Doctor and activist


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Category: Justice

Danny Lim Bashing a bad sign of the times

24 November 2022

Danny Lim is a regular at many protests. He is a very kind and gentle man, and his protests are quite individual and idiosyncratic with very humane values. He would never harm anyone, and the way he was thrown face first onto the tiled floor at the Queen Victoria Building by the Police is frankly a disgrace.

As the gap between rich and poor widens with neo-liberal policies and a welfare system which is starved of funds, the level of social frustration rises. Many times in Parliament I was asked to pass legislation which simply increased Police powers, mostly in response to an item in the media where some crime had occurred. There was never any question as to why the crime occurred, there was simply an increase in Police powers and usually the maximum fines or sentences. The Police Service was re-named the Police Force, presumably to reflect the same philosophy. No one ever asked if this would actually work.

I have formed the view that the defence industry increasingly uses the Australian War Memorial as a temple of militarism. A couple of years ago, Nick Deane of the Marrickville Peace Group asked me to help him hand out leaflets on Anzac Day that said, ‘Honour the Dead by Working for Peace’. So I dressed in suit, wore a discrete sign with the slogan on it and went to the edge of the public area in the Hyde Park ceremony and started handing out his leaflet. People took it, and most agreed that it was reasonable.

After a while a Police sergeant came and told me to move 150 metres away as I was ‘offending people’. I said that no one had been offended, (not that there is a law against offending people in any case) and I was not going to move, as I had a right to stand there. He said words to the effect of, ‘You will do what I tell you or you will be arrested and charged’. I told him that he was there to enforce existing laws, not make them up, and if he charged me he would merely be told by the Magistrate that he did not have a case. I agreed to move about 2 metres so he could save face. He was furious, and went off asking to find someone who was offended. He came back and we had a second altercation. I really thought that if I had not been in a suit and told him I was an ex-MP, I would have been thrown down and roughed up. It was a line ball as it was.

The Police are there to keep us safe, not remove people harmlessly expressing opinions, and certainly not to do so roughly. They must obey laws of reasonable behaviour the same as we should. Clearly pressure on them needs to be maintained. The presence of cameras on every phone will help in this- no longer will stories of people ‘falling over’ be believed.

Fortunately Danny has come out of hospital and seems OK, but the video below leaves little doubt that he was assaulted by Police.

www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/excessive-police-force-is-damaging-sydney-s-reputation-minister-told-after-danny-lim-arrest-20221123-p5c0no.html

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Immigration – it is Time to Clean it up.

19 November 2022

One of the legacies of the Morrison Government is a complete mess in immigration.

I grew up in Port Kembla where a huge influx of ‘displaced persons’ (i.e. refugees) from post-war Europe came to Australia and worked in the Steelworks. Initially the kids at my primary school came from the migrant hostels that had been set up in the old army accommodation, but then the NSW Housing Commission built whole suburbs to cope with the load. These were initially rented, but eventually they bought their homes.  The kids learned English, we got used to their funny names and unusual school lunches and they grew up as good Aussie kids.  

It might be noted that there was an influx of Hungarians after the 1956 uprising against the Russians there and some of those became captains of Austr;ian industry.  Australia took a lot of refugees from Vietnam, claimed it was a multicultural country and had benefited enormously from the influx of foreign talent. Paul Keating tried to fund an initiative to foster language teaching so that a large number of Australians would become bilingual, but this and the free ESL (English as a Second Language) classes were defunded by John Howard, who won an election by demonising  refugees and promising to ‘turn back the boats’  The fact that there were numerically not very many boat people and that political refugees are generally the elite  from when re they come was ignored and Australia was set on a path of not only being totally callous with refugees, but also wasting huge amounts of money on dodgy contractors and facilities.  The delays were also a disgrace.

But meanwhile other immigration developed with migration agents charging exorbitant amounts, stories of people  of dubious character buying visas, and even sex slaves. Some employers brought people in with a sponsored deal that they had to work for 2 years to then be eligible for a permanent visa, and in my own experience I saw a couple on five 12 hour night shifts a week to get this.  Many students, allowed to work only 20 hours a week and unable to live on this were paid sub-award wages, obviously dragging Australian wages down in all the casual industries.

I have tried to help a number of good people who were injured and in danger of deportation to save insurers money, and found there are many dodgy practices and practitioners, as well as a very unresponsive system.

 The current ‘labour shortage’ shows how dependent we all were on work visa and student casual labour, and the fear of industry-wide awards that are actually enforced says quite a lot about what was going on.  

At last, after a lot of publicity about sex trafficking someone is cracking down on the Industry. Hopefully, this as well as adding a lot of public servants to process the applications in a more honest way will improve the situation. 

Taskforce targets migration criminals

Nick McKenzie SMH 19 November 2022

The federal government has established a new multi-agency taskforce to target criminals exploiting Australia’s migration system after revelations of widespread visa rorting linked to sex trafficking, foreign worker mistreatment and drug crime.

Operation Inglenook is led by Australian Border Force and backed by other state and federal agencies, and will target the organised crime gangs and migration fixers exposed by Trafficked, a major investigative series by the Herald, The Age and 60 Minutes.

The taskforce is focusing on 20 migration agents with suspected links to the rorting, and one federal government-licensed agent has already been issued a notice that the Office of the Migration Agents Regulation Agency will ban him from providing migration advice.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil has promised major reform to the system, and said yesterday that the new taskforce was being staffed by investigators and regulatory officials aiming to reduce rampant exploitation of the migration system.

