Is there no lie too big or too small that Liberal party ministers, candidates or supporters will not utter in the 2016 Australian federal election campaign?

This was Australian Attorney-General and Liberal Senator for Queensland George Brandis as reported by ABC News on 15 May 2016:

In 2009 Peta Murphy was among a group of lawyers who made a submission to parliament urging the Government to deny police and the domestic spy agency ASIO stronger powers to detain terror suspects without charge.

Attorney General George Brandis said he was "very alarmed" at Ms Murphy's stance and demanded Mr Shorten immediately dump her as Labor's candidate.

"That submission was made a matter of weeks after it was disclosed that the Al-Shabaab terrorist group had been engaged in a plan to attack the Holsworthy Barracks in Sydney," he told reporters.

"It is shocking that the Labor candidate … should be a person who, within weeks of people being charged for an attempted terrorist strike against an Australian military base, should be calling into question both whether or not Al-Shabaab should be listed as a terrorist organisation, which she did, and whether we should have specific anti-terrorism laws, which she also did."

The Australian Financial Review added further detail:

In 2009, Ms Murphy was a signatory on a submission by Liberty Victoria sent to then Labor attorney-general Robert McClelland calling on him to deny the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the police stronger powers to detain ­terror suspects without charge.

So what did Ms. Murphy sign that was supposedly so shocking?

On 25 June 2009 the Senate referred the private member’s bill Anti-Terrorism Laws Reform Bill 2009 for inquiry and report.

In August 2009 three men were arrested and charged with terrorism offences committed between 1 February and 4 August that year. At that time Al-Shabaab was not listed as a terrorist organisation by the Australian Government [See Fattal & Ors v The Queen [2013] VSCA 276]. These men were not brought to trial until mid-2010.

The submission to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee George Brandis was referring to appears to be one submitted by the 77 year-old advocacy group Liberty Victoria (Victorian Council of Civil Liberties Inc.) on 9 September 2009 which was co-signed by Peta Murphy as a council committee member.

It was the only submission made by Liberty Victoria to the Inquiry into the Anti-Terrorism Laws Reform Bill 2009 and it comprised two pages in length.

None of the other 2009 archived submissions* listed on the Liberty Victoria website which address national anti-terrorism legislation carry her name as a specific co-signatory.

Currently Ms.Murphy is a Labor candidate in the Dunkley electorate and is a barrister who has worked at the Victorian Law Reform Commission, as a Senior Public Defender for Legal Aid and as an adviser in the Australian Parliament. 

To understand what an incredible distortion of fact the accusations made by George Brandis are, here is that Liberty Victoria submission in full:

Victorian Council of Civil Liberties Inc. submission on Anti-Terrorism Laws Reform Bill 2009, dated 9 Septe... by clarencegirl

* One other 2009 submission by Liberty Victoria sent on 25 September to the Assistant Secretary, Security Law Branch, Attorney-General’s Department referred in part to the same private member's bill and was signed not by Ms.Murphy, but solely by the then president of the Victorian Council of Civil Liberties. It can be viewed here.

Baird Government backs down after being sprung promoting NSW Northern Rivers region as having potential commercial opportunities for overseas CSG miners - but can this government be believed?

The Australian on 6 February 2016 raised a red flag when it reported:

The NSW government will ­release new areas of the state to gas exploration, with Aboriginal land councils getting priority to claim the leases following the ­decision of AGL to withdraw from coal-seam gas exploration and production.

The Baird government has bought back leases covering large parts of the state following strong opposition to coal-seam gas, hoping that two major companies, AGL and Santos, could develop coal-seam projects and demonstrate they could be built without environmental damage……

On 2 May 2016 a North Coast Voices post pointed out that NSW Nationals MP for Clarence and NSW Parliamentary Secretary for the North Coast, Chris Gulaptis, had endorsed the Baird Government's North Coast Regional Plan which included this statement:

The North Coast also includes areas of the Clarence-Moreton Basin, which has potential coal seam gas resources that may be able to support the development and growth of new industries and provide economic benefits for the region….

By 11 May local concern had grown when The Sydney Morning Herald reported:

The state government has been selling northern NSW to foreign mining investors as having "very good potential" for coal seam gas exploration, while local voters were told the practice had been stopped, documents show.

NSW is also being spruiked as a "greenfields opportunity" with "known potential" for uranium exploration, even in the farming region of New England.

