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Showing posts with label National Party of Australia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label National Party of Australia. Show all posts
Wednesday 8 May 2019
The Liberal & Nationals answer to all the water policy mistakes they have made in the past. Full speed ahead to make some more!
In 2006 the
Howard Coalition Government’s then Minister for Water Malcolm Bligh Turnbull attempted an under-the-radar progression of
a proposal to dam and divert water from the Clarence River system into the
Murray Darling Basin. He was sprung and it lost his government the seat of Page
in 2007.
When Tony Abbott was prime minister he was
all gung-ho for damming east coast rivers, but was by then wary of the mood of Clarence
Valley communities.
Despite a
certain coolness on Tony Abbott’s part and Turnbull's silence once he followed Abbott as prime minister, the wannabee water raiders within the Basin have never given up on the idea of destroying the Clarence River in order
to continue lucrative water trading for profit and inappropriate levels of farm irrigation
in the Basin.
This is a mockup of what these raiders would like to see along the Clarence River.
On 30 April
2019 Scott Morrison and Co announced
the proposed creation of the National
Water Grid which in effect informs communities in the Northern Rivers region that
our wishes, being “political” because we are not their handpicked ‘experts’,
will be ignored when it comes to proposed
large-scale water diversion projects including dams if they are
re-elected on 18 May 2019.
The Daily Examiner, 4 May 2019, p.10:
“Just add water” is the
Nationals’ answer to “unleashing the potential” of regional Australia but it
would come at a cost to areas flush with the precious resource.
Deputy Prime Minister
Michael McCormack announced on Tuesday at the National Press Club that a
returned Coalition government would establish an authority, the National Water
Grid, to manage water policy and infrastructure.
“We know the key to
unlocking the potential of regional Australia is simple – just add water,” he
said.
The announcement of the
National Water Grid has sparked fears the Clarence and Nymboida rivers may be
dammed to irrigate drought-stricken areas of the country – a prospect the
Clarence Valley community has faced before.
The Nationals’ Page
MP, Kevin Hogan, said there were “no plans to dam the Clarence
River”.
“There are proposals in
other drought-affected areas of the country,” he said…..
The planned National
Water Grid would ensure water infrastructure would be based on the best
available science, “not on political agendas”, Mr McCormack said.
It would “provide the
pipeline of all established, current and future water infrastructure projects
and then identify the missing links”.
Mr McCormack said dams
were the answer to “create jobs”, “back agriculture and back farmers”.
“While we are being bold
and building big, we are often stopped at the first hurdle when it comes to
short-sighted state governments that choose politics over practicality, and
indeed science,” he said…..
Monday 6 May 2019
Preferences show the quality of the politiciian
Kevin Hogan rising from his seat among Coalition MPs to greet his prime minister |
Nationals MP for Page Kevin Hogan has never voted against Coalition policy positions or the Abbott-Turnbull Morrison Government's proposed motions and bills being considered by the House of Representatives.
When the media coverage were going badly against the newly installed Morrison Coalition Government he took fright and declared he was that grotesque chimera - an "Independent National".
As a so-called "Independent National" Hogan is still a member of the National Party of Australia, still attends Nationals partyroom meeting, remains the Nationals Whip in the House of Representatives and also remains the Morrison Government's Deputy Speaker and never - I repeat never - votes against Coalition policy positions or the Morrison Government's proposed motions and bills.
Holding this unofficial title of convenience also means that Hogan rarely if ever sits on the cross benches with the genuine Independents.
Hogan's how-to-vote cards mailled out during this federal election campaign also reflect the fact that he remains a National Party member of parliament with allegiance to Prime Minister Morrison and Deputy Prime Minister McCormack.
