Peter Says Go Fund Yourself

When this happened a couple of days ago, I had to quadruple-check it was real. But yes - as though he were a powerless cash-strapped individual citizen, this nation's potato-headed defence minister really did start a Go Fund Me calling on the public to donate their own flood relief.

Peter Dutton's department has wasted literally hundreds of billions of public dollars on military junk, and the Morrison administration has yet to spend a single cent of its dodgy $4 billion Emergency Response Fund. (The ERF was built from money syphoned out of education infrastructure, and buried in the legislative fine-print - unmentioned at its loud 2019 launch - was the proviso that it only be touched when all other emergency funds were exhausted. It was a classic PR "announceable", cobbled together on the run, and never truly intended to be used for anything but press releases.) The record $16 billion of "decisions taken but not yet announced" in last December's MYEFO update has also not come up for discussion as a possible source of disaster-recovery funds. An indecent chunk of that money is undoubtedly being reserved for election pork. Priorities.
As related background, it's also worth remembering that Dutton is a multi-millionaire, and in 2015 he was caught on a hot-mic joking about climate-flooding in the Pacific Islands. (His amusement had the familiar tinge of racism to it - he'd been laughing about the lateness of a meeting being due to "Pacific time", and joked to fellow attendees Abbott and Morrison that the islanders were slow even as they were going under: "Time doesn't mean anything when you've got water lapping at your door". That Peter. Always bringing the lols.)
On Sunday, the PR PM declared that he could "not understand" the public anger directed at Dutton.
"I commend Peter for what he's doing", he burbled. "That sounds to me like someone doing their job”.
Of course it actually sounded like someone with no conception of their job, being congratulated by an individual of apparently limitless incomprehension.
It's confirmation yet again that the free-market zealots who describe government as "the problem" offer the public absolutely zero genuine solutions. To them, the very concept of public service is anathema.

(Cartoon by the outstanding David Pope, whose beautifully-crafted work can be found at Redbubble, and at www.scratch.com.au.)


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