investigation into the role of her staff over the Australian Workers’ Union
dawn raids, an incident that saw the LNP use the Federal Police to conduct an
unfounded raid into political rivals (that failed to find any incriminating
evidence) where the media were alerted in what appears to be a staged effort to
damage the reputation of the Union? And all this in the wake of a failed Royal
Commission into Union Corruption, chaired by an LNP stooge, who concluded with
predetermined findings not supported by the evidence uncovered.
Most people,
upon finding themselves in a hole, have the common sense to stop digging down.
Not her. No, when faced with uncomfortable questions about misusing public
assets, Federal Police and the media to slander and intimidate political
rivals, Michaelia did what the LNP does best and went on the attack. She made
unfounded and defamatory allegations against Bill Shorten and his staff, making
more threats in an attempt to silence any criticism, then sat there in a barely
contained rage when she was chastised by others, including the committee chair.
Now, the
responses from the public were predictable, and too often as equally idiotic.
Some cheered her on for her vile behaviour, claiming she was the victim, their
own behaviour as morally and intellectually bankrupt as that of Michaelia
herself. A week earlier, they were claiming Barnaby was the victim and everyone
who disagreed with him was at fault. But the vast majority of the community
were disgusted. They are sick and tired of the hypocrisy, corruption and
incompetence.
People have
had a gut-full. They have had enough of politicians and other folks insulated
from reality by their wealth, influence, and personal circumstances, lording it
over the rest of us and making decisions and passing laws that do not affect
them, but impact upon the lives of those of whom they could never possibly have
even the smallest understanding. Take the behaviour of Barnaby Joyce, Michaelia
Cash, and Julie Bishop, for example, and how it would play out in the real
world.
We all know
what Barnaby did, unless we’ve been living under a rock, and clearly not the
same one as Barnaby, but hot on his heels we find Julie Bishop throwing tax-payer
funded perks, worth more than two-years of unemployment benefits, at someone
her claims would suggest is almost a complete stranger… despite him being her
long-term boyfriend and listed as a family member but not, and this is the
important bit, her partner. So she doesn’t have to register their shared assets
and wotnot.
He gets
$32,000 worth of tax-payer funded perks for two years in a world where a public
servant can be fired for misusing cab-charges and travel allowances. And if a
regular member of the public were accused of misusing someone else’s assets for
their own personal gain, any investigation would have been sorted in a matter
of months. They would not get to drag their feet and have any involvement in
the actual investigation other than as a suspect.
And a
regular member of the public certainly wouldn’t get to make threats about
unfounded and defamatory rumours in order to silence anybody looking into what
they did. They certainly couldn’t afford legal representation let alone
purchase a legal outcome under the Australian definitions of ‘equality’ and ‘justice’
to have a suspect in their activities embedded in an agency that should support
the investigation but instead attempts to obstruct it. But, apparently, Michaelia
did. And so, it seems, can any other politician.
You see,
while a victim of child abuse, or of workplace bullying in the public services,
or of systemic failures and corruption in the police and public services, no
matter how extreme, may never speak about what happened to them without fear of
prosecution for ‘defamation’, a politician can fall back on the old ‘Parliamentary
Privilege’ laws and unleash a tirade of bullshit the likes of which can never
result in charges of defamation. One law for the ruling class, a life of inequality
and injustice for everyone else.
So how the
hell are we supposed to deliver the Western ideologies of equality and justice
in a society where there is a complete absence of the means to obtain justice
because of the rampant inequality? Well, we can feel secure in the
establishment of agencies called ‘watchdogs’. Unless we have a real good look
at them and notice that they are just as rotten as those they are supposed to
police. And speaking of police, let’s have a quick look at them and the other
public servants involved in oversight.
Yes, the
vast majority of officers and public servants are good, decent, committed,
hard-working people who serve to actually help others, to deliver that equality
and justice. But no matter how much effort they put in, everything they do is
undermined by the small minority of predators within their ranks. And when
those predators inevitably gravitate to the top through the aid of like-minded
scumbags, there is no real way to expose and remove them.
