Quotes of the Week

Everyone in the government knows that the past couple of weeks have looked messy; that it was naïve not to realise that the tax debate would be out of control as soon as state officials were briefed; that there should have been a better plan for taking control of the debate back; and that the idea of setting up a photo opportunity of the Prime Minister and Treasurer leaving the building together was a disaster. [Journalist Laura Tingle writing in the Financial Review, 7 April 2016]

The Panama Papers expose offshore companies controlled by the prime ministers of Iceland and Pakistan, the king of Saudi Arabia and the children of the president of Azerbaijan. They also include the names of at least 33 people and companies blacklisted by the U.S. government because of evidence that they’ve done business with Mexican drug lords, terrorist organizations like Hezbollah or rogue nations, including North Korea and Iran. [ The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, 3 April 2016]

It is hard to remember a government that has gone into an election campaign so ill-prepared to persuade voters to give it another chance.

[Journalist Lara Tingle in the Financial Review, 14 April 2016]

Political Cartoon of the Week

Cathy Wilcox

UNSW Phillip Baxter College residents are sooo sorry they were caught in the act *WARNING: Offensive Language*

Established in 1966 Philip Baxter College is named after UNSW's first Vice-Chancellor who laid the ground work for the university to become the world class institution it is today. It is the largest of the Kensington Colleges and housed 211 student residents and 7 resident academic staff according to The Kensington Colleges website.

On 12 April 2016 ABC News reported this behaviour by a group of Baxter College students:

Students at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) have held a protest after a video emerged of a group of young men from the university's Baxter College singing an offensive song while on an regular "Boys Night Out".

In the video, the young men are heard singing a call and answer song referring to women as "little red foxes" and how they would "shoot them in their boxes".

I wish that all the ladies

Were little red foxes

And if I was a hunter

I'd shoot them in their boxes

I wish that all the ladies

Were buns in the oven

And if I were a baker

I'd cream them by the dozen

I wish that all the ladies

Were holes in the road

And if I was a dump truck

I'd fill them with my load.

UNSW said they were "appalled by the sexist and demeaning attitudes and behaviours" directed towards females in the chant.

The university said it had taken steps to investigate the incident and meetings involving college residents, student representatives and the UNSW SRS Women's Collective were convened on Monday night.

James Dunn is house treasurer of Baxter College and was part of the Boys Night Out.

He admitted he probably took part in the chanting, but now realised it was inappropriate.

"The video is pretty appalling," he told 7.30.

"As a leader of this college and me being a part of the group that was likely in the video, for me it is really personal and I have no idea why I did it.

"I'm sort of condemning my own actions at this time and the actions of everyone in the video."

Mr Dunn said he just accepted the behaviour as part of the Baxter culture when he first moved from his country town for university two years ago.

"I walked into the culture that is Baxter and was taught these chants as part of the culture that we have here and something we do as a night out, as a whole college both males and females," he said.

"It has been ingrained in many college societies for too long that those things can be gotten away with."

When reading the new item two points come to mind.

One is that the University of New South Wales has the lowest female to male student percentages of all Australian universities at 46.1 per cent.

Two is that it is highly likely that the apology printed below is merely code for We’re sorry we got caught bellowing out our misogyny at the top of our lungs on a bus during “Boys Night Out”.

Mr. Denmore: "Do keep up now"

The Failed Estate, 3 April 2016:

To be fair, political media is broken because politics is broken – or at least what we call politics – the charade that takes place in Canberra or any other world capital each day featuring people and parties who don’t really believe in anything anymore, but making sure they posture and pontificate in a way that suggests they do. And the media, having so much invested in the semblance of a left-right, blue-red, coke-pepsi contest, is forced to play along with the whole silly game.

The rest of the population senses the breakdown. And not just in Australia. This is a global phenomenon, reflecting the end of a 35-year era in which neoliberal capitalism looked to have destroyed all other contenders. Politicians of the nominal left and right swallowed the consensus whole, leaving them to fight ridiculous and infantile ‘culture wars’ to justify their own sorry existence.