‘‘Its goal is to disrupt the networks exposed by the Trafficked series. The taskforce includes intelligence and compliance teams to assist with an investigation into the vulnerabilities of the migration system,’’ O’Neil said.

The minister said that after years of neglect by the former Coalition government, Labor was now acting. The Office of the Migration Agents Regulation Agency was working closely with the new taskforce.

The Trafficked series cast a light on visa rorting, sex trafficking and foreign worker exploitation in Australia. Among the reports was that of a human trafficking boss who entered Australia in 2014 and built a criminal underground sex empire despite having previously been jailed in Britain for similar offending.

That crime boss, Binjun Xie, is in hiding and being sought by authorities after being exposed in the series. Border security failures enabled Xie to allegedly set up a nationwide sex network that police said moved Asian women around like ‘‘cattle’’.

Trafficked also revealed how state and federal agencies have spent years issuing confidential warnings of migration rorting involving syndicates gaming the visa system to bring criminals or exploited workers into Australia. This is facilitated by networks of corrupt federal government licensed migration agents, education colleges, fixers and people who rort the English language test.

The investigation also focused on migration agent Jack Ta, who had boasted of ‘‘cosy’’ meals with Coalition ministers and who donated more than $25,000 to the campaign fund of former Liberal assistant home affairs minister Jason Wood. Ta is suspected of repeatedly gaming the visa system to help more than a dozen drug offenders remain in Australia.

Wood was the chair of parliament’s migration committee when the donations took place and he hosted Ta on at least two occasions to dine with now opposition leader Peter Dutton when he was home affairs minister.

This masthead has also confirmed that Ta attended the launch for O’Neil’s election campaign when she was a shadow minister and bought items at an auction worth $5200. The funds were donated to a charity after Ta’s conduct was exposed by this masthead.

Authorities have linked Ta’s migration agency to dozens of unmeritorious asylum seeker claims, including at least 15 made by convicted Vietnamese drug offenders.

Earlier this month, the federal government cleared the way for an overhaul of the visa rules by naming former Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson to review the system.

The new taskforce to investigate the migration scams will complement his inquiry.

Parkinson said it was ‘‘indisputable’’ the migration system was not working.

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Relevance of Books

8 September 2022

Like a lot of people I do not read as many books as I should, but it seems that they have not lost their relevance.  We are now well past Orwell’s 1984 and have facial recognition software pictures taken when we visit nursing homes and all our conversations and email analysed by algorithms.

Three recent articles came to my attention: 

  1. The Booker Prize, a prestigious prize for novels, which used to be confined to the British Commonwealth but is now open to any writing in English, has satire as its major theme this year.  Below is a NY Times article, reprinted in the SMH.  
  2. The US has been banning books for a while

ww.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/07/book-bans-pen-america-school-districts (add an extra w to make www)

  1. And now China has gaoled the writers of a children’s book about sheep defending themselves from wolves as this is said to be a political analogy for the actions of the Communist Party in Hong Kong.  See link below

Satire dominates in a diverse Booker Prize shortlist

Alexandra Alter The New York Times

A barbed political satire about the fall of an African dictator, told from the perspective of talking animals. A mordantly comic novel about the inescapable horrors of racism in America. A bleak but slyly funny story that explores the trauma of Sri Lanka’s civil wars.

These potent satirical novels are among the six finalists for the Booker Prize, one of the world’s most prestigious literary awards.

This year’s shortlisted novels include authors from five countries and four continents, and encompass a diverse range of prose styles and subject matters, from quiet, introspective literary fiction to fantasy and magical realism.

Several of the novels deploy humour, myth and allegory to tackle painful chapters of history. In Glory, Zimbabwean writer NoViolet Bulawayo obliquely tackles the downfall of autocrat Robert Mugabe, through a narrative featuring a cast of animals — horses, donkeys, dogs, goats, chickens and a crocodile.

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, a mythic story by Sri Lankan novelist Shehan Karunatilaka, follows a photographer who wakes up dead in an underworld where he encounters victims of political violence. And in his novel The Trees, Percival Everett lampoons the stain of racism in America with a story about a pair of black detectives who investigate a series of murders that echo the lynching of Emmett Till.

‘‘One of the great powers of language is to make you laugh, even in the middle of terrible things,’’ Neil MacGregor, former director of the British Museum and chair of this year’s judges, said on Tuesday.

Other authors on the shortlist are Irish writer Claire Keegan, for Small Things Like These, about the unmarried women who suffered in Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries; English fantasy writer Alan Garner, for Treacle Walker, a dreamlike story about a boy who has magical visions; and American novelist Elizabeth Strout for Oh William!, about a woman who helps her ex-husband investigate his troubled family history.

Founded in 1969, the Booker Prize is one of the most coveted literary prizes in the world. The winner, who will receive a prize of £50,000 ($A86,000), will be announced on October 17.

www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/07/hong-kong-authors-of-childrens-books-sheep-wolves-convicted-of-sedition

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Government protects Bonuses of iCare Executives while workers are dudded.

20 May 2022

Some things make me unspeakably angry.

In the SMH online today the government giving bonuses to executives who presided over iCare cheating injured people out of their payments and treatments.

