Showing posts with label Abbott Government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Abbott Government. Show all posts

Thursday 26 May 2016

Former Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey's 'gift' to all property owners across the nation



The Australian, 19 May 2016:
The current mess was created when former treasurer Joe Hockey caved into pressures to curb Chinese investment in Australian residential property in 2015. In the process, the treasurer was convinced by the Australian Taxation Office to widen the net to cover local residents.
Parliament was being bombarded with tax legislation at the time and the Canberra politicians did not pick up what the ATO had done.
So, fasten your seats belts for a horror commentary.
I was alerted to the position by one of Australia’s top commercial/tax barristers, John Fickling of WA. I am using many of Fickling’s words in describing what is about to happen.
If you purchase a property worth $2m or more on or after July 1 2016, you will be required to withhold 10 per cent of the purchase price and remit it to the ATO UNLESS the vendor is able to provide a special purpose tax resident’s “clearance certificate” from the ATO. It does not matter if the vendors were born in Australia and have lived all their lives in Australia — unless they have that clearance certificate, they are classed as a foreigner and the buyer must send 10 per cent of the purchase price to the tax office.
In case you think I’m kidding, read the ATO’s exact words: “A vendor who sells the following assets is also a relevant foreign resident, even if they are an Australian resident for other tax purposes.
The definition of property is very wide and includes leaseholds but does not include stock exchange investments. A purchaser who does not receive a “clearance certificate” from the vendor and does not send 10 per cent of the purchase price off to the ATO will still be liable to pay that 10 per cent to the ATO plus, almost certainly, will have to pay severe additional penalties and interest. The economics of buying the property will be severely damaged.
Fickling says all real estate agents selling $2m plus properties should be considering how this new regime will impact on their business and what will be the contractual consequences under the different scenarios that could play out.
For example, banks and other financiers may be affected where their secured debt exceeds 90 per cent of the value of the selling price. In a situation where the owner is being forced to sell, the banks will be better to take possession and sell themselves rather than being caught in the “tax clearance” delays.
To be fair, in the vast majority of cases local resident vendors will have no problem obtaining a “clearance certificate”.
However, for locals it might increase their risk of a tax audit and there are clear hazards for property sellers who:
Have not filed tax returns for many years;
Have filed tax returns, which would indicate they could not afford such a property;
Are selling their residential house at the same time as their neighbours to a single developer, which may give rise to a profit making scheme (such that the principal residence capital gains tax exemption may not apply to the value uplift generated by selling the properties together); or
Where the ATO has gathered information that indicates the vendor is in the business of developing property, which means that the principal residence capital gains tax exemption may not apply.
Fickling says in extreme cases action could potentially be taken by the ATO prior to the sale, to freeze the transaction.
Those who see any of the above as dangers might consider selling in a hurry (before July 1), so there might be some property bargains for buyers in coming weeks.
It’s also important to note that the $2m is “hard-coded” into the legislation, so, as property prices increase, more vendors will be caught. Over time, the ATO may shift their audit target identification processes to $2m-plus property vendors and away from other areas.
Additionally, if the vendor has a tax debt, the application for a “clearance certificate” may in some circumstances involve the ATO seeking to recover some or all of that tax debt from the purchaser by way of a garnishee notice.
At this point, it is worth noting that we are giving the Australian Taxation Office another weapon to recover tax legitimately owed and that is a good thing for society.
The great danger is the complexity created and that currently the tax office is badly run and is operating outside the law in key small business areas. It knows it can’t be challenged because of the cost of court cases.
Meanwhile, the legislation is yet another blow being aimed at Chinese and other Asian investors in property. These blows have come separately and each one has had reasonable motivations. But, in combination, they could inflict severe damage to the apartment and other parts of the residential property market.
Chinese and other Asian investors face a Hobson’s choice. They will not enjoy getting a tax clearance but nor will they appreciate the buyer of their property taking 10 per cent off the purchase price.
And if the tax office treats locals illegally, what might they do to foreigners?
Australia desperately needs greater independent supervision of the tax office.

In case readers imagine that high property prices are confined to large metropolitan areas a quick look at realestate.com.au will dispel that view – within the NSW Northern Rivers there are currently 7 properties in Yamba and environs with a sale value of $2 million and over, 4 in the Grafton area, 6 in Kyogle, 9 in the Lismore region, 35 in the Ballina district, 78 in the Byron Bay greater region and 46 in the Tweed local government area.

Sunday 8 May 2016

Federal Election 2016: Malcolm Bligh Turnbull and housing affordability


On 4 May 2016 this on-air exchange occurred between ABC 774 Radio presenter Jon Faine and Prime Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull:

JON FAINE" Yeh but my question was specifically about the intergenerational aspects of it. It’s  [negative gearing] creating conflict with effectively the kids of your and my generation, who can't get into the market and they're saying oh for goodness sake you baby boomers, you just want everything and you're locking us out.”

MALCOLM TURNBULL"Are your kids locked out of the housing market?"

