An increasingly desperate Australian Liberal Prime Minister on the faux election campaign trail in March 2017

Shorter version of most of the dire warnings Australian Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison has been yelling at Australian voters as he faces the prospect of a 51st negative Newspoll in April.

Meme supplied

NSW Liberals behaving badly in March 2019 state election campaign

ABC News, 9 March 2019:

A NSW Liberal Party candidate has had her personal Facebook account suspended, after it was linked to fake accounts that trolled her opponent.

Sitting Labor MP for Port Stephens, Kate Washington, last week claimed that for the past six months fake Facebook accounts had been deriding her, but praising her Liberal rival Jaimie Abbott.

The Liberal Party last week denied any involvement, but yesterday conceded Facebook suspended Ms Abbott's account as well as the account of parliamentary staffer Tasman Brown.

Mr Brown works for Liberal MLC Catherine Cusack.

Ms Washington said Ms Abbott should be disendorsed for what she said were dirty tactics…..

The Liberal Party has denied Ms Abbott had any knowledge of the fake Facebook accounts, and it is blaming Mr Brown.

Ms Abbott told the ABC she was deeply saddened about the incident and felt many were misled.

"Elections should be a contest of ideas rather than a race for likes on social media, and I think that Tasman [Brown] forgot about this," she said.

"Tasman has admitted to me that as a volunteer on my campaign he was responsible for making multiple Facebook posts about the campaign under a number of names."

The Liberal candidate said she had called Ms Washington to apologise on behalf of her campaign and assured her that Mr Brown would have no further involvement in it.

"I intend to focus on continuing to campaign on issues that are important to this community," she said.

Opposition Leader Michael Daley said the trolling was a "new low" in Australian politics.

"This is Putin-style politics in Australia, it's not acceptable and I think that the position of the Premier's candidate in Port Stephens is untenable," he said.....

Mr Brown is employed under Liberal MLC Ms Cusack, who said she was incredibly disappointed.

"He [Mr Brown] realises that it's been a huge mistake, it's an embarrassment and all I can say is he's very full of remorse and he's stepped completely aside from anything to do with the Port Stephens campaign," she said.

Ms Cusack said Ms Abbott's personal Facebook account was suspended only because it was linked to Mr Brown.

She said Mr Brown had administration rights to Ms Abbott's personal account to help with her social media campaign ahead of this month's state election.

Ms Washington has asked the clerk of the NSW Parliament to investigate whether Mr Brown's online activities violated any breach of parliamentary resources.....

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This is Karyn & one of her kids. Karyn is handing out flyers for her husband @jeromelaxale. In what universe is it ok for the Libs to surround her in this way? This sort of behaviour has to stop. #nswpol #nswvotes @GladysB @nswliberalhq pic.twitter.com/5UfLszKStC

— Penny Sharpe (@PennySharpemlc) March 9, 2019

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is happy for a woman to rise in the world so long as it doesn’t disadvantage a man.

Australia’s unselfconsciously chauvinist and gaffe prone Liberal Prime Minister Scott John Morrison is happy for a woman to rise in the world as long as it doesn’t disadvantage a man.

Excerpt from a speech given by Prime Minister Morrison at a Chamber of Minerals and Energy International Women’s Day Breakfast in Perth on Friday, 8 March 2019:

“One of the other female members of my Cabinet, Kelly O'Dwyer, said at the Press Club last year, our Minister for Women, “Gender equality isn't about pitting girls against boys.” See, we're not about setting Australians against each other, trying to push some down to lift others up. That's not in our values. That is an absolutely Liberal value, that you don't push some people down to lift some people up. And that is true about gender equality too. We want to see women rise. But we don't want to see women rise only on the basis of others doing worse. We want everybody to do better, and we want to see the rise of women in this country be accelerated to ensure that their overall pace is maintained.”

* Cartoon from Google Images

If as an ordinary worker you feel like you have been financially marching backwards for the last five and a half years then you probably have

“Backing business generates higher wages, jobs & growth.”  [Australian Treasurer & Liberal MP for Kooyong Josh Frydenberg, Twitter, 8 March 2019]

Such a confident quote from a Coalition Treasurer in campaign mode - but is it true?

According to the Dept. of Prime Minister & Cabinet/ASIC at the end of the period 30 July 2013 to 31 June 2014, there were est.2.6 million actively trading businesses in Australia and, according to the ABS by the end of  2017-18 there were 2.3 million actively trading businesses in the market sector in Australia.

Despite the Morrison Government alleging that by November 2018 it had created 1.2 million more jobs since September 2013, it's easy enough to see that in January 2019 the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was only 0.6% lower than it was when the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Coalition Government came to power in September 2013.

Additionally, it would appear that the ratio of unemployed persons to job vacancies in late 2013 was est. 20 unemployed individuals for very 1 job vacancy and by December 2018 this stood at an est. 15.57 unemployed individuals for every 1 job vacancy.

So what about wages growth?

The Global Financial Crisis ran from 2007 to 2008 and Australia came through this crisis relatively unscathed.

So with little structural damage to our financial institutions or the industry & business sectors, the national economy should be chugging along nicely.

