Australian Federal Election 2016: and the slips keep getting bigger

The Liberal Party of Australia stumbling its way towards polling day……

The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 June 2016:

The Liberal Party is scrambling to contain the fallout over taxpayer-funded cash injections from its software company Parakeelia, amid allegations it failed to inform the corporate regulator of changes to company shareholdings for 15 years due to a "clerical error".

Parakeelia has emerged as a significant threat to the Coalition after revelations that state and federal Liberal MPs direct part of their taxpayer-funded allowances towards the company, which in turn paid money into the accounts of the Liberal Party. 

Liberal MPs pay $2500 a year in allowances to Parakeelia, with state MPs collectively chipping in more. The Liberal Party-owned company has paid more than $1 million into party accounts over recent years……

Melbourne businessman Ron Walker has told Fairfax Media he resigned his 98 per cent shareholding in Parakeelia in 2002 – and that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull should have assumed his role in the controversial company when Mr Turnbull took over as the party's treasurer.

Melbourne businessman Ron Walker has told Fairfax Media he resigned his 98 per cent shareholding in Parakeelia in 2002 – and that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull should have assumed his role in the controversial company when Mr Turnbull took over as the party's treasurer.

But ASIC reports show Mr Walker was still listed as a 98 per cent shareholder in Parakeelia Pty Ltd as of Wednesday afternoon.

"That's impossible," Mr Walker said in an interview late Wednesday. "I was assured that I had resigned. I relinquished all other directorships.

"Malcolm took over from me. He succeeded me as federal treasurer of the party. He assumed all responsibilities I had on that day."

Under the Corporations Act, companies must inform ASIC of changes to their shareholders within 28 days. Breaches carry a maximum of fine of about $10,000.

In a subsequent phone call, Mr Walker said the Liberal Party was scrambling to correct the error.

"[The letter] was never sent to ASIC – clerical error," Mr Walker said. Mr Walker said Liberal Party federal director Tony Nutt was "taking care of the legal side to make sure a letter is sent to ASIC tomorrow".

The Liberal Party did not respond to questions about whether this lapse amounted to a breach of the Act…..

Fairfax has previously reported Mr Walker's shareholdings in Parakeelia. In 2007, then federal director Brian Loughnane described Mr Walker's ongoing involvement in the company as an "oversight" and said he would discuss with Mr Walker removing him from the company.

Mr Walker used the same words and blamed former director and outgoing MP Andrew Robb for his continued involvement.

The Liberal Party has said it will co-operate with any investigation by the Auditor-General.

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The Guardian, 16 June 2016:

Malcolm Turnbull is staring down an incipient campaign by conservatives to return Tony Abbott to the front bench if the Coalition wins on 2 July.

Turnbull told reporters in Sydney on Thursday the government’s ministerial line up will remain the same as it is currently if the Coalition prevails over Labor in the looming election.

“Can I say to you, as I’ve said before, the ministry I’m taking to the election will be the ministry after the election if the Australian people choose to return my government to office,” the prime minister told reporters.

Turnbull repeated the formulation in his daily campaign press conference:“I can tell you what my ministry will be if we win, it will be the ministry as it is today.”

The prime minister was asked about Abbott’s potential elevation after the immigration minister Peter Dutton – a substantial figure in the Coalition’s conservative faction – said he thought “some people” would push for Abbott’s return to a front bench spot post-election.

“Well, I think some people will push for that and I think it’s an issue for Malcolm Turnbull, as it is for all of us, that are ministers or want to be ministers in a Turnbull government,” Dutton told 2GB on Thursday morning.

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The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 June 2016:

Embattled Liberal candidate Chris Jermyn may have broken electoral laws by claiming he was living in a house that didn't exist.

In 2013, Mr Jermyn was enrolled to vote in the federal election in the Victorian electorate of McEwen - the same seat he is now trying to win for the Coalition.

He enrolled using an address in the small Victorian regional town of Christmas Hills, which is in McEwen.

But there are two problems. The address was - and still is - an empty block of land. ASIC documents also show Mr Jermyn's father, businessman Peter Jermyn, sold the 40-hectare property on July 26, 2013, about six weeks before the federal election.

Fairfax Media understands Mr Jermyn – who shot to prominence last month when his attempt to ambush Bill Shorten at a campaign event backfired - was enrolled at this address until 2015. However, at no time did he actually live there.

According to the Australian Electoral Commission, the law requires that one must have lived at an address for more than one month before one can enrol there.

"Some degree of permanence, or continuity of living at the address shown on the electoral roll is a vital legal requirement before you should change your enrolment," the AEC says on its website.

