Shepparton engineer Joe Carmody is a little-known Australian hero. For decades this long-term Citizens Party member fought against the free trade pressure to outsource manufacturing to cheap-labour countries, and kept his personal protective equipment (PPE) manufacturing business alive.
Christine Holgate has now moved on from Australia Post, but the government and board must be held accountable, and AusPost must become a people’s bank.
The death-knell of neoliberalism in Australia is sounding louder, with a landmark policy recommendation inserted in the end of a Parliamentary report handed down mid-March.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Communications Minister Paul Fletcher used “public expectations” as a cynical political ruse to force out Christine Holgate as CEO of Australia Post over the purchase of Cartier watches.
The campaign to expose the truth about the Christine Holgate-Australia Post Cartier watches affair has achieved a stunning political turnaround. In October and November, the issue—and Christine Holgate—was politically dead, as by any normal measure Australians would never support “fat-cat public executives getting luxury watches in a recession”, as the scandal had been framed by politicians and media.
Proving the value of minor parties in Parliament, Bob Katter MP and Senator Pauline Hanson have each called out lies used to force Christine Holgate out of Australia Post. All the major-party politicians know they are lies, but would usually never say so—to them they are politics-as-usual, the typical dirty tricks used to remove an innocent person who has become an inconvenience.
