Opposition Leader Tony Abbott caught out charging Australian taxpayers for his own book promotion expenses

On 28 July 2010 ABC The Drum raised the matter of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s alleged misuse of parliamentary entitlements in 2009 to promote his book, Battlelines.

The initial Abbott response contained in that article was:

A spokesman for Tony Abbott dismissed the allegations as a smear campaign." All travel undertaken by Mr Abbott has been within the entitlement. This is a blatant attempt by Labor to smear and mislead."

However, documents obtained under Freedom of Information found at Tony Yegles’ Scribd account tell another story.

Dept of Finance to Mr Tony Abbott - 19 August 2010 by Tony Yegles

Peta Credlin to Dept of Finance - 29 October 2010 by Tony Yegles

Gary Gray Special Minister of State to Mr Abbott - 10/11/2011 by Tony Yegles

Less than two months after receiving the first letter from the Dept. of Finance and Deregulation and, in the same month he began to repay monies received to which he was not entitled, this was Opposition Leader Tony Abbott on his feet in The House of Representatives on 9 October 2012:

Never mind that the squalid deal that the Prime Minister cooked up last November involved placing in the chair of this parliament someone whom her own government was investigating for misuse of entitlements…

Apparently when another member of parliament claims money from the taxpayer that he should not have received it is a matter so grave that it should bring down a government, but when Tony Abbott himself does the same thing it is a matter of small importance to be easily shrugged off and lied about to the media.

UPDATE:

Despite the previous written admissions of 29 October 2010 made by his chief of staff on behalf of Tony Abbott, the Opposition Leader continues to lie to the media and the Australian electorate.

The Guardian UK 8 July 2013:

When asked at a press conference on Monday morning if he had wrongly claimed travel expenses while promoting Battlelines, Abbott replied: "No, I did not."
He did not elaborate on the answer before taking the next question and ended the press conference after answering questions from two other journalists on the press club debate and the potential timing of the election....

We now learn from Michelle Grattan that his publisher, Melbourne University Press, actually repaid the debt.

Epic Fail: eHealth national database contains only 397,745 mostly empty individual patient files

Delimiter 3 July 2013:

As at June 30, the Department of Health and Ageing said that total number of users was 397,745. The majority of these registrations resulted from a recent push by DoHA using consultants to sign people up at public hospitals and at eHealth roadshows.

Still, even if the government had met the target of 500,000, it would have been a meaningless gesture. The vast majority of those who have signed up, if they ever get around to logging in, will be greeted with an empty record. Given the lack of active participation on the part of GPs, as well as the lack of public hospital systems to integrate with PCEHR, there’s little evidence to suggest that this is going to change any time soon.

So far, only 4,805 individual providers have signed up to access the PCEHR portal. This is despite the fact that the government provides incentives to GPs to connect to the system by paying them the Practice Incentive Payments for eHealth (ePIP).

Despite these payments, GPs still struggle to see the benefit of spending time curating shared records when the legal liabilities are still unknown but are potentially severe.

The cost of the ongoing maintenance of these largely empty records is about AUS$80m a year. And that’s just the baseline. It’s clear that a great deal more funding will be needed to try and lift the level of meaningful use of PCEHR.

The problem for governments is that increasing spending on a system becomes progressively harder the longer it remains largely unused. What’s more, the devolved nature of the Australian health system makes it extremely unlikely that we’ll ever see true and meaningful use of the system. What we will continue to see however, are reports of increasing numbers of registrations, data about the number of people who accessed the system and how much administrative data has been added……

Funding for the personally controlled electronic health record (PCEHR) system does not extend beyond the end of this financial year, but both federal and state governments appear determined to retain this flawed national database.

Essential Report: Groups considered better off under a Labor or Liberal Government

Groups better off under Labor or Liberal Government

Jul 1, 2013

Q. Do you think the following groups of people would be better off under a Labor Government or a Liberal Government?

	Better off under a Labor Government	Better off under a Liberal Government	Makes no difference	Don’t know		Difference (Labor minus Liberal)	Difference Sept 12
People with disabilities	41%	20%	23%	16%		+21	+20
People and families on low incomes	42%	21%	21%	16%		+21	+27
Single parents	35%	20%	25%	20%		+15	+23
Unemployed people	35%	21%	27%	18%		+14	+27
Families with children at public school	36%	22%	23%	19%		+14	+19
Recent immigrants to Australia	31%	18%	28%	24%		+13	+18
Pensioners	34%	23%	25%	19%		+11	+16
Average working people	31%	29%	24%	16%		+2	+5
People and families on middle incomes	28%	33%	21%	18%		-5	-7
Farmers and other agricultural producers	19%	34%	24%	24%		-15	-13
Small businesses	20%	38%	20%	21%		-18	-16
Families with children at private school	15%	42%	23%	20%		-27	-30
Banks and other financial institutions	10%	45%	23%	21%		-35	-38
People and families on high incomes	12%	53%	17%	18%		-41	-43
Large corporations	10%	53%	18%	19%		-43	-48

Respondents were substantially more likely to think the following groups would be better off under a Labor Government – people with disabilities, low income families, single parents, unemployed and families with children at public school.

