Those of us who older will remember Diego Maradona and his comment on the hand of God, which
was really something of a joke; but maybe also contains a grain of wisdom for
how we live. What Diego said was;
'A little with the
head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God'.
Ayrton felt God's presence, but had the self discipline to apply himself to the craft of
motor sport with a dedication that honed his skills and reflexes. Both Diego
and Aryton felt God was with them in their ordinary lives.
That isn't a bad way
to think about living, use all our intellect and skills but allow God to talk
to us too. There is no value in sitting back and expecting God to make the
world a perfect place for us while we do nothing but have fun, neither is there
any value in ignoring the wisdom of the ages past, the unseen but felt presence
of the divine.
This morning I had a
moment of serendipity that I choose to believe was the hand of God. If talking
of God makes some people uncomfortable then I can only feel sad for them and
suggest that they stop reading this now. (those
who don’t like learning from the past should also leave this virtual space now
- Cr Smart should leave especially quickly because he certainly won’t like
anything I write here, neither will he consider any of it to be the truth. I
can live with that.)
Feeling uncomfortable
in the presence of God must be a little like feeling awkward in the company of
our Queen, or some similar high ranking person with whom we are not familiar. I
feel none of that because I walk daily with God, his presence is with me in
everything I do. When God is a constant companion there is never any reason to feel
uncomfortable, awkward, or embarrassed if he speaks to you. It's just normal.
Last week I was
looking at links between the various agencies that administer billions of
taxpayers’ dollars free from the scrutiny that parliament might subject them
to. The reason is that much of what has been happening in the south west, and
our little corner in particular, has been influenced by the beneficiaries of
such funding. Many locals were outraged at the recent advertisement that
included comments suggesting that the local community held the Horgan family in
high esteem. Most of the community are in fact indifferent to the Horgans, but
many can still remember the WA Inc days and other shaky deals involving the
Horgan family.
http://amrsc.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/the-great-gourmet-escape-scam.html
When I started to
look at the Tourism WA enterprise, it seemed that there were links to WA Inc,
via Michael Hale, and the Horgan family. Was the Cowaramup transfer station
move another clever way to shift valuable land over to private ownership by
suggesting that State Government had wanted the move? Were the Eventscorp
activities suffering from the safe "cloak of commercial
confidentiality" that Brian Burke and others used so effectively to delay
the revelations of the Horgan managed WADC activities and the Rothwell bail out
scam? Who gained most from that?
One of the big
winners was the Holmes à Court family, and just last week Janet Holmes à Court
was on radio saying how her husband chose to distance himself from the other
members of WA Inc. He wasn't like them at all, she claimed, he was a decent
fellow, an art lover with an interest in all things cultural. Unfortunately he
didn't return all the financial gains that were made for his companies, and in
that respect he was just like the rest of WA Inc, but because he used the taxpayers' money for
his cultural pursuits it seems we should all applaud. A similar resurrection of
reputation occurred when Alan Bond won a yacht race and laundered money through
the purchase of art works.
Reading around the
Gourmet Escape the name Holmes à Court appeared again, son Peter was promoting
the event as a wonderful benefit to the south west. Peter Holmes à Court had
also been involved, in partnership with Russell Crowe, in providing a veneer of
respectability to another government funded enterprise, the fraudulent
Firepower International.
Firepower, for those
who have forgotten was a scam that endured over many years and relieved
thousands of ordinary working class Australians of significant amounts of
money. Often the money was life savings accumulated over years of working and
intended to pay for retirement. An ex-Minister for Police, Gordon Hill,
promoted Firepower. With such a well respected man as that fronting the
organisation it's little wonder that ordinary people had enough confidence to
hand over their money.
Firepower also had
Julie Bishop, Minister for Science, supporting the company not only with her
introduction to the Prime Minister, John Howard, but also by funding the
activities of Firepower through Austrade. Austrade is another organisation,
similar to Tourism WA, Eventscorp and the SWDC; they take taxpayer money and
then distribute it without parliamentary oversight. Once a tranche of money has
been approved our elected representatives have no further role in determining
who gets what.
Significant federal
funding was given to Firepower, without even the most basic checks being made,
the company was not even registered. In addition to direct cash payments Austrade
allowed Firepower to use offices and diplomatic residences around the world. This
created the image that Firepower was a respectable business enterprise.
How did Julie Bishop’s
career survive? What price did she pay for this gross negligence and the damage
to any credibility the Autralian trade organisation might have? Apparently very
little, when it eventually investigated it was claimed that a junior at
Austrade was to blame.
So where is the hand
of God in all this?
Well, last week with my interest piqued by recent events I wanted to know more, and so I borrowed the book 'Firepower:
the most spectacular fraud in Australian history - by Gerard Ryle' from the
library. It's a quick read, and offers some interesting insights into just how
little care our politicians take when it comes to spending public money, and
how ready and willing they are to sell their name if the price is right.
This morning the
first message in my inbox was from a Christian group I subscribe to, OliveTree, and their message was focused on Firepower. While I don't always agree
with Olive Tree messages they usually give me something to mull over, to keep
my brain cells active. In this case one of the strongest messages that I took
was that our religious organisations are just not doing enough to tackle fraud
and deception within our own society.
It was probably not
the message Karl intended me to receive, but that was my interpretation. It is
far too easy for politicians and commentators to be judgemental about
corruption in Nigeria or CAR or any other foreign country, but what of such
matters closer to home?
Firepower is an old
fraud, today we have have the Walton collapse to think about. How much was
unavoidable, how much was manipulated purely to Phoenix the company?
Whatever we choose to
think about as we tackle the work of our everyday lives I hope we allow God to
talk to us and offer us insights along the way
