a dingo stole my baby

By Jack Campbell

The failed insulation scheme and the poorly run Green Loans scheme combined have been a disaster for the Rudd Government. Four people are dead, at least 63 house fires are being linked to the scheme and Rudd’s usually nimble policy-on-the-run approach has failed to staunch the bleeding. But while the low murmur of discontent around Garrett has risen to a noisy din, Senator Conroy has managed to avoid scrutiny for some very questionable decisions of his own.

When Conroy blithely admitted in Senate Estimates that it was he who had recommended Mike Kaiser — a former chief of staff to two Labor premiers and former Queensland State MP who left in disgrace — to a $400,000-a-year job with the National Broadband Network, jaws dropped. It was Conroy, after all, who said when former Liberal staffer John Short was hired by Telstra on a $400,000 contract in 2005: "What we’ve established here is the that the chairman [of Telstra] has insisted [on] the appointment of a Liberal Party hack, for an extremely well remunerated position after the company itself made the position redundant." The National Broadband Network’s chief executive, Mike Quigley, then revealed that Kaiser had been appointed without anyone else being interviewed.

A few days later, tabloid revelations that Conroy had gone skiing with Channel 7 mogul Kerry Stokes in Colorado and then handed the commercial free-to-air TV networks a $250 million discount on their licence fees left the minister deeper in the mire.

To those scandalous decisions add $30 million wasted on the tender process for Labor’s $4.7 billion national broadband network; rising discontent both in the Labor Party and in the broader community over Conroy’s mandatory internet filter; a register of member’s interests that showed Conroy accepted gifts and invitations from all and sundry (signed Chelsea shirt, anyone? Grand Final tickets?); and a $43 billion national broadband network that has not been subject to so much as a cost-benefit analysis (and as the draft NBN legislation released this week shows, is designed to cripple Telstra).

The minister should be skating on thin ice.

Senator Conroy continues to waste taxpayer dollars. He will eventually be held accountable, whether it be now, or later, or at the polls. What appears to be flagrant abuse of his ministerial position will surely be noticed...eventually. So how's your broadband Tasmania? How's your portfolio Telstra shareholders? 

"...skating on thin ice."? No, Stephen Conroy prefers to ski...with the big-wigs...in other countries!

Sylvestor