Six months after the late Peta Murphy’s parliamentary committee report on online gambling was released, the Albanese Government is yet to make its response. Freedom of Information documents show why. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has been busy conducting secret consultations with “key stakeholders”. Rex Patrick and Philip Dorling unpack the government’s form on gambling reform.
Source: Murphy Report on gambling reform delayed by sports bet lobby – Michael West
What about the other major economic sectors? Scott Morrison has joined a Military Lobby group called a “think tank”. Was this a planned offer of a job made prior to the French being screwed? A prior whispered offer before AUKUS was announced. Given Morrison’s secrecy on just about everything one might well wonder,
In research that took several months, Jones and her colleagues found almost half (48%) of internal tobacco company lobbyists held positions in state, territory or federal government before or after working in the tobacco industry.
Lobbyists are a business in whose interest?
GSG and Lake, the public relations professionals they are, market themselves quite differently from one another.
Lake’s website appeals to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party — extolling its virtue as a “woman-owned small business with a commitment to diversity.”
Almost refreshingly honest, however, is GSG owning its function as an influence broker by advertising its team members’ “decades of experience working in government across state and federal capitols” and “deep relationships with top leaders of every level of government.”
Source: These Pollsters Push Pharma, Big Tech, and Democrats
The Grattan Institute similarly wants ministerial diaries to be published and has called for the lobbyist register to be linked to the orange passes.
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Lobbyists with orange “sponsored passes” have access to every office in Parliament Lambie also supports the five-year cooling-off period and wants the lobbying code of conduct to apply to anyone who lobbies, regardless of whether they are on the register. She says this should be policed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.“It will mean anyone who lobbies – whether they’re a third-party lobbyist for the mum-and-dad shop down the road, or an in-house lobbyist for Google – has to follow the same standards,” she wrote in 2017.
But Cranston – through no fault of his own – is hidden to the lobbying regime overseeing federal parliament. He is not listed on the federal register of lobbyists, the public’s only window into the world of lobbying.A former senior adviser to Tony Abbott is working as an in-house lobbyist for the tobacco giant Philip Morris, but flaws with the lobbying rules mean he is invisible to the oversight regime covering federal parliament.
Murray Cranston was a long-time adviser to Abbott, including during the Liberal MP’s time as health minister and opposition leader, and in the lead-up to his successful 2013 election campaign.
Since leaving Abbott’s office, Cranston has joined Philip Morris International as a manager of “federal government affairs” in the company’s external affairs team. The external affairs team engages with government officials and others on behalf of the multinational.
Matthew the Mafia Guy’s Man delivered on a Liberal Roll
A Liberal Party figure appointed by Opposition leader Matthew Guy to lead the state’s property development agency personally promoted the alleged head of the Calabrian Mafia in Australia to a prominent business body.
Tony De Domenico used his position last October as president of the Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Melbourne to make alleged mafia boss Tony Madafferi, a chamber member.
via Liberal figure promoted alleged mafia don to Italian business chamber
It is by now patently obvious to all, except perhaps to a politically myopic, pith-headed, uncultured twit, that the only Representing the House of Representatives does is for itself and the lobbies which pull its members’ strings. A fifth-world style of governance; a clique of criminals, or cowards incapable of standing up for their electorate?
Ron Paul’s recent article “Reckless Congress Declares War on Russia”, referring to the decision by Congress to pass H. Res. 758, in his words “16 pages of war propaganda”, states that this is “one of the worst pieces of legislation ever”. Needless to say, it is a predictable bunch of Russophobic nonsense cobbled together by a handful of neocons pandering to the whims of the lobbies who pull their strings. It is also a Resolution which backs criminal activity contravening every fiber of international law.
What is even more sickening is that the bill only received ten votes against, meaning that either the entire House is in cavorts with criminal policies or else its members are sniveling cowards who do not have the guts and the spine to stand up for the principles they were elected to represent. Does the House of Representatives represent anything other than the interests of its members? And if this is the case, then why do the American people not stand up and be counted for once? Do they not have any principles either, or does their wonderfully democratic system deny them the tools to make a difference and have their say?
Examining the document, it blames Russia for invading Ukraine (Paragraph 3), blames Russian-backed forces for the downing of passenger aircraft MH 17 (Paragraph 14) and demands that Russian forces withdraw from Ukraine (Paragraph 13) then condemns Russia for selling weaponry to Syria (Paragraph 16) before going on to accuse Russia of invading Georgia in 2008 (Paragraph 22) and rubber-stamping approval for the USA to provide combat materials to Ukraine.
