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.......

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

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

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.

💧Angus Taylor YESTERDAY: “has never had a direct or indirect financial interest in EAA or any assoc’d company.”

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

— Hamish Macdonald (@hamishNews) April 19, 2019

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

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.

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:

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.

 Austaxpolicy, 28 September 2018, excerpt:

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.

Michaelwest.com.au, 21 April 2019:

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]

In the 2012-13 financial year Eastern Australia Agriculture Pty Limited made a political donation of $20,000 to the Liberal Party of Australia (NSW) and on 29 August 2013 the company made a second political donation of $35,000.

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.

Clarence Valley winter woolies drive on 29 April to 5 May 2019

The Daily Examiner, 22 April 2019, p.4:

If you have clothes piling up in the back of your wardrobe you’ve forgotten about or won’t be wearing any more, now is the time to dig them out.

What started out as an initiative of the Waste Not Want Not Facebook group has quickly become a tradition now in its sixth year.

The original yarn bombing movement was about injecting colour and joy into everyday life, but for Sue Noddy and the other organisers, it was a chance to help others.

“If it’s been sitting your wardrobe forever and you don’t wear it any more bring it down, it is all about recycling things,” Ms Noddy said.

She said anything warm is welcomed but hoodies, jeans and mittens are particularly useful.

“We do have some ladies who are knitting crochet all year-round rugs, hats and scarves and they will peg their hand knitted items up,”

“We run it for a week, we don’t take the items in at night because some people don’t want to be seen taking things off the fence,” she said.

“We leave it out all night, all day, even if it rains people still come and take the items.”

There will be three locations for the community to donate their pre-loved winter woollies, two in Grafton and one in Maclean.

Drop off points from April 29–May 5:

New School of Art neighbourhood house, corner of Spring and New streets, South Grafton

The Hub Baptist Church, corner of Queen and Oliver streets

River St, Maclean, next to the fire station.

Australian PM Scott Morrison acting as an IPA stooge on the 2019 election campaign trail

The hard-right lobby group the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) told the Liberal Party of Australia to jump to it……..

IPA, on 12 April 2019, the day after the federal election date was set:

A Statement on Liberal Philosophy

20 POLICIES TO FIX AUSTRALIA

15 policies the Coalition should implement but will not and 5 policies they should not implement but will

John Roskam, Executive Director and Daniel Wild, Director of Research PARLIAMENTARY RESEARCH BRIEF A research note from the Institute of Public Affairs distributed to all Australian parliamentarians 12 April 2019

For more information contact Daniel Wild, Director of Research at dwild@ipa.org.au

15 policies the Coalition should implement but will not

1. Remove all references to race in the Constitution Martin Luther King, Jr stated “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.” But Australia’s Constitution currently divides Australians by race. Section 25 of the Australian Constitution, titled “Provision as to races disqualified from voting’, while today redundant remains an affront to Australians’ sense of egalitarianism. Similarly, Section 51(xxvi) of the Australian Constitution gives the Commonwealth government the power to make laws on the basis of race.All Australians are equal and should be treated as equal before the law. Therefore, both provisions should be discarded and references to race in the Constitution must be erased.

2. Repeal Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act (1975) Free speech is inextricably linked to the Australian way of life. Australians should be able to enjoy and participate in open and unfettered discussion about issues of import to the future of our democracy and our nation. Section 18C stops this from happening. It is an unconscionable and egregious limitation on the free speech rights of all Australians and must be abolished.

3. Withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement The Paris Climate Agreement will increase the cost of electricity production by at least $52 billion by 2030 without making any noticeable difference to the environment. The four largest greenhouse gas emitters in absolute terms are not in the Paris Agreement (the United States) or their emissions are not constrained by the Paris Agreement (China and India) or are not on target to meet their obligations under the Paris Agreement (the European Union). It is not in Australia’s national interest to remain party to the Agreement.