In my real job, I treat injured workers and motor vehicle accidents. Many wait more than a year for surgery- my longest was 9 years. They are subjected to Independent Medical Examinations that find any other reason than their accident for the cause of their pain. Age, previous injury and arthritis are the commonest ones.  It is stated that they are fit for work, when they are obviously not, or that they can get another job when they obviously have no physical or mental capacity to do another job, let alone compete for one. 

The ongoing inefficiency of the computer algorithms making decisions without even anyone being responsible was the brainchild of John Nagle, whose other bright idea was to change his KPI (Key Performance Indicator) from getting people back to work, to having them declared fit to be back to work.  Nagle resigned after a bad day at a Parliamentary inquiry. All this happened while iCare was under Treasurer Dominic Perrottet. 

A friend of mine injured his back lifting on a Friday. He called his GP and visited him on Saturday. He had an MRI scan on Monday which showed a bad disc injury, saw the neurosurgeon on Thursday, had a discectomy on Saturday and went home on Monday. All fixed in 8 days. That is what should happen. It never happens in the WC or CTP system.

The Workers Comp system takes 14 days to accept liability, then has to ‘decide’ if the treatment is appropriate, so weeks go by, and if they dispute it, years. People wait 3 months for the insurer’s medical examination, 6 weeks for the result of it, another couple of months for their specialist examination and a few months for the government medical to settle the dispute.  And they blame the injured people for the worse results out of the system, and give bonuses to those who managed to reduce the costs.  Given the huge administrative machinery, the clerk, investigators, extra medical examiners, lawyers, dispute resolvers and the rest, all the savings come from not treating people.  And those responsible get bonuses, and the government, ever keen not to upset the private sector ring-ins makes sure that they are amply rewarded for this appalling situation.  Perrottet, the most recent architect of iCare, had a 2nd inquiry by McDougall to kick the can down the road, then rose to be premier before his report was out. 

Here is the SMH article:

Government votes to protect bonuses for icare executives

By Lucy Cormack

May 20, 2022 — 5.00am

The Perrottet government has protected bonus payments for icare executives, rejecting a bid to ban the practice after revelations millions of dollars in bonuses were handed out while injured workers were underpaid.

The attempt to strip bonuses from executives at the state insurer was contained in Opposition amendments blocked in the lower house this week during a vote to amend the state insurance and care legislation.

Icare has been the subject of intense scrutiny since an investigation by the Herald and ABC TV’s Four Corners in 2020 revealed the underpayment of workers while senior executives claimed almost $4 million in salaries and bonuses.

The insurer, which provides workers’ compensation insurance to 3.6 million public and private sector employees in NSW, has since been forced to repay $38 million to 53,000 injured workers.

The scandal prompted the government to amend legislation governing icare, following a review by former judge Robert McDougall, QC.

More than 200 icare employees are entitled to bonuses, including chief executive officer Richard Harding, who is entitled to an incentive of $411,000.

Opposition treasury spokesman Daniel Mookhey said there was little justification for bonuses while the insurer continued to record billions of dollars in underwriting losses.

“Employers are staring down the barrel of a decade of rising premiums, yet the government is protecting bonuses for top executives at Australia’s most disaster-prone insurer,” Mookhey said.

“We intend to stand up for employers and injured workers. We will fight against lavish bonuses for icare’s top executives in the Legislative Council next week.”

During debate on Wednesday, Minister for the State Insurance Regulatory Authority Victor Dominello said the McDougall Review had not found executive bonuses at icare were excessive.

He said McDougall noted the benefit of allowing icare to set competitive salaries to “attract appropriate talent”

The Herald last year revealed icare hired 18 new executives with potential annual bonuses collectively worth more than $1.2 million, while employee operating costs have increased from $162 million to more than $200 million since 2020.

However, an icare spokesman previously told the Herald no executive bonuses have been paid in the past two years.

Unions NSW boss Mark Morey wrote to NSW MPs last week calling for reforms to address “repeated governance, financial and operational crises”, including ending executive bonuses.

Other proposed reforms included enforcing the same procurement laws that govern the NSW public sector, from which icare is exempt, and appointing an injured worker to the board.

Morey on Thursday said the government had missed an opportunity to “clean up” the state insurer.

“How can the premier justify continued bonuses for highly paid executives when sick and injured workers have been dudded and small businesses are paying increased premiums?” he said.

Other changes sought by the government included additional powers for the State Insurance Regulatory Authority and expanded access to commutation, which allows injured workers to negotiate lump sum payments and exit the system, rather than remain on weekly payments.

However, the government agreed to withdraw its proposal to allow changes to commutations via regulation and reconsider them in future legislation.

Opposition spokeswoman for industrial relations, work, health and safety Sophie Cotsis said she was pleased the government had agreed to consult further on lump sum payments, arguing that regulation should not be used to expand the system.

The State Insurance and Care Legislation Amendment Bill 2022 will now move to the upper house, where the opposition will make another attempt to ban bonuses.

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Easy Money Philosophy the Key to Australia’s Undoing

May 13 2022

Australia’s lack of vision in its leadership is the cause of most of our problems. (warning- long post)

Undeveloped economies rely on capital input and land development, and sadly the philosophy of making an easy dollar has dominated our approach to public policy.

A key element in this has been the approach to housing.  Negative gearing of property has made housing a commodity, and the no-brainer way to make money has been to buy property with as little deposit as possible, so as it rises on an endless speculative bubble, the return on capital invested is as great as possible.  The unit of real estate development might be thought to be what a person can borrow and pay off in a lifetime. That is what would be home owners go to the auction with, so developers can charge that, and do. The huge profit margin then makes developers able to influence the political system, such that it becomes largely controlled by them. 