The revelations threaten to bring the politically charged issue of mining back into prominence across a string of regional marginal seats, months after the government moved to neutralise the issue and stem a major backlash from Nationals voters.

The marketing material was prepared by NSW Trade and Investment bureaucrats and presented in March to a Toronto conference of more than 20,000 mining investors from more than 100 countries.

"The Clarence-Morton basin has very good petroleum potential," investors were told of a 16,000 square kilometre region in the state's northern rivers. "Almost all wells drilled … have yielded gas and/or oil".

That same day the NSW Dept. of Industry tried to close the door after the horse had bolted by stating in The Australian that the promotional material presented at the international conference had been withdrawn:

"The Clarence-Moreton Basin has very good petroleum potential for the production of hydrocarbons," the document said.

"The potential for commercial opportunities" within the basin was highlighted by a recent discovery, it said.

AAP understands the material was presented to mining investors at an international trade conference in Toronto earlier this year.

The documents also spruiked the "significant potential" for uranium exploration in Broken Hill and Lachlan in the state's central west, and in the New England region further north.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Department of Industry said it had withdrawn the promotional material.

However this description of the promotional material was still easily found in the cache of the NSW Dept of Industry, Resources and Energy website on 12 May 2016:

XplorPak 2016 – showcasing NSW to international investors

11th February 2016

The Geological Survey of NSW team has finalised its annual Explorers Directory and renamed it XplorPak 2016.

As part of the rebranding, the product has been significantly upgraded with a modern, user-friendly interface and a fully redesigned image.

The package provides information on mineral, geothermal, coal and petroleum exploration and production in NSW, with links and data to help prospective explorers and other stakeholders.

XplorPak 2016 will be released at PDAC, Toronto, Canada, in early March 2016.

It is a free product and is available by contacting geoscience.products@industry.nsw.gov.au [my red bolding]

In the Echo NetDaily on 12 May 2016 Janelle Saffin, Labor candidate in the Page electorate which saw a decade of coal seam gas exploration and accompanying sustained community resistance, expressed the opinions of many:

Ms Saffin was blunt, saying the revelation despite the denial had ‘left the Nationals credentials in tatters’ and they ‘could no longer pretend that they supported a CSG-free region, when they have a state Nationals minister’s department promoting our area to investors to mine CSG’.

‘This comes on top of their state planning document that mapped and marked the northern rivers area as a CSG mining zone,’ she said.

‘It seems they are just biding their time believing that they can have CSG mining happen here, at some stage, the Nationals have been caught red handed – saying one thing but doing something completely different,’ Ms Saffin said…..

Ms Saffin said ‘no spin can cover up this deception. You simply can’t just say oh sorry, I overlooked the State Planning documents and now a international investor document and have us believe you support a CSG-free region’.

‘Both documents support the development of new CSG mines,’ she said.

As did Gasfields Free Northern Rivers spokesperson Elly Bird in The Daily Examiner online issue of that day:

Outraged by the NSW Governments actions, Gasfield Free Northern Rivers regional coordinator Elly Bird has said The Nationals are either lying to the community or they were kept in the dark as to the governments true intentions.

"First we see references to CSG in the Draft North Coast Regional Plan and now this news that the Department of Trade is still promoting our region as open for business for CSG,

"It's absolutely outrageous that this government is acting one way and speaking another way. Our National Party MPs are falling all over themselves promising that we are protected when it is becoming more and more obvious that the truth is the complete opposite,

"Our community will not stand for it. What sort of fools do they take the people of the Northern Rivers to be? It's obvious that the National Party cannot be trusted to tell us the truth," Ms Bird said.

In The Daily Examiner on 12 and 13 May 2016 Nationals MP for Page Kevin Hogan attempted what seemed almost half-hearted damage control:

Federal Member for Page, Kevin Hogan has defended his state colleagues and commended their action on CSG.

"I think the man and woman on the street in our community know that CSG is dead and buried," Mr Hogan said. "I think the government has shown the commitment to that with the buyback of the licences, obviously this is just bureaucrats who need to keep up.

But then Hogan belongs to an Abbott-Turnbull federal government which made its wishes clear within nine days of being sworn-in:

The Federal Government says it is intervening to fast-track coal seam gas (CSG) projects in New South Wales in response to the state's "gas crisis".

Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane has warned that thousands of jobs could be lost and gas prices could spike in the state if moves are not taken to unlock CSG reserves.

Speaking at an "energy security summit" of gas industry stakeholders in Sydney on Thursday, he said he wanted to see more CSG rigs in place "by Christmas".

He said he had spoken to Liberal Premier Barry O'Farrell about ways to overcome resistance to CSG drilling from farmers and other landowners.

And continues to support gas industry aims as this 13 April 2016 report in Business News (WA) clearly demonstrates:

The question for Northern Rivers residents is; Can the Baird and Turnbull Governments be trusted to keep the region gasfield free?

APN Australian Regional Media to remain with APN News & Media if demerger goes ahead but Murdoch circling regional mastheads

At the moment it appears that Australian east coast regional newspapers owned by APN News & Media will remain with APN if the proposed NZME demerger goes ahead.

The same applies if talks between Fairfax Media and APN result in a merger between NZME and Fairfax Media New Zealand.

However, these 100 regional newspapers and websites in Queensland and NSW  are still up for sale and the possibility that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp will be the eventual owner of some or all of that stable remains.

The Australian, 9 March 2016:

News Corp, publisher of The Australian, is believed to be circling the regional community newspapers owned by APN News and Media, which called on Credit Suisse to ­divest the portfolio.

News Corp already owns a network of 111 local mastheads, some of which are believed to be highly lucrative, and sources said the company was taking “a good look” at the APN offering.

The company declined to comment yesterday.

News already holds a stake of almost 15 per cent in the company and counts APN’s former boss ­Michael Miller as its executive chairman. It is understood News had been approached by APN to look at the portfolio. Ciaran Davis was recently named as APN’s new chief executive…..

Sources have suggested that some of the publications would be closed if a buyer could not be found. However, deal-makers yesterday said the newspapers were a good acquisition prospect for an acquirer at the right price that could capitalise on synergies and cash flow.

The news comes with the expectation of increasing deal activity in the media sector, with companies already lining up advisers in anticipation of new laws being passed that will relax restrictions on how many viewers any one television broadcaster can access nationally.

Action hero Scott Morrison of the Turnbull Coalition Team sends dispatch from Coalition Campaign Headquarters 2016 (CCHQ 2016)

This is what Labor’s Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen stated on 10 May 2016 as reported by SBS News:

The ritual election costings debate has begun with shadow treasurer Chris Bowen promising Labor will release four and 10-year costings of its policies.

But the bottom line won't be revealed until the latter part of the campaign, "after we've announced the last bulk of our policies", Mr Bowen told the National Press Club on Tuesday.

"That will enable us to say more about the trajectory back to budget balance," he said.

Labor would stick with the independent Parliamentary Budget Office for its costings, rather than submitting policies to Treasury, Mr Bowen said.

"They are well resourced, competent people and if there is a dispute between the Treasury and the Parliamentary Budget Office as to costings, that does not automatically mean that the PBO is in some way in error," he said.

Mr Bowen also said while Treasury was an arm of the government, its secretary was not a political play thing and he would work with the Abbott-appointed head John Fraser.

This is what Chris Bowen also clearly stated in 10 May 2016 media release:

Labor is the only party setting the economic agenda.

If elected, we will:

*Deliver an economic statement within three months of being elected to protect Australia’s AAA credit rating.

Implement our productivity-enhancing economic agenda, including our plan to deliver once-in-a-generation school reforms, lifting educational outcomes and boosting GDP.  

*Deliver our $10 billion infrastructure facility which will create approximately 26,000 jobs and add around an extra $7.5 billion to Australia’s GDP every year.

*Reform negative gearing and Capital Gains Tax, stimulating new housing construction and putting the great Australian dream back within reach of working and middle-class  

 Australians.

* Making record investments in the renewable energy sector preparing our economy for a less carbon-intensive world.

As for any possibility of a minority government after 2 July 2016, SBS World News Radio reported on 10 May 2016:

Voting preferences dominated discussion across all major parties.

It stemmed from Greens MP Adam Bandt raising the prospect of forming an alliance with a minority coalition or Labor government in the event of a hung parliament.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, whose party has ruled out governing with the support of the Greens, used the occasion to warn of a return to a past political scenario.

"Why would we run the risk of having another Labor-Greens independent government, another hung parliament, which is plainly in contemplation of the Labor party, it is plainly in the enthusiastic contemplation of the Greens, and we know what the price will be: people smugglers back in business, much higher taxes even than those already contemplated by Labor and a much higher carbon tax even than that already contemplated by Labor."