By now ordinary workers should be reaping the rewards for their productivity - as labour input to market sector multifactor productivity increased by 3.0% overall on quality adjusted hours worked basis in 2017-18 (while capital input only grew by 2.0%).

The biggest labor input increases occurred in Administrative and Support Services (8.2%), Manufacturing (3.8%), Accommodation and Food Services (3.7%), and Professional, Scientific and Technical Services (3.7%).

However, this is what each Australian's nominal slice of the economic pie looked like by December 2018......

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in the December Quarter 2018; Compensation of employees increased by 0.9% nationally. 

In the Australian Capital Territory  the compensation increase was 2.1%, in Tasmania 1.6%, Queensland 1.5%, Victoria 1.4%, New South Wales 0.7%, and South Australia 0.1%. However compensation growth went backwards in Western Australia at -0.2% and Northern Territory -0.7%.

Also according to the ABS; The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.5 per cent in the December quarter 2018.  This followed a rise of 0.4 per cent in the September quarter, a rise of 0.4% in the June quarter and a 0.4% rise in the March quarter 2018.

It doesn't take a genius to see that nationally the effect of that December national compensation increase was actually 0.9% minus 0.5% CPI equalling 0.4% when it came to how far those few dollars in wage increase would stretch the weekly pay packet.

Why is low wages growth occurring? Well according to the Minister for Finance and the Public Service & Liberal Senator for Western Australia Mathias Cormann it is deliberate Morrison Government policy to suppress wages growth.

Low wage growth is no accident. Watch @MathiasCormann confirm that. pic.twitter.com/z8fGGCO52Z

— Australian Unions (@unionsaustralia) March 8, 2019

The result of this ongoing wages suppression? A continuation of the downward progression of disposable income and rising household debt, as illustrated in this graph from 2015 onwards.

ABC News, 9 September 2018

BACKGROUND

 Business Insider, 4 March 2019:

The ABS on Monday (4 March) released its Business Indicators results for December 2018, which showed trend growth in company gross operating profits at a healthy 9.6 per cent over the year to the December quarter.

Seasonally adjusted, that figure was even higher, hitting double digits at 10.5 per cent.

The figures were boosted by a strong performance that quarter, with trend growth up by 0.9 of a percentage point on the September quarter, or by 0.8 of a percentage point when seasonally adjusted.

The New Daily, 7 March 2019:

Chief executives and chief financial officers don’t get bonuses for increasing their companies’ labour costs – so they try not to.

Chairpersons and boards are not clapped on their collective back by institutional investors for devoting a greater share of revenue to wages – so they don’t.

And the cumulative effect of those simple realities is now unavoidable: Years of real, take-home wages going backwards while corporate profits increased, have meant household consumption is stalling and taking the economy with it.

Yet such is the myopic nature of corporate focus, business leaders react with horror to the idea that employees need a bigger share of the pie.

The business lobby claims wage increases aren’t possible without productivity trade-offs – but that’s after the productivity increases of recent years going overwhelmingly to higher profits.

Quite simply, the key business lobby groups have little credibility. They claimed reducing penalty rates would increase employment – it didn’t. They claimed cutting company tax would increase wages: It hasn’t and it won’t.

Household consumption accounts for more than half of the economy. According to the ABS, and nicely reported by Greg Jericho with helpful graphs, real household disposable income per capita has fallen back to where it was in 2010.

“Average compensation per employee” grew by only 1.5 per cent in 2018 – an even worse result than the better-publicised ABS wages index.

It’s only population growth that’s providing what little retail sales and GDP growth we have….

The Fair Work Commission (FWC) increased the minimum wage by 3.5 per cent last July – against the arguments of the business lobby – and by 3.3 per cent in July 2017. 

That increase of 6.8 per cent barely registered on the various measures of wages growth.

The conundrum of business needing consumers to have income growth, but 

not wanting to pay workers more, is a little like the “Paradox of Thrift” – it makes sense for an individual in uncertain times to save and not spend as much, but if everyone does it, uncertain times turn into bad times.

As argued here previously, business is holding a very determined wages strike. 

Corporate leaders don’t need FWC permission to do it, they just have to hang together to keep a lid on wage rises. In the process, they’re shooting themselves in the foot.

For the Coalition government, the result is a record of economic failure.

While Scott Morrison is trying to convince the electorate he now believes in climate change one of the denialists in his government is trying to erase it from school textbooks

There is Australian Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook since 2007 Scott Morrison fronting the media trying to convince sceptical voters that he and his government are now fully behind the need to tackle climate change.

However also talking to media is Liberal MP for Hughes since 2010 Craig Kelly doing his level best to undermine the current round political propaganda by calling for a rewrite of both climate science and history.

His climate change denying argument is far from unique.

Sometime around 1904 in far-off England a probably homesick second-generation Australian called Isobel Marion Dorothea Mackellar penned a six stanza poem called The Core Of My Heart aka My Country. This poem has been subverted by climate change deniers into a ‘proof’ that climate change is not real and is not happening right now.

Here Mr. Kelly citing all he can remember from the second stanza………

The Guardian, 26 February 2019:

The publisher of a NSW year-10 history book has rejected complaints from the federal Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly that it misrepresents facts about climate change.

