Saturday 28 April 2018
Quotes of the Week
“He’s nothing but a pre-Fitzgerald corruption inquiry Queensland
walloper” [An anonymous Liberal MP speaking of
Australian Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Peter Dutton, quoted in The
Saturday Paper by journalist Paul
Bongiorno, 21 April 2018]
“At the same time, returns to the AEC show that these same corporations paid a total of $21,733,192 in political donations to political parties with Westpac standing out with donations totalling of nearly $12 million during the 2014-15 financial year alone.“ [Campaigner Rosie Williams, in “What
can open data tell us about Australia’s major banks?”, 20 April 2018]
“The Liberals
complaining that ASIC is sleep is rich considering who administered the fucking
anaesthetic.” [Journalist Richard Chirgwin, Twitter,
23 April 2018]
Labels:
banks and bankers,
corruption,
right wing politics
Friday 27 April 2018
Nationals MP for Page Kevin Hogan jumps on the bandwagon now royal commission is revealing truths about Australian banking, finance and insurance sectors
There has been some 'emergency' repositioning occurring in Turnbull Government circles since Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry hearings began to reveal the extent of bad behaviour in the banking, finance and insurance sectors.
Former money market and bond trader with State Bank of NSW & Colonial State Bank,
Posting a video clip of what appears to be the one occasion he openly expressed disappointment with a bank during a committee hearing last year.
Even though Hogan
was on the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics when it conducted
a 2016-17 inquiry into Australia’s four major banks and the Committee's recommendations clearly showed that the inquiry revealed serious deficiencies in bank practices, he has never been on his feet in
the House of Representatives calling the banks out for unethical behaviour or supporting a call for a royal commission.
He certainly never voted for the creation of such a royal commission in October 2016 or June 2017.
Perhaps
because the National Party of Australia has received over $1.15 million in
political donation from the banking, finance and insurance sectors since the 2012-13 financial year - and MPs probably expect more donations ahead of the forthcoming federal election?
The second
round of Royal Commission public hearings
is currently considering the conduct of financial services entities that provide financial advice to consumers, including the treatment of consumers, compliance with the law and community standards and expectations,and the sufficiency of the current legal and regulatory structure.
Mr. Hogan might allow himself to become a little more animated in his disapproval given some of the evidence involves the actions of independent financial advisers such as the jaw dropping example set out below,
But maybe not. There might be a smidgen of fellow feeling there, because Kevin Hogan just like the hapless Sam Henderson was also an independent superannuation consultant and before that had a regular financial segment on Sky News.
ABC
News, 24
April 2018:
A public servant was
impersonated while receiving financial advice from a high-profile financial
planner, the banking royal commission has heard.
Donna McKenna, who is a
Fair Work commissioner, told the inquiry she went to firm Henderson Maxwell
after seeing its chief executive Sam Henderson in the media.
Ms McKenna said if she
had followed the advice Mr Henderson gave her, she would have lost $500,000.
Mr Henderson followed Ms
McKenna in the witness stand.
The financial planner is
a regular media personality, with a show on Sky News Business channel and
articles published in the Australian Financial Review and Money Magazine.
Mr Henderson's appearance
before the commission did not get off to a good start, when it was revealed he
does not have a Master of Commerce degree, as stated in a 2016 financial
services guide from the firm.
The hearing was then
played a damning recording of a Henderson Maxwell employee impersonating Ms
McKenna in several phone calls to her super fund.
In the recordings, the
employee can be heard giving Ms McKenna's membership number and the State
Authorities Superannuation Scheme (SASS) representative refers to her as Donna….
he inquiry heard up to
six phone calls were made to the SASS super fund by Henderson Maxwell's
customer service officer.
Mr Henderson said the
information his employee had provided him about Ms McKenna's account was
inconsistent with the information given to him by Ms McKenna.
Mr Henderson refunded Ms
McKenna the nearly $5,000 in upfront advice fees she had paid.
The customer service
officer who impersonated Ms McKenna was not fired…..
Ms McKenna made a
complaint to the Financial Planning Association (FPA) about the quality of the
advice.
Despite complaining in
March last year, the complaint is still not finalised.
The inquiry heard Mr
Henderson responded to the complaint in a lengthy letter to the FPA, describing
Ms McKenna as "nitpicky" and her complaint as a "barrage of
aggressive and presumptive accusations".
In March this year, Mr
Henderson proposed a deal with the FPA that would see him admit to multiple
failings in the financial advice he provided to Ms McKenna and agree to
implement a number of changes at the firm.
The deal would have also
required the FPA to agree to not publish Mr Henderson's name in relation to the
proceedings.
The FPA wanted an
additional provision that would prevent Mr Henderson appearing in the media for
a year.
That proposal was not
acceptable to Mr Henderson and the complaint has not yet been formally resolved…..
President Donald J. Trump: We need to go after the reporters
"We need to go after the reporters.....They
spend a couple of days in jail, make a new friend, and they are ready to
talk" [US President Donald, J. Trump, 14 February 2017]
Finally, an indication of the lengths to which US President Donald J. Trump would go in order to find whistleblowers or silence journalists.
