Former member Metgasco Limited's executive team to appear before NSW ICAC Operation Spicer investigation

Between 2011-13 Richard Shields was coal seam gas miner Metgasco Limited’s in-house lobbyist on its executive team as External Relations Manager.

Prior to crossing over to this listed mining company for those two years, Shields served as Deputy Director of the Liberal Party of Australia (NSW Division) for over 3 years and also served as the Interim State Director.

It is primarily this political party role which sees Richard Shields included on the witness list for Friday 12 September 2009.

Presumably because evidence given during Operation Spicer hearings is that Shields took a direct hand in fundraising during his time in the party's William Street head office between 2008 and 2011 and, this is a period in which unlawful political donations were allegededly laundered through Liberal Party associated entities.

Women will bear the brunt of the Abbott government's budget cuts

The Sydney Morning Herald 11 September 2014:

Women will bear the brunt of the Abbott government's budget cuts.

New analysis drawing on National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling budget impact models and latest census and Australian Bureau of Statistics data, shows women in low and middle-income households can expect to suffer the biggest financial losses from the Abbott government's budget savings.

And the worst hit – by far – will be women in low-income households.

A single mother in the lowest disposable income group can expect to lose one of every four dollars lost by that group in the budget's aftermath come 2017.

Women in middle-income households will suffer much more than high-income women.

The analysis comes as Prime Minister Tony Abbott released a video on the weekend in which he said one of his government's main motivations in future will be "protecting the vulnerable."

The new slogan marked a deliberate and noticeable change of rhetoric from Mr Abbott's previous public messages, and follows months of criticism that he and his Treasurer, Joe Hockey, have endured for their budget's likely negative impact on poor households…..

A senior economist at the Australia Institute, Matt Grudnoff, said women are, on average, poorer than men in Australia, and the analysis showed the budget would not help matters.

"This budget is reducing gender equality even more. If you look at the pay gap between men and women, it's an issue that's getting worse, not better," Mr Grudnoff said.

Recent figures from Bureau of Statistics show the pay gap between men and women in Australia had widened to 18.2 per cent, up from 17.1 per cent at the start of the year.

Between November 2013 and May 2014, Australian men's salaries increased an average $24.90 per week and women's increased only $7.09.

Read more here.

The lesson Metgasco learnt over the last ten years is that it needs to bully NSW Police into moving against protestors at its direction

Coal seam and tight gas exploration and wannabee production mining company, Metgasco Limited made a 20 minute speech at the RUI Good Oil Conference in Perth on Wednesday 10 September 2014, complete with a 10 slide power point presentation titled Rosella – lessons learnt.

Although the presentation did not make clear what lessons Metgasco thought it had taken from the sustained community opposition to its aim to establish gas fields on the NSW North Coast, oil & gas industry newspaper Upstream obliging told us on the same day that the answer was increased social media propaganda and more police action on the ground at its Northern Rivers drill sites:

He said there needed to be better education of the community in regards to what the impact the industry will have.

Henderson also echoed the message that is pervasive in the Australian industry, which is that operators need to improve their standing on social media.

“We are being absolutely killed in social media by the greens,” he said. “Too many people in the community have been led to believe that we use old technology and that renewables are ready to step in right now and replace them”.

“Unless we start winning the minds of people in the capital city... we’re going to have government’s putting more stringent regulations on us.”

Henderson said he wished at the time of the protest he had pushed for more police action to cut off the resources of the protestors who at times performed “dangerous” acts.

Yes, it seems that Metgasco still believes that way to win hearts and minds at Bentley is with police baton charges.

If an election had been held on the anniversary of Tony Abbott's 2013 victory the Australian Labor Party would probably have won government back

News.com.au 8 September 2014

The 'I Knows Nuffink' defence reaches the height of absurdity during NSW ICAC Operation Spicer hearing

An exchange between junior counsel assisting the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption Greg O'Mahoney and Queanbeyan property developer Lee Jay Brinkmeyer during an Operation Spicer hearing on 9 September 2014:

O’MAHONEY: Do you appreciate, Mr Brinkmeyer, that as a businessman who is spending company funds that you’ve written a $20,000 cheque to an organisation you know nothing about on the say so of a person whom you only have a mobile phone contact for without knowing precisely where the money’s going to go and having made no inquiries about where the money actually went, is that the effect of your evidence?

BRINKMEYER: Yeah. I mean, when you put that way - - -

O’MAHONEY: That’s it in a nutshell?

BRINKMEYER: When you put it that way it sounds bad but that’s - - -

O’MAHONEY: It sounds more than bad, Mr Brinkmeyer?

BRINKMEYER: That’s correct

O’MAHONEY: It sounds absurd, if you wouldn’t mind me saying?

BRINKMEYER: Well look, when I’ve made other donations in the past whether it - - -

Is PayWave picking your pocket at the checkout?

Tweed Daily News 3 September 2014:

PAYWAVE card payments have improved efficiency at the checkout, but the experience of one South Grafton man suggests you should be vigilant near one of the terminals.

Last week, Don Booth, of South Grafton, was waiting behind another customer at the cash register of a Grafton business.

As he watched the cashier, he noticed she did something different and asked her what happened.

He was shocked to find that instead of billing the customer in front of him, the terminal had picked up the card in his wallet and completed the transaction with his money.

"Because the girl at the checkout noticed it, we were able to fix it up straight away," Mr Booth said.

He said the girl at the checkout told him it was not her first experience of a payWave transaction going wrong.

"She said it happened in Coles to a customer, in the same way it happened to me," Mr Booth said.

Mr Booth said he would be taking extra care to check his next card statement.

Perhaps the rise in credit card fraud NSW Police Coffs Clarence Police Command has recently complained about may also be a result of flaws in wireless near field communication technology.

In October last year Among Tech posted this information on electronic pickpocketing:

The fact that you can use your smartphone to pay at a restaurant or a store is great and with NFC (Near Field Communication) technology you can do just that, but what else? Several months back a report from CBC showed us how easy it is to steal credit card credentials using an App and NFC technology which is integrated in most of the high end Android smartphones, but even after 6 months it is still possible to download one of these Apps and hack someone’s credit card and Google has made no changes to its software in order to make it harder for people to steal someone else’s credit card info.

Apps like SquareLess allow users to see a credit cards number, security code and expiration date which later can be used by hackers to purchase products online without the credit card holder to give them permission to do so. SquareLess is just one of the many apps available on the Play Store that allow you to do just this, which is a very serious issue. A study done by xdadevelopers that any of the following credit cards can be hacked using NFC:

American Express Blue Cards

Barclaycard

Chase Credit Cards

MasterCard PayPass

Visa payWave Cards

So, How can an App and NFC read credit card credentials? NFC technology is also what is used in stores to read our credit card, a credit card will give its information which allows you to make the transaction once it finds a valid payment terminal device but the credit card doesn’t look at what type of terminal device this is (since it doesn’t know this information), it is just interested in finding one. Making the smartphone function like a payment terminal can allow you to “fool” the credit card making it think it is what it is looking for, easily allow the app to read all the necessary credentials. In order to do so, all that is required is for the smartphone with NFC to be approximately 10cm close to the credit card. Here is a video demonstrating just how easy it can be done……

Channel 7 Today Tonight also broadcast an item on this subject in July this year.

Internet websites are now offering RFID-shielding passport holders/wallets/sleeves to prevent remote scanning and skimming of Paywave or touch-and-go-credit cards, although the effectiveness of these products is open to question.