Bill Shorten, too, appeared quick to quash the idea.

"Every time you see a Green politician saying they are against the Liberals, then why are they making it easier for the Liberals to get elected in the suburbs and regions of Australia. Or, can I put it another way to Mr Bandt and the Greens, tell them they are dreaming. No deals with Labor about forming a coalition."

This was Treasurer Scott Morrison of the Turnbull Coalition Team in a media release sent from Coalition Campaign Headquarters 2016 (CCHQ 2016):

Image @latingle

As journalist Laura Tingle observed on 11 May; Is the government just a little panicky here?

Australian Federal Election 2016: spot Amanda Vanstone's attempts at political deception in The Age newspaper

This was former Liberal Senator for South Australia and former minister in the Howard Government, Amanda Vanstone writing in The Age on 9 May 2016 in an article titled Turnbull or Shorten? The choice seems clear:

Let’s break that down a little.

Schooling

Yes, Malcolm Turnbull went to a public primary school at Vaucluse in Sydney’s affluent Eastern Suburbs for about three years and, yes he went to Sydney Grammar School from the age of eight with the assistance of a scholarship for at least part of that period. He graduated from university during the years when undergraduate and post-graduate tertiary education was free of course fees in Australia. He was the child of divorced parents. All this is on the public record.

Bill Shorten went to a local Catholic primary school before attending Xavier College’s junior & senior schools in the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne – his mother taught at Xavier and presumably there was some degree of discount on his school fees. So yes, he also had a private education in affluent suburbs. He graduated from university during the years when tertiary education was free of course fees and undertook a post-graduate degree during a period when course fees were re-instituted. His parents divorced when he was about 20 years of age. All of which is also on the public record.

Wealth

Malcolm Turnbull inherited assets worth an est. $2 million from his hotel-broker father before he turned 29 years of age according to one of his biographers Paddy Manning and, he and his wife independently and jointly went on to garner considerably greater wealth which was last estimated to be in the vicinity of $200 million. His last Statement of Registrable Interests lists a veritable slew of financial investments and an expensive property portfolio shared between he and his wife. It is not known if he inherited any money from his mother.

It is not known to the writer if Bill Shorten inherited any money to speak of from his dry-dock manager father or his mother, however his last Statement of Registrable Interests lists very little in assets held by either he or his wife beyond their mortgaged family home.

What essentially separates these two men are the differences in their personal and political philosophies and the wide gap between their different levels of personal wealth.

Although this is something Amanda Vanstone is trying hard to distort in this federal election campaign and something The Age appears to be so indifferent to that its editor is not reigning in her excesses.  

Just because it is beautiful......(9)

Speaking In Colours

Quote of the Week

There’s nothing the matter with being vicious, In fact there is not nearly enough venom and malice in this pussy-footing society of ours.

[Malcolm Bligh Turnbull quoted in Quadrant, 16 December 2015]

Federal Election 2016: feeling entitled to the last

Have you been a sitting member in the federal parliament since 2004?

Recently lost party pre-selection?

What do you do to retain all the salary, lurks and perks of an MP between 9 May when parliament dissolved and polling day on 2 July 2016?

Why you announce that you will nominate as an Independent candidate.

Problem solved!

Not only are you still on the parliamentary gravy train – even if you happen to lose your seat you will be further compensated by the long-suffering taxpayer when the Australian Electoral Commission pays out if you have received 4% or over of all formal first preference votes recorded in your electorate.

That’s $2.62259 per eligible vote in this double-dissolution election.

At least one disendorsed Liberal Party MP, who thinks he was the most popular MP in his seat there’s ever been, has obviously done the maths and decided to add to the $104,496 plus annual pension he would receive if he simply resigned now.

One would think even a 34 year-old Liberal Party candidate in this year's federal election would realise that the Internet means you cannot blatantly copy without attribution

BuzzFeed politically impaled a very foolish federal election candidate on 5 May 2016:

Meet the Liberal National party’s candidate for the federal seat of Brisbane, 34-year-old Trevor Evans.

Evans, who is the current CEO of the National Retail Association, was pre-selected last month to run for the Liberal National party in the hope he’ll replace retiring LNP MP, Teresa Gambaro.....