But ironically “the market knows best” people don’t seem to have figured that the wider population understands the issue better than the insiders do. The big problems we face are global in nature – climate change, people movements, adequacy of resources, the impotency of central banks, the dislocations wrought by “free” trade, the rise in the power of stateless corporations at the expense of people, the encroachment of “markets” into every aspect of our lives and the power of well-funded lobbies that sell private interest as public interest and destroy the possibility of people-oriented change.

THAT’S why politics is broken. And THAT’s why the media does not appear to have a clue about what’s going on right now. Oddly enough, this is a much, much bigger story than whether Malcolm loves Scott.

Do keep up now.

With rates of domestic violence & sexual assault higher than the NSW average, the Northern Rivers region remains a target for federal funding cuts

The geographic area of the Northern NSW Local Health District extends from the Tweed Local Government Area (LGA) on the Queensland/NSW border in the north to the Clarence Valley LGA in the south, the Great Dividing Range in the west and the Pacific Ocean coastline in the east. The Northern NSW LHD covers a geographic region of 21,470 square kilometres with a total population in 2011 of 288,241 persons and is made up of seven LGAs and one smaller State Suburb (SSC). [Northern NSW LHD, Fact Sheet 1, July 2015]

This health district population was projected to reach over 300,000 in 2016.

One of the health issues it deals with is domestic and family violence, as do the local courts.

Between October 2014 to September 2015 in NSW the rate of domestic assault incidents per 100,000 head of population was 398.7.

For the corresponding period in the Northern NSW LHD the domestic assault rate was:

Richmond Valley Local Government Area – 550.6

Lismore Local Government Area – 478.8

Clarence Valley Local Government Area – 426.5

Tweed Local Government Area – 401.7

Kyogle Local Government Area – 399.0

Byron Local Government Area – 313.3

Ballina Local Government Area – 246.3

All but two local government areas were above the state average – four were significantly higher.

Five out of seven of these local government areas also exceeded the NSW rate for sexual offence incidents – Richmond Valley, Lismore, Clarence Valley, Byron and Ballina.

Yet this region remains a target for Abbott-Turnbull Government cuts to services used by victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.

The Northern Star reported on 8 April 2016:

SHADOW Attorney General Mark Dreyfus and Labor candidate for Page Janelle have backed the Northern Rivers Community Legal Centre's plea to have funding cuts to programs aimed at preventing domestic violence reversed.

They said the Federal Government had announced a third, or $30 million, of commonwealth funding would be cut to the 39 Community Legal Centres around the state as well as the scrapping of $100,000 per year in funding to the Lismore centre, introduced by Mr Dreyfus in 2013.

Mr Dreyfus said the cuts could mean the end of the Lismore-based centre's outreach service in Casino, as well as the possible closure of the Tweed office and the loss of a specialised family violence solicitor.

Northern Rivers Community Legal Centre acting centre manager Fia Norton said it was the biggest challenge in the centre's 20-year history.

"They're (the cuts) going to affect the most vulnerable people in our community," she said……

Ms Saffin said she was concerned the federal funding cuts would impact complimentary services to the State Government's Safer Pathways domestic violence program, a service NRCLS was selected to coordinate in Tweed in 2015.

"Last year the Northern Rivers CLC was selected by the NSW Government as one of five sites to roll out the Safer Pathways reforms for Domestic Violence, an integrated response service to prevent domestic violence deaths and serious injury to women and children," she said.

"But how will the program be impacted when cuts come into effect next year?.....

The cuts are set to come into effect in mid-2017.

May is likely to be an interesting month in 2016

All around the world directors, shareholders, beneficial owners, mob bosses, drug lords, gun runners and owners of stolen art hiding within shell companies in low tax jurisdictions will be marking their calendars…..

AFR Weekend, 8 April 2016:

The ICIJ, which has said it will not provide data to regulators, plans to release the names of more than 200,000 Mossack Fonseca companies, trusts and foundations in May, including names of directors, shareholders and beneficial owners.

Tax authorities can use this data to seek further documents under tax treaties with many jurisdictions....