Of course it is all a Ponzi scheme.  As someone sells with their huge capital gain, where does the money come from?  The buyer has to borrow it, of course.  The property is the same as it was. They borrow it from an Australian bank, who borrows it from a foreign bank.  So Australia’s private debt is close to the highest in the world, largely because we have arbitrarily over-valued our houses, and given tax concessions to achieve this. Our kids now cannot afford houses unless their parents give them theirs.

But it is more extensive than this. Banks do not have to evaluate business proposals carefully.  It is much easier just to demand the mortgage on your home, or not to lend to risky stuff like businesses when real estate is so easy.  So we have no money nationally to develop our own industries and we sell our assets.

It permeates the national psyche. The status of professions tends to follow their incomes, with a bit of a lag.  Teachers, nurses, GPs, and middle-grade public servants have had large relative falls in incomes. Public service experts are neglected, their consistent plodding in their niche area undervalued. When knowledge in that niche is actually required ‘Consultants’ charging exorbitant rates replace them, pandering to the political minders or residual managers who do not know what they do not know.

Gambling in Australia has been huge.  With no serious research on the effect of gambling on society, it was assumed that if the clubs were non-profit that they would put back as much into society as they took out.  No one actually measured the social effect and they just kept growing. The hotels were not able to compete. They tried live music for a while and Australia had a rash of world-class bands, but then they got into pokies as well so that NSW has a huge percentage of the whole world’s poker machines  All easy money; no independent research please.   We have ads for gambling.  Basically people always lose, so there might as well be ads that say, ‘Do not have a financial plan or savings- give your money to us’.  But no one comments.

But even that was not enough. We had to have a casino, just one, to get some foreign money.

And was it to be in the middle of the desert, like Las Vegas to make some industry and jobs out there? No, after minimal discussion it was in Sydney.  And after a bit more time, we had two. After all, Packer was a favoured son.  Now, or course it will be foreign owned, so the profits, as far as they can be calculated (or not) will go offshore.

Some years ago I went on a political study tour to the USA.  We went to Las Vegas and stayed in Caesar’s Place.  The casino people were pleased to talk to those who were assumed to be Australia’s future political leaders.  Their message was clear, ‘Leave us alone. We are just like other businesses. Do not interfere. Enjoy the shows’.  After we had seen them, we were shown the rest of Las Vegas. The city officials were very proud of their new ‘one-stop shop’ for social problems. All the facilities were in one place, homelessness, alcohol, drug addiction, domestic violence, and gambling.  It took a quite a few questions to get past the euphemisms to the fact that Las Vegas had about the worse social problems in the USA.

Just as Al Capone profited from alcohol being illegal, so gambling profits from the fact that organised crime needs to launder its money. There is so much of this money that it forms an imperative- no business could possibly ignore that much money.  So the regulator does little, the political class turn a blind eye, and of course some well-connected political folk get on the board to smooth government relations and pick up a generous pay packet for their services. They don’t really need to know what goes on- ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’.

So organised crime gets a huge foothold, but we don’t prosecute rich people here, the worst that happens is that someone has to say that they are humbled and shocked and resign.

Now as we read daily of one gangland shooting after another, we can conclude that the prohibition of hard drugs is going about as well as the prohibition of alcohol went, with the added benefit of the casinos to attract overseas crime profits as well.

We might ask what is to be done?

At a crime level, it would be good to close the casinos and systematically try to reduce gambling on poker machines and everything else.  It would be smart to look at alternatives to criminalising drug use, and systematically make legal drugs like alcohol and vaping less attractive; ban the marketing and have some health promotion for starters. And at a national level, stop any new negative gearing and build houses as they did on the 1950s where families could rent and then purchase. Build the public service and public expertise, and fund education, health and an equal opportunity for all.  It is not rocket science, and naturally there are resource constraints, but as much money and effort is wasted, and human misery sown there is a lot of money to be saved.

It might be called a vision or even, more modestly, common sense.  But if you look at the strength of the lobbies that have been created by the decades of appalling public policy, one has to admit it will be difficult.  So difficult that not a word of any of this has been in any election discussion at all.

Here is today’s SMH article on how crime is out of control.   

Criminals Run Rampant

Nick McKenzie SMH 13 March 2022

TOP OFFICER’S BRIEFINGS

Organised crime is running rampant across Australia and agencies are struggling to fight it, according to secret briefings given to cabinet ministers and public servants by the highest-ranking fighter of organised crime in NSW.

The briefings challenge ‘‘tough on crime’’ rhetoric by state and federal governments while also revealing claims from officials that NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has ignored calls for counter-crime reforms from the offices of two of his senior ministers.

The problems are so severe that the person who delivered the briefing, NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith, claimed that: ‘‘With the current legislation and the current powers, we’re [police] swinging a pool noodle and they’ve [crime bosses] got guns.’’

It is extremely rare for a confidential assessment from a serving, high-ranking police official to be made public, and Smith’s candid views are likely to cause significant political and agency discomfort.

One of the briefing attendees, NSW cabinet minister Victor Dominello, told Smith (pictured) that if the public learned of the assistant commissioner’s unguarded views, ‘‘that would freak everybody out. They would shoot us because we are not looking after the public interest,’’ Dominello said. Another official in the meeting was the chief of staff for then police minister David Elliott.