In short, the Resolution is a study in hypocrisy and contravenes international law, which forbids the involvement of a country in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation unless there are proven activities which directly pose a threat to the said country. Such was not the case in Iraq, such was not the case in Libya, such was not the case in Syria, where the activities of the USA and its allies have led to the creation of a serious security threat.
Examining the Ukraine issue, under the Ukrainian Constitution, the precepts for the removal of the President involved an impeachment process based on a formal accusation charging the President with a crime, backed by the incumbent Prime Minister, this Resolution backed in turn by the judges of the Constitutional Court and then the process backed by a three-quarters majority vote in Parliament. When Prime Minister Mykola Azarov resigned on January 28, 2014, he was replaced by Sergiy Arbuzov. When the Putsch placed Arseniy Yatsenyuk as Prime Minister and terminated the powers of the Supreme Court judges, convening a Parliament without many of the Party of Regions Members and using the Multiple Voting system (deputies voting in the name of absentee members, outlawed by President Yanukovich) it was basically denying itself any legal basis to act and guaranteeing that all of its actions would be illegal. The proper course of action would have been peaceful opposition until the elections. Let us remember that President Yanukovich was elected with 49 per cent of the vote, in a free and fair, democratic election
In the event, President Viktor Yanukovich was removed on “circumstances of extreme urgency” which was not a legal precept for removal from office. Being forced out of office by an armed uprising is meaningless and has no foundations whatsoever under any international, regional or national law. The only development which had any legal backing was the Agreement on the Settlement of the Crisis in Ukraine, signed between President Yanukovich and the Opposition on February 21, 2014, under which it was agreed to bring the 2015 election forward to December 2014.
Therefore, any activity surrounding or arising from the Ukraine crisis in 2014 has to begin with the principle that the Putsch was illegal and therefore the legitimate government of Ukraine was removed. This being the case, the body with powers to enforce the law in the Republic of Crimea was the Parliament of this Republic, which had been Russian territory for longer than the USA has been a nation, until February 19, 1954, when the Supreme Soviet of the USSR decided to transfer Crimea from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. No wonder its people voted to return back home in the free and fair Referendum, especially after the Putsch Government in Kiev had started issuing anti-Russian edicts amid calls for the slaughter of Russians and Jews on the streets, thronging with armed Fascists and thugs.
Not surprisingly, after Fascist massacres in Odessa, Mariupol and Donetsk, in which Russian-speaking civilians were murdered en masse by Fascists supporting the new Putsch government in Kiev, the men and women of the south-east Ukraine took up arms to protect themselves and declared that they wanted nothing to do with the new pro-Western forces claiming to govern the country.
As for the accusations against Russia, where is the evidence that Russia is involved directly? Where are the satellite photographs? If the members of Congress knew the Donbass region and its people, they would see clearly that the south-eastern Ukrainians need Russian military intervention for nothing, and anyway if Russia was involved, Kiev would have been taken within two days.
As for the downing of flight MH 17, how can Congress make any accusations when the official investigation has not even been concluded and when there is plenty of evidence which points toward a Ukrainian military aircraft shooting it down, thinking it was President Putin’s plane? Is Congress irresponsible, or is it packed with barefaced liars?
As for Syria, at least Russia’s weaponry goes to fighting against Islamic State, whereas the USA’s goes towards arming it. Russia did not side with terrorists to destroy Libya, the country with the highest human development index in Africa, the USA did. Russia did not attack Iraq, deploying military hardware against civilian structures breaching every norm and precept under international law. The USA did. As for saying Russia attacked Georgia, nonsense. Russia staged a very measured response to a murderous act of provocation, when Georgia attacked and murdered Russian citizens.
So to conclude, Congress is apparently either a bunch of criminals, giving the nod to more intervention in the internal affairs of a sovereign state, or else appears to be jammed full of sniveling yellow-bellied cowards, kicked around from pillar to post, too frightened to stand up and represent the interests of the people who elected them. The lobbies say jump, the Members ask how high.
And this is the body that represents the United States of America? Can I hear the Founding Fathers turning in their graves?
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
olddogthoughts 