Kelly took issue with the characterisation of climate change in the textbook Pearson History New South Wales.

Kelly has written to the NSW education minister, Rob Stokes, saying the book’s description of Tony Abbott as a climate change denier was “an offensive slur equating it with Holocaust deniers”, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The book says: “Climate change is noticeable in Australia, with more extreme frequent weather events such as the 2002-06 drought or the 2010-11 Queensland floods.”

“That is simply an inaccurate statement that is in a school history book,” Kelly told parliament’s federation chamber last week.

“What chance do we have of forming the best policies in this nation to deal with fire, floods and drought if we have children being misled by incorrect information in our history books?”

He quoted Dorothea Mackellar’s poem My Country to argue contemporary natural disasters are nothing out of the ordinary: “I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains,” the poem says.

“We need to understand that we live in that same country that Dorothea Mackellar wrote about over a hundred years ago,” Kelly said.

“That is why we need to prepare and help people recover from their resources instead of wasting money pretending that we can change the weather.”

The Australian Bureau of Meterology says “one of the greatest impacts of climate variability and climate change occurs through changes in the frequency and severity of extreme events.”

It describes the 2011 Brisbane floods as the second-highest flood level of the last 100 years, after January 1974.

The bureau and CSIRO’s latest State of the Climate report said Australia was experiencing more extreme heat, longer fire seasons, rising oceans and more marine heatwaves, consistent with a changing climate.......

Sad statistics are generated by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's war on the poor & vulnerable

Liberal MP for Cook Scott John Morrison has been a Cabinet Minister since 18.9.2013, was Minister for Social Services from 23.12.2014 to 21.9.2015, then Treasurer from 21.9.2015 to 26.8.2018 and now Prime Minister of Australia since 24.8.2018 – these are the sad statistics he leaves in his wake.

The Australian, 21 February 2019:

As Department of Human Services secretary Renee Leon faced heated questioning about the controversial “robodebt” program — which averages reported income and generates debts to current and former welfare recipients — she said it is not known whether people have taken their own lives due to the program.

“There is not an elevated death rate among the cohort who have received a debt notice. It’s not to say we are not troubled that people die,” Ms Leon said…

Greens Senator Rachel Siewert said the numbers are particularly troubling because 663 people out of the 2030 had “vulnerability indicators” attached.

Of the 2,030 people who died after receiving a Centrelink Online Compliance Intervention letter (‘robodebt’ ) which was generated sometime between July 2016 to October 2018:

102 were aged 16-25 years;

327 were aged 26-35 years;

347 were aged 36-45 years;

466 were aged 46-55 years;

536 were aged 56-65 years;

251 were aged 66-80 years; and

1 was aged 81-100 years.

By gender 637 of these welfare recipients were Female and 1,393 Male.

“If death rates remained similar throughout the period July 2016 - October 2018 ... approximately 6% of all deaths of 16-35 year olds in Australia occurred for people who were subject to Centrelink #robodebt compliance.” [Dr Ben Eltham on Twitter, 22 February 2019]

BACKGROUND

Gilbert Sullivan QC weiting in the Herald Sun, 21 February 2019:

The Model Litigant Policy of the Commonwealth is a direction issued by the Attorney-General under the Judiciary Act.

The claims reported to have been made by Centrelink are said to target 1.5 million people and aim to claw back $4.6 billion in what are alleged to be overpayments of welfare.

The claims date back to 2010 and Centrelink demands the repayment of what it alleges to be overpayments caused by the understatement of income; but it knows very well that it is unable to prove these claims.

Centrelink has destroyed its records and is entirely dependent on information obtained from the Australian Taxation Office. It divides the gross annual income obtained in this way by 26 to calculate what it terms an “apportioned actual income”.

It then proceeds to claim the difference between the fortnightly income declared by the payee and the apportioned actual income as an understatement by the recipient which it then claims as a debt.

It is only by sighting pay-slips or bank statements that the accuracy of the declared fortnightly income can be verified. Centrelink’s claims rest on it proving that the fortnightly income was falsely declared.

It can only succeed if it can prove this on the balance of probabilities. The ATO information on its own is worthless and needs a point of comparison in the form of contemporaneous records. Annual income does not translate into fortnightly income.

The absurdity of this methodology is obvious.

A full-time student in 2010 on a youth allowance may well have had a part-time job to support their studies. Some weeks they may have earned, say $150, other weeks nothing.

They may have entered the work force full-time in the last two months of the financial year and earned say, $8000.

Dividing the yearly income by 26 cannot establish a dishonest understatement for the weeks the student earned $150 or nothing. Without the contemporary records, no understatement can be proved.

This methodology is in breach of model litigant obligations in a number of respects.

First, the mathematical basis underpinning it is invalid and known to be so by Centrelink; and the maintenance of a claim known to be invalid is a fundamental breach of the obligation to act as a model litigant.

Second, to imagine that casual employees retain pay slips from 2010 is ludicrous; many of the employers from that time no longer exist and it is inconceivable that anyone can produce pay-slips.