Publicly available records for one of Mr Jermyn's companies, Mooter Media, list his residential address in 2014 as Queens Lane, Melbourne, which is in the Labor electorate of Melbourne Ports.

Mr Jermyn's social media accounts also indicate he had been living in Melbourne, not Christmas Hills……

Under the Criminal Code, making any false or misleading statement in any enrolment or electoral papers is an offence that can carry a maximum penalty of 12 months' imprisonment.

Mr Jermyn issued a statement saying he used the address because it was the place he intended to live after he returned from working overseas.

"I intended to build on the property and plans were drafted," he said.

He says he lived overseas for most of 2013 but returned to Australia briefly several times. He says he used his parent's address in Melbourne as a mailing address for business purposes only.

"I will be making no further comment.".

Many Victorian Liberals are furious Mr Jermyn has once again distracted from the campaign, especially given there was a push at a recent administrative committee for him to be dumped before the close of nominations.

But it is understood that move was resisted by state president Michael Kroger.

"You have got to look into these things but Chris will remain the candidate and he's done a very good job," Mr Kroger said on Thursday.

Earlier this week, Fairfax Media revealed details of Mr Jermyn's bold but failed plan to create a new multimillion-dollar global reality competition…..

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Two Liberal Party politicians, Minister for Resources, Energy and Northern Australia Josh Frydenberg & Minister for Small Business and Assistant Treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer proudly sponsored by real estate businesses:

Note what laughingly passes for political advertising authorisation at the bottom of the Kelly O’Dwyer corflute.

Australian Electoral Commission, Electoral Backgrounder: Electoral advertising:

The effect of the above is that the closer to the due date for the holding of an election (for example, the 3-year term for the expiry of the House of Representatives in section 28 of the Constitution) the more likely that a reference to one of the above matters will be 'likely to affect voting'. This will therefore be an electoral matter that requires the inclusion of the authorisation details set out in section 328…..

Section 328 requires electoral advertisements to include the name and full street address of the person who authorised the advertisement, as well as the name and place of business of the printer of the advertisement, at the end of the advertisement. This ensures that anonymity does not become a protective shield for irresponsible or defamatory statements. The inclusion of the street address details enables legal proceedings to be issued and served.

Paragraph 328(1)(b) states that 'the name and place of business of the printer appears at the end thereof'. The purpose of this provision is to facilitate the taking of legal action and the serving of legal documents where a person believes that they have been defamed or otherwise have some legal cause of action arising from the publication of the material. Accordingly, the AEC has the view that the details of the actual street address of the printer at which the business of printing is undertaken is required to be included to comply with this requirement.

* Images on Twitter at @BuzzFeedOzPol

What all conservative pollies, candidates and mainstream commentators are beginning to look like in the last stretch of this long federal election campaign

One can’t switch on the television or open a digital device without seeing a conservative taking head with the single underlying message “let me keep my lucrative job”, “give me that lucrative job” or "I want that lucrative job to go to my mate".

The blame for this personal cynical take on the current political struggle lies solely at the feet of Team Turnbull, for deciding to call a double dissolution of federal parliament in 2016 with the longest election campaign held in my voting lifetime.

It doesn’t matter if I like the individual talking heads or hate them – entering Week 7 of the eight week campaign they are all beginning to look like this:

Although it's not just voters who are becoming a bit tetchy.

Here's an ABC video clip of Country Liberal Party MP Natasha Griggs, who voluntarily entered this political marathon and was wearing a campaign T-shirt at the time, objecting physically to being filmed at the Palmerston Night Market......

Tough tatties Ms. Griggs, you and your Abbott-Turnbull Government cronies are the reason many of us are praying that we just survive the nonsense until 2 July.

Is Peter Reith splitting hairs in the hope no one will pursue his connection with the gas industry in Australia?

On 7 November 2013 an ABC News article contained these statements:

The Government has been widely criticised for not making public Mr Reith's report, which was commissioned by former premier Ted Baillieu in January. The ABC has learnt that all the taskforce members, except for Mr Reith, represent energy companies or associated industries and lobby groups.

While this interesting exchange turned up on Twitter on 4 November:

Mark Anning ‏1@EarthMedia 4 Nov

@Peter_Reith did you see this? Vested Interest? Reith is a paid lobbyist for Coal Seam Gas Coy's #auspol #csg #nswpol http://nofibs.com.au/2013/11/01/lobbyists-public-commentary-reith-spotlight-mark-anning-1earthmedia-reports/ …

Peter Reith ‏@Peter_Reith 4 Nov

@1EarthMedia you have your facts wrong. Best not to follow people who enjoy conspiracy theories.

