The perils of privilege

It has become something of a cliché that Australia is a great sporting nation with all Australians devoted to their favourite sports.

Like most clichés there is some truth behind the sweeping generalisation, but the recent incidents involving a senior Government Ministers handing out sporting grants for allegedly party political purposes is testing the national love affair.

The initial outcry, which led to the Minister responsible, Bridget McKenzie, losing her job, has been well documented, but a lobby group, the Australian Taxpayers Alliance (ATA), believes the rorting goes far beyond this one case.

The ATA’s Policy Director, Emilie Dye, says she is “sick and tired” of writing on the subject and her message to the Government is “please, just stop”.

Ms Dye is taking the Minister for Health, Greg Hunt, to task for allegedly securing $A170,000 for a yacht club in his constituency.

“When Australians give up their hard-earned money to the Government they would like to think that money goes to our schools, our roads, taking care of the homeless and protecting our country from hostile forces abroad, not to a ‘struggling’ yacht club,” Ms Dye says.

“Politicians aren’t even pork-barrelling subtly when they give wealthy clubs in key electorates taxpayer money.”

Hunt defended the grant saying that it was his job as a local MP to lobby for his electorate.

This maybe the case, but Mr Hunt is a senior Minister with easy access to other Ministers and officials who decide these grants.

One wonders whether the yacht club would have received the same treatment if the electorate had been represented by an opposition backbencher.

Ms Dye claims the Government is syphoning money through taxes from poor and regional areas to subsidise the lifestyles of the wealthy. That is a huge call and probably more than a little unfair.

However, like clichés, there are grains of truth. Over the years (and not just in Australia) I have sensed a creeping sense of entitlement among those we elect.

A movement away from the concept that they are the servants of all the people towards a belief they need only hand rewards to the supporters who put them into power while the rest can go hang.

We can see where this leads in the extreme cases of countries like Lebanon and Iraq where populations have taken to the streets as a desperate measure against corrupt, governing elites interested only in self-preservation.

There is some way to go before the democratic West reaches this point, but examples are beginning to emerge — in the United States with the divisions President Donald Trump seems bent of creating, and in the United Kingdom between supporters and opponents of the European Union.

Those who govern with a ‘them and us’ mentality, determined to do what it takes to cling to power, are storing up trouble for themselves. It can only be hoped that the sports rorts scandal provides a warning to the developing Australian elites not to proceed down this road.

Because, if the electoral process fails angry minorities may seek to change things by other means.