CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has heavily promoted former Finance Minister Mathias Cormann’s diplomatic credentials in calls with international counterparts, as the retired federal senator finds himself as one of two remaining candidates for the top OECD role.
This comes after two arguably better qualified candidates – Swiss banker Philipp Hildebrand and Greek politician Anna Diamantopoulou – withdrew from the race for Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) earlier this week.
Cormann is well known in Australia as the bloke who was photographed smoking cigars with the Treasurer Joe Hockey after they stripped millions of dollars in funding from Aged Care and Child Care in the 2014 budget, before he played a pivotal role in the ousting of Malcolm Turnbull, who he had previously supported in ousting Tony Abbott.
However, overseas, he is viewed as a hardworking former public servant with close ties to Europe due to his Belgian heritage.
Australians are now experiencing a similar feeling to when you see the high school bully attempting to rebrand as a cool leftie at university.
Cormann’s move to place climate action at the centre of his campaign has received severe criticism from environmental groups in Australia – who want to highlight to the OECD that the former Australian politician couldn’t have given two fucks about the planet when surrounded by his climate change-denying dinosaur allies in the Liberal Party – the
The OECD is expected to name its new secretary-general this month, with Swedish politician and former EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström the only other candidate left standing.
Despite the furious backlash that Cormann is receiving for his turncoating – it seems the OECD are eating up his new and improved ‘global economy’ talking points – as he throws the thousands of Western Australian mining employees that he once championed back at home under the bus that is his career ambitions.
Cormann’s new environmentalist facade has only been be backed up today by his new blue-dyed hair and spacer ear-rings, as he completes his transition into a greenie leftist.
It is not yet known where he stands on refugees now that he has left behind the Australian Liberal Party, but there are concerns he is now going to pretend that he has not played a pivotal role in incarcerating war-weary asylum seeker families inside sweltering Pacific Island concentration camps for the last two decades.
MORE TO COME.
