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via @MAL_TURNBULL

The outcome of three complaints about newspaper articles

Australian Press Council dealing with unsubstantiated serious allegations and unfairness, lack of balance and inadequate remedial action:

Adjudication 1659: Complainant/WA Today (December 2015)The Press Council has considered a complaint about an article in WA Today on 9 May 2015 headlined “Bong claims Santa Maria teacher’s job: You’ve got to be toking?”, which was also posted by the publication on Twitter and Facebook.
The article referred to a teacher losing her position at a named Catholic girls’ school as a result of a “social media incident”, said to involve a photograph of her holding a bong . The incident had been referred to in a local radio station’s “Rumour File” segment. The WA Today article was accompanied by a stock image of a person apparently smoking a bong. That article suggested a topless photograph of the teacher may also have been behind the loss of her position.
The Council concluded that drugs played no part in the teacher’s resignation and accepted that no photograph of the teacher with a bong or topless existed. As the article had originated from the radio station’s “Rumour File” segment and the allegations were serious, the publication was required to take greater care to establish the facts. In addition, even after the school Principal's denials, the publication repeated the allegations and the article remained online without sufficient remedial action, despite concerns raised by the teacher.
The Council concluded that the publication failed to ensure accuracy and fairness in the initial article and subsequent revisions or to provide adequate remedial action and therefore found a breach of its Standards of Practice.
The Council accepted there is public interest in highlighting the impact of social media on individuals’ professional lives. However, the inaccuracy in the headline and the reporting of unsubstantiated serious allegations that intruded upon the teacher’s privacy and caused her significant distress were not justified in this public interest. Accordingly, the Council also found a breach of its Standards of Practice in this respect.

Adjudication 1652: Paul Lynch/AAP (October 2015)The Press Council has considered a complaint by NSW Labor MP and Shadow Attorney General Mr Paul Lynch about an article published by AAP on 5 February 2015 headlined “Labor MPs at pro-Russian rebel event” which related to his attendance at the 24th St Sava Youth Festival at the Serbian Cultural Club.
The article referred to the event as “a meeting organised in support of pro-Russian separatists”. It said the meeting was attended by Mr Lynch and others, including Mr Semyon Boikov the “leader” of the Zabaikal Cossack Society of Australia, and that Mr Boikov spoke “calling for a swift victory in Ukraine by pro-Russian separatists”.
The Council considered the description of the event as being “in support of Pro-Russian separatists” was not accurate. The terms used, including the word “meeting”, implied that Mr Lynch was party to the pro-Russian separatist sentiment. The focus on Mr Lynch’s attendance was compounded by the failure to mention the many other attendees and, as a result, the event was not reported with reasonable fairness or balance. The failure by the publication to seek more accurate information about the event from other sources or to provide more time for the complainant to respond resulted in the material not being presented with reasonable fairness and balance. Accordingly, the Council found a breach of its Standards in this respect.
The Council also noted the revised version, “NSW: Anger as MP poses with man on ASIO list”, maintained a focus on pro-Russian separatist elements and described the event as a “meeting” rather than a traditional St Sava celebration. The revised article also failed to correct inaccurate and unfair aspects of the original article. Accordingly, the Council also found a breach of its Standards about adequate remedial action.

The NSW legal system dealing with a defamation claim……….

On 7  October 2010 The Sydney Morning Herald published an article which began; Dozens have been sued, felt harassed to work longer hours or otherwise fallen foul of Australia's richest doctor, writes Natasha Wallace.

In November 2010 the named millionaire doctor sued Fairfax Media Pty Ltd and others for defamation and injurious falsehood. The matter winding its way through the courts to a conclusion in late June 2015 with both claims struck out.

In September 2015 The Sydney Morning Herald published the doctor’s death notice.

Live in the Tweed Valley? Want to help save a vital local women's service? Then read on....

