Has Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott re-mortgaged the family home yet again?

Most of Tony Abbott's official declarations of pecuniary and non-pecuniary interest are lost in the mists of time.

Hansard reveals that in 1995 he admitted to Parliament that he was the beneficiary of one, possibly two, family trusts - with Etonwest Pty Ltd as trustee for one at least of these trusts. 

This company, owned by his parents, was registered in 1970 when he was twelve years old and deregistered in 2004 when he was the Federal Minister for Health and Ageing.

Media reports inform us that his 1998 declaration showed his involvement as one of three trustees for the Australians for Honest Politics Trust (created on 24 August 1998).

However, little else is now readily available before 2008, when the details of his home finance becomes of interest.

In his official Statement of Registerable Interests (22 February 2008) then Shadow Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Tony Abbott listed an unspecified joint mortgage with his wife with what is probably the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

In 2010 it came to the attention of Australian voters that as then Opposition Leader Tony Abbott had failed to declare a $710,000 mortgage on his Forestville NSW home entered into sometime in 2008 or 2009.

This mortgage was added to his official declaration of interests sometime in June 2010 and appeared to be a shared equity arrangement with the Adelaide Bank and Rismark:

On 9 December 2013 as Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott once more declared a joint mortgage with his wife on the family home, this time with the National Australia Banking Group:

For a man who earns an est. $539,338 in combined salary and allowances and who virtually lives for free as Prime Minister of Australia, with a wife who is a paid company director/manager and no dependent children, this continuous level of debt on a house purchased in 1994 is rather curious to say the least.

One has to wonder what the Prime Minister does with his money? Do they burn $100 bills just for fun in the Abbott household with little thought for tomorrow?

Haven't heard a word about this from Clarence electorate candidates in the 2015 NSW state election. How about you?

In January 2015 Alzheimer's Australia released its NSW Election Manifesto ahead of the 28 March 2015 state election.

On the 17 February 2015 it sent out a media release titled Call For Support For Dementia Services In The NSW Election. 

It was reported in The Coffs Coast Advocate on 7 March 2015:

ALZHEIMER'S Australia is calling for major political parties to commit to better funding for research into the disease as part of their NSW Election platforms.

Updated dementia prevalence figures have supported the call for a comprehensive state-wide dementia strategy to be implemented in NSW, across health, transport, policing, housing and other government services.

In the state electorates of Coffs Harbour, Oxley and Clarence, it's estimated that a combined total of 4,400 people are already living with dementia.

These numbers are expected to increase to 5,030 by 2020 and 9,450 by 2050.

Alzheimer's Australia NSW chief executive, The Hon John Watkins, said the number of people with dementia in NSW is now estimated to be almost 112,000.

"These figures show dementia is an issue that is only going to get bigger and we really need a whole-of-government approach to appropriately tackle the challenge," Mr Watkins said.

"This means doing things like taking a serious look at how to provide much better care for people with dementia when they need to go to hospital.

"There is a need to increase specialist palliative care for people with dementia and adequately fund health-related transport to support people living with dementia to access health and medical-related appointments.

"With the tragically high level of dementia in Aboriginal communities, we also need to look specifically at dementia care and risk reduction measures for that community…..

A number of candidates standing in the seat of Clarence at the forthcoming state election have mentioned mental health services and cancer treatment as issues important to the electorate, but I have yet to hear any express an opinion on the subject of dementia.

According to Alzheimer's Australia; Dementia is the 3rd leading cause of death in Australia (source: ABS, March 2014).

Dementia prevalence projections by NSW electorate on the Far North Coast expects the number of people suffering from this devastating disease to rise by 2020 to:

Ballina 1,623

Clarence 1,697

Lismore 1,565

Tweed 2,018

TOTAL: 6,903

The prevalence projection for the number of people with dementia within North Coast Area Health Service boundaries in twenty-five years time is 27,661.

It's time all candidates in NSW North Coast electorates considered the social and economic implications of these figure.

Greens candidate Janet Cavanaugh demands Whiporie polling booth be reinstated for NSW state election this month

NSW Nationals MP for Clarence Chris Gulaptis still trying to excuse his collusion in closing Grafton Gaol

This was NSW Nationals MP for Clarence Chris Gulaptis (left) on the subject of the 2012 closure of Grafton Gaol in The Daily Examiner on 6 March 2015: It was downsized in a time when inmate numbers were in decline. Inmate numbers now are skyrocketing. As soon as inmate numbers reach a threshold, the Grafton Jail will be re-opened.

It would be interesting to know what this threshold number is, because NSW prisoner numbers commenced to climb in late September 2012, reached “a record high” by March 2014 and are expected to rise by another 17 per cent by the end of March this year [NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Issue paper no. 95 April 2014].

By 16 May last year The Sydney Morning Herald was reporting that; BOCSAR director Don Weatherburn said the rapid rise was ''a matter of significant concern'' not only because each prisoner costs $119 a day but because the prison population was rising faster than the government could build capacity, creating the risk of prison unrest. More than 100 prisoners at Parklea signed a petition in March after management started placing three men in two-man cells, leading to increased tension and violence.

