The Athenian citizens were the controllers and the engine room of their own democracy. They made laws, administered them and decided when they had been breached. No one, irrespective of wealth or power, had any more influence than anyone else.
Murdoch media has a documented history of hacking the private lives of people it believes it can profit from. It’s closure of The News of the World, employees jailed, and Murdoch being grilled in the UK are proof that the Murdochs have maintained their unethical practices. It seems the organization has maintained hacking as a tool by which it gathers information to help those like Linda Reynolds. It’s hard to imagine it was Linda Reynolds who provided the information that was published in the Australian?
The Weekend Australian referred to the former political staffer’s diary contents in an interview with her ex-boss Senator Linda Reynolds on Saturday.
Responding to the article, Ms Higgins said it was the third time The Australian had published “private images, texts and WhatsApps from my phone”.
What the Murdoch’s claim to be “news” almost had Rupert jailed in the UK. He sacrificed a paper and staff then fled to the US to repeat his methods and there.
In 2020, Fox News anchors Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity pushed Donald Trump’s election fraud claims for weeks. New documents suggest they never believed any of it.
Almost a year to the day after the Commonwealth Ombudsman requested a review – and following repeated inquiries from The Klaxon – the nation’s most powerful department says it has found seven officials who may have been illegally paid for holding two jobs.
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.
While the Robodebt fiasco is important and warrants a full scale inquiry, it is minor compared to the shocking report outlined by the Government on defence projects. The question therefore begs: are there similar or worst stories hiding in the Department of Defence?
Figures in last Tuesday’s Budget Papers show the Coalition has cost Australians more than 400 billion dollars in waste and rorts, as Alan Austin reports.
Once The Public Trustees Office was formed to help post-war time families in need. It has grown to become a series of institutions that help themselves while hidden from public oversight.
Key points:
A bombshell 2021 report finds the Public Trustee is pushing some people into poverty with unreasonable fees
The Trustee releases a separate review which recommends it charge clients more in annual fees
The Queensland Attorney-General says she’s scrapping two specific fees “for good” but the Public Trustee website shows those fees are just on hold
The CEO of Iron Mountain Inc. told Wall Street analysts at a September 20 investor event that the high levels of inflation of the past several years had helped the company increase its margins — and that for that reason he had long been “doing my inflation dance praying for inflation.”
On its way to electoral oblivion, the Morrison government kept the dollars flowing to select beneficiaries, in defiance of the 70-year-old parliamentary “caretaker” convention, writes #Mate.
It seems Matthew Guy is twisting what was initially reported. He agreed to the corrupt proposal and a contract was drawn up between Caitlin and the unnamed donor. However, the contract was reported to have been rejected by the said unnamed donor, and not by Matthew Guy or Caitlin. Everyone knew that the contract constituted a transgression of the rules, and whilst it didn’t eventuate the conspiracy nevertheless did. The unsigned contract remains evidence of the intended corruption. Guy should stand down. Conspiracy to commit a crime is a crime no matter if it didn’t occur.
A question remains who leaked the email to The Age, why, and just how divided and corrupt is the current Victorian LNP?
Opposition Leader Matthew Guy says his former chief of staff never signed a contract with any donors to provide funds in addition to his taxpayer-funded salary.
Australia’s reputation was diplomatically trashed by Morrison’s sting. He lied to both the French,and the Americans by not doing what he had promised while backstabbing Albanese. All in all, he singlehandedly compromised the integrity and reputation of our ADF. All of his duplicitous actions risked our National Security for what? His own personal interest, his entrenchment, and praise. Now he’s even losing that National Security political debate he held to be so precious because he’s the one still lying about what he actually did. The term National Security has actually dissolved to become Morrison Security.
Scott Morrison’s efforts by stealth to secure the AUKUS deal had global ramifications, with the French president enraged and the US president blindsided.
Of all the post-election royal commissions proposed to deal with Coalition corruption, one has a chance of retrieving billions, as Alan Austin reports. THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has squandered hundreds of billions of dollars through either incompetence or, worse, deliberate intent to enrich its foreign mates. Most of the frittered funds are gone forever. But maybe not all. The vast wealth and income lost over the last eight years through export corporations that pay little or no tax may actually be traceable and recoverable, in part at least. This will require an investigation with the powers of a royal commission and broad terms of reference. It will also require a change of government.