Smith also claimed in his December briefings that the fight against organised crime was hampered by the lacklustre approach of the nation’s financial crime agency, Austrac. Smith said Austrac was ‘‘not swinging hard enough’’ and had failed to more aggressively combat organised crime because of its focus on banks. At one point, Smith described Austrac as ‘‘nitwits’’.

‘‘Stop picking on the banks and start picking on organised crime,’’ he said.

Smith also savaged what he described as abysmal anti-organised crime laws in NSW, the state with the highest number of nationally networked organised crime and bikie gang bosses.

He warned that crime groups were carrying out ‘‘assassinations’’ in NSW and in Europe and vast resources were required to effectively monitor them as they not only trafficked in drugs but rorted federal and state government schemes such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

In a statement, Perrottet said yesterday that the government was working closely with police on a ‘‘range of options’’ to deal with the problem.

‘‘Money laundering and organised crime are completely unacceptable in any form,’’ he said.

‘‘In December last year, I welcomed the decision of the NSW Crime Commission to commence an inquiry into money laundering at licensed premises in NSW. The inquiry is being conducted in collaboration with the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission.’’

Perrottet said the commission had extensive powers and had the full support of the NSW government. ‘‘We will consider the findings of the inquiry when they are made available.’’

On Tuesday, Comanchero national sergeant-at-arms Tarek Zahed, 41, was injured in a Sydney shooting attack that claimed the life of his brother Omar Zahed, 39.

There have been more than 40 incidents of organised crimelinked violence in the past two years in NSW, including 12 murders.

In his briefings, Smith also singled out poker machine venues, including clubs, pubs and casinos, as having been exploited by money launderers, as well as the crypto market and the property market.

An overview of Smith’s briefings

– sighted by this masthead – also reveal Dominello warned the assistant commissioner that lobbyists from the gaming industry would use their political contacts to fight efforts to combat money laundering in pubs, clubs and casinos.

‘‘The gambling lobby is very, very powerful and they have very, very deep roots inside the cabinet and opposition,’’ Dominello told the senior officer.

There was also deep frustration among others briefed by Smith at the government’s failure to fully engage with efforts to more aggressively counter organised crime and crack down on the exploitation of poker machines by money launderers.

NSW’s chief gaming regulator, Philip Crawford, told officials at the briefing that it was ‘‘scary’’ how gaming officials had ‘‘very few regulatory levers to pull on this industry’’.

Crawford chairs the NSW Independent Liquor & Gaming Authority and unsuccessfully pushed Perrottet in December for a public facing inquiry into money laundering and problem gambling at poker machine venues.

‘‘The industry doesn’t want us anywhere near it,’’ he said.

Smith said in his briefings that his frustration at the failure to get political backing to bolster the fight against organised crime had led him to seek and gain backing from state and federal agencies to privately brief politicians and public servants on the severity of the problem.

Smith said the then police minister David Elliott had been left ‘‘out on the ledge’’ trying to get legislation through to solve the problem.

The Herald has confirmed the authenticity of detailed records of the briefings Smith delivered last December to senior politicians and public servants from the offices of the Premier, then police minister David Elliott and then minister responsible for gaming, Victor Dominello, who both lost their portfolios during recent reshuffles.

Descriptions of the briefings reveal Elliott’s chief of staff, Tanya Raffoul, revealed she had tried repeatedly to alert Perrottet about the police’s organised crime concerns but been rebuffed by the Premier’s office.

‘‘I’ve tried three times to get it through … and the answer has been no,’’ Raffoul said, describing efforts to get backing for reform as a ‘‘war of attrition’’.

‘‘The Premier wouldn’t be able to stand up and say that we’ve got the toughest money laundering laws in the country. They are significantly weak,’’ Raffoul said.

Dominello was moved out of the gaming portfolio by Perrottet after pushing for inquiries and reforms to combat money laundering and problem gambling at The Star Sydney, Crown Resorts and at pokies venues.

The casino inquiries exposed major organised crime infiltration and abysmal governance within the gaming sector, while the NSW Crime Commission is probing criminal infiltration of pubs and clubs.

Smith’s briefings build on comments from the federal police’s top organised crime official, Assistant Commissioner Nigel Ryan, who last October warned the majority of organised crime was operating with impunity.

The head of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, Mike Phelan, has also warned organised crime had become a multibillion-dollar behemoth that was corrupting Australian public officials and penetrating border security via corrupt insiders.

In his briefing, Smith warned that organised crime in Australia was earning almost $40 billion via its main source of income – drug trafficking – and by rorting state and federal government programs, including the NDIS.

‘‘Micro grants, they [organised crime] love those things. Childcare schemes, they’re into that. The NDIA [National Disability Insurance Agency], they steal from that.’’

He warned of drug-laden ‘‘ships circulating Australia’’ whose cargo was put out to auction. The highest bidder won the right to have the drug shipment delivered via an entrenched corrupt ‘‘transport network’’.

Smith described NSW as the epicentre of organised crime and as the host of the largest numbers of outlaw bikie club members, nominating other states as key drug markets and the Gold Coast as Australia’s new version of the infamous 1980s Kings Cross vice strip.

