Michael Pascoe: Why Dutton and Liberals won’t admit Berejiklian did the wrong thing

With the help of spreadsheet sleuth Vince O’Grady, The New Daily exposed a steady stream of rorting of federal grants – several billion dollars worth.

The Morrison government’s lack of integrity became one of the triggers for the rise of the Teals. We weren’t going to take it any more.

There’s no going back from here, or so we should hope. That’s why Gladys Berejiklian cannot be excused.

And why Peter Dutton has rushed to defend her.

No change

He leads a party that remains full of politicians who refuse to acknowledge the evolution, who pretend they did nothing wrong and want to continue their old ways.

When confronted with the near-incredible #carparks scandal in 2021, then finance minister Simon Birmingham justified it with:
“The Australian people had their chance and voted the Morrison government back in.”

He didn’t actually raise a middle digit to the electorate – well, not that I saw – but he may as well have.

Peter Dutton, Simon Birmingham and the rest in the Coalition’s leadership team were either active participants in or happily waved through an unprecedented level of taxpayers’ money for their political ends.

The daddy of all the rorts, the community development grants scheme, was specifically designed to enable government members to splash dosh on pet projects (i.e. electorates) without any interference from public servants or the Auditor-General.

Mr Dutton’s problem is that if he admits Ms Berejiklian failed to meet ethical standards, he and nearly all his federal colleagues also failed.

The federal equivalent of the NSW ICAC officially starts work today. It should be very busy.

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/politics/2023/07/01/michael-pascoe-gladys-berejiklian-icac/