Damaging unintended consequences of Hol-gate

Act in haste; repent at leisure. It was only an hour or so after last week’s Senate Estimates heard of Australia Post’s Cartier watches rewards to four executives for pulling-off a $66-million revenue-boosting deal. Communications Minister Paul Fletcher then precipitously and unwisely encouraged Prime Minister Morrison’s unprecedented political intervention in the internal operations of a multi-million-dollar dividend-paying (not taxpayer-funded) government-owned business enterprise.