Newcastle’s port and transport industry was a weak point, said Smith, given it was deeply infiltrated by serious organised crime. Smith named fugitive Comanchero bikie leader Mark Buddle as one of several crime bosses damaging Australian interests from offshore.

Buddle has been instrumental in creating ‘‘The Commission’’, a crime cartel that charges drug traffickers a fee to allow them to import drugs into Australia and promises to regulate the drug market using its muscle.

FAILING LAWS

Smith also repeatedly highlighted the role of ‘‘clever lawyers and clever accountants’’ in helping crime bosses and corrupt officials hide their money.

The veteran crime fighter’s comments highlight the 15-year failure of successive federal governments to introduce financial crime reforms targeting lawyers, accountants and real estate agents.

Smith identified alleged organised crime boss Mostafa Baluch as an example of those who police suspect had employed accountants and lawyers to defeat law enforcement efforts to identify the proceeds of crimes.

His comments will increase pressure on the major parties to commit to introducing long-stalled anti-money laundering laws – known as ‘‘Tranche 2 reforms’’ – that place far greater obligations on lawyers, accountants and real estate agents to report suspected money laundering.

The changes have been backed by almost every policing agency in the country.

Smith also savaged the state of NSW’s proceeds of crime and money laundering laws, describing them as ‘‘wonky’’, ‘‘old’’ and easily defeated by organised crime.

Smith said other jurisdictions, including Western Australia, had far more effective laws that shifted the onus onto suspects to explain the origins of unexplained wealth. ‘‘We just need to put the balance back in the [legislative] weaponry, so that these drugs pay for the damage they do,’’ he said.

Smith described how policing agencies had identified poker machines and venues as having been used to launder drug money. The assistant commissioner said the pokies floor at The Star casino in Sydney had hosted a money laundering syndicate but also warned that NSW clubs ‘‘are either turning a blind eye, or being utilised to launder large sums of money’’.

‘‘We don’t want a club industry and pub industry following the same stupid operational model’’ as those businesses already infiltrated by bikies and organised crime, Smith warned. But he said NSW ‘‘hasn’t got the weaponry’’ in terms of laws or regulators to fight money laundering in pubs, clubs and casinos.

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Australian Human Rights Commission Defunded and stacked by Morrison.

23 April 2022

“The Australian Human Rights Commission, who investigate matters of discrimination, have just lost their international A- minus rating due to massive funding cuts and the LNP appointing three people as Commissioners who are unqualified!

Here is an extract of the April 2022 newsletter from the AHRC president:

“A key issue we have been navigating recently has been the re-accreditation review of the Commission by the international accrediting committee of the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions – the international standards body. ��The accreditation reviews are a peer review process conducted every five years. The review considers whether a national human rights institution (NHRI) continues to meet the criteria for independent status set out in the UN Principles on National Institutions. ��If an NHRI meets these criteria it is accorded ‘A status’, which provides crucial standing in various international fora — particularly the reviews of compliance against each of the key international human rights treaties. ��The question asked in an accreditation is whether the NHRI under review operates with the necessary level of institutional independence to ensure the effective promotion and protection of human rights. It is an assessment of government action and the legislative and policy environment for the operation of the NHRI, as well as the advocacy of the NHRI itself as an independent body to seek change. ��The Commission faced three possible outcomes through this review: reaccreditation as an A-status institution; downgrade to a B-status institution; or deferral of reaccreditation for a period of time for serious matters of compliance to be addressed. ��The Commission was not reaccredited as an A-status national human rights institution. Its reaccreditation was deferred. ��The key concern of the Committee that led to the deferral was the selection and appointment process for Commissioners. This latest report reflects feedback from the Committee over a 10-year period about Australia’s appointment processes, with three appointments in this timeframe not meeting the accreditation requirements. ��The Commission has advocated consistently for open, merit-based, appointments of Commissioners and that the expectations against the international standards of independence for NHRIS are set higher than the Government’s Merit and Transparency Guidelines. ��With respect to the two Commissioners who have been appointed during my period in office otherwise than through an open process, we have sought to support them strongly in their work as independent officeholders.��Please see below for the Commission’s statement about the decision and its implications.

With my very best wishes,

Rosalind

Emeritus Professor Rosalind Croucher AM�President”

An accepted claim now has a waitlist of at least six months before they can begin to investigate your complaint.

I had missed an earlier article about their funding in The Guardian of 17/3/22

www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/17/australian-human-rights-commission-to-slash-staff-after-budget-cuts-and-surge-in-workload

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Stacked Tribunals- the Liberals’  legacy

10 April 2022

There is an election on May 21.  The Liberals are likely to be decimated.  So what is their response?  To stack mates into as many tribunals as possible.

The Fair Work Commission has been totally underfunded by the Liberals, as with the deliberate demise of the Unions it was the only hope for some sort of wage justice and an unsuccessful enforcer against wages theft. Obviously if Labor comes in, it is likely to boost its resources and appoint more judges. So what do the Libs do at 5 seconds to midnight?  Appoint a resource industry human resources manager as Deputy Commissioner.

The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association CEO, Andrew McConville was made head of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.

A Josh Frydenberg minder has been made a commissioner in the Productivity Commission.

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal has become immensely busy due to people having to appeal for NDIS resource allocation decisions and in the absence of resources, its waiting times have blown out.  It was very involved in the early Robo-debt cases.  M Attorney-General Micaela cash has appointed 19 new appointments and extended 26 others. Six of the 19 were not in the ‘expression of interest’ register, so effectively they are Liberal recruits.