His voting preferences for the House of Representatives ballot are:
1. Kevin Hogan - National Party of Australia
2. John Damien Mudge - United Australia Party (UAP) - party leader Clive Palmer
3. Peter Walker - Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group)
4. Fiona Leviny - former Nationals member and current Independent
5. Alison Waters - Animal Justice Party
6. Dan Reid - The Australian Greens
7. Patrick Deegan - Australian Labor Party (ALP)
Hogan's voting preferences for the Senate ballot are:
1. Liberal & Nationals, party leaders Scott Morrison & Michael McCormack
2. Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group)
3. United Australia Party (UAP), party leader Clive Palmer
4. Liberal Democratic Party, acting federal party leader Andrew Cooper replacing David Leyonhjelm
5. Australian Conservatives, party leader Corey Bernardi
6. The Small Business Party, party leader Angela Vithoulkas
So there you have it. Kevin Hogan favours hard right candidates similar to himself, is willing to continue supporting climate change denialists, as well as politicians and wannabee politicians who wish to foist their personal religious beliefs on the Australian population and/or wish to suppress ordinary workers wages, and is publicly throwing his support behind one particular party leader who became infamous by stealing wages owed to his employees after sacking them, then leaving taxpayers footing the bill for the economic destruction he caused.
The only reason Hogan is not preferencing racist candidates representing Pauline Hanson's One Nation and Fraser Anning's Conservative Nationals Party (as his prime minister is doing) is that these parties are not fielding candidates in the Page electorate.
Friday 3 May 2019
Can One Nation candidates get any sleazier than this?
One Nation Queensland Leader and former LNP state minister Steve Dickson who is a 2019 federal election candidate has been forced to resign because of this video.
The married One Nation Senate candidate has been filmed groping an exotic dancer in a strip club and asking her to come home with him and saying the dancer "wants to suck my c**k".
Dickson may have resigned from all position he held in the One Nation party, however his name remains on the Senate ballot paper.
Nationals' Barnaby Joyce in deeper water
.@hamishnews uncovers some fresh insights into the water buy back scandal #TheProjectTV pic.twitter.com/jEFeyA6SpO— The Project (@theprojecttv) April 29, 2019
Thursday 2 May 2019
The Trouble with Water: National Party conflicts of interest and the rising odour of corruption
The
Saturday Paper,
27 April 2019:
Former Australian
Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty is examining links between political
donations and the issuing and buyback of agricultural water licences, amid
concerns that undeclared conflicts of interest could be fuelling corruption.
Keelty told The
Saturday Paper this week he is concerned about the extent of undeclared
conflicts of interest among politicians, lobby groups and businesses operating
in the water market.
“I’m interested to see
how conflicted politicians are declaring their conflicts of interest when
decisions are made about water policy,” he said.
“Where you get those
conflicts of interest and they’re not addressed, that’s ripe for corruption.”
His comments come as the
Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder confirmed to The Saturday Paper that
two contentious water licences for which the federal government paid
$79 million have returned next to no water to the environment since they
were purchased two years ago.
Keelty is conducting
inquiries in his capacity as the Northern Basin commissioner for the
Murray–Darling Basin, a position to which the federal agriculture minister,
David Littleproud, appointed him in August last year with the support of the
Labor opposition.
On the issue of water
licences, he draws a direct comparison with the management of development
applications by local government, where conflicts of interest are required to
be declared.
“We’re not seeing it in
water, and it should be there,” he said.
Keelty, who was also the
inaugural chair of the Australian Crime Commission, is not categorical about
what exposing such conflicts might reveal, though he suggests they are
widespread.
“I’m not saying it’s
corruption; I’m saying it’s conflict of interest,” he said. “But you could draw
a conclusion that if conflicts of interest aren’t transparent, it could lead to
corruption … Water is now the value of gold. If you have corruption in other
elements of society, if you have corruption in other areas of business, why
wouldn’t you have it here, when water is the same price as gold?”
“IT IS NOT AS TRANSPARENT AS I FIRST THOUGHT AND IT IS
MUDDIED BY IN-KIND DONATIONS AND THIRD-PARTY COMPANIES OR ENTITIES THAT ARE
CREATED TO OBSCURE WHO THE REAL DONORS ARE.”
Over the past decade,
Keelty has undertaken inquiries and investigations for various governments on
issues relating to integrity in government policy, especially in emergency
management.
Now turning his
attention to the struggling river system, he is aiming to improve transparency
in the management of the northern Murray–Darling Basin, which has a far worse
compliance record than the river system’s southern half.
His task is to ensure
that water gets back to the river system where it is needed and that those who
rely on this water, and should have rights for its use, are not being ripped
off, especially disenfranchised Indigenous communities and others living
downstream.
Keelty argues that
excessive numbers of water licences have been issued – sometimes on
questionable grounds – and are seriously damaging the river.
