Warren Buffett was attributed as saying that “it’s only when the tide goes out that you learn who’s been swimming naked”.
Well, the tide is going out on the Rudd Government and the sight before us is not a pretty one.
The sheer scale of the waste and excess confronting us all would offend even the most indulgent of observers.
Firstly, we had the $900 cheques sent to almost anyone – including those resident overseas or in the afterlife. Few people would consider that a prudent investment of $10 billion of taxpayers’ money.
We have also seen the massive escalation in construction costs associated with the misnamed Building the Education Revolution program. This $16 billion dollar program has seen the cost of a small covered outdoor learning area escalate to over $800,000. Your local contractor would probably be prepared to do the same job for one twelfth the price.
Now the government is spending millions more to identify just how much of your money they have already wasted despite having denied anything improper occurring for over a year.
Who can forget the millions spent on the short-lived Grocery Choice website? Or the failed Fuel Watch scheme? And what about the hundreds of millions spent through the Department of Climate Change that has set a record for the most bureaucrats sent to international conferences with no real outcomes?
And I haven’t yet mentioned the mismanaged, dangerous and obscene waste associated with the government’s insulation program. Yet another failure that will cost hundreds of millions of your hard-earned dollars to fix.
The tide is indeed going out on the Rudd Government.
The spinning wheels and spin doctoring of the last two years is starting to be exposed. It is becoming clear to many Australians that managing the media cycle is no substitute for managing the country. It is easy to spend money you don’t have, even more so when it is earned by others. However, the taxpayers of Australia expect that their governments will govern wisely, invest judiciously and spend prudently.
Unfortunately the Rudd Government has failed all of these expectations. So while the tide is going out on the Rudd Government, it is becoming increasingly clear that they are still out of their depth.
Cory Bernardi is the author of seven books and has been a member of the Australian rowing team, a publican, an investment portfolio manager and spent nearly 14 years as an Australian Senator.
