Why is Chris Bowen reserving Fiji resorts with taxpayer money? | Daily Mail

[00:00:00]Well, I doubt too many Australian taxpayers are going to cop this one lying down. The climate change department are spending millions of dollars flying international delegates from all around the world into Fiji to house them in five-star accommodation that [music] includes lagoon pools, wateride vistas, and even an on-site nightclub. What's this for? Well, it's the COP 31 climate conference, but it's not even the main game. It's the entree, a pre-conference. And why are we doing this? We're doing this because Australia tried to win the presidency, got challenged, and had to share it with Turkey. [music] And the consolation prize is that we don't even get to host the pre-event in our own country, in our own hotels, where our own businesses get the benefit from all these delegates turning up. Now, the fact that taxpayers are funding this is something that should alarm all of us. This is a vanity project. And while we're talking about millions of dollars for this event, the overall expense to Australia for COP [music] 31 tops more than $100 million.

[00:01:22]That's how much the government has set aside for this [music] utter vanity project.

[00:01:28]I mean, where do you even start [music] with this kind of waste of taxpayers money? We put to one side that it's a climate conference all about trying to reduce emissions and you've got hundreds of delegates from [music] all corners of the world flying in at great expense to be part of it. But like Australia's involvement in this is just [music] so absurd in the sense that it's the taxpayers footing the bill and it's not even on Australian soil. I can't be sure that this is Chris Bowen's fault directly as the minister, but even if this is just an initiative by his department that he kind of regrets or kind of wishes that they'd done differently, isn't that just ministerial capture by one's department? Shouldn't a strong minister stand up and say, "You know what? We're in a cost of living crisis. [music] We're in a scenario where average Australians are doing it tough. This doesn't pass the pub test on any criteria. And you know what they've done even more hilariously [music] in this sick sickopant is what they've done is they've turned around and said, "Well, this has happened before at previous meetings." Yes, it has. But in Australia when Australian hotels and Australian industries [music] have benefited from the largest of one of these extravaganzas, this isn't even on our home soil. It's in five-star resorts in Fiji. The reason I call this a vanity project is because originally Australia was hoping to get the presidency and be able to host the main event [music] and wouldn't this be a wonderful spectacle for us and the Albani government being able to claim that we take climate change really seriously. We've got the presidency of one of the key UN councils designed to do something about it internationally.

[00:03:19]But Turkey took issue [music] with that.

[00:03:21]We ended up having to share the presidency. We didn't even get to host the main event. Turkey gets to do that which once again at great expense to Australia will be flying all manner of delegates [music] and personnel across business class no doubt to be part of it. But then to even be able to get [music] this second rate prize, which was not what we were after, the pre-event's not even in Australia [music] because we needed South Pacific nations on board and Fiji therefore gets to host something that Australia pays for. But the Department of Chris Bowen tells us, "Oh, don't worry. We'll recoup some of the costs because [music] we'll get some of this money back from either rooms that don't get used or the occasional delegate country that might choose to pay us back. Turkey, they tell us, [music] will pay us back because they're the co-host. Brilliant. That fixes [music] everything. You can picture it, can't you? some bureaucrat using the nation's credit card rather than his or her own, ringing up, paying full rack rate to be able to book all of these rooms because that's what you do if you have the right to cancel the odd one at the end of it all. This is costing so much more than it would if it was a private citizen making a booking or if it was a company making a booking that was accountable to shareholders.

[00:04:41]How is it any different when it's taxpayers money by bureaucrats and government accountable [music] to us, the voters, the taxpayers? We really shouldn't cop this. And it's just one of so many countless examples [music] of government waste and expenditure at a time where we've got rising debts, higher and higher deficits, and a budget that just doesn't add up, that is engulfed by [music] too much government spending. This is a drop in the ocean compared to how much money this government and others over the years have wasted. But it's just more waste that makes you understand why taxpayers are sick of it. Is it any wonder that the major party's primary vote is in terminal decline? Whether it's the government or the opposition, voters are just sick of it.