If people want to find out more about Trevor Evans they could go to his website and learn all about his history working with the Salvation Army and time as chief of staff to now immigration minister Peter Dutton.

Except one passage really jumps out. It’s about his early years “growing up without much” and family who “instilled the values that helped him become the person his is today [sic].”

The passage stands out mostly because Trevor suddenly becomes “Tim”.

BuzzFeed News googled the passage and found the website of fake US congressman, Tim Hawthorne, which has been set up by a digital design agency to advertise its products.

BuzzFeed News contacted Evans about the copy-and-paste situation with his biographical information.

“We are using a template - It’s not front facing and full website will be live in a few days,” Evans said over Twitter direct message.

Minutes later the website’s “About Trevor Evans” section was taken down.

Well spotted, Buzzfeed!

UPDATE

A vastly different "About Trevor Evans" has reappeared and it now opens thus:

[Accessed 7.25am 13 May 2016 at https://lnp.org.au/trevor-evans/]

Federal Election 2016: looking at the ICIJ Panama Papers searchable database

Some observations after an initial look at the ICIJ Panama Papers searchable database* (which includes Offshore Leaks data), with regard to listings of companies and individuals associated with Australia……

For some who are listed it appears to be a bit of a family affair, for others a lone foray into off-shore company registration.

Some associated with registered companies are investors, while others are active players in the mining, smelting, construction, manufacturing, banking, finance, risk management, insurance and marketing sectors.

There’s the odd investment manager or two, at least one specialist in fine art, some professional property directors and company secretaries, self-employed consultants and a media type.

One of Australia’s rich listers and a National Party politician (appointed not elected) also make appearances on this database.

As does a company which had as directors one multimillionaire former Labor premier of NSW and another multimillionaire who who went on to be a Liberal prime minister – for reasons unknown full details of this company have not been included in the searchable section of the ICIJ database to date.

What there doesn’t appear to be any indication of is that ordinary workers on the average wage went to Mossack Fonceca or other financial advisors to set up a companies in a low taxing jurisdiction such as Panama, the British Virgin Islands, Singapore or Hong Kong.

Off-shore registration appears to be something indulged in primarily by business and industry in this country as well as those with above average to high levels of personal wealth.

The very groups that Turnbull & Co have given company and income tax cuts in the 2016-17 Budget.

Inevitably there are 2014-15 political donors among those listed on the databases and, just as inevitably, there are some who give more to the Liberals and their Coalition partner than they do to Labor.

Before voting on 2 July 2016 readers might consider clicking on the search link at the beginning of this post and typing in a few individual and company names, to see how these might compare with the known interests of election candidates and those political donors included in documents held at the Australian Electoral Commission Annual Returns Locator Service.  

Where people spend, invest or gift their money says something about their personal and professional ethics.  

* It is not asserted by the creators of these databases that every individual or corporation identified has been involved in unlawful tax evasion or any other form of wrongdoing.

Baird Government creates arbitrary laws constraining the innocent as well as the allegedly guilty citizen

The Crimes (Serious Crime Prevention Orders) Bill 2016 (NSW) (the Bill) is an extraordinary and unprecedented piece of legislation with grave implications for the rule of law and individual freedoms in New South Wales.

The Bill was announced on 22 March 2016 by the Deputy Premier and Minister for Justice and Police the Honourable Troy Grant MP, joined by New South Wales Police Commissioner, Andrew Scipione.

Notice of motion for the Bill and its second reading in the Legislative Assembly occurred on the same day…..

the Bill creates a very real danger of arbitrary and excessive interference with the liberty of many thousands of New South Wales citizens. The powers to interfere in the liberty and privacy of persons, and in freedoms of movement, expression and communication, and assembly are extraordinarily broad and unprecedented, and are not subject to any substantial legal constraints or appropriate judicial oversight….. [A submission of the New South Wales Bar Association, 13 April 2016]

the Criminal Legislation Amendment (Organised Crime and Public Safety) Bill 2016 (NSW) (the Bill) has serious implications for the rule of law and individual freedoms in New South Wales.