There needs to be an impeccable neutral process for the appointment of judicial officers and members of significant QUANGOs. The abuse of office in appointments to the US Supreme Court are a major issue in terms of long appointments, dictating conservative policies for years. The Liberals seem to be taking a leaf from the US Republicans’ playbook. The question is whether Labor will fix the system, or just tit-for-tat put in their people when the time comes.

www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2022/04/09/coalition-stacking-liberals-across-the-boards/164942640013668

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Gun Manufacturer Remington Found Responsible for Sandy Hooks School Massacre

20 February 2022

For the first time ever, a gun manufacturer was found to be responsible for a massacre.

As everyone who is aware of US news knows, massacres are commonplace in the US, all carried out by guns being used exactly as they were designed to be used.  Oh yeah, but not used on those people…

Somehow the US gun manufacturers have had immunity from prosecution and the Sandy Hook legal team had to say that it was the irresponsible (and highly successful ) marketing that had caused the assault rifle to be used in the shooting.  So they got them for the marketing, not the product.

Given the political difficulties of doing anything about guns in the US political system, it is natural that people might turn to the legal system for some hope.  It is difficult, but not as hard to change as the political system.

I am reminded of the same debate in the tobacco war.  For years the tobacco industry gave money to the major parties in big amounts and the deal was something like, ‘Say what you like, but no restrictive legislation till after the next election, then the next, then the next etc’.  They denied knowing the health facts, but said that it was common knowledge that smoking was harmful. They had to not know so that they would not be liable, but everyone had to know because then the smokers were responsible for their own illnesses.  This was known as the ‘Tightrope policy’.  Of course they had done the research and knew very well, but hey, lies are common and part of many business models.

In 1983 a group in Northwest University in the US was trying to get enough money to run cases, because tobacco used exactly as intended was causing thousands of deaths every day.  The industry had been very keen to be forced to put ‘Smoking is a health hazard’ on the packs. This was because they could the say that the people who smoked had been warned and they were not responsible for the consequences of using their product.  They also wanted the government to tell them to put it there, so they could say that they did not know if tobacco caused cancer, but the government and health people thought so.  They fought every case, generally drawing it out so that the plaintiff either died or ran out of money or both.  When they were about to lose a lung cancer case in a librarian in Australia, they found out that she had had a child out of wedlock 40 years before, and said that this would be released if she did not stop the case.  Such was the shame of that fact that his person, weakened by cancer, withdrew her case and died.  Ruthless.

The US believed tobacco campaigners believed that their victory would come in the courts, not the parliaments, and this was true.  In Australia it was  a bit different as BUGA UP targeted the tobacco industry and made them such pariahs that they were politically weakened enough for advertising and sponsorship bans, plain paper packaging, rotating health warnings and eventually some-free indoor air.  The tobacco industry in Australia was relatively weaker than in the US, and the gun lobby is also, but it is very unwise to be complacent.

We in Australia need to be very vigilant to keep our gun laws strong, as the Shooters have expanded their base to become the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers and have capitalised  on the weakness of the Nationals to get lower house seats.  They have used balance of power situation in NSW quite astutely under Bob Carr and continuing.   John Tingle, The Shooters MP  in NSW got Carr to enact that to have a shooters licence in NSW, one had to belong to a shooting club and shoot at least once a year. The shooting Club could then keep an eye out for crazies.  But of course the shooting clubs got a subsidy to maintain their records and database, and this is ideal for organising fundraising and troops on election day.  Running a political party is a significant expense- only one group is subsidised, though it must be conceded that the shooting clubs and the Sporting Shooters Association (the lobby group) are not the same entity as the Shooter, Fishers and Farmers party.

We need to watch the US legal efforts, and be vigilant. And of course lessening social inequality and having a place in society for everyone with jobs, income and housing helps lessen the probability of alienation, anger and despair.

www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-16/sandy-hook-families-settle-with-gun-maker/100833782

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Djokovic goes to Gaol or exile while Hillsong goes Scott-Free.

16 January 2022


Today Novax Djokovic is in Court trying to stop Immigration Minister Alex Hawke deporting him before the Australian Open Tennis starts tomorrow. For those who don’t follow tennis and have been sleeping under a rock, he is the number one seed and if he wins, he will be the first player to win 21 Grand Slam tournaments and as such, the Greatest tennis player Of All Time (GOAT).


Last time he went to Court he won, because the issue was whether the government or Djokovic had done the wrong thing in the visa application process. He won with costs and the government was heavily criticised by the Court (not to mention the rest of the world).


This time is different. Minister Alex Hawke, a young ambitious religious Conservative right-wing numbers man has excluded him in that he is a danger to the population from an infectious point of view, and because he is known to be anti-vaxx and will give publicity to that view. The Court decision is totally stacked the Government’s way because it only has to decide whether the Minister has the power to do this, and the legislation is written so that he would have this power and the meddlesome courts could not interfere. So what is likely to happen is that the government’s position will be upheld, Djokovic will be deported and Australia’s appalling immigration policies will be seen for the arbitrary farce that they are- beyond the rule of law.