4. Implement a flat income tax Australia’s income tax system punishes success and discourages upward economic mobility. Its interaction with the welfare system also creates welfare traps through high effective marginal tax rates which keeps too many Australians poor and trapped in a poverty cycle. To reduce poverty, expand economic opportunity, promote equality, all Australians should face the same income tax rate.

5. Reduce the corporate tax rate to below 20 per cent, in line with competitor nations The top marginal company tax rate in Australia of 30 per cent is the third highest in the developed world, and well above the OECD average of 24 per cent and competitor nations such as the United States (21 per cent), the United Kingdom (17 per cent from 2020), and Singapore (17 per cent). Australia’s high corporate tax rate is a key reason why business investment is just 11.5 per cent of GDP, which is lower than the rate that prevailed during the Whitlam years.

6. Appointment of High Court Justices to be rotated between the six states and the Commonwealth The Commonwealth Government is too big, powerful, and interventionist, and state governments have too small of a role in the operation of Australia’s federation. A key reason for this is that the Commonwealth alone is responsible for appointing Justices to the High Court of Australia. This has unsurprisingly led to the appointment of Judges who favour an expansion of Commonwealth power at the expense of state governments. To correct this imbalance, state governments should play a central role in appointing High Court Justices.

7. Double the size of the House of Representatives, and halve the size of the Ministry Canberra is too detached and removed from the concerns of mainstream Australia. 

This is partly a reflection of the size of individual electorates. Almost every Federal electorate contains more than 100,000 voters. This is too many. To get government closer to the people there should be a larger number of electorates with fewer voters, resulting in each voter having a louder voice. In addition, the number of Members of Parliament who are a part of the Ministry at any point in time has grown rapidly over the past two decades. Appointing members to the Ministry, the Outer Ministry, and as Assistant Ministers is a deliberate strategy to silence debate and reduce the influence of backbenchers. For Australia’s democracy to become more robust as in the United Kingdom and the United States, the number of Members of Parliament in the Ministry, Outer Ministry, and as Assistant Ministers should be reduced from 41 to 20.

8. Privatise the ABC In a free society the government should not own and operate its own media company. The media market in Australia is highly competitive. Online platforms have transformed and disrupted traditional approaches to media. Consumers have never had more choice about where to source their news and opinions on current affairs. Moreover, the ABC is unremittingly bias. Its staff are five times more likely to vote for the Greens compared to the general population. The ABC is beyond reform. New leaders will not fix the problem, regardless of their experience or intention. The ABC must be privatised.

9. Re-introduce the debt ceiling Gross government debt is currently $546 billion, all of which must be paid back by today’s young Australians via higher future taxes. One approach policy-makers can take to reduce government debt, or at least reduce its growth, is to re-introduce the debt ceiling. A debt-ceiling places a limit on how much the Australian government can borrow. Raising the debt ceiling requires an Act of Parliament, which ensures the issue will be debated and receive the public attention it deserves. A debt ceiling was implemented by the Rudd government in 2007 and it was set at $75 billion. With the support of the Greens, the Abbott government with Joe Hockey as Treasurer abolished the debt ceiling in 2013 as debt approached $300 billion.

10. Hold a Royal Commission into the Bureau of Meteorology’s tampering with temperature and climate data The Bureau of Meteorology appears to have tampered with temperature and climate data and to have re-written history to make it appear as if the temperature is higher than it actually is, and that is has risen faster than it actually has. Australians deserve to know the truth about their public institutions. The only way to find the truth about potential temperature data manipulation is to hold a Royal Commission into the Bureau of Meteorology’s activities.