Mark Anning ‏@1EarthMedia 4 Nov 9:09 PM - 4 Nov 13 

@Peter_Reith Are you saying you are not a paid lobbyist for Coal Seam Gas? #auspol #csg #nswpol #agchatoz #springst http://nofibs.com.au/2013/11/01/lobbyists-public-commentary-reith-spotlight-mark-anning-1earthmedia-reports/ …

Peter de Voil ‏@skroggitz 5 Nov

@Peter_Reith Which facts are wrong? Working for @thiessgroup, or ALC? #auspol @1EarthMedia

So is former Howard Government minister and active Liberal Party member, Peter Keaston Reith, far removed from any connection with liquefied natural gas and coal seam gas and therefore above suspicion when it comes to the Victorian Premier's Gas Market Taskforce he chaired?

Mr. Reith is still a special counsel at First State Advisors & Consultants Pty Ltd, having joined that 'team' in late 2012.

I am not sure if in his capacity as special counsel he actively lobbies on behalf of Theiss Pty Ltd or the NSW Aboriginal Land Council.

However, as a sole trader he is currently listed as the official lobbyist for Bechtel Management Company Ltd a civil engineering/construction subsidiary of the Bechtel Corporation which has coal, oil and gas interests around the world. Including gas projects in the Pilbara region of West Australia and the Gladstone region in Queensland. 

This subsidiary company appears to be his only client as of 2 July 2013.

The parent company Bechtel Corporation claims its Curtis Island LNG project off the Gladstone coast;  represents the greatest concentration of Bechtel projects anywhere in the world.

In its 2012 annual report Bechtel explained that; On Curtis Island, in eastern Australia, we are building three world-scale plants to process the region’s vast coal seam gas reserves.

Bechtel Corporation though the Bechtel Power Corporation is also a member of the UK Nuclear Industry Association.

So unless Peter Children Overboard Reith suddenly resigned as a lobbyist once the Gas Market Taskforce was established in 2012 but forgot to inform state and federal agencies, he is running true to form and being less than honest with both the twitterverse and mainstream media when discussing his connections with industries associated with energy supply or coal seam gas.

Little Georgie Brandis can't so his sums

This was Libs Senator George Brandis on ABC TV Q&A Monday 24th June 2013:

“As everybody - as Graham Richardson and Judith Sloane have pointed out, abortion has not been in issue in this country for more than a decade.” 

More than a decade? No, no, no, Georgie!

Abortion was still a big issue in 2006 when the then Health Minister Tony Abbott fought to keep the drug RU486 from Australian women.

On 9th February that year Georgie told the Senate that he was voting in defence of Abbott's move.

Even using his fingers to count Brandis must be able to reach the number 7 for the years since then.

Photograph from Granny Herald

Yes siree! Tony Abbott just doesn't get women

“TONY Abbott's expensive paid parental leave scheme is "all about" encouraging women of "calibre" to have children, the Opposition Leader said today.” {News.com.au 7^th May 2013}

Maude up the Street is hoping mad over Teh Rabbit’s latest bon mot. She thinks that the idea that women who stay at home to raise their children or working women who earn $1,200 a week (before tax) or less have no calibre shows him up as a budding eugenicist. Maude wonders if his father’s family - hailing from England as it does – were fans of British Eugenics Society before they bailed out of that country in the early days of World War Two.

The witch didn't die - she just morphed

https://twitter.com/KieraGorden

The mindboggling Arthur Sidonis

This was in Granny Herald on 27^th February 2013:

The prominent federal Liberal Arthur Sinodinos was treasurer of the NSW Liberals when the party received more than $30,000 in donations from a company he chaired, Australian Water Holdings, which was bidding for state government contracts.

Despite this, Senator Sinodinos has said he cannot remember the donations made in his time as both chairman and party treasurer.

What Granny did not say is that this company was paying out to the Libs on behalf of all in the group, including – wait for it – Gasfields Water Management Pty Ltd from the sunny Queensland coal seam gas mob.

Now didn’t that little company which is 75% owned by Australian Water Holdings just get $3 million worth of dishonourable mention in a NSW ICAC hearing?

And what's with this pathetic entry in his declaration of interests that was well shy of the nine new entries he had to insert by 28th February 2013 when his original 25th November 2011 statement of registrable interests became, er, interesting to one particular journo.

Or this, which conveniently omits around $3,750,000 worth of shares held for him by Nick Di Girolamo under a under “gentleman’s agreement”. Di Girolamo  is yet another person ICAC invited to its little please explain party.

Forgetful doesn't cut it as an excuse Uncle Arthur and being Tony Abbott's parliamentary secretary won't save you in the court of public opinion when it takes a good look at what you told the Senate were "oversights". 



Pic from Google Images

All about Jamie.....