“When you look at it
strategically, there are too many licences having been allocated for the amount
of water that is available,” he told The Saturday Paper.
“Nobody is addressing
that, that I can see.”
Keelty also believes the
system is too dependent on property owners acting within the law and reporting
their own activities.
“The system relies on
honesty and integrity but if you look at the number of prosecutions and
infringement notices issued in New South Wales in the last 12 months, the
pillar of honesty doesn’t appear to be that strong,” he said.
“I can understand the
suspicion and the frustration in the southern basin states because they are
directly impacted by the efficiency of the systems in the northern basin.”
Keelty is currently
examining the Australian Electoral Commission records of political donations,
checking links between donors, decision-makers and recipients of water licences
or sales contracts.
“Clearly the National
Party is probably, I guess, a glaring example of where politicians could be
conflicted because their constituency are the very people who are using the
water and the very people who are lobbying about water policy,” he said.
But he is examining
links to other parties as well. “It’s not just the National Party. Different
governments will make decisions about water policy that presumably benefit
their state and their constituents.”
Keelty has concerns
about the system of political donations more broadly.
“It is not as
transparent as I first thought and it is muddied by in-kind donations and
third-party companies or entities that are created to obscure who the real
donors are,” he said. “I’ve found it more difficult and less transparent than
what most of us probably think it is.”
The former police chief
is also arguing for proceeds-of-crime legislation to be more clearly linked to
offences in the water market because he believes the risk of losing a farming
property would be a significant deterrent.
“Where you can prosecute
criminal charges for offending, it makes sense to have parallel action in
proceeds of crime because that will have more of an impact than perhaps some of
the civil charges that are being used to remedy the situation to date,” he
said.
Read the full article here
Tuesday 30 April 2019
Morrison Government signed off on a controversial uranium mine one day before calling the federal election
ABC
News, 26
April 2019:
The Morrison Government
signed off on a controversial uranium mine one day before calling the federal
election, and did not publicly announce the move until the environment
department uploaded the approval document the day before Anzac Day.
The Yeelirrie Uranium
mine, located 500 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, requires
both federal and state approval.
The state approval of
the proposed mine is still being fought in the state's Supreme Court by members
of the Tjiwarl traditional owners.
In 2016, the West Australian Environment Protection Agency advised
the mine not be approved, concluding it posed too great a risk of
extinction to some native animals.
The former Liberal
Barnett government controversially approved the mine in 2017, just weeks before
it lost the West Australian election.
Canadian company Cameco,
the world's largest uranium producer, is seeking to develop the uranium mine,
which would cover an area 9km long and 1.5km wide.
It would involve the
clearing of up to 2,422 hectares of native vegetation.
It is also approved to
cause groundwater levels to drop by 50cm, and they would not completely recover
for 200 years, according to Cameco's environmental reports.
A spokesperson for
Environment Minister Melissa Price said the approval was subject to 32 strict
conditions to avoid and mitigate potential environmental impacts.
Traditional owner of the
area, Tjiwarl woman Vicky Abdullah, said she was surprised by the announcement,
and was hoping for the project to be rejected.
"It's a very
precious place for all of us. For me and my two aunties, who have been walking
on country," she said.
Mine approval a
controversial move ahead of caretaker mode
Simon Williamson,
General Manager of Cameco Australia, told the ABC he was pleased Ms Price had
approved the mine before calling the election.
"Yeah, that's
likely to raise questions about rushed decision and all that stuff, but the
state [government] made their decision in January 2017," he said.
"The timing was
such that all of [the assessment] was completed to allow her to sign off before
the election. I think it's quite appropriate and I think the minster would want
to sign off on projects on her plate before she goes to an election……
Dave Sweeney, an
anti-nuclear campaigner at the Australian Conservation Foundation said the
timing suggested the decision was political.
"We need decisions
that are based on evidence and the national interest, not a company's interest
or not a particular senator's or a particular government's interest," he
said.
"This reeks of
political interference rather than a legal consideration or due process."
The approval is one of
several controversial moves the Government made before entering caretaker mode,
where such decisions would be impossible, including approving Adani's two groundwater management
plans for it's proposed Carmichael coal mine.....
The
Guardian, 27
April 2019:
A multinational uranium
miner persuaded the federal government to drop a requirement forcing it to show
that a mine in outback Western
Australia would not make any species extinct before it could go ahead.
