For anyone who has been watching the Campbell Newman LNP Government’s Shock and Awe Cost Cutting Campaign, (which caused plenty of shock and very little in the awe department) you’ll probably notice how it more closely resembles a three ringed fucking circus or a NASCAR pileup, than a sound economic policy. Newman could write the book on ‘How to Piss People Off and Disenfranchise the Already Marginalised’. His steps are pretty easily replicated. First, put everything from preventative health care programs for rural and indigenous communities, to endowments for arts and music programs all under the axe… leaving people without access to domestic violence abuse counselors, necessary childhood vaccinations, travel assistance for non-ambulatory patients to dialysis treatments, closing down nursing homes, through to ditching funding for long standing school band programs, various arts programs and oh why we’re at it ditch some literary prizes etc,… a thriving, growing society doesn’t need culture (which I’m pretty sure dickwad would spell with a ‘k’). While you’re at it, don’t forget to hack away a tonne of other essential government services in between as well, like closing rural fire stations, cutting funding for volunteer training and cadet programs, a few weeks before the bushfire season!
Next, select a Cabinet of absolutely clueless and completely self serving individuals. Watch on and defend them as they hire their friends and their family, giving them well paying jobs, with perks, blatantly take what others would call bribes, and have inappropriate meetings with lobbyists who may, or may not, also be family on government’s time! Stand back and say nothing as self appointed cronies lie through their arse cheeks in parliament, but sack the main dude whose job it is to investigate them. Send the ones who’ve been caught with their hand in the cookie jar on sick leave so they won’t have to face questions… or better yet, send them off for six months of Gardening Leave on $10,000 per week! Remain quiet, while another MP is embroiled in a scandal, this time it’s one being accused of sexual harassment of his staff, causing the public to create a petition tipping 20,000 signatures demanding his sacking. Ignore that entirely… the peasants are just revolting, it’s their job. Stand around looking stupid as you refuse to acknowledge that all this is nepotism, in fact for extra fun and credit, tell the press that it’s not nepotism, but that hiring friends and family is just how business gets done. This so called cabinet, is as bold as brass and twice as shiny and crooked as a dogs fucking hind leg! After that stand around with your pants down, looking short and smug and ineloquent… just determinedly ride everything out, with your head in the sand, refusing to answer questions while the rest of your MPs continue to get up to god knows what, with god knows whom, attempting to hide their indiscretions and abuses of power, knowing you have their back – sort of. By now your constituents should be calling you Herr Newman, or you’re not doing it right.
Next, promise that no ‘frontline’ servies will be compromised, and in the same sentence announce that you’re putting foot to arse for thousands of permanent Queensland public servants, with little to no care for actual $$ saved. Achieve this by letting all temp staff go, simply by not renewing their contracts. In this phase, it is important not to give a shit what these people do, or how much they get paid and ensure you don’t count these nearly 6,000 odd workers in the official ‘staff cutback’ numbers for the press. Then cut 14,000 actual permanent public servants with similar disinterest for their functions and the services they provide. Seriously, go tell your ministers and department heads to ‘reduce your entire staff by 20%’ or ‘you have 500 people, cut it back to 340’… and not one fuck was given for what these people do, the services they provide or how much they are being paid. Make it all about the head count. So what do you think happens then? Many Directors and Executive Officers (for the record, the guys making the decisions on who goes and who stays) are able to do administrative duties on their substantial salaries, but not too many Administrative Officers are able to do the Director’s or Executive Officer’s role – so out the door with an army of important administrative and support staff! And with them goes a huge knowledge base… thus making the workplace an environment of stagnation, fear and insecurity as no one moves forward on anything because they might lose their jobs in a heartbeat, there’s no money for professional development and there’s another round of sackings coming anyway! Campbell Newman… making myopia fashionable since 2012!
Just sack ’em all, regardless of what they do. Newman did it – because he could. Many people far more politically savvy than myself have observed that the same reduction in staff, and subsequently ongoing savings in payroll, could have been achieved by natural attrition over a period of a mere 12 months – without the need for expensive redundancy packages, workplace uncertainty, and less loss of local knowledge. Unions, predictably, are up in arms… and mobilised. They’re so organised they have t-shirts and they’re taking the show on the road! Fat lot of good it will do them with these thousands of employees already in the job queues… it’s too late to fight the fait accompli.
Oh and while you’re at it, don’t forget to build yourself an enormous erection at #1 Willy Street (seriously, don’t tell me no one noticed!) for fancy new government offices at a cost of over $650 million dollars! Because leaving the city with a bunch of overpriced, under-utilised, bankrupted tunnels and upgraded horse racing facilities isn’t enough of legacy to leave Your Fair City. Why no one didn’t tell the little man to just go buy himself a big V8 Holden ute, I don’t know!
I am sick to death of this fuckwit that is running our state. I have yet to meet one individual who actually admits to voting for the cockhead, and have yet to see one decision he’s made that is in the interests of the people that he is supposed to represent! If a company acted thus, there’d be criminal charges laid left, right, and centre. How come we have to sit and take it, and wait for the next election and hope and pray that the wankers who voted for him first time around are actually paying attention?!?