Tag: political accountability

Australia Funds the Warning Signs and Ignores the Problem

I came on a holiday and now I am putting together a briefing note to get an audience with Penny Wong.

Six days in Sri Lanka and it has become impossible to dodge that Australia spends billions on detention centres, offshore processing, border enforcement and surveillance, locking up children and stripping people of hope, and far less on the conditions that drive people to leave.

Billions on Warnings, Almost Nothing on Solutions

In my first piece I wrote about vaccines, public health and the visible conditions that make disease prevention a daily issue, not a travel checklist.

This second piece comes from a different place. I have taken a day out and stayed at the hotel because I needed a break from what I am seeing. The contrast is confronting. Writing this is how I turn that into action.

I am drawing on the leadership training I trust. Goal, problem, solution. In an ideal world we would sit down with the people we want to support and listen, and listen, and listen.

We pour money into deterrence after people decide to go, when the wiser investment is supporting them to stay

You do not need a policy paper to understand the pull of Australia from here. You need eyes and a nose. You need to walk past polluted water, rubbish piled where people live and work, and the kind of infrastructure gap that turns an ordinary stomach bug into something far more serious. You need to hear that Australia funds bus shelters carrying warnings about people smugglers and recognise the absurdity in full view.

We will pay for the warning sign. We drag our feet on the conditions that might remove the need for the warning.

And of course people look at Australia and want what we have. Clean water. Reliable health care. Schools that open doors. Work that pays enough to build a life. Streets that do not force public health into every hour of the day. Add a strong Sri Lankan community already living in Australia and the path becomes easier to imagine. People are not chasing fantasy. They are responding to the visible difference between one set of conditions and another.

Now place that against our politics at home. We live in a country of abundance, still right wing politics thrives by feeding grievance. Migrants are taking our jobs. Migrants are buying our houses. Migrants are the problem. It is the old script. Find a villain. Feed the resentment. Keep the public focused on who to blame rather than what to fix.

This is where the debate in Australia becomes so shabby. We hand the microphone to people who reduce human desperation to border slogans, as though cruelty counts as policy. They rage about boats, numbers and national strength. They rarely talk about sanitation, disease prevention, local health care, waste systems, corruption proof delivery, or long term partnerships with communities. They talk about the last stage of the story because outrage plays well at home.

There is another audience for this conversation. People who already know Australia has obligations beyond self protection. People who understand that generosity without discipline achieves little, and discipline without humanity turns ugly fast. This is where the hard thinking belongs. How do we help build safer, healthier lives in countries people are leaving? How do we do it from the ground up, with local knowledge, clear goals, open reporting and constant scrutiny? How do we keep money out of corrupt hands and get it to the people and projects that can change daily life?

We Warn Them Not to Come, Then Do Nothing About Why They Leave

None of this is beyond us. Trial programs. Local partnerships. Transparent metrics. Public reporting. Long term commitment. Real listening before money moves. Australia knows how to design systems, monitor spending and explain outcomes when it chooses to. This is a choice.

Sri Lanka has made one part of this brutally clear to me. People do not hand over life savings to smugglers because they are reckless. They do it because paradise looks believable from where they stand, and because home has stopped offering enough protection, dignity or hope.

That should force a different question onto the table in Australia. Not how loudly we can declare the border secure. How seriously we are prepared to invest in the basics that give people a reason to stay where they are.

I came here for a holiday. Six days in, I am thinking about budgets, public health, political courage and the poverty of a national debate that still treats deterrence as the main event.

This is the second piece. I will come back to the question in another six days, and I doubt it will have become any easier.

If parliament was held to workplace standards

Seen through a corporate leadership lens, the recent analysis by Amplify reads like a board paper titled Why nothing got done.

In a six month period, almost half of parliamentary sitting time was absorbed by point scoring, disruption and theatre, with policy work compressed into what remained. The finding gained public attention through an ABC News report, where the framing was very clear.

“Parliament is wasting our time.”
Georgina Harrison, Amplify CEO, ABC News interview

A board sees executive time diverted from delivery to performance. Behaviour consumes oxygen. Risk and reputation join the discussion. This is the moment directors shift from observation to intervention.

The accountability picture sharpens further when the numbers are spelled out in operational terms.

“In the last six months of parliament, 28 business days were wasted on political point scoring.”
Georgina Harrison, Amplify CEO, ABC News interview

In big business, accountability concentrates at the top. The CEO, the chair and the senior leadership team carry responsibility for how time is used and how people behave in decision making forums. Read through a board lens, this section feels like a leadership issue parked under general business, then left there.

Time spent this way erodes value. Twenty eight business days in six months shows productivity leaking, opportunities missed and direction slipping. In board shorthand, this reads as a performance issue deferred again, while investors circle and analysts mark execution risk.

Governance systems succeed or fail on consequences. Standing rules provide structure, yet boards judge systems by impact. The ABC report captured the long running nature of the issue clearly.

“Decades of criticism about behaviour and limited policy debate have failed to shift the dynamic.”
ABC News, interview summary

A governance committee hears this and recognises a familiar problem. The rules exist. The outcomes drift. That is the trigger for change. Meeting formats reset. Speaking rules sharpen. Incentives move. Performance consequences apply.

Culture sits alongside leadership throughout this analysis. Culture shows how power behaves in daily practice. Persistent dysfunction points to weak authority, incentives pulling sideways and consequence gaps left unattended. On a board paper, this section reads like culture written in the margins of the minutes.

The conclusion arrives without flourish. A corporate organisation facing these signals moves quickly into review mode. Senior leaders face scrutiny. Behaviour links directly to performance. Governance structures undergo redesign with urgency. In business shorthand, this looks like intervention approved, timetable attached.

Politics operates under a different shield. Parliamentary leadership sits apart from the accountability standards applied across big business every day.

To a board audience, the final line reads as risk identified, owner missing.