Up to 30 partners and staff were involved in sharing confidential government tax policy, Senate estimates was told.
Source: PwC Peter Collins leak: Scandal involved up to 30 partners and staff, estimates told
Category: corruption
CEO pay has jumped nearly 1,500 percent since 1978. It had nothing to do with hard work or greater productivity. Corporate bosses simply grabbed what they could.
Source: For Proof Reaganomics Was a Sham, Look to American CEOs’ Pay
Christian Porter, on Thursday (14/7/22), lost his appeal in a unanimous decision against Jo Dyer in relation to having his barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC restrained from representing him at his 2021 defamation case against the ABC and journalist Louise Milligan.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Age, Robert Redlich, QC, said in the lead-up to the November state election that scrutinising “how the government of the day is expending the public purse” was the most important role of a commission like his.
Source: Anti-corruption commissioner Robert Redlich wants pork barrelling declared corrupt
If nothing was done 5 years ago what makes one think something will be done now. The scandal lasted the blink of an eye on the front pages of the Mainstream news back then it didn’t make the front pages this time and its bigger now.
The trove, dubbed the Pandora Papers, exceeds the dimensions of the leak that was at the centre of the Panama Papers investigation five years ago. That data was drawn from a single law firm, but the new material encompasses records from 14 separate financial-services entities operating in countries and territories including Switzerland, Singapore, Cyprus, Belize and the British Virgin Islands. The files detail more than 29,000 offshore accounts, more than double the number identified in the Panama Papers. Among the account owners are more than 130 people listed as billionaires by Forbes magazine and more than 330 public officials in more than 90 countries and territories, twice the number found in the Panama documents.
Source: Pandora Papers expose offshore systems exploited by the rich and famous
Thank God there’s at least one prominent Democrat in Florida to speak out about this disgusting “donations for vaccines” practice by Trump mini-me Ron DeSantis. The state agriculture official called it “corruption at its worst.”
Ron DeSantis Is Selling Vaccines To Rich Floridians | Crooks and Liars
Donald Trump Took Advantage of the US’s Legalized Corruption
Donald Trump is deeply corrupt. That corruption is a product of the larger kleptocratic system, created by a judiciary that would favor the rich even more with Amy Barrett on the Supreme Court.
Donald Trump Took Advantage of the US’s Legalized Corruption
The LNP focus on Unions as the greatest thieves in the country. They busted Craig Thompson for $13 mill to prove it. How can you be so conned Australia? (ODT)
The cost of misconduct for the major banks and AMP just keeps ticking up. It’s not over yet but at this stage of peak remediation provisioning, the number appears to be approaching the magic $10 billion mark on a pre-tax basis.
More than 4,300 federal public servants believe they witnessed corrupt behaviour in one year, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison faces mounting pressure to establish an integrity commission.
Making policy by destroying the reputations of middle management in the government is of course highly destructive to the democratic process.
Ronan Farrow of The New Yorker now reports that the Trump aides who targeted former Obama administration officials Ben Rhodes and Colin Kahl used the Israeli Black Cube agency, the same one deployed by Harvey Weinstein to keep his many victims of sexual harassment in line. It advertises itself as being able to provide the best former Mossad agents for the job (but if they are the best why are they former?)
I mind this behavior quite a lot and fear it won’t get the traction it deserves among the press and the public.
via Treason: Obama Iran Deal Officials targeted by Trump via Israeli Black Cube
ratings that castigate Afghanistan and some other poor countries as hopelessly “corrupt” always imply that the United States is not corrupt. This year’s report from Transparency International puts the US on a par with Austria, which is ridiculous. All kinds of people from politicians to businessmen would go to jail in Austria today if they engaged in practices that are quite common in the US.
via Top Ten Signs the US is the most Corrupt nation in the World (2018 Edn.)
GAME OF MATES: How favours bleed the nation has been acclaimed as one of the most insightful analyses of what many mislabel “corruption” in contemporary Australia, examining how the regulators of the common wealth and political insiders co-operate to mutually enrich each other in a “game of mates”. Authors Dr Cameron Murray and Professor Paul Frijters began as environmental economists, investigating land rezoning by the Queensland Government agency, the Urban Land Development Authority. The land rezoned by this authority increased in value by hundreds of millions of dollars as a consequence of the rezoning — a very generous “grey gift” to the successful developers.
Australia has slipped on the International Corruption Scale
Revolving door or golden escalator?
Much has been made in recent weeks of the provisions contained in the federal parliamentary code of conduct. Among other things, the code bans former ministers from lobbying the federal government for 18 months after leaving office. But given the fact that no current or former minister has been deemed to be non-compliant (including Robb), one could be forgiven for concluding that the code is simply a cover for business as usual.