Canadian-based Cameco
argued in November 2017 the condition proposed by the government for the
Yeelirrie uranium mine, in goldfields north of Kalgoorlie, would be too
difficult to meet.
The mine was approved on
10 April, the
day before the federal election was called, with a different set of
conditions relating to protecting species.
Environmental groups say
the approval was politically timed and at odds with a 2016 recommendation
by the WA Environmental Protection Authoritythat the mine be blocked due to
the risk to about 140 subterranean stygofauna and troglofauna species – tiny
animals that live in groundwater and air pockets above the water table.
A Cameco presentation to
the department, released to the Greens through Senate estimates, shows the
government proposed approving the mine with a condition the company must first
demonstrate that no species would be made extinct during the works.
Cameco Australia said
this did not recognise “inherent difficulties associated with sampling for and
describing species”, including the inadequacy of techniques to sample
microscopic species that live underground and challenges in determining whether
animals were of the same species. It said the condition was “not realistic and
unlikely to be achieved – ever”.
The condition did not
appear in the final
approval signed by the environment minister, Melissa Price, which was
made public after being posted on the environment department’s website on 24
April…..
Thursday 25 April 2019
The claims by Coalition candidates grow even more absurd
Voters have been treated to the absurd spectacle of the Liberal Prime Minister and his ministers accusing Labor of wanting to steal tradies utes, of wanting to end weekends as well as lying about how quickly electic cars could be charged (in fact in Australia right now an EV can be charged in 8 minutes by JET Charge) and of conspiring with the Greens to introduce death taxes.
Now we have a Queensland Llberal-Nationals candidate, Gerard Rennick, stating that helping families send three-year-olds to pre-school is a Labor Party conspiracy to strengthen government control over child raising.
Then we had this from the Liberal-Nationals arch conspirator.....
ABC
News, 23
April 2019:
The weather bureau has
been tampering with temperature data in order to "perpetuate global
warming hysteria", according to an under-fire Coalition candidate.
The Bureau of
Meteorology (BOM) has strongly rejected the conspiracy theory being peddled by
Queensland Senate hopeful Gerard Rennick.
Shades of that hard right lobby group, the Institute of Public Affairs!
What will be the next desperate, far-fetched claim?
Wednesday 24 April 2019
The Trouble With Water: 'ghost' water begins to haunt the Liberal-Nationals election campaign
“It is well understood and agreed that water in the Murray-Darling Basin has been overallocated and extracted at rates that are unsustainable.” [The Australia Institute, February 2018]
Eastern Australia Agriculture Pty Ltd (EAA) owns
water entitlements at two properties in the lower Balonne area of the
Condamine-Balonne region The Kia-Ora property is situated approximately 7km
south of St. George, Queensland, along the Balonne River. The Clyde property is
located 10km south-west of Dirranbandi, Queensland.
"Kia
Ora" reportedly totals 18,841 hectares and has water entitlements of 36,705 megalitres, while "Clyde" is said to total 18,743 hectares with water entitlements of 30,289 megalitres.
EAA also
appears to hold Queensland water licences which allows it to harvest overland
flows/flood waters from both properties.
Questions have arisen with regard to the sale of some of this water.......
Questions have arisen with regard to the sale of some of this water.......
The Government’s been buying up water at record prices, leading to millions of dollars flowing to offshore tax havens. But now, two of our top pollies are facing questions over just who is making a fortune off our water.@HamishNews and @MichaelWestBiz bring you this report pic.twitter.com/5UTH1NHJzR— The Project (@theprojecttv) April 18, 2019
At various times prior to entering federal parliament in September 2013 Liberal MP for Hume and Australian Minister for Energy Angus Taylor was reportedly a co-founder and director of Eastern Australia Irrigation, a director of and company secretary for Eastern Australia Agriculture and was also a paid consultant for EAA.Ever wondered how that $79M 'gift' of taxpayers money to a SE Qld irrigator was spent? Wonder no more - this is what 'ghost water' can buy the seller #AusVotes2019 pic.twitter.com/cYOE8CvqJ9— no_filter_Yamba (@no_filter_Yamba) April 16, 2019
đź’§Angus Taylor YESTERDAY: “has never had a direct or indirect financial interest in EAA or any assoc’d company.”— Hamish Macdonald (@hamishNews) April 19, 2019
TODAY: He was also a consultant for EAA 09/10 “on normal commercial terms”.