JON FAINE"Yes"

MALCOLM TRUNBULL"Well you should shell out for them, you should support them, a wealthy man like you"

JON FAINE"That's what they say" [laughing]

MALCOLM TURNBULL"Exactly. There you go. See you've got the solution in your own hands”

JON FAINE: “That’s hardly national policy”

MALCOLM TURNBULLYou can provide a bit of inter-generational equity in the Faine family"

There is a reason why Turnbull can be so casually dismissive of concerns about home ownership and housing affordability and, it can be found in his privileged background.


Title records show that Mr Turnbull was a law student at Sydney University when he spent $17,000 on a worker’s semi on Newtown’s Wells Street. At the time he was far from a struggling student kicking around the backstreets of the inner west. He was already a Point Piper resident, with corporate records showing he lived in the Longworth Avenue apartment owned by his late father, hotel broker Bruce Turnbull.
That Newtown investment property was likely Mr Turnbull’s first windfall from the Sydney property market. He sold it in 1981 for $68,000, quadrupling in value over the three years.
The year after his Newtown purchase title records show the Rhodes scholar (or “student” according to the property transfer) bought a terrace on Redfern’s Great
Long before Malcolm Turnbull ascended to the highest political office in the country and took the keys to his official Sydney residence Kirribilli House, he had already amassed a fortune – much of it from Sydney’s property market.
The 29th prime minister has come a long way from his 1978 first-home purchase in Newtown, to his $50 million-plus trophy waterfront home in Point Piper.

Privately educated Malcolm Turnbull was 23 or 24 years old, son of a successful property speculator and a recent university graduate, when he purchased his first property in 1978.

By the end of 1982 this now married practicing lawyer was a member of the Liberal Party, had inherited an est. $2 million in assets, become a grazier and acquired a second investment property – all the while residing in a Point Piper flat owned by his father.

Five years later he was an investment banker at Whitlam Turnbull & Co. Ltd.

By the time he entered parliament as the Member for Wentworth in 2004 he was reputedly worth $133 million.

Turnbull’s fortune continues to grow.

This is a man who has never known Struggle Street. 

Australian Federal Election 2016: Abbott shafted the frail aged in New South Wales, Turnbull ignores their predicament and now Baird has turned his back


The profits of aged care homes surged 40 per cent in the past year as operators cut hours of nursing care while claiming higher payments from the federal government for servicing more of the most frail patients. The earnings boom in the sector comes after the government introduced widespread reforms of aged care in 2014, including deregulating fees and lifting restrictions on the accommodation bond that nursing homes can levy on residents. [The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 January 2016]

In 2014 then Prime Minister Tony Abbott amended the C’wealth Aged Care Act 1997 with the Aged Care (Living Longer Living Better) Act 2013.

The amendments impacted on the requirement under s104 of the NSW Public Health Act 2010 to have a registered nurse on duty at all times in a nursing home.  

The Baird Government initially grandfathered its Public Health Act until December 2015 and then awaited a report by the NSW Legislative Council General Purpose Standing Committee No. 3’s parliamentary inquiry established on 25 June 2015.

On 29 October 2015 the Committee’s Final Report was tabled with the following recommendation:


On Friday 29 April 2016 at 3.15pm the NSW Baird Coalition Government responded to the Final Report’s 17 recommendations by washing its hands of any responsibility for staffing levels NSW nursing homes:


So three days before the 2016-17 federal budget details are revealed, possibly less than 32 days until the federal government enters caretaker mode ahead of a 2 July 2016 double dissolution federal election, and at the end of a working week, this Liberal-Nationals state government announces that it is very willing to place the lives of every frail aged resident in New South Wales nursing homes at significant risk.

Perhaps he and his government are hoping that the media will quickly lose interest and, that older voters and their families will forget that they will now be playing what could possibly be a cruel game of Russian roulette if they decide to spend their remaining years in aged care.

Friday 6 May 2016

So how is the Coalition's 'supadupa' Jobactive Australia scheme going?


This is an excerpt from a Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Minister for Employment Senator Eric Abetz, MP for Cowper and Assistant Minister for Employment Luke Hartsuyker joint media release on 31 March 2015:

In 1998, the Howard Government introduced the Job Network and revolutionised the delivery of employment services to job seekers.
Unfortunately, the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Government changed the employment services system to reward process over results and encourage training for training’s sake.
The system became mired in red tape, letting down job seekers and employers.
The new jobactive system will be focused on results and reward performance not process.
From 1 July 2015, 66 organisations will deliver one or more jobactive services to job seekers and employers across Australia.
There will be clearer incentives to ensure employment service providers are focused on better preparing job seekers to meet the needs of local employers and helping people to find and keep a job.
Service providers will no longer receive ‘job placement’ payments.
The rules around training have also been tightened to ensure that job seekers are not being sent to training for training’s sake, as is currently the case.
There will be less red tape so that providers can spend more time doing what they do best – helping job seekers find and keep a job.
The new employment services contract will also be extended from three years to five years.
A new regional loading for providers in selected regions will be introduced, recognising that labour market conditions vary across Australia.
The new model encourages young job seekers to take up a job and employers to take on new employees.
The Job Commitment Bonus programme will encourage young, long-term unemployed job seekers aged 18-30 to find and keep a job.

