Halliburton Hill Rides Into The Sunet

Minister Hill has stepped down today, to enjoy his thirty pieces of silver. Senator for South Australia and Federal Defence Minister, he's crucified his own population for the sake of his own street-cred, and gone hunting fresh fields in the form of an international diplomatic posting.

His predecessor, Peter Reith, was happy to scarper with a few kickbacks for providing defence work for sister companies Tenix and Transfield (his first job out of the Ministry was as a Tenix Consultant) but nothing quite like Hill's pimping of South Australia to Halliburton and General Dynamics. Hill has stated that the Army expansion into this state resulted from the suprising discovery that the Halliburton owned and built railway was useful for transporting weapons.. gee, what a suprise. If Yours Truly had figured that out eighteen months ago, surely someone in the DoD had half a clue?

Hill says that he hasn't been offered the UN Ambassadorship... good. The thought of him and former SA Premier John Olsen sitting in New York (in the same apartments) gloating over a Bollinger was making me ill. Olsen gave Halliburton their first toehold in Adelaide by letting their Australian boss sneak a peak at the tenders to run SA's Water Supply, then put in a more competitive bid several hours after the submisssion cut-off deadline. Now they have honchos on the the development boards, no doubt their tenders will continue to be extremely "competitive".

Look what happened in Byron Bay this week! A Green-led council gave KBR control of their sewerage because they thought they'd be sued if they knocked back Cheney's men on political grounds. How many similar instances are occuring across Australia? This is the environment that Hill and Olsen has created.

Ironically, Liberal Hill's departure gives Labor SA Premier Rann a better run-up to our March State election. Without the person who really created our Defence State hanging around to beat his chest, Rann can continue to claim that it was all his own doing.

Given my druthers I'd have all of them sharing an apartment in Baxter.