K-K-Keneally gets the snake eye

This ABC News piece is probably the kindest comment on NSW Premier Kristina K. Keneally's management style:

New South Wales Premier Kristina Keneally has defended her level of spending on privately chartered jets, entertainment and staff redundancies since taking the top job.

The Opposition has obtained documents detailing $4 million in spending within the Premier's office since December.

It includes $120,000 on flights around Australia, many of them privately chartered, as well as $1,200 on entertainment and $1.2 million on staff redundancies.

New South Wales Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell says it is an exorbitant figure.

"Well it's not justified to take two chartered aircraft at a cost of $40,000 to Armidale when there are scheduled services to those areas," he said.

But Ms Keneally maintains the spending is justified, especially the travel spending.

"I make no apology whatsoever for getting out across the length and breadth of this state," she said.

She has rejected suggestions the spending was designed to boost her public profile.

While The Herald Sun added some meat to the tale:

"The figures show Ms Keneally has spent over $120,000 flying around Australia, including on privately chartered jets and helicopters. By contrast, Mr Rees spent about $80,000 on flights, including less than $70,000 for chartered planes.

Other expenses have included more than $100,000 in rent for private car-parking in the Sydney CBD, $32,000 on mobile phones and $222 on books.

There was also a $72.50 laundry bill for towels in Ms Keneally's personal bathroom in Governor Macquarie Tower.

Another $1200 was spent on "entertainment" - mainly food at restaurants and in-house catering.

The bill also includes a $1.2 million payout to around 26 staff made redundant after Ms Keneally took the top job.

The staff, who worked for Mr Rees, included senior Labor media advisers Tim Gleason and Aaron Ross, policy hound Davina Langton and Labor political strategist Graeme Wedderburn.

The Sunday Telegraph can reveal Mr Wedderburn's payout, estimated to be $160,000, triggered an investigation by the Auditor General's Office into ministerial payouts, and Government sources say the yet-to-be released report recommends future payouts be subject to greater tax."

By 2 June there was another hiccup for Ms. Keneally's hard-pressed PR team:

"NSW Premier Kristina Keneally has admitted she failed to declare free airline upgrades for her children during a trip to the US in 2008.
But Ms Keneally said she made no apology for failing to declare the upgrades, given by Qantas, saying the issue of free upgrades for politicians was a "grey area".

Photo from The Sydney Morning Herald

When a water spout becomes a tornado: spare a thought for Lennox Head on the NSW North Coast today

ABC News online:
Police say it is a miracle no-one was killed when a tornado smashed into the New South Wales north coast town of Lennox Head this morning.Twelve houses were destroyed and debris was sent flying when the storm, which one witness said hit "like a bomb", careered in off the sea about 7:30am.

Numerous caravans were also tipped over and an estimated 2,000 homes left without power.

The following images are from ABC News, The Sydney Morning Herald and Channel Nine News. All were apparently captured by local residents and holidaymakers on the spot. They deserve credit for keeping the 'new' in regional news and the 'current' in current affairs programs which mention the Northern Rivers area.

More tornado photographs courtesy of The Northern Star here.

Rio Tinto releases more RSPT spin and now I'm getting annoyed

Like many other observers of the political scene, I've been waiting on Rio Tinto releasing those figures it has been proclaiming would show that the proposed Resources Super Profits Tax was really the economic ogre the Coalition and mining industry said it was.

Well the media release is out and running across the mainstream media.
But the Rio Tinto wording is rather curious.......

"Corporate taxes amounted to A$14.6 billion and royalties were A$5.7 billion in the period 2000-2009. Rio Tinto's rate of taxation over the 10 years to 2009 averaged 35.6 per cent of its earnings before tax payments in Australia."

Huh? Rio Tinto Chief Executive Tom Albanese and friends are calculating the tax rate on the mining multinational's global business enterprise, not the rate it actually pays in Australia?
A global business that earned around US$50.53 billion between 1999 to 2008 according to Rio's own 2008 financial statement and, had a combined profit after tax in 2007 & 2008 of US$12.35 billion on combined earnings of US$37.48 (before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortisation -restated) for the same two years.

Interestingly, at the time of writing Advfin Australia lists Rio's effective tax rate for the last twelve months as 26.4 per cent.

When it comes to its Australian mining interests we are told that its tax direct tax obligations were A$20.3 billion between 2000-2009 (across its 19 operating mines and smelters etc.) and that Rio Tinto has generated net profit after tax of A$37.4 billion in Australia in the 10 years to 2009.

Hold on - didn't the company write off that A$5.7 billion in royalties as business costs?

After all, Under the Total Tax Contribution framework, petroleum resource rent tax is included as a tax whereas extraction royalties are not treated as a tax. (Refer "Survey for the Business Council of Australia and the Corporate Tax Association").

And didn't the 2007 Business Council of Australia survey also find that Taxes Collected are negative for the mining industry group because as major exporters survey participants reported a significant GST refund which more than offset other Taxes Collected?

I'm sorry Mr. Albanese, I just can't dredge up any sympathy for the mining giant you represent.
Try as I might I can find no justification for the average 35.6 per cent tax figure you complain about.

The bottom line is that I'm more inclined to believe the Federal Treasurer's estimation that; "In Australia, wholly-domestic mining companies paid an effective tax rate of only 17 per cent and multinational mining companies paid an effective tax rate of only 13 per cent".
Because these are somewhat similar percentages to those my own calculator spits out (without benefit of Shakelford and Markle).

Nor do I believe all the gloom and doom Rio Tinto predicts; with regard to this week's annual general meeting it was reported that "China's demand for iron ore, copper, coal and aluminium is expected to continue to grow over the next 15 years, after which time we expect to see increasing commodity demand from India," Mr du Plessis said. Mr Albanese said industrialisation, urbanisation and increased productivity would double demand for iron ore, aluminium and copper in that time.

In fact the longer Rio Tinto and the rest of the mining industry continue this tawdry exercise in spinning figures the more irritated I've become and, that irritation may inform my federal election vote later this year.

Australian Securities Exchange graph of Rio Tinto monthly share activity over ten years:

The true nature of Stephen Conroy?

"This week, I spent longer inside the mind of media minister Stephen Conroy than I would necessarily recommend.

The reason was as we've written in various posts his performance at the Senate Estimates Committee.

Reading the transcript has, I must admit, made me change my mind about him.

You see, when he was saying some of the more extreme stuff about his proposed internet filter over the last few months, I assumed it was just politics. I thought he was grandstanding on family values while of course knowing that it wouldn't fly.

But when you read his thoughts (you can find the 131 page transcript here if you like), it's enough to make you think again about him both as a person and as a minister.

(A slight declaration of interest at this point - unlike Rupert Murdoch, I've sat next to Conroy at dinner, within a few days of him being appointed. At that stage he seemed thoroughly affable, if more interested in talking about soccer than media policy.)

But the person who comes across in the transcript is a sneering, sarcastic grudge-bearing point scorer. And one who won't give a straight answer to a straight question, at that."

More from Tim Burrowes writing for MUmBRELLA here.

Stevo continued to cement his reputation as the federal pollie most loose-with-the truth (after el supremo o' teh lie Tony Abbott) when he was caught out by one Aussie ISP - "Don't claim we support filter, iiNet tells Conroy".

SMH online poll around 7am last Monday

By 6.30am on the second day 1st June 2010 the poll count was 85,271 - still running 99% against the Rudd-Conroy plan to censor the Australian Internet.