In a judgment on Thursday, the federal court judge Roger Derrington found that the former LNP president David Hutchinson had breached his duties as a director of the company, was unfit to remain in financial control and had been “prepared to misapply the company’s funds rather audaciously for his own benefit and for the benefit of his relatives”.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and the Coalition are fanning fears about a “new wave of boat people”. Andrew Gardiner checks out the claims, and Australia’s history of political fear-mongering.
Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation case against Network Ten has seen the alleged victim, Brittany Higgins, again subjected to relentless cross-examination and accusations. Michelle Pini reports.
If Indigenous people no longer exist as Jacinta Price maintains her job is redundant. However not according to the LNP and Peter Dutton. They certainly see her as Black and use her and Warren Mundine that way.
In a week when Professor Marcia Langton has been demonised for making the straightforward point that the basic arguments of the No campaign always resolve into racism, Price’s remarks demonstrate that the No campaign in the end rejects as either non-existent or irrelevant the impact of the invasion and colonisation of Australia on First Peoples. Her particular version is one of extreme assimilation: Indigenous peoples now have running water and food, colonisation had a positive impact, and the Indigenous Affairs portfolio that she herself holds should be dissolved.
Moderate Liberal Party members in Victoria will move this week for what they hope is a decisive blow against the party’s infiltration by an ultra-conservative religious network. Andrew Gardiner reports.
LNP “Better Money Managers” multiplied the cost of a dud NBN dropping us to 80th in the world’s best technology. They blew Hydro 2.0 out by x10, Robodebt by 2000 deaths thousands of we are mental breakdowns and still counting. The NDIS wasn’t allowed to even get established, and they tripled the Deficit all of this in Billions of dollars and for no long-term benefit.
Dan Andrews bailed Victorians out for $380m saving the state billions in pain because of the false advice and rapidly changing circumstances. The Media on the other hand have slung more mud at Dan for saving us pain than they did the LNP’s loss of Billions by in gifting money to their mates like confetti
Malcolm Turnbull’s Snowy Hydro 2.0 project was touted as $2 billion bargain in 2017. It now shapes as a $10 billion abominable snowman. Peering through a Kosciusko/Canberra snow storm of FOI brush-offs, Rex Patrick asks what is really going on.
It is hard to gauge the importance of the Trumpist Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) event that took place in Sydney this weekend. There were more high-profile figures speaking than previously, and several currently serving politicians alongside white supremacists and antisemites.
Lyle Shelton quoted Maurice Newman approvingly when he stated, “Laugh it off if you like, but there are parallels between Germany 1933 and Australia 2023.” As one of the few observers who could stand to watch the entire weekend’s events observed: “I actually couldn’t agree more with this, those parallels were on stage at CPACAustralia this weekend.”
Former Defence Minister Linda Reynolds has recanted her Supreme Court evidence that she was never told by a chief of staff that Brittany Higgins had disclosed “I remember him on top of me”.
The Australian public service cohabits with copious consultants because of three hiring freezes imposed by Coalition governments over the past 10 years.
The Abbott government froze all hirings in 2013 for 18 months, resulting in the loss of about 11,000 jobs; the Turnbull government did it again in 2016, but more targeted – it only applied to a few departments, and 5000 jobs went; the Morrison government imposed another freeze in 2020 in response to COVID-19 that went for six months and resulted in the loss of about 3000 positions.
The LNP strategy has been to edge toward a Unitary Executive as much as it can and couple it with the increased use of their preferred rather than independent consultancies. It became increasingly self-evident over a decade ago when the LNP refused to have their opposition and government budgets audited by Treasury but rather by “consultants” of their own choice. From thereon the rot simply set in and accelerated.
It seems that the APS leadership, advising the Government on amending the PS Act, is yet to recognise just how important ‘merit’ is to a Westminster-based public service. It was at the core of the 1854 Northcote Trevelyan Report that began the development of a professional civil service. It is critical to not only fairness, non-partisanship and constraining corruption, but also to efficiency, effectiveness and overall civil service capability. Yet over the last decade the APS has lost sight of its central importance.
Trump Morrison and Robert and Assange are all claiming “Victimhood”. In three cases only is there an Equivalence and it’s not Julian.
“Lawyers representing the former Liberal MP Stuart Robert have described the release of allegations he received financial kickbacks from a lobbying firm as “egregious” and an “abuse of privilege”.
Former cabinet minister Stuart Robert met tech giant Infosys multiple times when the company was seeking lucrative contracts including a deal it won to build a government payment system later scrapped at a cost of $191 million.