Further, while some bank records are obtainable, they are archived and expensive to obtain. Placing the onus on a recipient to procure bank statements is yet a further breach of model litigant obligations.

There is no reason why Centrelink could not obtain these records by subpoena or otherwise. Furthermore, the actions of Centrelink reverse the onus of proof which, of itself, is a breach of model litigant obligations.

MammaMia, 21 February 2019:

“It was demeaning, embarrassing, and if it wasn’t for my son… I considered suicide.”

“It was dehumanising. I had only lost my husband months before… I was grieving.”

These two sentences represent how two women, from two different walks of life, in separate states felt – when they received a Centrelink debt notice.

Or more exactly what happened when they tried to deal with the fallout of a Centrelink debt notice……

The Centrelink letters are sent out through an automated system. In the old system, it equated to about 20,000 a year, but thanks to a new system in 2016 – it’s generating 20,000 letters a week.

Gabriella* received one of those letters just last year.

She received it when she was trying to come to terms with the death of her husband who had died in a boating accident a few months before.

She was left with two young children trying to work out how to move on with life.

She had never received anything from Centrelink, she hadn’t needed to. But Centrelink had sent her $13,000 in weekly increments, and they wanted their money back.

“The stress… I was already dealing with enough… I knew I didn’t owe them money,” she told Mamamia.

Turns out Centrelink had been sending her money that she hadn’t applied for – which had been bouncing back for months.

“I made a phone call first, they realised they’d made a mistake. But she [the person on the phone] couldn’t fix it.”

She was given a different number.

“I spent hours on the telephone waiting for them to answer [to help]. It’s impossible to get through,” explained Gabriella.

So instead, she was forced to take a day off work and go into the Centrelink office itself.

“She looked at me like I was lying,” Gabriella told Mamamia, of the moment she explained her story – yet again.

Gabriella is most frustrated at the time and effort she had to put in to fix this wrong. A wrong that was made by an automated letter, and which cost her a days’ wage, and almost cost her $13,000.

“I am grieving, but I am pretty stable… my head is pretty OK. But there are people who get these letters and they are not OK,” said a teary Gabriella.

“I am actually in the mental health industry, so I am probably more equipped than a lot at noticing triggers in myself. But what if I wasn’t?

“My situation never should have happened, if there had been a human being looking at my account they would have realised it was bouncing back.”

“It was dismay. It was a shock to the system. It is scaremongering, they don’t explain anything, and it’s very… dehumanising,” she said of her experience..........

Happy 49th to our local member, Nationals MP for Page Kevin Hogan

Happy 49th Newspoll, Kevin John Hogan. 

That's forty-nine published Newspoll surveys in a row in which the Coaltion has failed to pull ahead of Labor on a Two-Party Preferred (TPP) basis.

The last time the federal government - of which you have been a member since September 2013 under prime ministers Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison - has been ahead of Labor was on 27 June 2016.

That lasted a full thirty-five five days because by 30 August the gloss had worn off that July federal election win and you could only reach TPP 50 points in the August 2016 Newspoll.

In late September of that year the Coalition lost even that small comfort as Labor began to out poll the Turnbull Government and then the Morrison Government.

If you are wondering why this is happening the answer is easy to find. Turn a few pages of Hansard.

Every government backbencher, yourself included, votes on the floor of Parliament not in the interests of their electorate or that of the nation but in support of the hard-right ideology which dominates the Coalition Cabinet to the exclusion of even basic commonsense.

You have nobody to blame but yourselves.

So enjoy your 49th Kevin because your 50th is likely to be close on its heels.

*Image from Greeting Card Universe

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Newspoll survey of 1,582 respondents on 21-24 February 2019 was released on Monday 25 February:

Primary Vote – Labor 39 percent (unchanged) to Liberal-Nationals 37 per cent (unchanged), The Greens 9 per cent, One Nation 5 per cent.

Two Party Preferred (TPP) - Labor 53 per cent (unchanged) to Liberal-Nationals Coalition 47 per cent (unchanged)

Voter Net Satisfaction With Leaders’ Performance – Prime Minister Scott Morrison -6 points and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten -18 points.

If a federal election had been held on 24 February 2019 based of the preference flow in July 2016 then Labor would have won government with a majority 82 seats to the Coalition's 63 seats in the House of Representatives.

Another Liberal Minister caught out not passing the ‘pub’ test

The Canberra Times, 18 February 2019:  

      

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann's flights for a family holiday to Singapore were paid for by a travel company controlled by Liberal Party Treasurer Andrew Burnes within weeks of that company winning a $1 billion contract from Cormann's department.

Helloworld, a listed company of which Mr Burnes is the chief executive, booked the flights for Senator Cormann, his wife and two children on the company's "staff and family travel" account.

Records kept by Helloworld and obtained by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald reveal that the Melbourne-based travel company paid $2780.82 for the Singapore flights, which were booked in July 2017.

Helloworld announced the following month that its subsidiary, AOT, was the winner of the three-year-plus, $300 million per year finance department tender. Departmental sources claim Helloworld had achieved preferred tenderer status before Senator Cormann's flights were booked in July.

Senator Cormann and his family took the trip in early January, 2018.