Setting up Jobactive Australia cost an est. $6.756 million according to the Dept. of Employment.

In the first two months it was operating (1 July 2015 to 30 September 2015) those approved service providers billed the Employment Fund General Account a total of $6.170 million predominately for professional services, training, clothing & presentation.

On 17 September 2015 Employment Minister Eric Abetz boasted that Jobactive Australia had reached 50,000 job placements since the start of the scheme. However he was careful not to qualify what comprised a 'placement'.

According to the Dept. of Employment Budget Statements 2015-16 Jobactive Australia was allocated $1.459 billion for that financial year. This budget expense is expected to rise to $1.778 billion in 2016-17, with total employment services expenses expected to total $1.932 billion.

For that amount of money the Abbott-Turnbull Government expects the Jobactive scheme to have placed 380,000 jobseekers in often wage-subsidised employment in 2015-16, at a cost of est.$2,500 per placement covering Employment Fund expenditure, service fees and outcome payments.

Unfortunately 68% of these placements are likely to last only 4 weeks before the person is unemployed once more. I suspect the percentage of temporary jobs is so high because this allows service providers to bill the government again and again for ‘helping’ those same job seekers find other temporary jobs once the initial placement dissolves into thin air and, via the $1.2 billion national wage subsidy pool potentially allows employers to 'churn' new employees on short term contacts so that employers receive financial benefits from the pool but employees are unemployed at contract's end.

None of the departmental employment sustainability measures encompass positions lasting longer than six months, so it is unclear as to whether there is a genuine expectation that job service providers will assist in finding permanent employment for anyone.

In July 2015 when Jobactive Australia commenced, the real national unemployment rate was probably running at est. 8.7% and by March 2016 it had climbed to est.11% according Roy Morgan Research vs ABS Employment Estimates (1992-2016).

In November 2013 the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) seasonally adjusted combined unemployment and underemployment rate (underutilisation) was 13.5% and by February 2016 this combined rate was 14.2%.

In September 2013 the average number of weeks an unemployed person spent looking for a job was 39, with an est.134,400 people looking for 52 weeks and over.
Under the Abbott-Turnbull Government by March 2016 the average number of weeks had risen to 46.2, with an est. 181,700 people looking for 52 weeks and over. [Australian Bureau of Statistics, Labour Force, Australia, Detailed - Electronic Delivery, Mar 2016] 

In June 2014 an est. 123,800 15 to 24 year-olds were looking for full time or part-time work. By March 2016 the number of young people in this category had risen to 133,000. [ibid]

The Brotherhood of St. Laurence reported on 14 March 2016 that some rural and regional areas weregrappling with youth unemployment rates above 20 per cent.

Richmond-Tweed (including Tweed Heads, Byron Bay, Lismore, Mullumbimby) in the NSW Northern Rivers region had a youth unemployment rate of 14.5% in January 2015 and by January 2016 this rate had risen to 17.4% [Brotherhood of St Laurence, Australia’s Youth Unemployment Hotspots: Snapshot March 2016, p. 3]

Yet on 1 May 2016 Treasurer Scott Morrison was telling The Courier Mail that there had been 50,000 youth jobs created in the past 18 months across Australia. He also was offering no supporting proof for this bold statement covering November 2015 to April 2016 and, as neither ABS labour force nor job vacancy data tracks jobs growth it is hard to see where he finding his figures.

Somehow these statistics engender little confidence that the Liberal-Nationals Coalition has taken a genuinely constructive approach to unemployment since winning government in September 2013 – despite that gung-ho media release announcing “jobactive services”.

Wednesday 4 May 2016

Australian Federal Election 2016: Kristina Keneally's open letter to Cabinet Secretary Senator Arthur Sinodinos



