What Happens When The Mask Comes Off?

One of my more juvenile pleasures is to watch the current season of The Masked Singer, a show which best demonstrates the rapid decline of Channel Ten in recent years. D-list celebrities perform in masks to provoke the supposedly funny reactions of mostly appalling B-list judges (except for Dannii Minogue – she has always been my favourite of the Minogue sisters).

It is car crash TV which is so bad that it is good, and hence I have been watching it.

I was disappointed during the week to be proven wrong when the Wizard was unmasked and the identity was that of some D-list singer of whom I had never heard. The cryptic clues given during the performances had me convinced that it was ex-Senator Sam Dastiyari who was behind the mask.

After all, he is probably rather strapped for cash after leaving the Senate rather ignominiously, and he did appear on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Year last year (along with then fellow ex-senator Jacqui Lambie in a recent period of transitional unemployment).

A new career of appearances on ersatz reality shows as a celebrity appeared to beckon for him, in my mind at least (it is probably just as well that I am not a TV producer).

Senator Sam had a promising career in front of him in the Federal Parliament not too long ago. He was one of the few people who could constructively deal with Jacqui Lambie in the Senate, and he played a key role in getting the pressure on the government to institute the Banking Royal Commission.

However, whether he really believed it or not, he was recorded at some function or meeting expounding a view of the sovereignty of the South China Sea which was more in line with that of the architects of recent discussion on that topic (ie the Communist regime that currently tyrannises main land China), rather than the stated views of his own party or the interests of the Australian people.

With billionaires (and their emissaries) donating money to both parties, many politicians, both past and present, appreciate their generosity, and seem to feel some sort of moral obligation to return the favour in some way. That a lot of those billionaires are from main land China and are billionaires through the gift of the Chinese Communist Party is often overlooked.

Sam Dastiyari is the only politician who has paid the ultimate price of political death for his dalliance with communist China. There are many others, particularly ones who are retired on generous superannuation pensions, who now sit on boards of or as consultants to companies based in communist China. Their interests, and their utterances, are not always going to be aligned to the best interests of the Australian nation.

The Victorian Government’s agreement with communist China to unilaterally join the Belt and Road Initiative is one where the interests of the Australian nation have been utterly disregarded by the Premier, Chairman Dan. This is an agreement which was entered into with no transparency but with various Chinese communist apparatchiks who have clear access to the corridors of power in Spring Street being able to lobby the government. This is privileged access available to the rich and powerful, but not to the average citizen.

We do not know who is doing what, or with what motives. Sam Dastiyari has been unmasked, but who are the others who are wearing masks, and who are having a more sinister impact on our democracy?