The minister only paid for the return flights to Singapore from Perth on Monday afternoon, after Mr Burnes and Senator Cormann were contacted by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann's flights for a family holiday to Singapore were paid for by a travel company controlled by Liberal Party Treasurer Andrew Burnes within weeks of that company winning a $1 billion contract from Cormann's department.

Helloworld, a listed company of which Mr Burnes is the chief executive, booked the flights for Senator Cormann, his wife and two children on the company's "staff and family travel" account.

Records kept by Helloworld and obtained by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald reveal that the Melbourne-based travel company paid $2780.82 for the Singapore flights, which were booked in July 2017.

Helloworld announced the following month that its subsidiary, AOT, was the winner of the three-year-plus, $300 million per year finance department tender. Departmental sources claim Helloworld had achieved preferred tenderer status before Senator Cormann's flights were booked in July.

Senator Cormann and his family took the trip in early January, 2018.

The minister only paid for the return flights to Singapore from Perth on Monday afternoon, after Mr Burnes and Senator Cormann were contacted by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.

Senator Cormann said on Monday he had "no idea" that the travel had been booked on the family and staff travel account, nor that his credit card had not been charged. He was "completely unaware of internal administrative arrangements at Helloworld in terms of how they managed private and personal travel".

Mr Burnes said it was "absolutely an internal administrative oversight" that Senator Cormann’s credit card had not been charged for the trip when it was booked, which allowed the politician and his family to fly for free to Singapore.

Senator Cormann, who is a close personal and political associate of Mr Burnes, a Liberal donor, has never declared the Singapore family holiday on his parliamentary register of interests….

When The Age and Sydney Morning Herald sought comment from Mr Burnes on Monday about why his travel group had booked the Cormann family’s travel, he said: “We sell $6.5 billion worth of travel. So many people use our company to book their travel.”

Sources close to the company said that his personal office had arranged the Perth to Singapore booking after a request from Mr Cormann some time before 17 July 2017.

A Helloworld source said it was “probably inappropriate” that Mr Cormann’s travel was booked via a “family and staff” account.

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald are not accusing Senator Cormann or Mr Burnes of any wrongdoing.

Read the full article here.

UPDATE

It's not just 'friends' who give Cormann trips for free, he has something of a history when it comes to having the taxpayer foot the bill......

Daily Mail, 14 February 2019:

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann charged taxpayers $4,400 to take his wife on a romantic beach getaway on her birthday.

The Liberal senator for Western Australia treated his new spouse Hayley Ross, a lawyer, to a weekend away in a remote resort town known for its beach camel rides on July 9, 2010.

To mark her 28th birthday on a Friday, he arranged for her to fly 2,200km from their home city of Perth to Broome in the far north of his vast state, Department of Finance records show.

This direct flight cost the public purse $1,741 as part of a three-day weekend away to Broome which cost taxpayers $4,397.

It included $221 in charter hire cars to get around Broome on Hayley Ross' birthday, and $118 in Commonwealth car transport to get the couple to and from Perth airport.  

The senator also claimed $676 in travel allowance for two nights' accommodation in Broome as 'electorate business'. 

This romantic weekend away on the public purse took place a year after the senator married Ms Ross, the daughter of West Australian wheat farmers. 

People in rural and regional Australia – those bearing the brunt of climate change, drought, floods, limited services and inadequate infrastructure – deserve to know how the Morrison Government is spending their hard-earned tax dollars

Scratch the surface of that mismanaged super federal government department – the Dept. of Home Affairs in the portfolio of Minister for Home Affairs & Liberal MP for Dickson Peter Dutton – and one finds disturbing information.

Usually this information concerns the abuse of detained asylum seekers' human rights, including right to timely medical treatment and legal advice/representation.

This latest concerns a corporate entity variously identified as the Paladin Group (Paladin Australia Pty Ltd, formerly Paladin Group Pty Ltd, High Risk Security Group (Asia-Pacific) Pty Ltd, Nepean Bay SA), Paladin Solution PNG Ltd (Nepean Bay SA) and Paladin Holdings PTE Ltd (Singapore) and its est. $423 million in federal government contracts paid for from the taxpayer's dollar.

It is Paladin Holdings PTE Ltd out of Singapore (reportedly owned by Craig Trupp and Ian Stewart) which now appears to hold the primary government contract.

Despite Paladin's thin capitalisation, despite lack of corporate transparency, despite allegations of poor service delivery, despite Craig Trupp/s less than stellar business history and the fact that it appears he is no longer allowed entry to Papua New Guinea and despite another director of Paladin Solutions PNG Ltd allegedly being investigated for fraud/money laundering the Dept. of Home Affairs continues to make exclusive contacts with the Paladin Group.

This Paladin contract is fast shaping up as the new catchphrase for suspected political corruption………..

Paladin premises, Port Moresby. Image Dan Ilic

Financial Review, 17 February 2019:

The family of one of PNG's most powerful politicians is directly benefiting from Paladin's $423 million worth of security contracts on Manus Island, awarded by the federal government in a closed tender.