Woody Allen said 80% of life is showing up. 
Every single day of my ministerial career I showed up. I did my job. I answered the hard questions. I faced the opposition, the media and the public.
Ask any NSW press gallery journalist. As premier I ended every media conference by asking, “Are there any more questions?”, and the journalists answering no.
Ask your fellow Coalition colleagues in NSW. Every time they called an inquiry, no matter how politically motivated, I showed up. An upper house inquiry into the murder of Michael McGurk: I showed up. An upper house inquiry into the sale of electricity assets: I showed up. 
After Barry O’Farrell was elected he instituted a second electricity transactions inquiry, conducted by Justice Tamberlin. I volunteered to show up to that as well, but was never called.  
Not one of these inquiries made adverse findings. If anything, these processes vindicated my actions. Tamberlin found my government acted with probity in regard to the electricity transactions and achieved the best possible result for taxpayers.   
As for planning, there was absolutely no evidence uncovered of any planning official involved in McGurk’s murder. Later Icac found no evidence of corruption in the NSW planning system while I was minister. 
So why won’t you turn up to the Senate and answer questions about the fundraising activities of the NSW Liberal party in the 2011 NSW state election?
Did you know the Free Enterprise Foundation was taking funds from prohibited donors and sending them to the NSW Liberal party? If you didn’t know, why not? You were the honorary treasurer and finance committee chair, after all. 
Who conceived this scheme? What legal advice did you receive? What advice did you give to candidates in regards to NSW fundraising laws and prohibited donors? Was O’Farrell aware of the washing of funds from prohibited donors? 
Here’s the question I really want you to answer: why the hell did the Liberal party undertake such stupid, questionable and potentially illegal acts in that election? I led a 16-year-old government that was trailing some pretty high profile scandals. Surely you could have just passed the plate for gold coin donations at the Ku-ring-gai and Manly Liberal party branch meetings and still won the election. 
Was it hubris? Was it immaturity? Was it carelessness? Was it idiocy?
Your party’s fundraising tipped more money into key seats and likely ended the careers of several good, hardworking Labor MPs who were simply outspent in the campaign. Now we know why. The funds were ill-gotten. The NSW Liberal party subverted democracy. Do you care?
I know you are at both the beginning and the end of your political career. After years of supporting others as an adviser, you finally have your chance to be the man, to make the decisions, to run the show and be seen to run the show.  
But this is also the end. You aren’t young. This is your second chance. There won’t be a third go. You are likely terrified this is how your whole career will be defined. 
You seem willing to do whatever it takes, including disrespecting the Senate when it exercises its proper authority, in the hope you can avoid the tough questions. 
You can’t. Not forever. 
I didn’t always believe in karma, but that bottle of vintage Grange a few years ago reminded me that people, more often than not, reap what they sow. 
Show up. 

Tuesday 3 May 2016

Australian Federal Election 2016: bolting to the ballot box before arrests are made?


It is looking more and more as if Malcolm Turnbull’s decision to go to the polls early has less to do with so-called Senate obstruction and a lot more to do with a number of allegedly criminal skeletons in Liberal and National Party closets……..

ABC News 29 April 2016:

Australian Federal Police (AFP) have ramped up their investigation into the copying of former speaker Peter Slipper's diary.

The ABC has been told the AFP has made an application to the Federal Court, which, if granted, would allow police to use evidence from an earlier civil case in a criminal prosecution.

That evidence includes text and picture messages exchanged between Mr Slipper's former staffer, James Ashby, and Liberal National Party MP Mal Brough.


Now the AFP has asked the Federal Court to grant it permission to use the material harvested from Mr Ashby's phone, including excerpts from Mr Slipper's diary sent by Mr Ashby to Mr Brough.

In its application, the AFP has said the messages will be used in the current investigation, and any subsequent prosecution.

Permission is necessary because the exhibits were originally only to be used in the civil case.

Mr Ashby's sexual harassment suit was rejected by a Federal Court judge, who said Mr Ashby had been part of a "combination" including Mr Brough, which had used the legal action as a political weapon against Mr Slipper.

Mr Ashby then appealed and the original judgement was set aside, but Mr Ashby later dropped the case.

However, it subsequently emerged the AFP is investigating whether Mr Brough committed a crime by encouraging Mr Ashby to copy pages of Mr Slipper's diary.

Mr Brough stood down from his role of Special Minister of State in December, saying he would not contest the upcoming federal election.




Friday 22 April 2016

How to explain the trainwreck that is the last three years of the federal government?


Josh Bornstein writing in The Guardian on 13 April 2016 manfully tries to explain that which confounds us all:

How to explain the trainwreck that is the last three years of the federal government? The debacle poses a challenge that will dog journalists, policy wonks and historians for decades to come. The explanations for its dysfunction and sustained under-achievement are complex, but there are at least two distinct theories worth considering.
In Malcolm Turnbull’s second ministerial reshuffle in February, Alex Hawke was promoted to the office of assistant minister to the treasurer. In 2005, the then young Liberal office holder prophesied that conservative politics in Australia would move increasingly towards an American model. Hawke explained that: “The two greatest forces for good in human history are capitalism and Christianity, and when they’re blended it’s a very powerful duo.”
Can the relentless incoherence and incompetence of the current government be attributed to a particular blend of capitalism and religion that has found favour in the US? Perhaps…..
And yet, there is also a far more prosaic explanation for the mess.
The federal government is hostage to the campaign run by Abbott in opposition – a campaign had three essential features: it was ruthlessly prosecuted, very successful and, finally, completely and utterly irrational.
The opposition inculcated a state of perpetual crisis that was the envy of professional catastrophists the world over. The crises said to beleaguer the nation under a Labor government formed an impressively long list: the cost of living crisis, the retail crisis, the productivity crisis, the debt crisis, the deficit disaster, emergency low interest rates, sovereign risk crisis, the budget emergency.
None of the crises were real. Rather, they were a fiction borne of a political strategy designed to destabilise and remove the Labor government which, for all its faults presided over a stunning macroeconomic performance and successfully ducked a recession in the wake of the global financial crisis.
It is one thing to proclaim a series of crises. It’s another to promulgate the solution. The then opposition’s program was remarkably simple and painless: “No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.” Critically, there would also be tax cuts.
Exactly how the federal government would cut taxes, reduce government debt and transition to a budget surplus, boost infrastructure and not cut major expenditure like health, education and the pension was never made clear. Nor could it be made clear. The laws of mathematics do not accommodate such idiocy.
Economic illiteracy can be masked by theatrical bluff and bluster for only so long. The government’s 2014 budget cut a swathe through its pre-election promises including gouging an $80bn hole in funding for health and education. Taxes weren’t cut; in fact, there was an attempt to raise a new tax – for visiting a GP.
The Senate kept the government to its pre-election promises and it has been stuck in a paralysing funk ever since.
In its short life the LNP government has levied more tax as a proportion of GDP than its predecessor. Government spending as a proportion of GDP has also increased, the budget deficit has more than doubled from its “crisis” levels in 2013, and gross government debt has ballooned by over $100bn…..
By January 2016, even conservative partisans at the Australian could no longer maintain the fiscal fantasy. Judith Sloan wrote: “I’m calling it here: the Turnbull government is a big spending, big taxing government with no real intention to pare back the growth of government spending, let alone cut it.” In other words, Turnbull continued where Abbott left off.
The wild irrationality that has infected the government has manifested itself in a series of government appointments. A climate science denier, Maurice Newman, was one of the government’s first, appointed to head its Business Advisory Council.
The appointment of Tim Wilson to the role of “freedom commissioner” was an Orwellian coup for the extreme right lobbyists at the IPA, effectively outsourcing Wilson’s labour costs to the taxpayer.
The man who specialised in the dehumanisation of asylum seekers and perpetuated the incarceration of children, Philip Ruddock, secured an appointment as special envoy for human rights. More Orwell…..
It sought to silence, intimidate and then remove the president of the Human Rights Commission, Professor Gillian Triggs. It has enacted laws to prevent doctors speaking about the harm being inflicted on refugees.
There are the measures taken to silence NGOs including community legal centres who are banned from advocating for law reform. The work of environmental organisations including the Environmental Defenders’ Office has been sabotaged notwithstanding the government’s failed attempt to prevent environmental groups accessing the legal system. So much for the rule of law…..
Who or what is responsible for the government’s many other strange cultural and religious obsessions? Eric Abetz’s insistence on a link between breast cancer and abortion, notwithstanding the science that discredited this theory five decades ago. The attempt to ban the burqa in the confines of Parliament House. The campaign to water down racial vilification laws in support of the right to be a bigot. The havoc wreaked on investment in renewable energy as the government campaigned against “ugly” wind turbines. The many attacks on the ABC, culminating in a government black-ban on appearing on its current affairs flagship, Q&A. The attack on Safe Schools.
Endless fuel to stoke the fires of satire – perhaps – but there is another more disturbing dimension to these obsessions. The federal government almost always “punches down”. The coalition caucus is a toxic brew of fierce antagonism directed at minority groups, the disadvantaged and victims of discrimination.
Those targeted to be disadvantaged by its policies are invariably minorities, the less well-off and those with little or no political voice: those with the smallest superannuation balances, Muslims, cleaners of Canberra offices, food processing workers employed at SPC, the unemployed (the attempt to impose a six-month qualification period to qualify for unemployment benefits), children in disadvantaged schools (the sabotage of Gonski education reforms), the strenuous attempts to chisel lowly paid workers with intellectual disability out of backpay owed to them, the calculated and deliberately cruel infliction of injury on refugees fleeing war zones including Syria.
And let us not forget the attempt to wind back consumer protections against predatory crooks in our ethically challenged banks, championed by Turnbull’s key ally, Senator Arthur Sinodinos…..

Thursday 21 April 2016

Then Australian Attorney-General George Brandis in March 2015: "Media organisations are not the target of this law. The targets of this law are criminals and paedophiles and terrorists"*


The Australian federal police have admitted they sought access to a Guardian reporter’s metadata without a warrant in an attempt to hunt down his sources.
It is the first time the AFP has confirmed seeking access to a journalist’s metadata in a particular case.
The admission came to light when the AFP told the privacy commissioner it had sought “subscriber checks” and email records relating to the Guardian Australia journalist Paul Farrell, and the correspondence was sent to Farrell by the office of the Australian information commissioner……
The AFP’s submission said: “You will see that exemptions have been claimed under s47E(d) and s37(2)(b) on some folios. These exemptions primarily relate to e-mail and other subscriber checks relating to Mr Farrell, and examination of meta data associated with some electronic files.”  [The Guardian, 14 April 2016]

At 11.35am AEST on 17 April 2014 The Guardian published journalist Paul Farrell’s article Australian ship went far deeper into Indonesian waters than disclosed with this map:


And this observation:

The redacted version of the classified report, obtained by the Australian Associated Press under freedom of information laws, said: “Entry to Indonesian waters was inadvertent, arising from miscalculation of the maritime boundaries, in that the calculation did not take into account archipelagic baselines.”