They were substantially more likely to think the following groups would be better off under a Liberal Government – large corporations, high income families, banks and financial institutions, families with children at private schools

Clarence Valley Cr. Karen Toms to move motion next week that Council commence awareness campaign re upcoming national referendum to recognise local government in Australian Constitution

Finally Clarence Valley Council appears to be considering an information campaign which will offset the alarmist nonsense being spread across the local government area by those being fed misinformation via websites such as Vote No To Canberra's Power Grab.

This nonsense reaches its peak in local online comments by the likes yambaman and Klanger.

There is no doubt that this referendum is being strongly supported by local governments across Australia:

Our national campaign involving mayors and councillors across the country is well underway and Commonwealth funding to support the yes campaign has been confirmed.  Councils strongly believe that winning a referendum is in the interests of every local community and we will continue to reinforce this.  Councils need formal recognition as legitimate recipients of direct federal funding because without it, federal programs such as Roads to Recovery are at risk of legal challenge.  That's why we are getting on with the job of ensuring that Australians understand that voting 'yes' at a referendum is the only way to protect direct funding for community infrastructure such as local roads, libraries, child care and sporting fields.

Although the decision regarding the timing of the federal election is one for the Government, local government is confident that the referendum will go ahead.  We are ready and we are confident of a successful referendum in the near future. 

Mayor Felicity-ann LewisALGA President

Hopefully Clarence Valley Council will pass this timely motion at committee and ordinary monthly meeting level and, then act quickly to give residents and ratepayers reliable information concerning the forthcoming referendum.

Committee: Governance & Corporate

Section: Notice of Motion - Cr Toms

Date: 9 July 2013

Item: 15.006/13 Referendum for Constitutional Recognition of Local Government

To the General Manager, Clarence Valley Council

PROPOSED MOTION

1. That council commence an awareness campaign to ensure our community understands the importance of the upcoming referendum to recognise local Government in the Constitution

2. This could include but not be limited to an addition to councils existing advertisements in the local papers, flyers and posters in Libraries and other public places as the General Manager sees fit.

3. Information placed on councils website and in our e-newsletters

4. That Local Government NSW be asked to provide campaign support materials to Councillors to assist with raising awareness in the community prior to the Referendum.

BACKGROUND

The Prime Minister announced 9 May 2013 the Australian Government’s intention to proceed with a referendum to recognise local Government in the Constitution.

The referendum will be held on the same day as the Federal Election this year and will ask the voters to cast a vote on “financial” recognition to enable the Commonwealth to continue to provide direct funding to local services and local communities.

The Constitution Alteration (Local Government) Bill 2013- was released by Minister Albanese on 16 May and formally introduced into Parliament on 29 May. The Bill was the last formal step in the path to a referendum

LGNSW wrote to all NSW Federal Members and NSW Senators to support the legislation that was introduced into Federal Parliament to provide for a Referendum to amend the Constitution to include the ability to directly fund Local Government.

The proposed legislation was supported in the Federal Parliament on Monday 24 June 2013.

Should the referendum be successful Section 96 will be amended to read "...Parliament may grant financial assistance to any state or local government body formed by a law of a State on such terms and conditions as the Parliament thinks fit."

The words of the proposed amendment were designed specifically to give assurance to State

Governments that, under the proposed change, local government would remain the responsibility of state and territory governments.

Legal advice confirms that the Federal Government will not be able to ask local government to do anything that would contravene a state law, and that states will retain the right to legislate for their councils, including the ability to stop them from accepting federal funding if they have concerns.

ISSUES

Although the Commonwealth Government has provided direct funding to local government for many years, two recent High Court decisions in the space of 3 years have challenged its power to do so.

A 2009 High Court case Pape v Commissioner of Taxation found that the Commonwealth does not have power to directly fund areas such as local government. It can only spend money where it has a specific power under the Constitution. A further case in 2012 Williams v Commonwealth of Australia reaffirmed the Court’s finding in Pape v Commissioner of Taxation that there are significant constitutional limits to the Commonwealth’s ability to spend money.

Both decisions have created legal uncertainty in relation to direct funding from the Commonwealth to local government.

The decisions present a compelling reason to include local government in the Constitution. Without constitutional recognition, direct Commonwealth funding of local government, through programs such as Roads to Recovery, may be technically invalid. Local government needs certainty and security of funding in order to provide the range and level of services expected by the community.

This referendum is about fixing a problem and removing the uncertainty surrounding the funding of vital services and infrastructure for communities.

OPTIONS

1. Support the proposed motion

2. Not support the proposed motion

3. Take some other action

Councillors Karen Toms

Date 27 June 2013