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Tuesday, June 16, 2015

August 2013 and the plan to improve transparency and restore trust seems a long, long time ago

Item August 2013
Liberal Party Our Plan Policy-2013 Election
"We will restore accountability and improve transparency measures to be more accountable to you."

Item August 2013
Trust deficit
Mark Baker SMH:
"Abbott now declares he wants to be a healer. He says his first priority if he wins the election will be to seek to rebuild Australians' confidence in government and restore civility to the national political discourse after three bruising years of minority government.
''The greatest deficit in our country at the moment is the trust deficit. Sure we have got a very serious budget deficit, but the trust deficit is even more serious. I would hope that, should we win the election, I would be able to so conduct myself and my team would be able to so conduct themselves that by the end of the first term people would have once more concluded that Australian government was competent and trustworthy …

 Item June 2015
Trust in Profession
Bernard Keane Crikey:
"For the first time, Essential also asked about most trusted professions. Doctors scored highest, with 81% of voters having a lot or some trust in doctors; engineers were next, on 68%. Accountants, on 49%, rounded out the trusted professions. .. Journalists scored 27% a lot or some trust, 26% no trust at all and 41% little trust. Real estate agents managed 12% trust and 44% no trust. And at the very bottom, scoring 1% a lot of trust, 10% some trust, 33% little trust and 49% no trust at all, politicians."

Item June 2015
"Tony Abbott's tangled web over paying people smugglers" 

Related Item
(Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Dutton said: “It’s been a longstanding policy of the government not to comment on on-water matters.”

Item May 2015
"Feds Iron Curtain  of Secrecy' around Detention Centres" 

Item June 2015
"Veil of secrecy descending over foreign aid, experts warn"

Item June 2015
Australian National Audit Office Report: Administration of Travel Entitlements Provided to Parliamentarians 
"The conduct of an independent ‘root and branch’ review of Parliamentarians’ entitlements following the completion of ANAO’s 2009–10 audit report gave some cause for optimism that improvements would be made to the entitlements framework and its administration. However, fundamental weaknesses in the framework remain. Principally, this is because independent recommendations for substantive legislative and administrative reform developed to simplify current arrangements and safeguard the interests of the Commonwealth and Parliamentarians, or alternative measures to address recognised fundamental issues with the framework, have not been actioned. As a result, the framework under which Parliamentarians’ non-remuneration entitlements are provided has continued to be complex and opaque, with travel entitlements recognised as representing one of the areas most affected by those factors.

Item June 2015
Xenophon urges housing transparency
"Independent senator Nick Xenophon has called for greater scrutiny of politicians' travel allowances, saying if taxpayers are helping MPs or their families pay off mortgages then they are entitled to greater transparency."

(An earlier list of noteworthy items.)

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