Federal Labor MP for Richmond Justine Elliot on Facebook, Wednesday 20 January 2016, calling for people in the Tweed Valley to door knock a petition to save Tweed Valley Women’s Service and thirteen local jobs:

Here’s the link to my Petition http://bit.ly/1njNOu8 calling for the Nationals to restore NSW Government funding for the Tweed Valley Women’s Service. Please return the completed originals to my office at:
PO Box 6996
Tweed Heads South
NSW 2486

For these Petitions to be submitted the NSW Parliament requires the following:
• the person signing must be a Resident/Citizen of NSW
• NO FAXES of signed petition
• NO PHOTOCOPIES of signed petition
• ONLY ORIGINALS will be accepted
• Every signature must be original hand-writing, and signatures must not be pasted on, photocopied or transferred in any other way.

Text of petition:

http://freepdfhosting.com/879bbcd166.pdf

Just minding my own business - GO AWAY!

Nocturnal Tawny Frogmouth pretending he's part of a Coastal Banksia 

Wilsons Headland, Yuragir National Park
Clarence Coast NSW

Photo taken by Greg Clancy, Ecologist

The LNP jury's still out on Mal Brough

Mal Brough was the Liberal National Party's Queensland sweetheart in the lead-up to the September 2013 federal election and had his preselection locked in by 29 July 2012.....

But in January 2016 with the next federal election less than ten months away it's another story altogether.....

Change your company name, sling the Liberal Party a few thousand, switch tax havens, and you're off and running to receive government contracts valued in the billions

Watching multinational corporations harvest Australia is oddly fascinating. 

Take this example........

Since swimming into public view during the Howard Government years when it made political donations to the Queensland & Victorian divisions of the Liberal Party of Australia totaling $10,000 (2000-01), multinational corporation Accenture Plc (formerly Anderson Consulting) has won government contracts valued at an est.$2.27 billion to date.

Accenture Plc listed on the New York Stock Exchange around 2001 and as a prime contractor in September 2006 quit its £175M UK National Health Service contracts because of cost-overruns and delays in its delivery of the IT programme. Repays just £63M to drop these contracts.

Sometime between 2002 and 2007 two staffers of two former Liberal ministers in the Howard Government appear to found employment with Accenture.

Accenture switched tax havens in 2009 – going from being based in Bermuda to being headquartered in Ireland. None of its principal executives are believed to be based in Ireland, living instead in the USA or Europe.

Also in 2009 it was reported that Accenture's Australian Taxation Office (ATO) contracts were worth an est. $580 million.

According to its own website Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with more than 305,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$30.0 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2014.

This was an increase of 5 percent in both U.S. dollars and local currency compared with the previous fiscal year and, gross margin (gross profit as a percentage of net revenues) for 2013-14  was 32.3 percent.

In 2013-14 the Asia Pacific region (including Australia) produced net revenues for this multinational corporation of $3.89 billion.

In Australia according to the 2013-14 Report of Entity Tax Information ACCENTURE AUSTRALIA HOLDINGS PTY LTD had:

Total Income: $1.40 billion

Taxable Income: $170.42 million

Tax Paid: $50.50 million.

So an est. 3.60% of its total Australian income went in taxation in 2013-14 or an est. 29.63% of what it calculated was its local taxable income.

With no apparent sense of irony in November 2013 Accenture made a submission to the National Commission of Audit which concluded with this in the document’s executive summary:

In order to maintain a vibrant level of economic growth to provide rising living standards for its citizens, Australia must restrain the growth of public sector expenditure within the limits of its capacity to fund it.

Citizens want growing public services, but will not tolerate a growth in taxation above the rate of economic growth.

The gap between aspirations and willingness to pay has been recently filled by large and unsustainable levels of borrowing which has left a record level of Commonwealth debt.

In order to deal with this problem in the short term, adjustments to expenditure and revenue will be essential.

In the medium term, however, the government will need to adjust its forms of service delivery in order to maintain and enhance them without cost over runs.

This can be achieved by changing the style of management, the uses of technology and the structure of the public sector to mirror the efficiencies that are widespread in the private sector.

