WTF does Rudd have to do with Queensland water?
Under the ALP Wayne Goss government, Kevin Rudd inherited his nickname Pixie. He was put in charge of restructuring the public services of QLD. As you know he managed to reduce staff numbers in many areas and redirecting funds from revenue, to other less important areas.
Now we have a health system that is stuffed, needs a major overhaul, top heavy in adminisration staff. We have poor planning, only one main artery into Brisbane, no extra dams as the previous National party had planned for.
Corrupt though the Bjelke Petersen government may have been it did have many good points and credit should be given where credit was due
Joe Bjelke Petersen was a first rate manager of public funds.He understood the basic principles of recurrent and capital funding,that is,at budget time he would cover the day to day expenses of running his government (recurrent expenditure) and he would also allow a capital budget to cover replacement of major capitol items as well as new capital works.
In the case of semi government organisations he would ensure that dividends paid to the government were such as to allow sufficient retention of funds for future capital works.Therefore,when the Goss government assumed power in early 1989 they found that all government departments and semi government departments were adequately funded in terms of capital and recurrent funding.
The Chief of Staff,senior policy advisor and soon to become Director General of this Goss government and the man responsible for implementing policy decisions was a future leader of the ALP and self proclaimed christian socialist,Kevin Rudd.
The capital reserves of the various government institutions were then systematically drawn down into general government revenue and so when funding was required for major government projects there were no reserves which has led to the catch cry in Queensland over the past decade of ‘ where has all the money gone ?’ and at the heart of this massive grab for public funds was the man who now says ‘trust me to be your new prime minister’,the former Goss Director General Kevin Rudd.
The Australian (Editorial 15/11/04) went even further and said that the crisis in delivery of services by the state governments was due to the fact that the states had ‘splurged a fiscal bonanza on pay increases for public sector employees that have not been earned by productivity improvements’
One example of this plunder of reserves is the case of the four dams.
Planning ahead,Joh had estimated that 4 dams would necessarily have to be built to cater for South East Queensland’s water requirements for the next 20 years.The main dam was ideally situated at Wolfdene (nr Beenleigh) ; funds had been put aside and land aquisitions were well on the way.
Not only were these dams cancelled by the incoming Goss government in a decision said to be ‘one of the worst political decisions ever made’ (Beaudesert Mayor Joy Drescher, CM 29/3/07) and the reserves drawn into government revenue but no further planning was undertaken for water requirements either by the Goss/Rudd government or it’s long term successor,the ALP government of Peter Beattie thus leading to the major crisis in water management confronted by Queenslanders today.
If only this dam had been prudently allowed to proceed then it is highly likely that south east Queensland would not be suffering the level of water restrictions presently being suffered and it is incredible that one of the people closely associated with this disastrous decision has actually proposed himself for the highest position in the land !
Every Queenslander who has to carry a bucket into the garden to water flowers,every Queenslander who has to pay a levy for water on top of the rate he or she has already paid and every Queenslander who now suffers water restrictions and may suffer far worse water restrictions in the future can say a hearty ‘thank you’to the man who would now offer to organise the lives of all Australians, Kevin Rudd.
As one of the decision makers,Kevin Rudd should be confronted with this chaotic decision and asked to explain,, as was Wayne Goss, who took the easy way out and failed to return calls from the Courier Mail about this decision (CM 29/7/07).One wonders if he would have failed to return calls if an election in which he was standing was imminent.
This is government for personal aggrandizement and no responsibility.
Another example was in the recent NSW election when Morris Iemma was asked to explain similar chaotic decisions with water (again !!!),rail,traffic chaos etc etc and replied it wasn’t his fault,the decisions were taken by Bob Carr – it’s called the Sergeant Schultz defence.It’s all about reward without responsibility.
How do these people retain government,election after election,we may ask ?.It has to be more than bad Opposition because,quite simply,the voting public don’t know the Oppositions are bad unless they are told.If Comrade Lenin were to be asked this question he would probably say ‘control the media and only tell the people what you want them to know’.The Nazi’s,also, were particularly adept at this approach.