The company revealed the 11 meetings in answers to a parliamentary inquiry that is examining the close ties between Robert and his consultant friend, David Milo, whose firm Synergy 360 asked companies for “success fees” to line up contracts in Canberra
Under Tony Abbott, some 3000+ ATO tax-trained investigators were given the sack many of who went on to be employed by the big four along with many other firms advising corporations prepared to pay for their skills and knowledge of tax evasion.
An ATO amnesty arrangement to collect back taxes allowed the biggest corporations in the country to self-declare and negotiate the terms of their own settlement because the Department had lost it’s most skilled investigators. This LNP-sanctioned arrangement was and has never been available to all Australians. Why was that privilege allowed by Abbott the LNP and the ATO one might well ask?
He revealed that the Australian Tax Office (ATO) reached a settlement with PwC in March — long after the firm’s involvement in the tax leak scandal was publicly known — over PwC’s false claims of legal professional privilege that gave the big rour firm a 50% discount on applicable penalties. As part of the deal with the ATO, PwC didn’t have to admit any liability.
But Crikey‘s inquiries have established that Margerison disposed of his multimillion-dollar Gold Coast home to a longstanding business partner and friend, Mike Ribot, and Ribot’s wife, Kathleen. Queensland land title records show the sale was finalised on June 30. The sale price was $5 million, according to realestate . com . au.
The trip had generated quiet concern within the Defence Department for the fact that the delegation to the United States was being led by an Australian portfolio minister but sponsored by a private organisation linked to a third country – Israel – something that was considered highly irregular.
“That Mr Margerison’s lawyer now claims he has left and severed all ties with Australia is a somewhat surprising turn of events indeed. Mr Margerison’s whereabouts remains a matter of great mystery.”
In place of Stuart Robert & Pentecostalism LNP’s Next Candidate is a hint to the future. The irony here closes in on LNP Truth
Queensland’s largest legal organised crime syndicate, the Liberal National Party, heads to the mattresses this Saturday to defend its territory in Fadden. Darren Crawford reports on the LNP’s latest plans to further normalise political corruption.
“We were just doing the job you voted us to do” Isn’t this the politicized excuse of all corrupt governments?
Opposition leader Peter Dutton claims the Robodebt royal commission was politicised from the very beginning and apologised to people impacted by the illegal debt collection scheme.
Media outlets such as A Current Affair were more than happy to provide platforms for the demonising effort. “We will find you,” he told the program, “we will track you down, and you will have to repay those debts, and you may end up in prison”.
With the release of NSW ICAC’s findings on Gladys Berejiklian, an editorial in The Australian has condemned the Commission and made a bold stand for corruption, writes David McIlveen.
Gladys Berejiklian’s friends, sympathetic followers and sundry political flunkies are unhappy the ICAC found she engaged in “serious corrupt conduct” – but consider for a moment the counterfactual: What message would have been sent if she had been cleared?
When a member of the IPA becomes a Politician he represents the IPA
The Coalition has used Sky News as a platform to maintain its policy of fearmongering, spouting misinformation and critcising the Labor Government, writes Dr Abul Rizvi.
The man who was CEO of consultancy PwC Australia for the entire tax payments affair, Luke Sayers, has exited as chair of a charity he runs with his wife.
What’s the scam with PwC flogging its government consulting operation to private equity mob Allegro Funds Management?
The scam is that the scandal over selling government secrets has hurt PwC in a real way, there is pressure from the global partners over to exit to rehabilitate the brand, and they have found some private equity turnaround players in Allegro who will take on the risk of salvaging that $300m a year in government contracts.
Isn’t this Mussolini’s ideal model of the Corporate State otherwise known as Fascism?
Attached is a note from PwC to its big clients telling them how to dodge the new tax laws shortly before they were passed in Parliament in 2015. PwC was advising the Government on the design of these laws while advising its clients how to avoid them. Michael West reports.
The shock expressed at the amorality of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ brazen misuse of confidential Government information is understandable and overdue. Not just overdue because the initial breach of confidentiality took place in 2013 and was detected by the ATO in 2016, but because the sky-rocketing use of consultants in the Australian Public Service (APS) since the election of the Abbott Government in 2013 made such a scandal inevitable.
Will Robert try to organize a religious book deal?
Recent testimony by John Margerison, former business partner of Stuart Robert, lends weight to questions about Robert’s financial interests while in the Morrison Government, writes Belinda Jones.
The private company of the man who was CEO of PwC Australia during the entire tax leaks affair has received over $6.2 million in taxpayer funds in just the past two years.