TONIGHT: there’s a difference between ‘an interest’ & being paid as consultant. #auspol pic.twitter.com/AwwWGznyNz
The Minister for Energy Angus Taylor, former deputy-prime minister and federal agriculture and water resources minister, the current National Party MP for New England Barnaby Joyce, and the federal Dept. of Agriculture and Water Resources have all issued statements taking issue with concerns being expressed over this particular water sale and denying any wrong doing. Both ministers have threatened legal action for defamation.
The Queensland Government denies being party to this water sale.
The Morrison Government is now facing calls for an inquiry into the Murray-Darling plan water contracts signed off by former minister Joyce.
BACKGROUND
The Queensland Government denies being party to this water sale.
The Morrison Government is now facing calls for an inquiry into the Murray-Darling plan water contracts signed off by former minister Joyce.
BACKGROUND
Ghost Water – licences for unreliable/unverifiable amounts of temporary water sold
to government for use as environmental flow water.
Overland flow is “water that runs across the land after
rainfall, either before it enters a watercourse, after it leaves a watercourse
as floodwater, or after it rises to the surface naturally from underground…..You
can take overland flow for any purpose unless there is a moratorium notice or a
water plan that limits what can be taken.” [Qld Government, Business
Queensland. January 2019]
Applications
can be made for a water licence for the capture of overland flow water.
“A
water licence is an entitlement to take water which is attached to land
therefore, unlike a water allocation, it is not an asset in its own right.
Water licences cannot normally be sold independent of land unless there are
management rules in place which allow permanent transfers (relocations) to
occur…..The relocation of a water licence enables a licensee to transfer
ownership of the entitlement, permanently moving the licence from the land to
which it is attached, to another parcel of land within the confines of the
rules. This process differs from permanent water allocation trading whereby
water allocations are traded independently of land titles and have their own
registrable title (i.e. water can be held by someone who does not own land).” [Qld Government,
Business Queensland. February
2019]
At the time of the water sales EAA has 7 harvesting licences, of which 4 were for water extraction from the Balonne and Narran rivers, 2 were for collection of overland flow waters and 1 was for irrigation water draw on the Beardmore Dam.
At the time of the water sales EAA has 7 harvesting licences, of which 4 were for water extraction from the Balonne and Narran rivers, 2 were for collection of overland flow waters and 1 was for irrigation water draw on the Beardmore Dam.
Unsolicited offer by EAA to sell overflow water at
https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22publications%2Ftabledpapers%2F59682649-2fa2-43b1-955f-ae16caecef45%22.
Austender records of three EAA water sales to the Dept. of Agriculture and Water Resources - the first by transparent open tender and the remaining to by non-transparent limited tender:
At the time of the first water sale (1,980ML at est. $2,175 per megalitre) Barnaby Joyce was an elected senator on the Opposition benchs and Labor's Tony Burke was federal water minister, at the time of the second and third sales (totalling 27,960ML at $2,745 per megalitre) Joyce was the Australian Deputy Prime Minister as well as Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources.
The first sale under the Labour Government was a result of an open competitive tender, the second and third sales were by unadvertised limited tender which excluded a competitive tender process.
NOTE: In 2008 it appears that EAA sold 10,433ML from its water storage to the Murray-Darling Basin Commission for an unknown amount.
The Australia Institute, March 2018, "That's not how you haggle....Commonwealth water purchasing in the Condamine Balonne", excerpt:
Austender records of three EAA water sales to the Dept. of Agriculture and Water Resources - the first by transparent open tender and the remaining to by non-transparent limited tender:
At the time of the first water sale (1,980ML at est. $2,175 per megalitre) Barnaby Joyce was an elected senator on the Opposition benchs and Labor's Tony Burke was federal water minister, at the time of the second and third sales (totalling 27,960ML at $2,745 per megalitre) Joyce was the Australian Deputy Prime Minister as well as Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources.
The first sale under the Labour Government was a result of an open competitive tender, the second and third sales were by unadvertised limited tender which excluded a competitive tender process.
NOTE: In 2008 it appears that EAA sold 10,433ML from its water storage to the Murray-Darling Basin Commission for an unknown amount.