11. Abolish compulsory superannuation Compulsory superannuation is a tax on workers’ wages which is coercively redistributed to the Unions. Australian workers should be free to decide how much of their own income they are willing to defer until retirement, and how much they need in the present to spend on items such as housing, education, and health care. For more information contact Daniel Wild, Director of Research at dwild@ipa.org.au

12. Abolish the Renewable Energy Target and end all subsidies to wind, solar, and hydro-electricity generators Subsidies to renewable energy generation in Australia are expected to reach $60 billion by 2030. The Renewable Energy Target at the Commonwealth level, as well as state-based targets, have been the main contributors to this subsidy blow-out. Because renewables are uncompetitive, expensive, and unreliable, Australia’s electricity prices have increased by 120 per cent over the past decade – around double the rate of inflation. This has a disproportionate effect on the lowest income earners who spend a higher portion of their income on energy than others. Moreover, this cost comes at no noticeable benefit to the environment. For example, over the period of 2001 (when the RET was first implemented by the Howard government) to 2014, the RET resulted in 0.005 per cent fewer carbon emissions globally from human sources which in turn account for just three per cent of total emissions.

13. Introduce a one-in-two-out approach to reduce red tape Red tape is the single biggest impediment to business investment, job creation, and economic opportunity in Australia. Each year red tape reduces economic output by $176 billion, which is equivalent to 10 per cent of GDP.12 This cost represents all of the jobs which are never created, the wages which never rise, the businesses never started, and the dreams which go unfulfilled because of red tape. Governments should cut red tape by repealing two laws for every new law introduced.

14. Repeal the Fair Work Act The Fair Work Act denies hundreds and thousands of Australians the dignity of work. There are currently 1.7 million Australians who are either unemployed or unable to work the number of hours they want. This is largely due to the Fair Work Act which prevents employers and employees from reaching mutually beneficial employment agreements. The Fair Work Act is too complicated and broken to reform. It must be repealed in full. 15. Legalise nuclear power in Australia Australia has 30 per cent of the world’s uranium deposits, some of which we export to the rest of the world for power generation. Yet we forbid ourselves from using nuclear power for domestic energy generation. Meanwhile, Australia has the fourth highest electricity prices in the world. Section 140A(1) of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (1999) states there is to be “no approval for certain nuclear installations” including “a nuclear power plant”. These four words – “a nuclear power plant” – should be removed from the Section to legalise the development of a nuclear power plant in Australia.  For more information contact Daniel Wild, Director of Research at dwild@ipa.org.au

5 policies the Coalition should not implement but will

1. Do not hold a Referendum to divide Australians by race The proposal to establish the Constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Peoples would irrevocably undermine national unity and is a regressive throwback to the days when race played a central role in Australia’s Constitution. Similarly, the proposal to establish a separate entity in the Constitution to be ‘The Voice’ of Indigenous Australians is divisive and false - all Australians are represented by the Commonwealth parliament and are equal before the law. Race has no place in Australia’s Constitution.

2. Do not raise taxes Australia is a high tax nation and workers and families pay too much tax. Over the past decade real taxes per capita have risen by 11 per cent. According to the Reserve Bank of Australia, over the past year taxes paid by households increased by around 8 per cent, more than double the rate of growth in household income.15 This means more money is going to the government and less money can be spent on household essentials such as housing, child care, and education. The Coalition should not raise taxes, and ideally should reduce taxes.

3. Do not raise spending The true cause of high and rising taxes is high and rising spending. Every dollar of spending must be paid back with higher taxes, either today or in the future via the accumulation of debt which is a tax on the next generation of Australians. Government spending has increased from 23.1 per cent of GDP at the end of the Howard-era to 24.6 per cent today (not including off-Budget expenses and liabilities such as the NBN).16 In absolute terms spending has increased by approximately 80 per cent, which is the equivalent to 6 per cent per year.17 This is well above the average rate of inflation of around 2 per cent per year.

4. Do not proceed with Snowy 2.0 The Snowy Hydro 2.0 project will be remembered alongside the NBN as a costly, ineffective, outdated, and inefficient bureaucratic program which won’t solve the underlying public policy problem of high and rising electricity prices and unreliable supply. The project will cost at least $4.5 billion, it won’t become operational until at least 2024-25, and it will be a net energy user, meaning it will be a drain on the energy grid. Instead, governments should provide policy settings which allow for the development of reliable and cost-effective coal-fired power generation.