On July 7 2014 Fortune magazine listed Accenture Plc as one of the Top American corporate tax avoiders.

In November 2015 the ATO confirmed Ramez Katf, managing director of products for Accenture A/NZ will take over as ATO Chief Information Officer (IT) in 2016.

In 2015-16 the ATO commences a short-term arrangement with Accenture to use their Philippines Delivery Centre to increase its IT capability in application development for new policy implementation.

Japanese whalers active again in Antarctic waters

Snapshot, Google Earth image of Antarctica, 14 December 2015

Sea Shepherd Australia, Monday 18 January 2016:

Sea Shepherd’s Flagship, the Steve Irwin, has departed Fremantle, Western Australia for the Southern Ocean. The ship’s departure marks the official commencement of the organization’s 12th Southern Ocean Defense Campaign, Operation Icefish 2015-16.

Led by returning Captain, Siddharth Chakravarty, Sea Shepherd will once again defend the pristine waters of Antarctica from poachers, with the aim to shutdown illegal activities in what is the world’s last great wilderness.

Sea Shepherd will employ direct-action techniques to fill a law enforcement void that continues to be exploited by the Japanese whale poaching fleet and the two remaining illegal toothfish vessels, Viking and Kunlun (Taishan), which continue to threaten the survival of the fragile and wild Antarctic ecosystem.

“The Steve Irwin will be the only proactive enforcement presence in Antarctica once again this year. The shadowlands of Antarctica are under threat and we are the only form of protection to the marine wildlife in these unregulated regions. Other than offering direct and immediate protection to the oceans, we intend to investigate and document the illegalities and work with law-enforcement agencies, once again, to aid and close out existing investigations worldwide,” said Captain Chakravarty.

As Captain Chakravarty and the crew of the Steve Irwin depart for the Southern Ocean, Sea Shepherd has called on the governments who are responsible for upholding the laws that protect the Southern Ocean to intervene against these poaching operations.

“Sea Shepherd should not be left to defend Antarctica alone,” said Captain Alex Cornelissen, CEO of Sea Shepherd Global. “For the last 13 years our ships and crews have shone an international spotlight on both the illegal whaling and more recently on the illegal toothfish operations. Now it’s time for governments to step-up and take serious action to address the issue of poaching in the Southern Ocean.”

Managing Director of Sea Shepherd Australia, Jeff Hansen, said, “Sea Shepherd needs reinforcements. 76.9% of Australians want the Australian government to send a vessel to oppose the Japanese whale poaching fleet. Australia has been commended for taking Japan to the ICJ, but now the government needs to take responsibility for enforcement by sending a ship to oppose the whale poachers.”

Antarctic Minke whale

Up to 333 minke whales will be killed by Japanese whalers hunting in the Southern Ocean in 2016. The whaling fleet set sail for Antarctica on 1 December 2015.

Excerpt from Joint statement on whaling and safety at sea released on 12 January 2016 by the Governments of Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United States:

Our Governments remain resolutely opposed to commercial whaling, in particular in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary established by the International Whaling Commission. We do not believe that Japan has sufficiently demonstrated that it has given due regard to the guidance found in the 2014 International Court of Justice judgment on ensuring that lethal research whaling is consistent with the obligations under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling. On December 7, 2015, our Governments joined 29 other nations to protest Japan’s decision. We urged Japan to respect the International Whaling Commission’s procedures and the advice of its Expert Review Panel and Scientific Committee. The science is clear: all information necessary for management and conservation of whales can be obtained through non-lethal methods.

We note that the final NEWREP-A research plan, circulated to the Scientific Committee members on November 27, 2015, has not proceeded through the International Whaling Commission’s processes, set out in Resolution 2014-5, which requests that proponents allow the IWC to consider the Scientific Committee’s review of special permit proposals prior to their commencement.

Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United States are committed to improving the conservation status of whales worldwide, maintaining the International Whaling Commission's global moratorium on commercial whaling, and implementing meaningful reform of the International Whaling Commission.