vii. in relation to a long duration PSO, there is no upper limit on the duration of the order; viii. in many cases, a person the subject of an order a will have no means of knowing the basis upon which a senior police officer has reached the satisfaction required by s 87R - in accordance with clause 87T(4), a statement of the reasons for making or varying a PSO must not contain information that would result in the disclosure of a criminal intelligence report or other criminal information held in relation to a person;

ix. there is no right of appeal to the Supreme Court in relation to a PSO which is not a long duration PSO. In the case of an appeal against a long duration PSO, the non-disclosure of criminal intelligence and other criminal information held in relation to the person, and the hearing of argument in the absence of the person and their representative (unless the Commissioner approves otherwise) is likely to render the right to appeal practically meaningless;

x. clause 87ZA creates a criminal offence of contravening a PSO carrying a maximum penalty of imprisonment for 5 years, and in contrast to 32 of the Serious and Organised Crime (Control) Act 2008 (SA), there is no defence of reasonable excuse for being within or entering a specified area; (b) there has been no public debate about the Bill, and no case made as to why such broad and far-reaching powers should be conferred on the police;….. [A submission of the New South Wales Bar Association, 2 April 2016]

On 4 May 2016 the NSW Parliament passed the Crimes (Serious Crime Prevention Orders) Bill 2016 without amendment.

On the same day it passed the Criminal Legislation Amendment (Organised Crime and Public Safety) Bill 2016, again without amendment.

Text of the Crimes (Serious Crime Prevention Orders) Bill 2016 can be found here and text for the Criminal Legislation Amendment (Organised Crime and Public Safety) Bill 2016 here.

A look at this further curtailing of the rights of citizens residing in New South Wales.......

Sydney Criminal Lawyers, 3 April 2016:

The government is proposing new laws which would empower senior police officers – without permission from a court – to issue “public safety orders” banning individuals who police claim are a “risk to public safety” from attending specified public places for 72 hours.

Police cannot presently do this without a court order…..

There are concerns that police will use these new powers to target individuals who don’t ‘tow the government line’; such as leaders of protest groups and other outspoken individuals – preventing them from attending demonstrations and rallies.

The Guardian, 14 April 2016:

New police powers that could see citizens in New South Wales face bans on their employment, restrictions on movement and curfews without ever having committed an offence would set up a “rival criminal justice system” and should be scrapped, the New South Wales Bar Association has warned.

The NSW government has sought to introduce new powers called serious crime prevention orders.

The bill would give police similar powers to those they have to seek and impose control orders on terrorism suspects – but they could be applied to all citizens in NSW who are alleged to have some proximity or involvement to a serious crime, without a person ever being found guilty of an offence.

They would allow orders to be made on any citizen restricting their movement, who they associate with, who they work for and whether they can access the internet.

Even when a person is acquitted of a criminal offence police could still seek such an order.

The penalty for breaching an order could be up to five years’ imprisonment or a $33,000 fine for an individual, or $165,000 for a corporation.

In a scathing submission the NSW Bar Association criticised the government’s limited consultation with legal groups and its attempt to rush the bill through NSW parliament.

“No evidence has been cited as to the ineffectiveness of the administration of criminal justice by a process of trial for ‘reducing serious and organised crime’ in New South Wales,” the submission said.

“The bill effectively sets up a rival to the criminal trial system and interferes unacceptably in the fundamental human rights and freedoms of citizens of NSW.”

It said the government had failed to explain why the powers should be expanded in a manner “so contradictory to long-settled principles concerning the adjudication of criminal guilt by a fair trial”.

The police minister, Troy Grant, has said that the measures would provide law enforcement agencies with a more effective means of reducing serious and organised crime by targeting business dealings and restricting suspects’ behaviour.

Under the new provisions, the NSW police, the NSW Crime Commission and the NSW director of public prosecutions could seek orders from a judge, who must be satisfied there are “reasonable grounds” it would protect the public by restricting or preventing serious crime-related activity.

But the bar association said it was unclear why the laws were needed. While they could be applied to individuals who had been convicted of a serious criminal offence, they would also be applicable to behaviour that was considered “serious crime-related activity” without an offence needing to be proven.

The orders could also be sought on the basis of hearsay and other forms of tendency evidence that would normally be inadmissible in a normal criminal trial.

The bar association warned that the laws posed an unacceptable interference with citizens; right to freedom of expression, association and privacy. They also noted that the orders were of “doubtful constitutional validity”……

The Guardian, 7 May 2016:

Legal Aid NSW will review its policies to consider when and how Australians who face controversial new crime prevention orders will be eligible for legal assistance.

On Wednesday, a bill passed by the New South Wales upper house granted police powers to create serious crime prevention and public safety orders.....

