Neverending UteGate Saga: transcript of the Auditor General's report

Sometimes it feels like Utegate just won't die.

What with Malcolm Turnbull allowing ABC TV's Australian Story to remain behind the scenes with him as that fake smoking gun email blew up in his face and his prior dealings with a public servant increasingly exposed as something very like a political conspiracy.

The Federal Leader of the Opposition's Utegate 'scandal' is looking very like an old wreck in the back paddock.

At least the Auditor General's report, Representations to the Department of the Treasury in Relation to Motor Dealer Financing Assistance, is finally out and concludes in part:

15. Concerning the issue of whether preferential treatment was given to Mr Grant's case, the Treasurer spoke briefly with Mr Grant, at the request of the Member for Oxley. Treasury was aware that the dealer was acquainted with the Prime Minister, but there is no evidence that the Prime Minister was aware of the representation, or that the Treasurer or his Office applied any pressure on Treasury to give this dealer more or better assistance than others.

16. Some attention has also focused on three progress reports in relation to the Ipswich Central Motors/John Grant Motors representation that were sent to the Treasurer's home facsimile. The available evidence is that the Treasurer had raised concerns that this representation indicated that delays in operationalising the SPV was having an adverse effect on motor dealers. The first report was provided at the initiative of the Departmental Liaison Officer in the Treasurer's Office so as to provide some reassurance to the Treasurer that, notwithstanding the delay with operationalising the SPV, viable dealers were still able to receive assistance. The second and third reports were provided at the initiative of Treasury, by using the 'Reply to All' function within the email system10, noting that the Treasurer was not in Brisbane when the second report was sent. Following the third report, as the Treasurer was not seeking ongoing updates on the status of this particular representation, the Treasurer's Office sought to indicate to Treasury that reports should not be sent to the Treasurer's home facsimile. No further updates were provided to the Treasurer in respect to the Ipswich Central Motors/John Grant Motors representation.

17. The approach taken to assist Ipswich Central Motors/John Grant Motors was proposed by Mr Grech and, when initial attempts to assist the dealer were unsuccessful, no further assistance was offered by Treasury, or sought by the dealer either from Treasury or Ministers. The dealer has since made arrangements for ongoing wholesale floorplan finance from other sources without further departmental assistance.

All 120 pages of the report can be found here.

Photograph by muffin51 at Photobucket

Jules takes a lighthearted look at the Murray Darling Association's obsession with Clarence water

Jules Faber cartoon in The Daily Examiner, 3 August 2009, page 10

The Daily Examiner deputy editor and journalist David Bancroft has a serious look at the latest push by southern water raiders in a Page One article: FRESH BID FOR VALLEY WATER: Western councils seek dam, diversion tunnel on Clarence.

In August 2009 the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination meets in Geneva - where to now Australia?

From a 30 July 2009 media release:

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination will hold its seventy-fifth session at the Palais Wilson in Geneva from 3 to 28 August 2009 to review anti-discrimination efforts undertaken by the Governments of Peru, United Arab Emirates, Poland, China, Greece, Azerbaijan, Colombia, Chile, Chad, the Philippines and Ethiopia.

These countries are among the 173 States parties to the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination. The 18-member Committee, the first body created by the United Nations to review actions by States to fulfil obligations under a specific human rights treaty, examines reports submitted periodically by States parties on efforts to comply with the Convention. Government representatives generally present the report, discuss its contents with Committee members, and answer questions. In addition, the Committee will consider a number of situations under its Early Warning and Urgent Action Procedure.

During the course of the four-week session, the Committee will continue its consideration of a draft general recommendation on special measures (i.e. measures to secure adequate advancement of certain racial or ethnic groups or individuals to ensure their equal enjoyment or exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms; sometimes known as "affirmative action"). It will examine individual communications of violations of the Convention (in closed session), and consider follow-up information submitted by States parties in relation to the observations and recommendations of the Committee. In accordance with a decision taken at its seventy-third session, the Committee will also consider matters related to the Universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights Council. In addition, it will discuss possible follow up to the Durban Review Conference (held in Geneva in April 2009).

There was a request for urgent action lodged with this Committee in January 2009 concerning the actions taken under Commonwealth Northern Territory Emergency Response (Intervention) legislation.