When those
same scumbags are in charge of passing laws and conducting the ‘internal
investigations’ into allegations of corruption, we suddenly discover that the
people who should be prosecuted are let off without any penalty, and the people
that dared to blow the whistle, and made it as far as the Courts, are the ones
being put on trial over trumped-up charges, prosecuted, persecuted, and their
lives ruined. Meanwhile, thousands of victims are isolated and silenced while
their abusers, crime, systemic failure and injustice is concealed and enabled.
So,
while Michaelia wastes time defaming and threatening innocent people to
cover-up whatever the hell she has done that would warrant such an effort to
obstruct justice, let’s have a look at a couple of recent incidents out in the
real world. A few weeks ago the Victorian Police Assistant
Commissioner, Brett Guerin,
who was also the head of their Professional Standards Command, was busted
hiding behind a fake profile to cyber-troll anybody he felt compelled to bully
on social media.
Needless to say, this caused quite the
commotion. Obviously, it was his job to set the standard and do something to
discourage that kind of behaviour. There’s enough dickheads on social media
doing that already without him adding to their ranks. But then you have to
consider what that kind of personality would do in a position of authority were
a matter of injustice to cross his path, and whether a creature like that would
help the victim, or add to their misery by inflicting greater harm.
Introducing
former detective Yvonne Berry, who served with the Victorian Police for thirty
years, and who was kicked and stomped on while handcuffed in the Ballarat watch
house in the hours following her arrest for public drunkenness in 2015. Unlike
too many victims, she was able to lodge a complaint, but despite the incident
being captured on CCTV, the ethical standards division responsible for
reviewing the complaint rejected it in 2016 as "not substantiated"
due to a "lack of sufficient evidence".
Yeah,
that’s right. All there on film, but even that was still considered to be
insufficient evidence to prove her allegations. The letter of rejection stated
that the decision had been made "in consultation with senior officers of
Professional Standards Command, including Assistant Commissioner Guerin". Question
answered. A creature like him will inflict his sick, vindictive, sociopathic
personality on those he thinks he can get away with causing harm.
The claims
by those that worked with him that the behaviour was “baffling” and “out of
character” reveal more about their levels of competence or honesty than they do
to defend or excuse what Guerin did. His behaviour was premeditated, carried
out over a long period of time, and ongoing. It was a pattern, and no different
to that of any other predator. And his colleagues, who claim they noticed
nothing over all this time, are meant to be police who investigate and prosecute
predators like him. They are either incompetent, or liars. If they are liars,
then they are just as corrupt as Guerin.
Now,
imagine what it’s like for a victim of child abuse or domestic violence, who
endures years, even decades of brutality only to be told that they have
insufficient evidence to prove their allegations. All the abuser has to do is
prevent the victim from documenting it. No visits to the doctor or hospital,
and if it is unavoidable, make up a bullshit story to explain the injuries and
intimidate the victim into agreeing. And even if it is documented, even if they
do have any evidence at all, even if it’s on video, even if the police or other
authorities even consider looking at any of it, it’s still not enough.
And when
you encounter decades of cover-up and intimidation in response to your efforts
to report a crime, IBAC proves to be just as corrupt. I know. I’ve been trying
to report a former police officer, a former nurse, and the son of a former Town
Mayor, all friends of a former Chief Prosecutor. That Timeline of Abuse was ‘assessed’
in the very station where two of them worked, in the town where that Mayor had
ruled, all in the space of a few short months by officers that had already
refused to help.
The
official response came in the form of a very brief email stating that while
nobody there disputed that everything I had written was true, there would be no
investigation and the matter was closed. The child abuse, elder abuse, possible
sexual abuse of children, suspicious deaths, none of it concerned them. Efforts
to get them to reconsider resulted in the officers involved becoming
increasingly more aggressive. My complaint to IBAC was dealt with in record
time. Just a couple of weeks. They dismissed my complaint and refused to look
at the Timeline of Abuse or any of the evidence.
In fact,
as part of the complaint process, you can check a box to indicate that you wish
your complaint and personal details to be kept private and confidential. What
the complaint form does not tell you is that IBAC can, and in my case did,
ignore this and make all of it available to everyone named in that complaint,
including providing access to the complainant’s residential details. Further
attempts to get action on this led to increasingly more brazen acts of
intimidation to cover-up those crimes.
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