Perhaps the most important takeout from the leaders’ debate was when Scott Morrison admitted that it is Labor that introduces the big social reforms – Medicare, the PBS, the NDIS, paid parental leave, compulsory superannuation for example. Labor might have the ideas but it was the Coalition who had to pay for them, sighed Scott. They market themselves as the better economic managers. This seems to be based on Howard and Costello’s strategy of selling off every profitable asset we owned, privatising everything they could, whilst wasting the profits from the mining boom on doling out huge sums in tax cuts and deductions. And they hit us with the GST.
There is no recognition of the economic benefits Labor’s “big ideas” have delivered.
Not only do this lot concede they are not the party of big ideas, they have demonstrated that they also have no idea about how to plan for the future and budget and invest accordingly.
Amazing how a ” positive, progressive action” conducted in 2018 can
1) Make it to the Front Page of CH9’s The AGE in 2022 and be declared “corrupt”.
2) How a Good progressive action can be twisted and turned on its head as if it were the equivalent of a LNP regressive vote-buying rort. Remind ourselves what the Sikh community has done for Victoria during Covid, the bush fires, and other emergencies and they have done it for nothing
3) The Age CH9 however is giving wind to a disgruntled female politician who happens to be Indian and is now claiming “bullying” by her party for having been dropped by the ALP. In a case of push back she has teamed with Adam Somyarek a proved to be corrupt politician also sanctioned by the ALP and facing legal action.
4) The Age is acting as a PR agency maintaing an equivalence exists with LNP rorts and that the ALP are acting as thugs in a State regarded as the most progressive in the country. Their bias is obvious.
Meanwhile, there’s a War going on in Europe, Covid is out of control yet Peter Costello’s Ch9 is running a point guard defensive distraction against Daniel Andrews why? Because Matthew Guy’s Liberals are falling apart at the seams in front of us. This is a flagrant example of a pathetic attempt at damage control. It’s not news but Mainstream private media acting as agents for the LNP in view of an advertising return come November and it’s another example of why we need to SAVE THE ABC.
This isn’t splashed across the front pages of our MSM why? It certainly however indicates their right-wing, top-down propaganda bias. Morrison’s promised ICAC has been discarded and a stained promise remains. Australia’s international corruption index has blown out and the pigs are ripping the guts out of everything that remains. Super and wage theft have been gouged, while workers and their families have lost billions. $8 companies were given contracts that now values them at $340M. Mates have jobs doing sweet FA and earn $600K and grants well we saw the grants they came and went in some cases like Bridget McKenzie.
Nine years ago we were voted best economy on the planet and our Treasurer then voted the world’s best and we had just faced the GFC and won governed by the Gillard ALP. Bills were passedbut then along came 9 years of listening to “nope nope nope” of LNP government with Frydenberg still telling us we are the worlds best economy when the world says we are not.
Our privately owned MSM Murdoch the largest is proving to be the Australian equivalent of Russian State Media a propaganda machine loved by Putin. It might well be criticizing Scott Morrison but it sure as hell isn’t criticizing the L-NP for dragging this country down economically or reputationally on every social metric. They are after all the worlds best promisers who do nothing and when and if they do it’s so late its a useless token gesture. Yes Morrison promises to make the NBN the best in the world and liberate Christians from discrimination. What criticism there is in our MSM, is minimal and isn’t calling for a necessary change of government. Quite the opposite in fact, they are still branded the best economic managers by corporate Australia while government debt blew out to almost $1Tr and filled the pockets of their donors. The truth is staring us in the face. Are we better off under a Morrison/LNP than we were under a Gillard lead ALP? Is our material Economy, Health, Education, Wealth, Housing and Welfare better? Have Corruption, Broken Promises, Discrimination, Racism, and Climate action improved? Let’s be the honest judges and not simply accept the word of the worlds worst salesman!
One guy prosecuted for allegedly running a company while bankrupt, ten Crown directors off scot free for washing $70bn through casinos for Chinese Triads, drug and sex traffickers and other assorted criminals. One rule for rich and powerful, another for the rest. Michael West reports on the world of deluxe double standards.
When announcing the industry levy, ASIC said it was to ‘recover the regulatory costs of the ASIC through annual levies and fees-for-service’.
Last financial year, ASIC collected $314.5m via the industry levy — almost three-quarters of its $437m total operating cost.
The Federal Government’s record-breaking $1.078bn profit from ASIC came in the same year that ASIC’s two Federal Coalition-appointed executives were forced to resign in a major expenses scandal.
Both ASIC chair James Shipton – a former senior executive with notorious global investment bank Goldman Sachs – and Daniel Crennan QC, a Melbourne barrister, were illegally paid almost $200,000 more than they were entitled to.
Treasurer Frydenberg announced a “review” into the scandal, but, as previously revealed, he released a doctored version of the subsequent report, from which three-quarters of its key findings had been secretly deleted.