Documents released under Freedom of Information show in January last year Paladin Solutions PNG entered into an agreement with Peren Investment, a company controlled by the brothers of PNG's parliamentary speaker, Job Pomat.

Mr Pomat is the local member for Manus, a key ally of Prime Minister Peter O'Neill and deputy leader of the ruling People's National Congress. His family are among those who claim traditional ownership of the land where the refugees are being housed.

The agreement, for local employment and the provision of other services, came just a month after landowners blockaded the refugee transit centre in December 2017, demanding a greater share of the money being spent on the island.

When asked about any link between Paladin and PNG politicians, Attorney-General Christian Porter said it was not in his portfolio area, but such claims warranted further investigation.

"I don't have any line of sight into those sorts of claims and they have to be investigated thoroughly," he told the ABC's Insiders program on Sunday.

The issue is set to be examined further at Senate Estimates hearings on Monday and Tuesday, after a series of articles in the The Australian Financial Review raised questions about how the thinly capitalised Paladin, which had little experience, a poor reputation and no corporate structure, was awarded such a lucrative contract.

The contracts were awarded as part of a "limited tender", which typically means only one party was invited to bid.

In the days following the first Financial Review articles Paladin shuffled its ownership structure, removed information from its website and changed its Australian registered office from a beach shack on Kangaroo Island to a serviced office in Canberra. That office did not have the phone connected on Friday.

Financial Review, 15 February 2019:

One issue that raised concern was Paladin's peculiar head office set-up. The Kangaroo Island address had no listed phone number and could not receive mail from Australia Post, highlighting a general air of secrecy around the company.

The Financial Review, 13 February 2019:

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has moved to distance himself from a controversial government contractor that is providing security on Manus Island, arguing he had "no sight" of the tender process and it was a matter for department officials.

In the first public comments since The Australian Financial Review revealed little-known company Paladin was earning up to $17 million a month to provide security at three refugee centres on Manus Island after a closed tender process, Mr Dutton said those responsible were "the secretary of the department ultimately or delegated to someone within the department".

The Financial Review, 11 February 2019:

The key beneficiary of a $423 million government contract to provide security for refugees on Manus Island left a string of bad debts and failed contracts across Asia, raising further questions about how the Paladin group won such a lucrative tender.

As pressure builds on the government to explain the hefty cost of its offshore processing regime, further details have emerged about the Paladin founder, Craig Thrupp, and his time in East Timor and Indonesia.

The Financial Review, 10 February 2019:

As federal Parliament prepares for another fractious debate around refugees on Monday, an investigation by The Australian Financial Review has found the Department of Home Affairs overlooked allegations of deception, lying during the tender process and questionable payments when it extended Paladin's contract on January 3. These allegations emerged during a bitter legal dispute between Paladin and its former chief executive for PNG, Craig Coleman, who is suing the company for breach of contract.

In addition, Paladin's founder and key executive, Craig Thrupp, is no longer able to enter PNG, while another local director, Kisokau Powaseu, was detained in Port Moresby last month and charged with misappropriating funds and money laundering……

Paladin, controlled by Mr Thrupp, a former Australian soldier, and his business partner Ian Stewart, has also recently purchased the contentious PNG security outfit Black Swan, a company repeatedly forced to deny rumours it has links to the family of Prime Minister Peter O'Neill…..

"Australian taxpayers are expending a huge amount of money but we don't see much of it being utilised on the ground in Manus," said Abdul Aziz, a Sudanese refugee who has been on the island for five years.

"The maintenance service is very poor … and they have not bought any new equipment in many years," says Mr Aziz.

This was confirmed by a UNHCR report published last July which noted rooms at the East Lorengau camp were below international shelter standards for accommodation over three months, while other areas had leaking pipes, a lack of fire alarms and showers that were not working.

The report did however note improvements in other areas like the ratio of toilets and the general accommodation conditions in other camps.

Calculations by the Financial Review indicate Paladin is being paid on average $20.8 million a month by the government to provide security at all three sites and manage the East Lorengau Transit Centre. That amount has risen 48 per cent from an average of $14 million a month last year. A Home Affairs spokesperson said there were now 422 people housed at the three camps – 213 at East Lorengau, 111 at West Lorengau and 98 asylum seekers at Hillside Haus.

That means on a daily basis it now costs the Australian government over $1600 to house each refugee on Manus, not including food and welfare services, more than double the price of a suite at the Shangri-La hotel in Sydney.

Typically, profit margins are as much as 40 per cent on these contracts because of the risks involved. However, Paladin's margin is "unbelievable", according to one source familiar with the this type of work. That's because the company uses mostly local staff and its security guards earn about $2 an hour.

The company is believed to have just over a dozen expatriate staff, who might be earning $150,000 each. Home Affairs says it provides security, transport, IT services and emergency management. Even if you build in generous contingencies for evacuations, emergency response teams and local consultants, Paladin's total costs are estimated to be less than $3 million a month. That means they are pocketing more than $17 million a month to manage the East Lorengau centre and secure the three camps, which have been used as primary accommodation for refugees and asylum seekers since the offshore processing centre at the nearby Lombrum naval base was closed in October 2017.

