Millions of reasons to run a distraction ploy

So the PM is shocked a CEO would pay for Cartier watches, but $30m to a political mate for land worth $3m? Nothing to see here...

The Prime Minister Scott Morrison during a press conference in Parliament House, Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

So, the Prime Minister is “appalled and shocked” that a CEO would pay $12,000 (or even the updated, utterly damning $19,950) to four executives who worked their butts off to secure a $66m deal for the company and has demanded she be sacked for such outrageous behaviour.

I would certainly hope his either faux or farcical outrage wasn’t a “bait and switch” to have everyone “look away, look away” from his own government paying $30m to a “political mate” for land worth $3m.

He immediately and I mean — almost within the hour — ordered an inquiry into the first; he doesn’t seem to have been the least fussed about the second.

It is hardly surprising from the leader of a government which will spend a staggering $677bn this year — up an even more staggering $200bn in just two years and double, yes, double, the $337bn spent in our previous biggest spending budget, Wayne Swan’s in 2009.

Correction, previous biggest spending budget before Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s warm-up last year when spending had leapt to $550bn.

For the mathematically inclined, the $677bn of taxpayer money being gaily splashed around by Morrison and Frydenberg this year — and which I for one am “appalled and shocked and depressingly disgusted” by — is about 33 million times the $20k paid by AusPost to those four executives.

Indeed, the $677bn represents more than $26,000 being spent on every single Australian — all 26 million of us, man, woman, child and every grubby politician, in just one year.

Sort of puts into context, the comments from one of those politicians — Communications Minister Paul Fletcher — that government business enterprises “need to take great care with taxpayers’ money”.

Australia Post chief executive Christine Holgate during Senate estimates in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Fletcher went on, with all the deadening confidence of the completely unselfaware stupid, that “we expect the board and management of government business enterprises to deal with taxpayers’ money with scrupulous care”.

Right Paul, got it: businesses like AusPost must look after the taxpayer pennies so that we, the pollies, can squander the pounds. Correction, the billions of pounds.

This pompous rubbish came from a PM whose government is taking taxpayers straight to a $1 trillion debt burden; then heading straight on to $1.5 trillion and then $2 trillion.

This from a PM who is prepared to waste more than $100bn on submarines that have to be re-engineered to early 20th century design and might, and I stress, might, arrive by 2050.

This from a PM who is prepared to waste $10bn in literally pumping water uphill when the wind is (occasionally) blowing so it can run down again when the wind is (mostly) not blowing.

And this from a PM prepared to waste — how much exactly: 10 times; 20 times; 30 times the $20k? — in a useless inquiry.

To discover exactly what? What we already know? That AusPost CEO Christine Holgate and the board approved the $20k “thank you” payment to four executives two years ago?

Perhaps we can have an inquiry into how much the Prime Minister’s Office spends on phones each year? No, not the call costs but the actual phone purchase costs.

What are they? Top-of-the line $1500 iPhones and Samsungs? Or more modest and perfectly functional $400 phones?

Indeed, let’s have the audit right across the ministry. How does that excess phone cost compare with Holgate’s outrageous $20k of Cartier watches?

Indeed, it is a very good time for a full and public audit of all the prime ministerial and indeed ministerial perks — the VIP jets, the big white cars, the travel allowances, etc.

There’s a whiff in all this of a Prime Minister who quite literally wouldn’t have a clue: do you mean people actually pay for their phones and their phone calls?

The board of AusPost and especially its chairman Lucio Di Bartolomeo have behaved just as stupidly, disgracefully and spinelessly as the Prime Minister. He should have told the PM to buzz off.

Yes, if he wanted to make an utter fool of himself, that’s his prime ministerial prerogative. There’s a great and embarrassing tradition of PMs doing that.

Yes, the PM could have his inquiry; that’s entirely his choice. AusPost would facilitate it.

But under no circumstances would Holgate stand down unless and until it was established she had done anything wrong or even “inappropriate”, whatever that might supposedly mean.

The prima facie evidence is that she has done nothing wrong. Unless, of course, the PM knows of overpriced land purchases by her?

The chairman should consider his position very, very carefully. In his jelly-backed caving to the Prime Minister, he’s been prepared to unnecessarily deprive the company of its CEO for at least four weeks. Is that a proper discharge of his responsibilities?

Let’s also not forget the media, which mostly bought the rabid pup being sold by the PM hook, line and sinker — no apology for doubling up the metaphors — as if Holgate was handing out Cartier watches to all and sundry by the handful; and worst of all, daring to wear a luxury Bulgari watch.

The Fin Review’s Chanticleer columnist will do to capture the inanity.

He claimed that Holgate was forced to “defend the indefensible”; proceeding to retail the story of somebody finding a $28,000 watch in their bed ahead of a vote on the next soccer World Cup.

What’s the similarity between a bribe and a company thankyou?

Absolutely nothing, as even Chanticleer grudgingly conceded. But then why bring it up, you dolt?

Inadvertently, the PM has framed a choice: between a Prime Minister who throws away tens of billions of taxpayer money and a CEO who spent a modest $20k to reward the getting of $66m for the taxpayer.

Hmm. What’s your choice?