Despite the severity of the situation – a cover-up of corruption at the top of the corporate regulator involving the nation’s Treasurer – not one other media outlet has reported the scandal to date.
We saw how Vanstone and Guy cozied up to Australia’s Mafia Dons. They certainly weren’t the ALP being offered incentives.
Australia is cementing its name as a haven for money-launderers in global regulatory circles. Now that former laggard America is reforming however, the 64 billion dollar question is: will Canberra finally leap into action? Nathan Lynch examines how Australia has been exposed by the changing climate in Washington.
Every month, it seems a new corruption scandal emerges in Australian politics. These improprieties are not exceptions to the norm, they are the natural outcome of a two-party system that serves the wealthy elite.
With so many LNP ministers demoted for corrupt financial rorts, lies and morally scandalous misbehaviors not just to be now recalled but even promoted this second time around proves the electorate’s demand for an Integrity commission is an essential. Yet, the Morrison government, supposed servant of the electorate, has intentionally avoided establishing what was promised 3years before and he claims he’s not a liar.
What all this suggests is that this has all been just a “Trial Run” for an even bigger Scam, set of lies, and flow of corrupt money this time around because they feel they have got away with it. What’s worse today’s LNP politicians are laughing in the face of the electorates belief in Democracy and they’re behaving as if the electorate works for them and a tsunami money will keep them in power. How Trump are they?
Federal cabinet has not signed off on a much-criticised integrity commission proposal that Attorney-General Michaelia Cash indicates is unlikely to be introduced to parliament this year.
The lines seem awfully blurred to me when you see the jobs politicians get post-politics and even more when contracts are handed out untendered it’s extremely difficult to tell when decisions for commissions are made as they were in the case of McGuire. Matthew Guy was sprung in a case realestate insider trading with friends in Philip Island. Land deals are regularly seen to benefit MPs as is their good fortune and opportunity for insider trading. Or money parked in anonymous accounts even promised at a later date. The bigger problem is that being it’s becoming an increasingly accepted practice and accepted by a apathetic electorate. Councilmen and politician corruption has become the norm in Australia. It has seen us fall under the International corruption scale. Should we be surprised to find things were far better 8 years ago on most social metrics even corruption?
The role of the parliamentarian, historically, is one of service. The desire to hold two jobs, or more, suggests that such service is severely qualified. In the quotient of democracy and representation, the MP who is ready to tend to the affairs of others is unlikely to focus on the voter. I represent you, but I also represent my client who so happens to be parking his cash in offshore tax havens. I represent you, but I am moonlighting as an advisor for an armaments company. This condition has become rather acute in the British political scene. While a backbencher earns £81,932 annually plus expenses, they may pursue consultancies in the private sector as long as they do not engage in lobbying – a ridiculous fine line. Astonishingly, there is no limit on the number of hours they may spend on these additional jobs. Accordingly, members of parliament have shown marked confusion on how to separate their various jobs. Every so often, business has tended to find its way into the member’s office.
Are all these revelations actually helpful? There’s certainly a danger of media saturation, in which the public knows about these kinds of activities and may be less interested by now. But we need to emphasise that the consequences are not going away: to run a modern state, it’s very expensive. To pay for a good education system, a good health system, properly functioning infrastructure and so forth, somebody has to pay for it. If the rich are avoiding paying their share, somebody else is picking up the tab, and that’s either the poor or the squeezed middle classes. So if the public are tired of all this scandal, it doesn’t change the fact that they are suffering because of it.
Cue the sound of one invisible hand clapping – doing nothing undoes everything. The Covid Crusader’s government presides over the baffling mystery of who gave permission to the Ruby Princess to dock in Sydney 19 March 2020 and to let all 2650 passengers disembark. It’s an enigma. At least the ruling elite’s cult de jour, our Hillsong prosperity gospellers, are allowed to come ashore and bring their covid infections with them. No-one is brought to account. What we do is have an inquiry. Normalising corruption is something the Morrison government has turned into an art form, the embossed wallpaper of modern politics. Instead of penalties, Ministers get promotions. Witness sports rorts’ Bridget McKenzie. Back with not one but five portfolios. In the end, Gladys makes a bad exit. Whilst she may appear to enjoy a type of celebrity, this is not to be confused with legitimacy. Indeed, her authority is undermined by the corporate media’s wilful myth-making, in which she is taken captive, made into a type of mascot or trophy wife for appeasing business demands for as little regulation as possible.