The Guardian, 17 February 2019:

Penny Wong has indicated Labor will target the Paladin offshore detention security contract in Senate estimates this week, accusing the government of failing to explain why the company was awarded $420m in contracts through closed tender…..

Wong told reporters in Adelaide the Paladin contract had “a lot of questions around it” and it was “deeply concerning” a company with “such a poor track record” was awarded $420m.

Wong accused Porter of giving answers that were “not consistent” with Dutton’s because “this went to a closed tender – not an open tender, [it was] not an open competitive process”.

Wong accused Dutton of “trying to wash [his] hands of it”. “Tomorrow is Senate estimates – what I’d say to the government is: stop hiding.

“Why don’t you front up and tell the truth about why that contract is awarded in such circumstances, why it went to closed tender?”

Financial Review, 18 February 2019:

Paladin, the security firm at the centre of the $423 million contract scandalhas a secret office in Canberra, just three kilometres from Parliament House.

The Australian Financial Review visited an office location near the fashionable Kingston Foreshore precinct in which Paladin staff are based.

That address, however, is different to the Canberra location that was provided to corporate regulators as the company's registered office and principal place of business, in a filing last week.

Paladin had previously advised the corporate regulator that its registered office and principal place of business was a remote location on Kangaroo Island in South Australia that had no post box and was therefore unable to receive mail.

But as coverage of the secretive company, which has been awarded contracts totalling $423 million to provide security on Manus Island, has intensified, Paladin has since made changes to its address and shareholder structure.

Paladin Australia notified regulators that its shareholding had transferred from the company's Hong Kong-registered entity to the Singapore company, which is the entity granted a government contract worth $333 million. The company is owned by 38-year-old, Canberra-born former soldier CraigThrupp and 41-year-old Ian Duncan Stewart.

On Thursday, Paladin Australia also changed its registered address to a serviced office in the suburb of Barton. As of Friday, the company had not been set up with phones to receive calls.

But sources with knowledge of the company, said Paladin actually operated out of another Canberra location on Eyre Street in the Kingston district.

That address is two kilometres away from the Servcorp address provided to regulators.

There's no signage or branding of any kind outside the office and apartment block and the ground floor workspaces are covered by heavy blinds.

When the Financial Review buzzed the intercom for the unmarked offices on the ground floor, a woman answered and Mr Thrupp came to the entrance.

He did not identify himself or make any comment before going back inside the locked entrance.

Staff walked back and forth between the two secure office areas, using electronic access cards to enter and exit.

The secret office location raises further questions about Paladin and its apparent attempts at hiding its principal place of business.

Paladin's previously registered office in Kangaroo Island had no mail box, which made it near impossible for the company to receive mail and be served legal documents.

Financial Review, 19 February 2019:

Paladin affair: Fact-checking what Home Affairs said in Senate Estimates

The beach shack

Home Affairs dismissed Paladin having its Australian head office at a "beach shack" on Kangaroo Island as unimportant, saying that entity was not involved in the Manus Island contract.

Court documents show Paladin's former chief executive, Craig Coleman, who was the project director for Manus Island and exercised control over the Commonwealth contract was employed by the Australian company, which was registered to that beach shack on Kangaroo Island.

In November 2017, two months after Paladin Solutions signed its first letter of intent with the Australian government it registered with Australian regulators as a foreign entity. The registered office it provided was the "beach shack". Both directors provided this location as their address.

Fraud and money laundering

Home Affairs said the Paladin director Kisokau Powaseu who has been charged with 106 counts of fraud and one of money laundering was not a director of any entities contracted to the Commonwealth.

Under questioning Home Affairs conceded Mr Powaseu was a director of Paladin Solutions, the entity which received $89 million of payments after a letter of intent was signed in September 2017.

Paladin Solutions is registered in PNG and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Paladin Singapore, the entity which currently holds the $333 million government contract. Mr Powaseu was appointed a director of the company in May 2018.

In court documents relating to Paladin's dispute with its former CEO Mr Coleman, the company agrees Mr Powaseu was a director of Paladin Solutions PNG which was "engaged with the Australian government".

The Paladin web

The department expanded and contracted the Paladin group of companies at its convenience. On the issue of Powaseu, the department was quick to stress the point that this individual had no ties to Paladin Singapore, the entity contracted by the Australian government. (This was later found to be inaccurate - see the Fraud and money laundering section of this story.)

However, when the department wished to demonstrate Paladin's long track record, it was prepared to refer to other companies in the group including Paladin Solutions, Pomwan Paladin and Paladin Aus.

'Global' Company

Home Affairs also relied on Paladin's collection of subsidiaries in stressing it was "a global company" with clients across the region. Deputy secretary Cheryl-Anne Moy said Paladin has "a very extensive and a very experienced operation" listing among its key clients the Australian Defence Force, which used it for APEC security support and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for which it had provided security in Port Moresby for nearly three years.

The department later clarified that those clients had come to the firm via Paladin's mysterious purchase of one of PNG's biggest private security firms, Black Swan, in July last year. That was followed by an interjection from one of the senators who said the purchase had come about because "you gave them so much money." At the time the government awarded Paladin the sizeable contract, it did not have these clients.