Crucially, the report adds: “Territorial seas declared by foreign nations are generally not depicted on Australian hydrographic charts.”

But the digital map from the vessel casts doubt on these findings, and clearly shows the Australian ship crossing the red line that marks the point of Indonesia’s baselines and entering its waters past the headlands near Pelabuhan Ratu bay. Indonesia’s territorial seas are 12 nautical miles further out from where the baselines are marked in red. It is not known whether the digital mapping device was operational at the time the Ocean Protector entered Indonesian waters.

If he wasn’t a blip on the Australian Federal Police radar before the publication date of that article, Paul Farrell was from then on.

However, it is unclear if the initial request to investigate this journalist came from the then Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Scott Morrison, his department or some other individual or agency.

Although what appears to be Folio 3 of an est. 200 pages in Case No.5610147 seems to suggest that Customs (now called Border Force) may have been the complainant of record by May 2014 and the media finger points to the head of Australian Customs and Border Protection Services, Michael Pezzullo.

On 12 Febraury2016 Farrell stated of this investigation:

The files are made up of operational centre meeting minutes, file notes, interview records and a plan for an investigation the AFP undertook into one of my stories. Most concerning is what appears to be a list of suspects the AFP drew up, along with possible offences they believe they may have committed.
The documents show that during the course of an investigation into my sources for a story I had written, an AFP officer logged more than 800 electronic updates on the investigation file.

Farrell is not the only journalist whose metadata has been accessed in search of sources, but the Australian Federal Police insists that it has not accessed any journalist’s metadata for the last six months – the last time being in 13 October 2015.

Footnote

Wednesday 30 March 2016

Australian Federal Election 2016; debt, credit and GDP


So how is Australia’s economy faring under the Abbott-Turnbull Government in the lead-up to the 3 May 2016 federal budget and the following general election?


The underlying cash balance for the 2015-16 financial year to 29 February 2016 was a deficit of $38,719 million.1
The fiscal balance for the 2015-16 financial year to 29 February 2016 was a deficit of $35,292 million…..

Total revenue was $1,223 million lower than the MYEFO profile, primarily due to lower than expected taxation revenue and dividend income.
Total expenses were $2,831 million lower than the MYEFO profile, primarily due to lower than expected supply of goods and services, wages and salaries and grants expenses…..

Net worth is negative $352,423 million;
Net debt is $287,920 million; and
Net financial liabilities are $516,561 million.

Financial Review, 28 March 2016:

Australia is one of seven countries that Forbes magazine says is the "most likely to suffer a debt crisis" within the next three years. 

China, whose economy has faltered in the past two years, comes No. 1 on the list of seven, but Australia is No. 2. Sweden, Hong Kong, South Korea, Canada and Norway complete the list of infamy.

Using data for both private and public debt compiled by Switzerland-based Bank of International Settlements, the magazine looks at the rate of growth of credit compared with gross domestic product, paying particular attention to when credit growth begins to fall……

"The bottom line is that private sector expenditure in an economy can be measured as the sum of GDP plus the change in credit, and crises occur when (a) the ratio of private debt to GDP is large; (b) growing quickly compared to GDP," the magazine says.

When credit growth slips as servicing debt exhausts funds available to finance it, "new borrowers baulk at entry costs to house purchases, and numerous euphoric and Ponzi-based debt-financed schemes fail" leading to a change in available credit.

Australia, like the other six countries on the list, fill the two key prerequisites, a high level of private debt to GDP, and a rapid growth of that ratio in the last few years, the report says.
Economic crises often coincide with private debt exceeding 1.5 times GDP and the level of private debt grows by about 20 per cent over a five-year period.


The Guardian, 15 January 2016:

The results are in: Australian households have more debt compared to the size of the country’s economy than any other in the world.

Research by the Federal Reserve has shown the consolidated household debt to GDP ratio increased the most for Australia between 1960 and 2010 out of a select group of OECD nations. Australia’s household sector has accumulated massive unconsolidated debt compared with other countries. As of the third quarter of 2015, it now has the world’s most indebted household sector relative to GDP, according to LF Economics’ analysis of national statistics……

Australia has around $2 trillion in unconsolidated household debt relative to $1.6 trillion in GDP. Australia’s ratio is 123.08%.....

Australian property investors and homeowners are burdened with massive mortgages, especially new and marginal entrants. Unlike winning a gold medal at the Olympics, having the world’s most indebted household sector is not an achievement the nation should be proud of. This is where Australia’s real debt and deficit problem lies, not in the public sector.

Footnotes

1. Compare with the 2013-14 financial year to 30 September 2013 which covers the last eight months of the former federal Labor government:

The underlying cash balance for the 2013-14 financial year to 30 September 2013 was a deficit of $22,929 million.
The fiscal balance for the 2013-14 financial year to 30 September 2013 was a deficit of $19,659 million…..