The Australia Institute, March 2018, "That's not how you haggle....Commonwealth water purchasing in the Condamine Balonne", excerpt:
EAAs original asking
price was $2,200 per megalitre. DAWR displayed Pythonesque haggling skills and
paid a final price of $2,745 per megalitre. DAWR paid 25% more per megalitre
than originally requested by EAA, 139% higher than the Commonwealth had previously
paid for the same type of licence and 85% higher than the average price for a
more reliable type of water licence. The megalitre price was inflated because
it included the cost of a storage that the vendor originally offered to
transfer to the Commonwealth, but that offer was later withdrawn, without
adjusting the price. The storage was used as a justification of the sale, but
not as a condition of the sale.
The water purchased was
for Over Land Flow (OLF) licences, which cannot be traded between irrigators,
because they are attached to land. They have no legal status or any recognition
at a location other than where they were originally purchased. That is, there
appears to be no legal basis for the Commonwealth to ensure it gets to the
places it is intended to be used.
First, tax havens siphon
taxable profits away from jurisdictions like Australia. This means either
increasing the tax burden on individuals and businesses, taking on more debt,
or cutting social services.
These shenanigans are
not always illegal. But what is legal is not always moral or economically
sound. Australia’s fiscal foundations are threatened by the erosion of the tax
base by tricky tax tactics.
Aggressive tax planning
can erode public confidence in the tax system itself. After all, one reason
most of us pay the taxes we owe is that we believe we live in a society where
our fellow citizens do the same.
A fascinating new
dataset released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics helps shed light on
this problem. Across multinational firms operating in Australia, the bureau
reports their operating profit and their taxable profit. What is unique about
these data is that they are reported for firms with majority owners in
different countries. So it is possible to compare across countries, and ask the
question: which nation’s firms have the biggest gap between operating profits
and taxable profits?
For the typical
Australian firm, the gap between operating profits and taxable profits is 30
percent. The figure is pretty similar for multinationals whose owners reside in
the United States (28.4 percent), United Kingdom (26.6 percent) and Japan (28.5
percent).
But for some nations,
it’s a different story. If you’re a Bermuda-owned multinational operating in
Australia, then on average the gap between operating profit and taxable profit
is 88 percent. If you’re a British Virgin Islands owned multinational, the
reduction is 92 percent.[3]
So if you start with ten
dollars of operating profit, then Australian firms report about seven dollars
of taxable profits. The same is true for American, British and Japanese-based
multinationals – ten dollars of operating profit produces seven dollars of
taxable profit.
But for firms based in
Bermuda or the Virgin Islands, and operating in Australia, ten dollars of
operating profit produces just one dollar of taxable profit. That’s a startling
difference……..
Second, tax havens are
the hiding ground.....
Gabriel Zucman, an
economist at University of California, Berkley, estimates that around
four-fifths of money in offshore bank accounts is there in breach of other
countries’ tax laws.[4] .......
A recent study in the
journal Nature Ecology and Evolution found there are even egregious
environmental vandals there too. Following the Panama Papers, the study
found seventy percent of fishing vessels implicated in illegal, unreported and
unregulated catches had been registered in Belize, Panama, or other tax havens
at some point. [5]
Third, tax havens
increase inequality. Offshore wealth held by Australians in tax havens was
approximately 6 per cent of GDP, according to Zucman’s work in 2013. In today’s
prices, that would mean over $100 billion in assets held offshore by wealthy
Australians. [6]..........
Cayman Islands corporate tax rates appears to be zero.
During December 2016,
the Tax Office required Eastern Australia Agriculture to enter into a
Settlement Deed to reduce the interest charged by EAI on convertible notes
issued by EAA.
The interest charges
were required to be reduced from June 2011 when Taylor was still a director of
EAI. The total amount of excessive interest charges was $14 million.
This from EAA’s 2016 annual
report:
“Forgiveness of interest
expense – parent entity
“Following a review by
the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), the company entered into a Settlement
Deed with the ATO on 9 December 2016 and the parent entity agreed to reduce the
interest rate on the convertible note from 12 per cent to an average interest
rate of 7.97 per cent effective from 29 June 2011, resulting in a forgiveness
of interest expense accrued in 2016 and prior years."