Former judges believe the new federal integrity watchdog should investigate former cabinet minister Stuart Robert after months of revelations about his help for consultants who sought lucrative deals with federal agencies.Political Reputation
These Christians are Happy Scammers scamming the non-believers us
His plan to leave Parliament without coming back, even to deliver a valedictory speech, was condemned by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who said he should not be claiming a $200,000 salary to miss Parliament. Mr Robert seems set to go in a blaze of controversy whatever happens.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton on Monday dismissed Nixon’s review as a joke.Credit: Rhett Wyman
LNP reality allowed for wholesale unabated privatized corruption
Criminal syndicates are pouring fake students into Australia to work in their illegal operations – including the sex industry – by exploiting the nation’s weak education visa and migration systems.
It’s like leaving the country for place where there isn’t any extradition.
LNP politician Stuart Robert announced his intention to retire – for ‘family reasons’ – shortly after an audit uncovered possible corrupt activities during his time in the Morrison Government, writes Belinda Jones.
LNP were the greatest bunch of liars we have experienced as a government employed to serve the Nation. They should never be allowed back. A Public Service on Contract is a Service always under a precarious employment future and readily manipulated to serve the government rather than the people.
A total of 54,000 full-time equivalent workers were consultants, contractors and labour hire staff, while 144,300 public servants were actually employed in the APS. Labor says the blowout in external contractors was because the Coalition was pretending to cap APS numbers to look like it was clamping down on public employment expenditure. Minister for the Public Service Katy Gallagher said the results of the audit painted a true picture of the APS workforce under the former government.
It’s shockingly obvious that nobody – ministers, senior public servants and many of those who administered the programs – was capable of recognising the grim irony of the powerful using illegal methods against the powerless, under the guise of ensuring that the powerless behaved with integrity not required from the powerful.
Robodebt the cyber-machine pretending to take values out Welfare decisions. Only a Penacostalist could come up with a smokescreen like that. Let the computer be the judge said Pontious Pilate Morrison “I wash my hands and stand aside of any decision”
If public trust is to be restored, at the very least, the people responsible for this major breach of the law, the illegal Robodebt scheme, should face the hardest penalties available under our legal system.
The mainstream media is failing in its duty to hold the Coalition to account as it continues falsified scare campaigns against Labor, writes Dr Victoria Fielding.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet’s brothers are still fugitives in hiding from a corruption inquiry and the NSW Liberal Party still has 20 seats to fill with candidates with the state election only 4 weeks away on the 25th of March.
PwC was commissioned to do a report on Robodebt in 2017 but but can’t recall if it was finalised, or not, or why. What’s the scam?
PwC is the scam. PwC was effectively paid *not* to deliver the Robodebt report; to never “finalise” it, to keep it in draft form so nobody ever had to be accountable.
This was the Big4 consultancy the government used to attack poor people with its big “welfare report” a year earlier now deployed in the cover it up. Highlights from the testimony of PwC partner Shane West at the Royal Commission this week:
“No … I can’t recall.” “I don’t know.” “I’m not sure”. “I don’t recall”. “I’m not sure I can say whether or not it is”. “Sorry, I can’t think of one” “This is getting beyond my area of knowledge”. The series of short videos on this Twitter feed is worth watching for sheer obfusca
Embattled former Coalition minister Stuart Robert is facing a new investigation into meetings he took as a minister with a business associate and their Canberra firm who he had previously advised on their bids for IT contracts worth tens of millions of dollars.
Well, it would be because there is no jury. What I’m trying to say is that the decision has been made by the people who matter which – as I am sure you know is the Federal Coalition. Lidia Thorpe has failed to declare a conflict of interest.
Peter Dutton has led the charge, announcing that Senator Thorpe must leave Parliament because ‘you can’t receive those briefings during the day and then hang out, you know, in nice circumstances of a night-time with a bikie.
Yes, Rob B is ex- Lib Premier Ted’s son. He was campaign manager for Monique Ryan’s downing of Josh at Kooyong in the last Federal Election. He is now working in the same capacity to ensure Matthew Guy loses in Victoria By Rob Baillieu
Under Matthew Guy, the Victorian Liberal Party is a souffle in the sun, collapsing in on itself. When it comes to scandal it doesn’t get much worse than your top lawyer quitting over concerns that you’re breaking the law. Except maybe your Chief of Staff resigning over a major donation scandal. The near-constant scandals have ruined Matthew Guy’s attempt to campaign on integrity. Not that it ever had a chance. When the most common refrain that follows your name is ‘lobster with a mobster’ then you probably shouldn’t campaign on integrity anyway.
She openly signed off on $22k of bonus gifts to her exec staff for work and goals achieved well before time. Morrison di the same for his political benefit and dodi it in secret while publicly blaming and shaming Holgate who in the end was found innocent.
Of the manufacturing projects, more than half were in electorates held by the Coalition while just three were in safe Labor seats.
olddogthoughts 
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