Senatorial surveillance - when near enough is way too close

If the good Senator had to work this hard for a straight answer to a simple question about administrative processes, then the task of actually identifying the extent of the government's neglect in areas like housing, health, and education would prove Herculean.

To further deter hapless members of the public from taking an interest in the workings of government, expenditure is broken down into a tangled web of “outcomes” and “output groups”. These have user-friendly titles like “Whole-of-government coordination of policy development and service delivery for Indigenous Australians”. Ask the person next to you on the bus what they think that mouthful means.

There is also a sinister Orwellian slant to outcome names like “Strong and resilient communities”. Saying it don't make it so. The government's remarkable insensitivity to the desperate needs of many Indigenous communities sometimes makes it hard to see just where the “strong and resilient” bit comes in.

Estimates hearings have become the place to preview the government's latest punitive terminology, which is designed to reassure worried suburban voters who are ever fearful that the blackfellas might be getting something for nothing.

So now you can add “no school - no sport” to the familiar and much more catchy “no school - no pool” mantra that we've come to know and love. It seems that the mob out at Wadeye have had it too good for too long - living 17 to a house - and that the government is finally going to tighten up.

Mr Gibbons couldn't hide his admiration for his boss Mal Brough's decision to suspend funding for housing following the community disturbances in Wadeye. The government tap was turned off until the miscreants were identified and undertook to work to restore the damage.

Tough luck for the majority of community members who took no part in these disturbances and suffered much inconvenience because of them. Taking a line through this logic, the government should also close all the supermarkets in Sydney until every shoplifter has been brought to justice.

The mist of obfuscation that swirls around these hearings is not particularly reassuring to those on the outside looking in. While I'm certain no one actually tells fibs, it's equally true that the plain truth is at a premium. In fact, the only thing worse than having Senate estimates hearings, would be not having them at all.