Auditor General Firing Fiasco, ctd...The Foster Factor.

GoingFromTheRidiculous
ToTheLudicrousVille


Paul Willcocks, backed by VT-C pieces by Rob Shaw and Les Leyne, has a succinct description and summing up of the latest plot twisters.

First, the first bit, which is bad enough:

...Liberal MLA Eric Foster, the chairman of the (super-secret) committee that (just) turfed (current Auditor General John) Doyle, was cited for spending and conflict concerns in an auditor general’s report in October - “the only MLA singled out.”

The devastating audit identified widespread sloppy management practices of MLA expenses and $63 million in legislature spending.

And it cited the case of $78,000 paid to the landlord for renovations at Foster’s constituency office in 2009.

Doyle raised several issues. First, there was a possible conflict of interest, he found. The rented office was in a building owned by the family of Foster’s constituency assistant. The renovations benefited the family...


And then the second bit which, apparently, made everything good again:

...Foster took that concern to conflict commissioner Paul Fraser, who cleared him...


But why the clearing from the good Mr. Fraser, given the third bit which, if you ask me, is just one more clear, if in this case relatively small, example of how the Campbell-Clark government operates:

...The October audit (by Mr. Doyle) also found the bill for renovations was "paid without an appropriate level of review for reasonableness and without adequate supporting documentation." 

Foster's staff provided only a spreadsheet showing $67,000 in work, without invoices, details or evidence quotes were obtained for the work to get the best price.

The payment also violated policy on renovations in rented offices, which are to be covered only if specified in the lease. The auditor was told Speaker Bill Barisoff ordered the payment to be made...

And then there is part four, in which Mr. Foster offers up a 50 shades of crazy bit of pretzellian logic that makes no sense whatsover in an effort to explain why he did NOT step down from the committee that just fired Mr. Doyle.

...Foster says he never knew the spending was questioned in the audit...


Really?

Then why did Mr. Foster go running to Mr. Fraser in the first place?

Sheesh.


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And, still, no direct comment from the person who is supposed to be leading this sorry bunch...Then again, given that the current (not) Premier hates the 'sick culture' of Victoria so much, perhaps she doesn't have a clue about what is actually going on inside her own government...After all, based on the evidence, it would not be unreasonable for a reasonable person who has been paying attention to surmise that she thinks that Massive TV Ad Buys + Repeated Interviews With Shock Jocks = Good Governance...Or some such thing.

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