One of the Morrison government’s first acts was to kill off Malcolm Turnbull’s plan for greater transparency about how lobbyists interact with the federal government, leaving in place a system widely regarded as ineffective, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Revelations of rampant cheating at KPMG echo the broader decay in culture at the top of business in Australia; at the Big Four firms which advise both our largest corporations and government, indeed the firms to which government itself is being outsourced. Michael West speaks with Jeffrey Knapp.
Christopher Pyne LNP MP (retired) is promoting Australia’s Arms industry
Florida Republican Michael Waltz made up to $25 million from the sale of Metis Solutions, a defense contractor with a spotty record training Afghan security forces. Lee Fang
When Tudge crept out from under a rock to hold a media conference on Wednesday, Nine’s Jonathan Kearsley was waiting for him and chased him back to the ministerial wing demanding answers about his role in formulating a list of marginal seats where the car parks were to be allocated, in consultation with Scott Morrison. If the footage looked like a dodgy tradie being pursued by an A Current Affairs reporter, that was entirely appropriate, except that Tudge had rorted far more money than any tabloid TV crook ever has.
Depending on who the key stakeholders are, who makes donations to your political party, the decisions follow. In Victoria, it is unions that keep ALP Premier Dan Andrews in power and were therefore top of the list for consultation and action. In NSW, business interests keep the Liberals in power and it was business consulted first and whose needs were prioritised. This is not corruption. It is politics. You reward your backers, but maintain good relationships with diverse interests. It is simply pragmatic. Corruption involves the acquiring of a personal benefit. Corruption was how an eminent retired judge described the carpark and sports rorts that will follow Scott Morrison all the way to the next election. Although no individual minister or MP was personally pocketing a direct financial benefit, using public money to improve prospects with the voters and to try to hold on to power is a form of corruption of the electoral process.
They, with Alito, are the Supreme Court majority. The ones who all but ended voting rights and allowed for even more secrecy in dark money to flood our system. What they have planned for next session is even worse. The Supreme Court is packed with dangerous ideologues, and a few corrupt ones, too. Now President Biden and Democrats have a chance to, well, unpack it. To dilute the Trump/RNC/Koch/Federalist Society’s malign influence and balance it out with four or six or however many additional justices. It is imperative. It is existential.
The Coalition is cracking down on charitable organisations. However, the Australian charity promoting arms deals on behalf of weapons makers that profit from humanitarian catastrophes is unlikely to be in the government’s sights. With the weapons expo LandForces wrapping up in Brisbane this week, Michelle Fahy delves into the charity behind LandForces.
As the NBN rollout continues to suffer from complaints and budget overruns, NBN Co executives have paid themselves millions of dollars in bonuses, writes Paul Budde.
Scott Morrison played on the general ignorance, as regards politics, of many members of the public, when he performed a one-man-band election campaign in 2019. A closer inspection of his message would have revealed no policy promises, except for cutting taxes. For the unthinking, that sounds like a good idea.
Convenience store chain 7-Eleven has paid back $173 million to more than 4000 victims of endemic wage theft at its franchise network, but former Australian Competition and Consumer Commission boss Allan Fels said that amount represented only a fraction of the chain’s unpaid wages.
The arms company at the centre of a deadly criminal saga and numerous global corruption scandals, Naval Group, was selected by the Australian government to build our new fleet of submarines – a deal heralded as ‘one of the world’s most lucrative defence contracts‘. How did this happen? In this special investigation Michelle Fahy discovers significant gaps in anti-bribery and corruption measures on this massive procurement project. The message communicated far and wide is that our standards are lax; grey areas are tolerated; and we’ll bend the rules and look the other way.
The administration calls Moncef Slaoui, who leads its vaccine race, a “contractor” to sidestep rules against personally profiting from government positions. Slaoui owns $10 million in stock of a company working with his team to develop a vaccine.
“A Trump stooge with a history of racist statements and no medical background is doctoring CDC reports warning Americans on Covid because they make Trump look bad.”
That is the big picture that we have to keep in mind because, as we approach the November election, we’re getting into extremely dangerous territory when a sitting president is willing to corrupt the entire federal bureaucracy to assist him in getting reelected.
Are all these revelations actually helpful? There’s certainly a danger of media saturation, in which the public knows about these kinds of activities and may be less interested by now. But we need to emphasise that the consequences are not going away: to run a modern state, it’s very expensive. To pay for a good education system, a good health system, properly functioning infrastructure and so forth, somebody has to pay for it. If the rich are avoiding paying their share, somebody else is picking up the tab, and that’s either the poor or the squeezed middle classes. So if the public are tired of all this scandal, it doesn’t change the fact that they are suffering because of it.
olddogthoughts 