5. Do not introduce new anti-discrimination laws In the context of the Religious Freedom Review, it has been suggested that new anti-discrimination laws be introduced to protect freedom of religion. However, adding new restrictions through religious antidiscrimination laws would constitute a significant threat to the freedom of conscience of all Australians. Freedom, whether exercised for a religious purpose or not, should only be limited where the exercise of that freedom impacts another person’s freedom or peaceful use and enjoyment of their own property. The only way to sufficiently protect religious freedom is to remove laws that currently place restrictions on religious thought and practice.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison asked how high he should jump, then realised he had exposed the pathway he preferred if the party won at the 18 May 2019 federal election and quickly dissembled………

The Canberra Times, 18 April 2019:

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he has no plans to reverse a ban on nuclear energy, despite earlier saying he was open to the industry if it could "pay its way".

"It's not, not on the agenda ... but it's got to be self-sustaining," he told Tasmania Talks LAFM on Thursday.

"I'm not going to roll out tens of billions of dollars in subsidies, that's not the future for energy efficiencies."

Labor's environment spokesman Tony Burke took the chance to remind Mr Morrison nuclear power is against the law.

"It is extraordinary that Scott Morrison is now contemplating changing the law to allow nuclear power stations in Australia," he said.

Mr Burke said Jervis Bay, Townsville, Bribie Island and Mackay have all been flagged as locations for nuclear power.

"Where is Morrison proposing to put his nuclear power plants? Which coastal community is under threat?"

But the prime minister later on Thursday took to Twitter to step away from his earlier comment.

"This is not our policy and we have no plans to change that," he tweeted.

News Corp mastheads back Big Coal during 2019 federal election campaign

These were News Corp mastheads on 18 April 2019.

Images found @JennaCairney1 on Twitter

Apparently we voters don’t understand the role mining has in our country and Murdoch journalists are eager to pressure politicians on the subject of mining jobs and taxation revenue which they fear are on the line because these same politicians might “go weak-kneed at the sight of Stop Adani hashtags, earrings or stage invasions” [Townsville Bulletin, 18 April 2019, p.2].

I on the other hand think rural and regional areas know the mining industry rather well when it comes to jobs and taxes.

According to the Australian Government Labour Market Information Portal as of February 2019 the Mining Industry in this country“employs approximately 251,700 persons (ABS trend data), which accounts for 2.0 per cent of the total workforce. Over the past five years, employment in the industry has decreased by 5.4 per cent”.

Employment growth in the industry in the five years to February 2019 was in fact minus 14,400 employees.

Projected employment growth in the five years to May 2023 is predicted to be 2.4 per cent.

Not all mining industry employment is new jobs created by a mining venture either. The Australia Institute points to the fact that economic modelling done by Waratah Coal in 2011 found that a single Qld mine would displace 3,000 jobs in other industries and crowd out $1.2 billion in manufacturing activity.

Australian Tax Office (ATO) data for 2013-14 to 2015-16 show that almost 60 percent of corporations in the energy and resources sector paid zero tax in that period.

This percentage appears to be something of an industry norm as in 2007-08 ATO data indicated there were 4,290 mining companies operating in Australia and 68.3pc of all these companies paid no tax.

It is worth noting that in 2007 the Business Council of Australia (BCA) calculated corporate tax (as a percentage of profit) at 20pc for the mining industry.

Interestingly, BCA also stated “taxes collected are negative for the mining industry group because as major exporters survey participants reported a significant GST refund which more than offset other taxes collected”.

In 2016-17 BHP Billiton Aluminium Australia Pty Ltd with a total income $1.81 billion for that year paid no tax. Neither did Whitehaven Coal Limited with a total income of $2.39 billion, Claremont Coal Mines Ltd with a total income of $1.01 billion and Ulan Coal Mines Limited with a total income of $1.03 billion - to name just a few examples for that financial year. 

So there we have it.

