In power to plunder
PM John Howard's removal of John Sharp, David Jull and Peter McGauran from his front bench was widely applauded by the big business media on the grounds that we can't have a government tainted by any suggestion that its ministers use their office to rip off the public.
What hypocrisy! How much pious carry-on will we be served up over this latest "Travelgate" scandal by media hacks who, in the same breath, urge the Howard government to intensify the real plunder of the great majority?
The Financial Review's September 25 editorial gives the game away. Sharp and Jull had to go because "The appearance of propriety [italics added] by government leaders is of critical importance to the economic reform agenda". It went on to say it was a shame, because they were "capable ministers who were pursuing needed reform program, such as the sale of government airports, printing operations, real estate, property, property services and car fleets".
In short, the Howard government can't get on with the real plunder — the transfer of hundreds of billions of dollars from the majority to the minority corporate rich — if its ministers are, as the Financial Review puts it, "seen to be in power to plunder".