As the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination had handed down a determination in 2005 expressing concern over the lack any entrenched guarantee against racial discrimination in this country, in 2008 requested that Australia comply with its outstanding reporting obligations and, in May 2009 the UN Special Rapporteur's Report on Mission to Australia appeared to still be expressing concerns over matters covered by the Intervention and indigenous standards of living generally, it can hardly be impressed with the continuing suspension of the Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act in order to enforce income management and acquisition of leasehold rights over certain indigenous lands.

Subsequent to that urgent request it has been reported by The National Indigenous Times on 23 July 2009 that:

On February 25, 2009 the Australian Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva met with the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) to assure the Committee that the Australian Government was taking the steps to comply with its human rights obligations under international law.
According to the letter sent to the Ambassador by CERD on 13 March 2009, the Australian Mission had assured the Committee that the government was undertaking consultations with the Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory to reinstate, and provide consistency with, the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA).
CERD has asked the government to report again by July 31 2009 on the progress being made by the government in redesigning service delivery in consultation with the communities.

However, on March 25, 2009 the Minister received advice from the department that consultations with communities should be managed to meet pre-determined government outcomes.

All in all CERD's closed sessions should be interesting to say the least, as it does not appear that in 2009 the Rudd Government intends to fully comply with its undertakings under the UN International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination nor those set out in the recently endorsed UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and therefore might be considered in breach of its obligations.

As in May 2009 another UN body the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights also called on Australia to lift its game in relation to the rights of indigenous Australians, one has to wonder what on earth the Rudd Government thinks it is doing post-Apology.

Transcript of UN COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS 42TH SESSION AUSTRALIA, 4TH REPORT 5 AND 6 MAY 2009

Cyberspace: so little time, so much to do!

Graphic at News.com.au

Sometimes opening an online news page should come with a health warning for trivia collectors and wannabe record breakers.
News.com.au has just proclaimed the Internet is so big that "If you spent just one minute reading every website in existence, you’d be kept busy for 31,000 years. Without any sleep."
Which will be a real challenge for Australia's "16,926,015 internet users".
And an even bigger pile of bedtime reading for the Minister for Censorship, Stevie Conroy!

Position Vacant August 2009: Editor, The Daily Examiner, Grafton NSW

The Daily Examiner, 1 August 2009

Ben Eltham takes aim right between the eyes of a pop demographer

It is no secret that here at North Coast Voices some of the bloggers haven't much time for relentless self-promoter Bernard Salt's demographic pontificating.

In the past we looked at his pronouncements in The weird world of Bernard Salt and Bernard Salt says Angourie is dead: Angourie villagers and visitors fall about laughing.

However it took Ben Eltham over at Larvatus Prodeo to finally take a blunt scalpel to this pop demographer in a post titled Bernard Salt: pop demographer.

Apparently Bernard's last foray into urban growth areas was more than poor Ben could take and he decided that a demographer's mounted head would look good hanging over the fireplace.

Eltham has issued this invitation over at LP:

Salt's final two paragraphs barely deserve discussion. Attacking that venerable straw man, the "urban elites", plays well with Murdoch journalists eager to file some supporting "expert opinion" in their copy, but this particular assertion is completely unsupported by any data. And as for "this satellite existence" being the "new Australia", the last time I checked, outer-suburban housing development has been going on in Australia for at least a century.

Got any more fallacies and outrageous generalisations from Bernard Salt? Post them here, and we'll attempt to exert at least some scrutiny of Australia's most-quoted and least accurate "demographer."

Photpgraph from www.bernardsalt.com.au

Just a little question, Kev. Whatever happened to the Pacific Climate Change Alliance?

In July 2007 Federal Labor announced a plan for International Development Assistance and Climate Change.
In November 2007 it won government.
So Prime Minister, what is the state of play concerning the Pacific Climate Change Alliance?
With Oxfam Australia and the Australia Institute releasing a report stating that up to 75 million people are likely to be on the move in the Asia-Pacific due to climate change over the next 41 years, the fate of the promised alliance is more than a trifling concern.
Many of the areas where climate change refugees will be first forced out are within easy sailing of Australia.
It's also hard to run away from the distinct possibility that a lack of food, water and land security will destabilise our region and that armed conflict will occur if land pressure intensifies.
The Pacific Island Forum Leaders Meeting begins in Cairns this week, so perhaps I won't be the only one asking this question.

Want to find out what population displacement might feel like, Kev?
Then keep f**a**ing about just like the former tenant of The Lodge.