I rather suspect there is no inmate number threshold which would see the Baird Government re-open Grafton Goal in the foreseeable future – it will remain the much smaller remand centre it became on Chris Gulaptis’ watch.

An aide memoire for Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey in relation to his reported statement to the Federal Court

The Guardian 9 March 2015:

When asked about tweets he sent critical of former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd including “Access to Rudd, for a price”, Hockey said he didn’t write all his tweets and there were several fake Twitter accounts in his name. He struggled to remember his Twitter handle.

Mr. Hockey, your official Twitter handle has been @JoeHockey since January 2009 and this is the tweet you sent out on 17 July 2013:

That mossie may do more than make you itch

Australian Government Dept. of Health National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System - current CDNA fortnightly report:

Between 7 and 20 February 2015, there were 1,073 notifications of Ross River virus (RRV) infection, compared with 542 during the previous period and 226 during the same period last year. During the past quarter there were 2,858 notifications, 2.3 times the quarterly rolling mean of 1,226 notifications (Figure 1). Notifications from Queensland account for most of this increase, and comprise 74% (799) of the notifications during the current fortnight.

Barmah Forest virus infection: this reporting period 38 notifications

Dengue virus infection: this reporting period 112 notifications.

UPDATE

The Daily Examiner 23 March 2015:

So far this year reported cases of Ross River Fever in the Northern Rivers district have totalled 319. For the same period last year there were 19 reported cases.

These figures have been mirrored across the state with almost 550 reported cases so far this year, compared to just 79 in the same period last year.

Autumn is the prime breeding season for mosquitoes and mosquito-borne viruses such as Ross River Fever and Barmah Forest Fever so the number of reported cases is expected to grow in the coming months.

Baird Government selling off the NSW Home Care Service if it wins 28 March 2015 state election

Over 18,000 people in New South Wales received federally funded high or low care community age care packages enabling them to continue living at home in 2011-12, their median age was 84.2 years.  

Most were women living in their own homes and many lived alone.

The most common reasons for people ceasing to use their age care packages was death or admission to residential age care.

The majority of agencies providing this care are not-for-profit organisations. [Australian Government Institute of Health and Welfare, Aged care packages in the community 2010–11: A statistical overview]

Before accessing this range of packages, a number of these older people would have received short-term or crisis assistance through federal government funded Home and Community Care programs administered by the state via its own Home Care Service of NSW.

This includes services such as personal care, respite care, veterans’ home care, light housework, shopping and in remote areas meals and transport [www.adhc.nsw.gov.au, 2015]. Again, many of these services are run at local levels by not-for-profit organisations.

These are the vulnerable people (along with individuals under 65 years with a disability) within the est. 50,000 Home Care Service client base that the NSW Baird Government appears to be targeting in its announcement that it intends to fully privatise this service in or before July 2016 by sale to one successful bidder.

Seventy-eight per cent of Home Care Service clients are 65 years of age or older and from culturally diverse backgrounds, most receive less than ten hours assistance per week but 2 per cent receive sixty hours or more per week [NSW Family & Community Services, 2014].

Two foreign multinational corporations have expressed an interest in this privatisation.

The first is BUPA which is predominately a private medical insurer with some hospital and age care facilities and the second is SERCO which operates public and private transport and traffic control, aviation, military weapons, detention centres, prisons, non-clinical hospital management & support services and schools on behalf of its current customers.

As the result of two separate investigations SERCO had to repay over £70 million to the U.K. Government in 2013 due to overcharging for justice/prison services and is alleged to have millions more in overcharging for national health services on the books in 2014.

It has also been the subject of a number of human rights abuse allegations and was once described as having a culture of “institutional meanness” by the U.K. Chief Inspector of Prisons [Centre for Policy Development, March 2012].

BUPA has been implicated in “inadequate treatment”/”sub-optimal nursing care” during respite care at one of its facilities on the NSW North Coast [State Coroner’s Court, Inquest 140588, 26-28 March 2014].  

In 2011 its Bexley Aged Care Facility was the scene of “unsatisfactory professional conduct…professional misconduct” including a staff member on more than one occasion making an elderly man beg for a cigarette on his hands and knees [Nursing and Midwifery Tribunal of New South Wales, Matter No: 028/2013].

In 2011-12 the U.K. Care Quality Commission found a Southampton care home run by BUPA & others in oversight partnership was “at risk” of failure two years after opening [Hon John Denham MP, February 2012] and a 2007 U.K. inquest reportedly found BUPA’s level of care provided to the 91-year-old “seriously disturbing” [Watford Observer, “Coroner condemns Bupa nursing home for death”, 23 April 2009].

Media reports state that NSW Disability Services Minister John Ajaka refused to rule out a sale of the Home Care Service to either BUPA or SERCO.

I fear this privatisation move by the Baird Government will not end well for people living in the Clarence electorate and elsewhere in the Northern Rivers region.