SAFETY IN NUMBERS
 
I want to tell you a story. Sounds like a fairy story but it is true. And it concerns yet another example of government waste of your money.It starts during those savage storms in America when tonnes of snow were dumped on cities from Chicago to New York. And it involves our new Ambassador to the United States Kim Beazley.

The Bomber slipped on the ice outside his new residence in Washington and tore tendons in both his knees. It meant he had to have surgery and postpone the formal ceremony where he presents his credentials to President Obama at the White House.
 
One of the stories about his mishap mentioned how great the former Defence Minister and nearly-Prime Minister would be as our rep in the American capital.  And, en passant, casually reported how many people he would be the boss of as Ambassador when he could have been leader of more than 20 million.
 
I read the figure and thought it was a misprint. So I started asking people how many employees did they think there were in our Washington Embassy?  Some guessed 20, 50 and the highest, most wild guess, was 100.
 
Wrong. Way out. The report I read, the one I thought was a misprint, the one which prompted my investigation, said 630.  And that was wrong too.
 
We checked with the Department of Foreign Affairs and got this brief response:
 
‘The total number of staff at the Australian Embassy in Washington DC is 656.’
 
Six hundred and fifty six!  What the hell do they all do? And if there are more than 600 in Washington there must be more than 600 in London. That’s an army of people processing visas, sending out Visit Down Under Where the Hell Are You?  pamphlets, and looking after Aussie crims in trouble abroad.
 
At the same time there was a story out of Rome about the cost of refurbishing Australia’s Embassy at the Vatican.
 
Why we even need an Ambassador to the Pope is another fairy tale. The Ambassador to the Holy See (as it is formally called) used to be handled by the Ambassador to Ireland. Kevin Rudd changed that.
 
Why can’t it be handled  by that other Ambassador down the road, Amanda Vanstone, the free-spending, glad-handing, wining, dining, Ambassador to Rome?
 
Former National Party leader Tim Fischer has the cushy new job. Last seen he was playing PR man for Saint Mary McKillop speaking for ‘all proud Australians’ about how wonderful her sainthood is because she supposedly cured two women of cancer Over 100 years.

Fischer’s Vatican office is being refurbished at a cost of $4.3 million. A blowout from $3.4 million. And it is in a building we don’t even own. It’s rented for $12,000 a month.
 
I wish it were a fairy tale.
 
Wednesday, February 24, 2010

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2010