Queensland Premier Anna Bligh’s decision to sell off state assets will be investigated by a future Pecora Commission-style Inquiry into corruption and possible criminality in the financial system, Citizens Electoral Council leader Craig Isherwood warned today.

The Pecora Commission was a 1932-1934 U.S. Senate investigation headed by Ferdinand Pecora which exposed, and purged, the corruption between Wall Street financiers like J.P. Morgan Jnr. and Washington politicians. The effectiveness of the Commission made it possible for President Franklin Roosevelt to pass far-reaching banking reforms which put the Wall Street financiers on a leash, and launch America’s recovery from the Great Depression.

In January, Mr Isherwood called for an Australian Pecora Commission, to investigate “corruption and possible criminality” in Australia’s financial system, especially the nexus between bankers and politicians that brought about the various “reforms” of the Australian economy over the past two decades, which have caused the current economic collapse, while making a handful of bankers and former politicians very rich.

The CEC leader particularly singled out privatisations:

“Privatisation is a blatant public rip-off, and everyone knows it,” he said.

“Wherever it’s happened previously, the politicians who have pushed it, are afterwards found to be closely connected to the private companies that have made money from it.

“Look at the relationship between Paul Keating, John Howard, Victoria’s Jeff Kennett and Alan Stockdale, and NSW’s Bob Carr, to the biggest privatisation racket, Macquarie Bank.”

Mr Isherwood continued, “There is no economic sense to privatisation—25 years of globalist policies like privatisation and deregulation have brought us to economic collapse, so the people of Queensland should demand Premier Bligh cut the charade, and come clean about who she’s doing it for.

“If she doesn’t, she’s on notice that a future investigation will.”

Mr Isherwood concluded, “The people want an economic recovery, but that will only happen if governments stop diverting enormous public resources to prop up the bankrupt financial system, which is the cause of these state and federal budget deficits, and instead implement our policy to reorganise those financial institutions with the Homeowners and Bank Protection Bill.”