The higher the interest
rate charged by the parent, the more money flows from Australia to the
Caribbean. In the parlance of the tax fraternity, this practice of charging
excessive interest rates, in order to maximise the interest payments out of
Australia to a tax haven, is called “debt-loading”.
By 2016, Angus Taylor
was no longer a director of EAI. He had stepped down from the board of the
Cayman Islands company in 2013, the year he entered Parliament. He was a
director however when the financing arrangement was established.
London Stock Exchange, EF
Realisation Company Limited (EFR) Annual
Financial Report, released 22 January 2018, excerpt:
Compulsory Redemption
Mechanism
EF Realisation monetised
various portfolio assets between February and August 2017 which, in aggregate,
comprised approximately 24% of the NAV as at 30 September 2017. The total
net proceeds raised were approximately £4.36 million, made up of £4.26 million
in realised proceeds (including £0.1 million from a corporate action involving
the Company's holding in Energy Future Holdings) and £0.1 million of investment
income (net of expenses). The Company realised its investment in Menhaden
Capital plc in February 2017 which raised £1.2 million, equal to 2.3p per
Ordinary Share. EF Realisation sold a bond holding in Integradoro de Servicios
Petroleros Oro Negro SAPI de CV ("Oro Negro") which raised
approximately £0.5m, and it
received approximately £2.5 million from Eastern Australia Irrigation Limited
which had sold certain of its water entitlements to the Australian Government
and distributed a majority of the proceeds to its shareholders, including EF
Realisation. On 4 September 2017, the Company announced its intention to
implement the Company's first capital distribution, returning £3.0 million
to Shareholders of the approximately £4.36 million in total net proceeds; the
balance of the net proceeds from asset realisations was retained for working
capital purposes…..
All the other
investments in EF Realisation are unlisted and valued by the Directors at their
estimated realisation values and, with one exception, changes in these
valuations have been small. The
exception is an upgrade to the valuation of the Company's minority shareholding
in Eastern Australia Irrigation Limited following that company's sale of water
rights to the Australian Government authorities in August 2017 and the
expectations for the amount of proceeds that can now be realised from the sale
of its farms…..
Eastern Australia
Irrigation Limited ("EAI") is an Australian based company which owns
and operates two farms in Queensland, whose main crop is cotton, along with
various water extraction rights from the Murray Darling River Basin. During the
summer of 2017, Australian Government authorities approached EAI with an offer
to acquire some of its water entitlements. EAI was able to negotiate the price for the water
entitlements to the highest level ever paid, and in August 2017 it completed
the largest ever sale of water entitlements in the Murray Darling River Basin.
EF Realisation owns 9.6% of EAI's shares and, along with other holders,
supported the sale of the water rights. EAI used the majority of the sale
proceeds to return capital to its shareholders, and passed £2.5 million to EF
Realisation. This represented a gain on that part of the EAI holding of £0.34
million or 16.0%. We comment below on the plans to dispose of EAI's farms……
EAI was in the process of selling its farms prior to the
sale of water rights. Proceeds received for the sale of water rights were
attractive compared to the offers received in the farm sale process so the farm
sale process was suspended in order to complete negotiations with the
Australian Government authorities over the sale of water rights. EAI has
now resumed the farm sale process with the intention of using sale proceeds to
repay debt and redeem its shares.
Having sold some of the water rights, the effective size of the irrigable land
that can be used for cotton farming has been reduced by approximately one-third
and it is expected that this, and the decision to sell the farms separately
rather than as a package as last summer, will make the farms attractive to a
broader range of potential buyers. Cotton prices are supported by low crop
harvests in cotton growing regions outside Australia and, at the time of
writing, local rainfall on EAI's farms has prevented a return of drought
conditions. However, until binding bids are received for the farms, the timing
for EF Realisation to redeem or sell its shareholding in EAI and the proceeds
from such a redemption or sale are uncertain.
EF Realisation carries
its remaining investment in EAI at a conservative estimate of the proceeds that
would be received assuming EAI's farms are sold and its shares are redeemed. In
particular, the implied valuation of the farms is less than the value of the
farms used to secure EAI's loan from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, a
valuation point that has been a floor for proceeds in farm sales. [my yellow highlighting]
After the September 2013 federal election Barnaby Joyce became the Minister for Agriculture and in September 2015 Water Resources was added to his ministerial portfolio.
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