An Australia-wide industry sector which in February 2019 employed less people than sectors such as Health & Social Assistance (est.1,702,700 persons), Retail (est.1,284,700 persons), Education & Training (est,1,032,400 persons) and Manufacturing (est. 872,500 persons) and, has a future growth projection which makes it unlikely to return even 2015 employment levels.

A sector which also regularly takes tax minimisation to an extreme.

Yet for some reason voters are supposed to ignore the ramifications of continuing to allow open slather to fossil fuel mining corporations as climate change impacts begin to bite.

The mining industry has pulled this sort of stunt before when it fought the proposed Resource Super Profits Tax which would have applied to mining companies involved in the extraction of non-renewable resources. It talked up inflated figures for mining employment and tax revenue and quoted the same in industry media releases.

The stakes for present and future generations were not quite as high nor as urgent then as they are now and it’s time the rapacious mining industry is firmly put in its place by concerned voters on 18 May 2019 – right at the back of the queue along with those political parties and candidates who blindly support Big Coal and Big Oil.

Australia can't afford politicians of that ilk anymore.

Morrison & Co can’t guarantee delivery of promised tax cuts this year if they win May 18 federal election

The West Australian, 17 April 2019:

Scott Morrison has been forced to explain why his promise to deliver immediate $1080 tax cuts for low and middle-income earners from July 1 may not happen.

Treasury officials today confirmed a key plank of the Morrison Government’s re-election platform – immediate tax cuts for 10 million workers when they receive their 2019 tax returns – cannot occur without Federal Parliament’s support.

Treasury officials said the tax cuts had to be legislated before the end of this financial year – on June 30 – before workers could receive the rebates with their 2019 tax returns.

With the Federal Election on May 18, it means the Coalition has little time – if it wins the election - to pass the tax cuts through Parliament before June 30.

The Coalition has promised rebates of up to $1080 for low and middle-income earners, and up to $2160 for dual-income families, who lodge their tax returns from July 1.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, when he released the Budget weeks ago, claimed the timing of the Federal Election would be “no impediment” to the tax cuts being delivered quickly.

But Treasury officials appeared to contradict that claim today.

They said the tax rebates would require “the relevant legislation to be passed before the increase to the low and middle income tax offset (LMITO) can be provided for the 2018-19 financial year.”

They also warned if the tax cuts were not delivered by June 30 the revenue cost of the measure would “need to be reassessed.”

Scott Morrison continues to be a figure of fun for sections of the national electorate

Hmm, reminds me ... #auspol pic.twitter.com/cpe3lIHxgo

— Chris Bartlett (@bartman6) April 17, 2019

Awabakel land dealings saga continues

Newcastle Herald, 7 April 2017:

Disgraced former assistant tax commissioner Nick Petroulias has failed in a bid to scuttle a corruption inquiry into his land dealings with the Awabakal Local Aboriginal Land Council.

In March, Mr Petroulias applied for the ICAC inquiry to be abandoned, arguing it was based on "trivial" matters. He claimed he had been treated with "bias" and "denied procedural fairness" during public hearings, including "by reason of [his] mental health impairment".

Mr Petroulias also tendered interviews he had recorded with witnesses - including former Awabakal board members Richard Green and Debbie Dates - to support his case.

ICAC Commissioner Peter Hall QC threw out the application on Wednesday, finding Mr Petroulias had not substantiated his allegations.

"Mr Petroulias asserts that the real purpose behind the inquiry is to improperly cause damage to his reputation," Commissioner Hall noted. "There is no evidentiary basis for what is an entirely unsupported assertion."

The last fortnight of public hearings will begin on May 6.

The ICAC inquiry began over 12 months ago, and is probing four deals to sell off Awabakal land, in which Mr Petroulias is alleged to have played a "central role".

SPECIAL INVESTIGATION:

The former tax commissioner, the land council and the million-dollar mystery

Operation Skyline's first day

Please explain payments

Petroulias played 'central role'

Note:

Nick Petroulias mentions on North Coast Voices.