Immigration hypocrisy

Now that the far right of the Liberal Party has taken over the party from the ‘moderates’ with the election of Angus Taylor as leader, they have started amping up the racist rhetoric about immigration, in much the same way the Trumpists in the US have done. The Liberal Party will no doubt state that it is not racist, and it would seem not to be to the average halfwit, but it is. They cloak their racism in codewords so as to superficially deny it, but make no mistake, it is just as racist as anything Pauline Hanson’s One Notion put out.

This increase in racist rhetoric is partly because they have been leaking voters to other parties or independents and, in the former case, most notably to Pauline Hanson’s One Notion, to the extent that in some opinion polls One Notion is ahead of the Liberal Party. So it seems that the Liberals feel that emulating One Notion’s racism, albeit coded, is the way to regain the voters they have lost to One Notion1.

The new leader, Angus Taylor said: “Our borders have been opened to people who hate our way of life, people who don’t want to embrace Australia and who want Australia to change for them. … If someone doesn’t subscribe to our core beliefs—the door must be shut”2.

It is interesting to try to understand to what core beliefs Taylor refers. Do they include forgery? Do they include corruption? Do they include burning off endangered grassland? Do they include having Cayman Islands accounts run by mates?

In 2019, Angus Taylor wrote an open letter, published in the Daily Bellylaugh, to Sydney mayor Clover Moore criticising her for supposedly spending $14 million dollars on domestic travel and nearly $2 million dollars on international travel. The document Taylor quotes is a forgery and the amounts spent were in the thousands, not millions. Taylor initially stated that the document came from the Sydney City Council website, which the NSW police determined was a lie. Taylor refused all Freedom of Information requests from the media that might give an insight3. Obtaining the electronic version of the forged document would show when the document was forged and possibly who forged it. Of course, that was not forthcoming.

Taylor’s wife, Louise Clegg, had planned to run for mayor of Sydney against Clover Moore at the time. When the forged document investigation was referred to the Australian Federal Police (AFP) they “determined it is unlikely further investigation will result in obtaining sufficient evidence to substantiate a Commonwealth offence”. The AFP did not interview Taylor or Moore before dropping the investigation. Taylor was told almost immediately after his office disseminated the figures about Moore’s supposed spending on travel last year that the numbers were wrong, but despite that, then federal energy minister Taylor, and the Daily Telegraph, which reported the figures on 30 September 2019, did nothing to correct the record until Moore wrote a formal letter of complaint on 22 October. Guardian Australia revealed the mistake soon afterwards, prompting questions in parliament3.

Jam Land, a company part-owned by the energy minister Angus Taylor and his brother Richard, illegally poisoned critically endangered grasslands near Delegate in the New South Wales Monaro region, the federal environment department concluded. The department has ordered the company to restore 103 hectares of native grassland but Jam Land has avoided a fine and criminal findings. Of course, Taylor sought a ministerial review of the order to restore the native habitat. Jam Land appealed that determination that they should restore the grassland but the restoration order was upheld4.

A senior New South Wales public servant recorded his serious concerns about a $50,000 payment to an agricultural cooperative, Monaro Farming Systems (MFS), after he was told the payment had been directed by then NSW deputy premier, John Barilaro, and should be disguised as a contract payment. The payment to MFS was made after January 2021 and was the latest in more than $800,000 in grants to the group made from state and federal coffers since 2015. MFS is a farming research cooperative established by Richard Taylor, brother of the federal energy minister, Angus Taylor, and the brother-in-law of the NSW Nationals MP Bronwyn Taylor. Until 2019, Richard was the chair of MFS. The Taylor family are major landholders in the Monaro and stand to benefit from the output of MFS, which conducts research on how to improve farming practices in the Monaro region5.

Then Water Minister, Barnaby Joyce, approved an $80 million water buyback from a property owned by a Cayman Island based company of which then energy minister Angus Taylor used to be a Director and which his Oxford University mate now runs. When pre-Musk Twitter users began to discuss it, his lawyers sent letters to them threatening legal action for defamation if they didn’t delete the tweets. It was only in 2020 that the Commonwealth was able to access any water despite the $80 million ‘deal’ being finalised in 2017, some three years before6.

After scrutiny by the Auditor-General, it was found that the 2016-2019 water buyback scheme in the Murray-Darling Basin found the department “did not use a value for money approach for procurement” of water rights. The Cayman Islands parent company Eastern Australia Irrigation recorded a $52 million profit from the sale6.

The Commonwealth paid $2,745 per megalitre, nearly double the $1,500/ML price recommended by the valuer it commissioned. The auditor general, Grant Hehir, contacted the valuer used by the Department of Agriculture for the sale, Colliers International, after receiving a complaint from a senator about the audit findings. Colliers said the way the department used its valuation was “not reasonable.” The department took the highest valuation that Colliers recommended and then added a premium of about 20% on top of that6. Anything for a mate.

So for Angus Taylor to talk about Australian values when referring to those wanting to come to Australia, is the height of hypocrisy, as he is as corrupt a politician as any I have seen in recent years.

Sources

Blogotariat

Oz Blog News Commentary

Immigration hypocrisy