Home Affairs also conceded Paladin's lack of experience in dealing with sizeable contracts had been one of the risks identified during the tender process. While Paladin had been operating on Manus Island, as a subcontractor to Broadspectrum and Wilson Security, these had been much smaller contracts.

In his statement of claim, former CEO Mr Coleman claimed just three weeks before being awarded the September 2017 contract Paladin was "not well prepared to perform the role provided for under the Proposal".

"Paladin did not have the corporate structure, human and other resources or processes that would permit it … to perform the roles required under the Proposal," he alleged.

Money up front

When asked whether Paladin was advanced $10 million of funds by the government prior to delivering services as part of the contract, Home Affairs initially said this was false.

Upon further questioning, it emerged Paladin was paid $5.5 million as part of a letter of intent ahead of any services it provided and subsequently received further payments totalling $89 million before a formal contract had been agreed.

Access denied

Home Affairs said it had to check whether it was made directly aware Paladin managing director and part-owner Craig Thrupp was unable to enter PNG.

That is despite the PNG government confirming on Monday "the visa of one of the directors of the company [Paladin] was cancelled because of the company not adhering to the government's position on recruitment of local labour".

Paladin also confirmed to the Financial Review a week earlier Mr Thrupp's APEC Permit (a regional visa) had been cancelled and said since then he had not attempted to enter PNG…..

BACKGROUND

Australian Government, AusTender, retrieved 18 February 2019:

CN ID: CN3496748-A2

Agency: Department of Home Affairs

Amendment Publish Date: 3-Jan-2019

Category: Management support services

Contract Period: 28-Feb-2018 to 30-Jun-2019

Contract Value (AUD): $333,546,146.40

Amendment Value (AUD): $109,239,312.00

Amendment Start Date: 1-Jan-2019

Description: Garrison Services at ELRTC & additional sites PNG

Parent CN: CN3496748

Procurement Method: Limited tender

Limited Tender Condition: 10.3.e. Additional deliveries by original supplier intended as replacement parts, extensions, or continuation for existing goods or services for compatibility.

Confidentiality - Contract: No

Confidentiality - Outputs: No

Consultancy: No

Agency Reference ID:0070021821

Supplier Details

Name: PALADIN HOLDINGS PTE LTD

Postal Address: 4 Battery Road China Building

Town/City: Singapore

Postcode: 049908

State/Territory: Outside Australia

Country: SINGAPORE

ABN: Exempt

____________________________________

CN ID: CN3496748-A1

Agency: Department of Home Affairs

Amendment Publish Date: 29-Oct-2018

Category: Management support services

Contract Period: 28-Feb-2018 to 30-Jun-2019

Contract Value (AUD): $224,306,834.40

Amendment Value (AUD): $47,430,000.00

Amendment Start Date:

1-Nov-2018 Description: Garrison Services at ELRTC & additional sites PNG

Parent CN: CN3496748

Procurement Method: Limited tender

Limited Tender Condition: 10.3.e. Additional deliveries by original supplier intended as replacement parts, extensions, or continuation for existing goods or services for compatibility.

Confidentiality - Contract: No

Confidentiality - Outputs: No

Consultancy: No

Agency Reference ID: 0070021821

Supplier Details

Name: PALADIN HOLDINGS PTE LTD

Postal Address: 4 Battery Road China Building

Town/City: Singapore Postcode: 049908

State/Territory: Outside Australia

Country: SINGAPORE

ABN: Exempt

____________________________________

Provision of Garrison Services at East Lorengau Refugee Transit Centre, Manus

CN ID: CN3470670

Agency: Department of Home Affairs

Publish Date: 27-Nov-2017

Category: Management support services

Contract Period: 21-Sep-2017 to 28-Feb-2018

Contract Value (AUD): $89,243,817.76 [contract value delivered by four separate letters of intent as per Senate Estimates Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee evidence on 18.02.2019]

Original: $39,743,817.76

Description: Provision of Garrison Services at East Lorengau Refugee Transit Centre Manus

Amendments:

CN3470670-A2 - change to contract term & value (23-Feb-2018)

Amendment Value (AUD): $16,500,000.00

CN3470670-A1 - Increased value and extended end date (28-Dec-2017)

Contract Value (AUD): $72,743,817.76

Procurement Method: Limited tender

Limited Tender Exemption: Paragraph 2.6 was applied in some part. [This contract was a direct approach to Paladin by way of an initial special measures arrangement as per Senate Estimates Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee evidence on 18.02.2019. A departmental decision was later taken to include future contacts with Paladin Holdings Singapore as special measures rather than conduct open tenders]

ATM ID: RFQ1750034

Confidentiality - Contract: No

Confidentiality - Outputs: No

Consultancy:No

Agency Reference ID: 0070020581

Supplier Details

Name: PALADIN SOLUTIONS PNG LTD

Postal Address:

PARK TOWER ANNEX, SECTION 25, ALLOTMENT 35, HUNTERS STREET, GRANVILLE

Town/City: NATIONAL CAPITAL DISTRICT

Postcode:125

State/Territory: Outside Australia

Country: PAPUA NEW GUINEA

ABN: Exempt