On his personal website the MP for Mayo wears his Liberal Party membership with pride.
But not so over at a website registered by the WYS Group solely to bag Labor - at an IP listed as belonging to the Liberal Party of Australia.
There he's just a 'spokesperson'.

The Libs in action when last in federal government

If you didn't sound like the average Lib then twas off to jail for you.

“It was understandable authorities would think mentally ill Australian woman Cornelia Rau was an unlawful citizen, Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone said today.

Ms Rau, a 39-year-old permanent resident who came to Australia when she was a baby, was released from Baxter immigration detention centre in South Australia on Friday.

She had spent six months in a Queensland jail before being sent to the centre, where she spent four months after telling authorities she was a German woman named Anna Schmidt.

That was despite the former Qantas flight attendant being listed as missing in August last year.

The federal government announced it would investigate the incident, but Ms Vanstone today said it was "a pretty fair understanding" authorities would believe she maybe an unlawful citizen.--
(she) spoke German, said she was German"

{Sydney Morning Herald 7^th February 2005}

 

Things are bad when even Van Olsen abandons you

Onetime apologist for all things Lib Peter Van Olsen in the Sunday Telegraph on 17th November 2012:

"It is high time the Liberal Party changed its name to the Conservative Party.Voices of moderates within the party have all but been extinguished, and thefew remaining so-called moderates wouldn't know a progressive cause worthfighting for if it hit them in the face, much less be prepared to put theircareers on the line to do so…..The Liberal Party looks set to win the nextelection, but there will be nothing liberal about the government it becomes."

Never trust a North Shore townie with the NSW Health portfolio

On the 15th September 2012 The Daily Telegraph ran this:
“HEALTH Minister Jillian Skinner is prepared to push people out of hospital early to help achieve a $3 billion budget cut.
Explaining the government's cuts to the health portfolio yesterday, Ms Skinner said that "most of the money" saved would be through "better models of care, through, for example, not keeping patients in hospital as long as they should be".
"I think a lot of people are very pleased not to be kept in hospital longer than they need to," Ms Skinner said.
"I have a brand new granddaughter. Her mother was in hospital for two nights, she spent the next two nights in a five-star hotel room. This is a private hospital, this is what they do now ... It's actually better for the mum ... and more efficient for the hospital to pay for a five-star hotel room than a $2000-$3000 acute bed."
Jaysus wept! Since when was country NSW littered with posh hotels? Where are patients in the Northern Rivers going to find a five star hotel near one of the public base or district hospitals? And what makes Skinner think that NNSWLHD CEO Chris Crawford will put his hand in his pocket to pay for one, when even getting into hospital in the first place can be a minor miracle due to closures and cost cutting.
Coraki’s public hospital went AWOL in 2011 and is now presumed dead, no in-house doctors in A&E at some other hospitals, and I’m told that mental health nurses and sexual assault counsellors are considered an endangered species in the Lower Clarence.

Question & Answer of the Month

Tony Abbott Australain Leader of the Opposition

An exchange in the comments section of a Granny Herald article on 20^th March 2012:

Is there no depth to which Abbott will not descend?

Steve

March 19, 2012, 10:12AM

No. Abbott can sink MUCH further, believe me.

Morandir

Marrickville

March 19, 2012, 10:22AM

Quotes of the Week

From Tony Wright, National Affairs Editor of The Age on 15th March 2012:

“TAKE one pinch of asylum seeker, add a spoonful of smuggled handgun, stir with a good ladling of drive-by shootings and a cupful of border protection, and what have you got?

Why, the Abbott-Morrison Patented Elixir for a Pain in the Tax Policy. It might taste like offal and stink worse than last week's bottled carbon emission, but when you're short on ingredients you cook up what's on hand.”

From Bushfire Bill commenting over at The Poll Bludger on 16th March 2012:
Costello has done it again. He’s put himself and his preening expectations at the centre of a divisive shit fight, spitting the dummy one more time over not getting a job he had decided was his by right. Everywhere this bloke goes he causes trouble with his colleagues due to his implacable belief that he should be the boss.

Just how thick is Tony Abott et al?

Fair dinkum!

Abbott's mob put up Bruce Scott who, despite the comments that follow about the coalition parties, is more than a half decent bloke for the spot of Deputy Speaker.

And, surprise, surprise, Scott was rolled 78 votes to 71.

Gee! That was an earth-shattering surprise!

Who, apart from Abbott and his half (and that's an extreme exaggeration) brained deputy Julie Bishop would have thought Scott, with his National Party baggage would capture the imagination, let alone the votes, of the Independent MPs who had previously seen the light and jumped ship from the terminally diseased National Party and its inbred relative the Liberal Party?