Two excerpts from former FBI Director James Comey's confidential memos supplied to the US Congress last week by the Department of Justice:
BACKGROUND
The New York Times, 7 July 2005, Judy Miller Goes To Jail
Labels:
Donald Trump,
Trump Regime,
US politics
Thursday 26 April 2018
Well hoorah, NBN Co is to roll out its inbuilt obsolescence across Yamba commencing in June 2018
It has been
reported in local media that NBN Co
will be commencing the Yamba rollout
of its allegedly high speed broadband in June 2018, with Maclean and Grafton rollouts
to commence in January 2019.
This news is
quite frankly underwhelming.
Whatever
information NBN Co was giving out obviously didn’t include the type of
connection that was on offer, as this important point was not mentioned by
journalists and there is contradictory information on the company's website.
These three urban
areas in the Clarence Valley are yet to hear if households and businesses are
being offered fibre-to-the-curb, fibre-to-the-node or fixed wireless.
Because it is
certain that the best option fibre-to-the-premises isn’t on offer to regional second cousins of the big metropolitan areas.
Personally I
will carefully refuse to look at any construction works taking place in Yamba
come June, July and August.
The sight of
all those water-filled trenches will be too depressing.
Who starts extensive
in-ground construction in winter at the low-lying, high water table mouth of a floodplain, I ask you?
* Image from Hakuri Sad Party
Everytime someone buys a bottle of water in Australia it has consequences for a community somewhere in the world
By November 2017 Tweed Shire's est. 93,458 residents faced a water security trifecta.
Floods in the first quarter of the year had affected water quality and local infrastructure, a tidal anomaly in August had caused saltwater to enter the Bray Park Weir, the following month Terranora Lagoon was contaminated by raw sewerage from the treatment plant and the walls of Clarrie Hall dam still needed raising to cope with urban water needs.
Water sustainability still remains an issue in 2018.
In this case it appears to be Black Mount Pty Ltd and Mt. Warning Spring Water Company's commercial water supply needs which are the main culprit.......
Echo
NetDaily, 13
April 2018:
A call for the halt of
water mining in the Tweed Valley has been made by NSW Greens MP and North
Coast spokesperson, Dawn Walker in state parliament this week and is
supported by the Tweed Water Alliance. Concerns over the
impact on underground water resources, alleged poor compliance with
extraction licenses and the damage caused by heavy vehicles have all been
raised.
‘Water is our most
precious resource and gigalitres of water beneath Tweed Valley are being sucked
up and bottled for commercial profit, leaving the community high and dry with
the impacts. Water mining licences are being handed out by the government without
adequate monitoring and in many cases, water meters haven’t even been
installed,’ said Ms Walker.
Water mining licences
are controlled by the state government while work on the property and
permission for truck movements are controlled by the local council.
‘We certainly support
the ban,’ said Jeremy Tager, spokesperson for the Tweed
water alliance
who believes the water extraction companies are ‘operating lawlessly’.
‘Extracting water is a
lose lose prospect for here and most other places. Water is taken away from
local users; it creates little or no employment as most of the operators are
water transporters. That means the trucks come in and get filled up and then
are taken away to be bottled elsewhere.
‘They only pay a a small
road contribution to drive these big trucks on rural roads that were never
designed for them.’
In December 2017 the
Tweed council voted to amend their LEP (local environment plan) 2014 to remove
the clause that the previous council had put in to allow water extraction for
bottling water in the Tweed shire. This has been sent to the state government
for approval as part of the Gateway process. If the state government decide
that the change can proceed then Tweed council will be able to put the LEP
amendment on public display.
The state government can
also request that a ‘savings clause’ be put in that would allow current
applications that are waring to be assessed to be allowed.
Echonetdaily asked
the state government what the time frame for responding to the Tweeds request
for removing the water mining clause from the LEP was and if they would request
the inclusion of a ‘savings clause’.
A spokesperson for the
department of planning and environment responded stating that; ‘The department
is currently in the early stages of assessing a proposal from Tweed Shire
council to remove the water extraction and bottling clause to the Tweed Shire
2014 LEP.
Local extractor takes
council to court
Larry Karlos, a local
water extractor, is currently taking the Tweed Council to the Land and
Environment court to appeal their decision not to allow them to increase the
size of the trucks they use to transport water from six meters to nineteen
meters.
‘The council refused the
application for 19m trucks because they felt that the road was no suitable for
that size truck,’ said Tweed Mayor Katie Milne.
‘Urlip Road is really
narrow and in some places it is only one lane. There are also areas where it is
very steep on one side and has a steep drop off on the other.
ABC
News, 21
March 2018:
It's the new battle in
the bush — the bottled water wars.
On one side is
Australia's $800-million-a-year bottled water industry and its suppliers, on
the other, rural residents who fear their most precious resource, groundwater,
is being squandered.
"It's dividing the
local community," said Larry Karlos, one of half a dozen water extractors
in the Tweed Valley in northern New South Wales.
He's been pumping water
from an aquifer beneath his property for 16 years.
But his recent bid to
increase the amount he sells to bottling companies has ignited local
opposition.
Fourth-generation farmer
Patrick O'Brien fears his children's future is being jeopardised for the profit
of the water industry.
"If they don't stop
this type of thing then, you know, what's going to be left?" he told 7.30.
“What's going to left
for future generations? No-one was really worried when they were trucking the
water out in small amounts, but then they want more, they want more trips, they
want bigger trucks."
Wednesday 25 April 2018
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