Total revenue was $4,580 million lower than the Budget profile primarily due to lower than expected taxation revenue. This reflects lower than expected individuals and other withholding taxation, company tax, superannuation fund tax and resource rent taxes.
Total expenses were $4,636 million lower than the Budget profile primarily due to lower than expected grants and subsidies, suppliers and personal benefits expenditure.  This is in part consistent with reduced expenditure during the election caretaker period and reflecting timing differences, particularly for grants and subsidies…...

The net worth of the General Government sector is a negative net asset position of $220,670 million at 30 September 2013.
The net debt of the General Government sector is $174,557 million at 30 September 2013.

Monday 21 March 2016

Australian Federal Election 2016: John Stone points out that Malcolm Turnbull is the same as Tony Abbott


Turnbull & Abbott morph courtesy of 
Robbo

Former Shadow Minister for Finance and Leader of the National Party in the Senate (1987-1990) and former secretary to the Treasury (1979-1984), John Stone, is not a happy man.

He has joined a growing number in Liberal-Nationals ranks who are publicly pointing out the disappointing co-joined nature of those political bedfellows, Prime Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull and former prime minister Anthony John Abbott MP.

This excerpt is from an article he wrote in the Australian Financial Review on 7 March 2016:

Before the successful conspiracy against him, Abbott had made four decisions. One, under no circumstances would the Coalition raise the GST. Two, it would not meddle with the basic taxation principle that investment income qualifies for deductibility of costs incurred (so-called "negative gearing"). Three, established superannuation arrangements would remain. And four, he would take income tax cuts to 2016's election.

Neither Abbott nor his lazy Treasurer Hockey mentioned that the fourth undertaking could be achieved only through significant spending cuts. On those, Hockey's 2015-16 budget was virtually silent…..

in September 2015, Turnbull spoke eloquently about our needing "a new economic narrative", were there grounds for hoping for a government that would now mend its ways?

Well, no, apparently. After five months of dithering, Turnbull has emulated Abbott's first decision. He will arrive soon at Abbott's second decision. He and Treasurer Scott Morrison are still havering over Abbott's third decision. Both agree with his fourth decision. But as for the spending cuts without which that can't happen responsibly, they are silent.

On usurping the prime ministership Turnbull was endowed, justifiably or not, with plenty of political capital. Rather than expend that capital by taking an axe to what was now his government's wasteful spending he has chosen instead, in John Howard's recent words, to "dissipate it by sitting around and doing nothing".

Let's see, come July, what the electorate thinks of that.

Thursday 10 March 2016

In which Australian Attorney-General George Brandis pushes the point that Macolm Turnbull is just like Tony Abbott and Mungo agrees


Image of Tony Abbott (left) & Malcolm Turnbull  (right) found at ABC The Drum

Federal Attorney-General George Brandis being interviewed on Australian Agenda, 6 March 2016:  

Well I wouldn’t adopt that metaphor and I must confess I haven’t read Mr Abbott’s Quadrant article but the point I want to emphasise to you and to your viewers Peter is that Mr Abbott speaks from within the heartland of the Liberal Party, as does Mr Turnbull. They both want the same thing. They both have fundamentally the same approach to public policy.

Mungo MacCallum at The Drum, 29 February 2016:

And so it has come to pass. Malcolm Turnbull as we knew him has all but vanished; in a political sense, it could be said that he has been destroyed. Instead, we have a sort of Abbott avatar - smoother, more articulate, even more plausible, but still undeniably the essence of the previous prime minister. Not only have just about all the old Abbott policies been retained, but new ones - the sort that might have sprung, fully formed, from the head of the precursor - have emerged.

Sunday 14 February 2016

Liberal MP Stuart Robert's resignation as Australian Minister for Human Services raises more questions than it answers


The following is a rough timeline covering the the not-so-illustrious political career of Stuart Rowland Robert, Liberal MP for Fadden (QLD) since 2007.

On 10 September 2010 Stuart Robert changed his Statement of Registrable Interests to reflect that he and his wife were no longer trustees for the Robert Family Trust and Robert Investments Family Trust, as well as ceasing to be directors and shareholders in Robert International Pty Ltd.

It is understood that new trustees are close family members of Robert.

For most of his parliamentary career to date Stuart Robert has not ventured overseas that often.

His first official overseas trip did not occur until 5 August 2009 as part of a parliamentary delegation to Timor Leste. His second was also as part of a parliamentary delegation – this time to the United Arab Emirates between 13-20 May 2011.

Robert’s third and fourth overseas trips covered six days in June and five days in October 2011. First as a representative of Australia during commemorative events in France and then on a study tour of South Africa. The two and a quarter page study report cost taxpayers $16,161.58.

Between 13 Feb to 17 Feb 2012 Stuart Robert was again overseas representing Australia in Singapore on behalf of Senator Michael Ronaldson. From 17 Oct to 21 Oct 2012 Robert was in Egypt for the 70th anniversary of the Battle of El Alamein, before travelling on to Uganda for seven days on another study tour. This second three-page study report cost $3,811.92.

