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.