Because the police powers are so novel and are considered to be civil, rather than criminal, they don’t fall neatly into Legal’s Aid’s existing sets of guidelines for when they will provide legal aid.

Legal Aid NSW has separate criteria for criminal and civil matters and in what circumstances it can provide legal assistance for them.

While the powers have not yet come into effect, a spokeswoman for Legal Aid NSW confirmed that it was considering how cases would be dealt with.

“Legal Aid NSW will be reviewing its policies to determine how matters brought under this bill should be dealt with,” she said.

“Any changes to policies would have to be approved by the board.

“If a matter arises before this has happened, the CEO can exercise discretion to determine applications on a case by case basis.”......

The Redfern Legal Centre warned that the new powers would essentially remove equality before the law.

Nationals doing what Nationals do best - claiming political credit for the work of others

The story so far…….

The Inverell Times, 6 May 2016:

SENATOR John Williams stood by his comments on social media on Thursday, which accused Independent candidate Tony Windsor of falsely claiming credit for the funding of Bindaree Beef’s bio-digester program.

“Tony Windsor claims credit for Bindaree Beef digester funding but it was Barnaby Joyce who actually got the funding!” Senator William’s post on Twitter read, and Wacka declared it as absolute fact……

Funding through the Gillard-Rudd governments for Bindaree’s bio-digester program was announced by Mr Windsor at the beginning of July 2013, after the pilot plant had operated successfully for six-months with better than expected results.

Speaking at Tony Windsor’s meeting in Flanders House at Inverell on Wednesday evening, Bindaree’s owner, John McDonald seemed in no doubt about the origins of the funding.

“I’d like to congratulate Tony for what he has done for Bindaree Beef,” he said.

“Julia Gillard, $23 million, just an incredible result that I couldn’t comprehend it.

“The problems we’ve got, we’re only a very, very small company, we’re fighting outside our boundaries. We’re competing with the biggest companies in the world and at this stage we’re struggling to get the Prime Minister to complete the project.”

Now Barnaby Joyce was a Senator for Queensland from July 2005 until August 2013 when he resigned from parliament, so it is highly unlikely that he was capable of securing that $23-million “discretionary” grant awarded to Bindaree Beef.

In fact, because Tony Windsor was the sitting Independent Member for New England at the time (and was part of the minority Rudd-Gillard Labor Government) it is more likely that he positively contributed to this particular grant coming Bindaree Beef’s way in July 2013.  

Indeed Tony Windsor is on the record in 2013 stating that he had lobbied then industry minister Greg Combet to get the grant and, that he had “worked with Bindaree for two years” to make the program happen.

In November 2013 Bindaree Beef began lobbying the Abbott Government for an additional $23 million grant.

By then the new Member for New England was Barnaby Joyce MP – having been elected to the House of Representatives at the September 2013 federal election.

The Abbott Government seems to have delayed paying the original $23 million grant dollars to Bindaree Beef for twelve months and, the request for an further $23 million was apparently reduced by the Liberal-Nationals government to $15 million in repayable co-finance from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.  

What appears to be the facts in this case is that the Gillard Government made an enforceable grant to Bindaree Beef in the last 66 days of Labor’s term in office which the Abbott Government eventually had to honour and, the politician who successfully lobbied on behalf of Bindaree in 2013 was Tony Windsor.

Bet there are quite a few Liberal and Nationals MPs who are not thrilled with this 'inspired' piece of political branding

It would appear that Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull's desire to capitalise on his somewhat faded personal popularity, as well as distance himself from any further association with former prime minister Tony Abbott's 2013 election campaign, has seen a rather egocentric re-branding of Liberal-Nationals Coalition.

The unfortunate visual re-enforcement of business as usual.......

The new branding…….. 

And the fine print which has Tony Nutt, federal director of the Liberal Party of Australia, taking responsibility for what is possibly campaign mistake number two……

Images found at @mearsey and @KieraGorden

UPDATE

Team Turnbull's branding just took on water as the Australian Workers' Union (AWU) announced on Twitter that Turnbull & Nutt had forgotten to register web domain names applicable to The Turnbull Coalition Team.

So:

http://whois.domaintools.com/turnbullcoalitionteam.com

Sorry, turnbullcoalitionteam.net is not available.
Sorry, turnbullcoalitionteam.org is not available.