Revealed: the extent of job-swapping between public servants and fossil fuel lobbyists
So don’t tell the global South how corrupt they are for taking a few petty bribes. Americans are not seen as corrupt because we only deal in the big denominations. Steal $2 trillion and you aren’t corrupt, you’re respectable.
via Top Ten Signs the US is the most Corrupt nation in the World (2018 Edn.) | Informed Comment
Hypocrisy is the calling card of British imperialism and British elite as such. This is what they teach at all aristocratic schools and all British universities
Source: What is the most corrupt country in the world? – PravdaReport
Former prime minister Tony Abbott has revealed a well-known millionaire tried to bribe him when he was a relatively new member of parliament.
Source: Do we need a federal anti-corruption body? – The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
If December and January were bad for corruption in Australia, February has been appalling. Alan Austin reports in what started as a monthly IA series but now looks like becoming fortnightly.
Crown Casino is a haven for drug traffickers and money launderers, leading one of Victoria’s most prominent judges to label the venue a “blot on the community”.
Source: Crown Casino haven for drug traffickers, ‘a blot on the community’
Opposition leader Bill Shorten says figures are remarkable and urges Malcolm Turnbull to focus on large companies instead of cutting health funding
Source: ATO report shows nearly 600 big companies paid no tax in 2013-14 | Australia news | The Guardian
Protesters in Phnom Penh hold signs during a demonstration against Cambodia’s plans to resettle intercepted refugees. Photo: Reuters
Bangkok: Cambodian authorities frequently extort money from asylum seekers living in the impoverished nation, according to an investigation that raises new concerns about Australia’s plan to send refugees there.
Asylum seekers have also told of how they are targets of discrimination in the country, often paying inflated prices for food, work equipment and basic necessities because they are not Cambodian.
“There is a foreigner price and a local price,” a refugee told Human Rights Watch investigators. “But we can’t afford the foreigner price.”
A Sri Lankan refugee said people call him a terrorist and use offensive words against him because he is an ethnic Tamil
Human Rights Watch has released a report detailing how asylum seekers and refugees living in Cambodia face hardships including difficulties obtaining employment, denial of access to education, substandard access to health services, extortion and corruption by local officials.
Refugees said fear of mistreatment by Cambodian authorities kept them from speaking out or joining organisations to bring complaints.
The report’s release follows similar claims by Australian Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young during a visit to the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh this week.
Ms Hanson-Young described sending refugees to Cambodia as “madness”, saying what she had seen in Phnom Penh’s slums had hardened her opposition to the plan, which has been condemned by human rights groups, refugee advocates and Cambodia’s opposition MPs.
The Abbott government is paying almost $40 million in additional aid over four years to Cambodia in return for the country accepting an unstated number of refugees who volunteer to resettle outside Phnom Penh.
They will be offered accommodation, training, food and loans to start small businesses over their first 12 months in the country.
Human Rights Watch called on the Australian government to press Cambodian authorities to implement key reforms to improve treatment of refugees in Cambodia before transferring any people from the tiny Pacific island of Nauru who are being encouraged to take up the Cambodian option.
“The Australian government shouldn’t make the refugees in Nauru suffer further by dumping them in a place unable to adequately resettle or reintegrate them,” said Elaine Pearson, Human Rights Watch’s Australian director.
Human Rights Watch interviewed 10 of 63 refugees living in Cambodia and spoke to refugee and migrant support organisations, human rights groups and United Nations agencies.
Years after arriving in Cambodia – one of Asia’s poorest nations – not one refugee had received a Cambodian residence card or citizenship, depriving them of availability to basic services.
The refugees are issued only a “parkas” proclamation by the Ministry of Interior that confirms their right to stay in Cambodia.
But the proclamation cannot be used for many official purposes.
“This piece of paper is absolutely useless,” a refugee told Human Rights Watch.
“To get a job, a driver’s licence, open a bank account, buy a motorbike or even receive a wire transfer, you need to show a passport, not this piece of paper.”
Some refugees said they are in a dire financial situation and would be unable to survive in Cambodia without support of the Jesuit Refugee Service.
Refugees told of how they rarely go outside because when they do they often face extortion, bribery and corruption.
A self-employed street bread seller said: “We have to pay bribes just to be able to sell food.”
Another refugee said the main problem in Cambodia was discrimination and mistreatment based on a person’s financial status.
“But it is also worse if you are a refugee with the wrong skin colour and not the right religion,” one said.
“Money will buy you everything, but if you haven’t got money then you can’t protect yourself and can’t protest about discrimination and mistreatment.”
One refugee had advice for refugees on Nauru: “This is a corrupt country. You will not find jobs. We have been here more than two years and we have no money and not enough to eat. It’s better to wait in Nauru. It’s a very, very bad life here in Cambodia … there is no future.”
olddogthoughts 