In June 2013  then Shadow Minister for Defence, Science, Technology and Personnel  Stuart Robert hosted a small private dinner at Parliament House for a representative of a Chinese mining company, reportedly at the request of another guest, millionaire businessman Paul Marks

Besides Marks, guests at this dinner included Chinese billionaire Li Ruipeng, then Shadow Minister for Energy and Resources Ian Macfarlane and then Liberal National Party president Bruce McIver. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and then Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship & Shadow Minister for Productivity and Population Scott Morrison attended the dinner towards the end.


All the Australian politicians at this dinner reportedly received gifts of designer watches worth est. $250,000 in total.

Marks is frequently described as a close personal friend of Robert.

On 31 January 2014 mining exploration company Nimrod Resources Limited donated $500,000 to the federal Liberal Party of Australia.

In mid-August 2014 Stuart Robert accompanied Paul Marks to China allegedly to lobby the Chinese Government on his behalf in relation to the business interests of Nimrod Resources.

Robert did not bill the taxpayer for his flight to China. However, his return journey was via Singapore for the Singapore-Australia Joint Ministerial meeting and the Defence Ministers' Dialogue on 21 to 23 August. Therefore taxpayers funded the last leg of his journey home.

Nimrod Resources currently has three directors, Paul Marks (Executive Chairman), James Macaulay (Managing Director) and Robert Kingdon (Non-executive Director). Bruce McIver reportedly holds a 22 per cent shareholding in this company.

In early April 2014 Stuart Robert as Assistant Minister for Defence led a 7-day trade mission to Israel organized by the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce, of which Marks' brother Sam Miszkowski is understood to be a Queensland office bearer/member.

There were two other ministerial visits overseas in 2014 - one to Afghanistan and another to New Zealand & the United States.

On 30 June 2014 P. Marks Investment Pty Ltd  donated $431,631 to the federal Liberal Party.

Between April and June 2015 Paul Marks personally donated $340,000 to the federal Liberal Party.

To date the Marks family appear to have donated at least $1.47 million directly to the Liberal Party.

In late April to early May 2015 as Assistant Minister for Defence, Stuart Robert made ministerial visits to the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and the USA as part of a trade delegation.

By 2016 Chinese businessman Li Ruipeng is no longer a high-flying billionaire but is wanted by police in China for illegal fundraising and unpaid debts of est. $30 million and Robert may yet have to appear as a witness in a court case concerning the outcome of a Dubai land deal which went wrong.

On 12 February 2016 Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull released a press statement regarding Robert’s resignation as Minister for Human Services which said in part that: Mr Robert advised Dr Parkinson that at the time he travelled to Beijing in August 2014 he did not believe that he had any interest in or connection to Mr Paul Marks’ company, Nimrod Resources. In the course of assisting the investigation, Mr Robert advised Dr Parkinson that on checking his records he had become aware that shares in Metallum Holdings Pty Ltd, a company in which Mr Marks was also a shareholder, had been allocated to his trustee some time before the visit to Beijing. He told Dr Parkinson that this had been done without his knowledge. He further advised Dr Parkinson that he believed Metallum Holdings Pty Ltd had an interest in Nimrod Resources.

Metallum Holdings has an interesting history:

METALLUM HOLDINGS PTY LTD  ACN 160 273 763
Formerly Resource House Holdings Pty Ltd
Registered: 10 September 2012
Address: Office F1 Level 1, 47-59 Ashmore Road, Bundall QLD 4217
Sole Director: Paul Marks
Company Secretary: Robert Arthur Kingdon of Kingdon Lawyers
Number of Ordinary Shares: 10,000
Shareholders:
MIST CONSULTING PTY. LTD. – a Marks family company, trading as Friends of Israel (QLD), which donated $200,000 to the Liberal Party of Australia on 13 March 2014
ROMELL PTY. LTD.
P. MARKS INVESTMENT PTY LTD
Louise Edwards
Previous Shareholders:
INTERIMCO PTY LIMITED – company believed to be owned or part-owned by former Liberal National Party president Bruce McIver
JJ HOLDINGS (VIC) PTY. LTD.
OZEAN INVESTMENTS PTY. LIMITED
Tom Kotsimbos.

All this leaves two questions hanging after Stuart Robert’s resignation – exactly how often did Robert assist Marks family business interests in the last nine years and, how many other Turnbull Government ministers have helped Paul Marks in a similar fashion?

UPDATE

Herald Sun, 10 April 2016:

DUMPED minister Stuart Robert took his official Defence-issued mobile phone on his controversial private trip to China, potentially exposing the device to a breach of national security.

Phone records obtained using Freedom of Information laws reveal the then-assistant defence minister had the device in Beijing while there to witness mate and Liberal donor Paul Marks sign a deal with the ­Chinese government.

The phone records show Mr Robert’s phone was switched on and connected to Chinese and Hong Kong networks eight times on August 15, 2014, and a further four times on August 16.