Thursday 2 July 2009

Blame it on the bloggers!

Chairman and CEO of News Ltd John Hartigan had a simple message to deliver as part of his televised address to the National Press Club on Wednesday 1 July 2009.
Pared down to the basics it went like this: Journalists good, bloggers B-A-D. Hard copy and online newspapers very good, blogs even B-A-D-D-E-R!

Just last month ex-CIA Director Michael Hayden writing in The Washington Post opined that the blogosphere was partly to blame for a CIA analyst withdrawing his nomination for U.S. Undersecretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence.

Australian Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy obviously doesn't know what to make of bloggers and oppressive regimes world-wide try to silence the most politically vocal of them.

One gets the general impression that the blogosphere must be doing something right.

Image from Google Images

Update:
The Herald Sun has obligingly published the full text of Hartigan's address.

Migaloo the 'white fella whale' has survived another year!

Despite Japan turning the Southern Ocean into its own private killing fields, Migaloo the brilliant white albino humpback whale was sighted travelling north towards Byron Bay waters on the NSW North Coast last Tuesday.
Migrating pods sighted this year appear to be getting larger with some groups containing up to ten whales.


Photographs: ABC.net.au & Cairns.com.au

Wednesday 1 July 2009

Parliament begins its inquiry into the relationship between the banks, Storm Financial, Opes Prime & MFS


In all the hullabaloo about the Federal Leader of the Opposition's political nosedive, there has been little mention of the fact that last week the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services began public hearings in its Inquiry into Financial Products and Services in Australia.

The basic terms of reference are:
1. the role of financial advisers;
2. the general regulatory environment for these products and services;
3. the role played by commission arrangements relating to product sales and advice, including the potential for conflicts of interest, the need for appropriate disclosure, and remuneration models for financial advisers;
4. the role played by marketing and advertising campaigns;
5. the adequacy of licensing arrangements for those who sold the products and services;
6. the appropriateness of information and advice provided to consumers considering investing in those products and services, and how the interests of consumers can best be served;
7. consumer education and understanding of these financial products and services;
8. the adequacy of professional indemnity insurance arrangements for those who sold the products and services, and the impact on consumers; and
9. the need for any legislative or regulatory change.

Hopefully those who lost their life savings when Storm Financial spectacularly failed will receive some answers as to why financial advisers are apparently so under-regulated that they can act like irresponsible cowboys.

As yet the transcript of the 24th June 2009 has not been posted. Perhaps because that first hearing day appears to have been taken up with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission explaining itself and its track record.

There have been over 110 submissions to this inquiry so far. Mostly from ordinary individuals, some with sad tales to relate.

The next hearings will be held:
26/08/2009Melbourne, VIC
28/08/2009Canberra, ACT
02/09/2009Townsville, QLD
03/09/2009Brisbane, QLD
04/09/2009
Sydney NSW

Costello still leads by a length in the political stakes


He may have announced his impending retirement from politics, but as the dust settles in the wake of Ute-gate, former Howard Government treasurer Peter Costello still leads Malcolm Turnbull as preferred Opposition Leader according to The Australian online opinion poll results last Monday morning.
In the Grafton post code results he leads by at least two lengths.