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Big things happen when Stuart Robert doesn’t get involved.

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Big things happen when Stuart Robert doesn’t get involved.

John Birmingham
Nov 25, 2022
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Big things happen when Stuart Robert doesn’t get involved.

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I wish Stuart Robert was my member of Parliament. It genuinely seems to me that there’s nothing this bloke won’t do for a constituent. Although, to judge from his emails, there’s even more of nothing he won’t do for you if you’re not a constituent - especially if you’re a good mate who runs a consultancy firm like Synergy 360 or a giant multinational corporation paying a retainer to a consultancy firm like Synergy 360.

My useless local member is one of those Green bludgers who took over Brisbane at the last election. He hasn’t once reached out to give me any tips about getting a feed or a drink from a multi-billion-dollar buffet of government procurement contracts, and I’m beginning to worry that he doesn’t have any useful mates who run consultancy firms that could do your correspondent a favour.

Frankly, if there’s a billion-dollar visa processing contract going begging and Stuart Robert’s mate is looking to suck ten per cent off the back end, I don’t see why I shouldn’t get some o’ that sweet, sweet government suckage. As Stuart Robert assured viewers on QandA last night, he’ll engage with—and offer help and advice to—anyone, not just friends. And although I’m not a friend of his, I am someone, if not anyone, and I would love some help and advice about how I could get a piece of the action on a hundred-million-dollar Centrelink contract.

I understand that Stuey isn’t a minister of the Crown anymore, but that’s why I’m so excited about the possibilities here. He wasn’t a minister when he met up with Synergy 360 consultants who were also mates but definitely not lobbyists for the American tech giant Unisys, which was paying 360 for consultancy services. The services were “for tasks such as meeting senior Coalition ministers” but definitely not for lobbying any senior Coalition ministers with whom they organised those meetings.

You can see why I’m thinking of moving to Stuart’s electorate, which seems a can-do, go-getting place where a bloke could go and get pretty much anything he wanted with a bit of help and advice from Stuart – a bloody stark contrast with things in my Green socialist hellscape of an electorate where all I ever hear from the local member is how hard he’s working to do something about aircraft noise.

That’s fine, as far as it goes, I guess, but it doesn’t go very far towards getting me six million dollars in government grants for my failing network of dental surgeries. I don’t actually have a failing network of dental surgeries, as it happens, but I would quite like six million dollars. Thus, as I sat down to write this column today, I was excited to read in The New Daily that “former government services minister Stuart Robert was a major investor in a company that became reliant on government payments” to stave off bankruptcy, and even more excited to read that brother Stuey was the minister in charge of that department.

Why was I not informed by my local member that these things were even possible? It’s like he doesn’t care about my six million dollars.

Of course, the Daily wasn’t suggesting that Stuart Robert wrote himself a cheque or anything and neither would I.

But things seem to happen when Stuart Robert gets involved, even if he’s not in any way involved or responsible for them happening. It’s a bit like that time he had to voluntarily repay $37,975 of the allowance he claimed for home internet. It just happened. Or the time he went to that event in Beijing, where the Chinese government thought he was attending as a minister, but of course, that couldn’t possibly be so because the event was a private business deal between a Chinese corporation and the Australian company Nimrod Resources - run by a friend of his.

That just happened too.

Big things happen when Stuart Robert doesn’t get involved. Big expensive things over which he has no influence or control.

I would like these things to happen to me.

At the very least, I’d like 10% off the back end.

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Big things happen when Stuart Robert doesn’t get involved.

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isabel robinson
Nov 25, 2022

Send him to the NACCery, stat!

(Oh, and if you succeed in scoring the 10% / millions / freebies off a government, any government, a coded message on how-to would be much appreciated. I can't seem to even get a Medicare rebate for seeing a very exy hand specialist).

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AusMossy
Nov 25, 2022

Has Stuart Robert ever been involved in anything during his parliamentary career that wasn't at least a bit whiffy? With Robodebt, watches, internet bills, suss lobbying etc etc the list of his naughtiness keeps growing. He'll be getting a lump of coal from Santa this year, and probably bring it into parliament just like his bestie. When I look through the "achievements" of so many of those in the previous government the words of that famous philosopher, Johnny Rotten, often come to mind. “Ever Get the Feeling You've Been Cheated?”

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