The fact that ATAGI (Aust. Technical Advisory Group on Immigration) said that previous infection within the last 6 months could be a reason for vaccination exemption, that Djokovic had had such an infection and that a blind medical panel said that he was safe to come has been ignored. (‘Blind’ in the sense that the panel did not know the name of the person whose file they were reviewing). The point is that he is very unlikely to infect anyone, not to mention the fact that the virus has already escaped and there are few preventive measures in place. Anyone in Australia can fly into Melbourne and go to the tennis with no tests of anything and case numbers of omicron set new records every day. Djokovic has not trumpeted his anti-vaxx views, though one could argue that these are already well known. There is a whole industry telling us what famous people do and think, and that was before the anti-vaxx lobby.


Djokovic is not as popular as the ever-smooth Federer or the rougher battler Nadal, but his public image seems that he is a nice guy, if occasionally misunderstood and pretty ruthless in his quest for the top. Darker mumblings about his unsportsmanlike use of injury rules and mind games have surfaced from a few columnists recently, and one might wonder why. But this is all irrelevant. The government is excluding him ostensibly because he is a risk of infection (absolutely minimal), or that he will stir anti-vaxx sentiment (where the controversy has already done more for the anti-vax cause than his winning of the Australian Open would ever have done).


The real reason is that this government wants to look tough on border control and quarantine, having made a complete mess of the COVID epidemic, with outbreaks due to ‘careless’ border policy, (were there Hillsong groups on the Ruby Princess?), lack of purchase of vaccine, poor management of aged care facilities, and now a ‘let ‘er rip’ policy supposedly to help the economy. Today’s Sun Herald front page announces that ‘71% want Djokovic sent home’. So some hairy-chested populism is the order of the day.


On page 6 of the same Sun Herald (see below) NSW Police decided not to fine Hillsong church after videos were seen of people singing and dancing at a Hunter Valley religious camp. NSW State Health Minister Brad Hazzard is quoted as saying that the singing and dancing ban does not apply to religious groups, though it does apply to recreation facilities, nightclubs etc. Presumably a religious recreation camp is OK, but a non-religious one is a big problem. The fact that the same article notes NSW had 48,768 new cases, 2,576 in hospital, 193 in ICU and 20 deaths yesterday presumably is also irrelevant.


Is it relevant that Scott Morrison and Alex Hawke are members of Hillsong and NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard is in the same Liberal party?

Craig Kelly has called Djokovic a ‘political prisoner’, and for once I agree with him.

If the Court agrees to deport Djokovic because the Minister said so and they cannot appeal it, it will show the world the arbitrariness of Australia’s immigration laws and the government may win a populist victory at the cost of further damage to our international reputation.

As a tennis follower who saw the US Open final, I am of the opinion that Medvedev will beat Djokovic in the tennis if they play, but it looks as though political stupidity has game, set and match.

Hillsong let off as NSW posts 48,768 new cases and 20 deaths
Sally Rawsthorne, Sun Herald, 16 January 2022
NSW has recorded 48,768 new COVID-19 cases and 20 deaths on the third day positive rapid antigen tests are included in the daily infection numbers.Of the new cases, 21,748 were self-reported from at-home tests and 27,020 were from PCR testing.There are 2576 people in hospital with the virus, of whom 193 are in intensive care units. Eleven men and nine women have died from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours.Yesterday, police confirmed they had decided not to issue a fine to Hillsong church for a camp in the Hunter Valley, after videos of attendees singing and dancing without masks sparked public outrage.‘‘NSW Police have attended an event in the Newcastle area and spoken with organisers. Following discussions with organisers and after consultation with NSW Health, no infringement will be issued,’’ said police in a statement.‘‘Event organisers are aware of their obligations under the Public Health Orders, and NSW Police will continue to ensure ongoing compliance.’’NSW’s Public Health Order prohibits singing and dancing at music festivals, hospitality venues, nightclubs, entertainment facilities and major recreation facilities.Health Minister Brad Hazzard said while the order does not apply to religious services, it does apply to major recreation facilities, which is defined as a ‘‘building or place used for large-scale sporting or recreation activities that are attended by large numbers of people, whether regularly or periodically’’.‘‘This event is clearly in breach of both the spirit and intent of the order, which is in place to help keep the community safe,’’ he said.Hillsong said the camp differed from music festivals and the organisation was committed to a COVID-safe plan.‘‘Our camps involve primarily outdoor recreational activities including sports and games. We follow strict COVID procedures and adhere to government guidelines,’’ it said.‘‘Outdoor Christian services are held during the camp but these are only a small part of the program.’’It said the video of attendees singing and dancing represented ‘‘only a small part of each service’’.Yesterday, the state government announced its rent regulation would be extended by another two months to March 2022. ‘‘Small business is the engine room of our economy and we need to make sure we support impacted businesses through this latest Omicron wave,’’ NSW Treasurer Matt Kean said. ‘‘With staff shortages and reduced foot traffic, many businesses are struggling at the moment but the ability to negotiate rent will give them a buffer so they can keep the lights on now and recover more quickly.’’Business tenants can access rent relief if they have an annual turnover of less than $5 million. Rent relief has the same eligibility criteria as the discontinued JobSaver and Micro-business Grant programs.It comes as almost 1000 NSW Health workers have resigned or been sacked after refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19, placing further pressure on the hospital system that has seen coronavirus patient admissions almost triple within a fortnight. As hospitals and general practices are overwhelmed with surging cases and almost 6000 healthcare workers are isolated across NSW due to COVID-19 exposure, the state’s health department on Friday confirmed 995 of its 170,000-strong workforce had resigned or been stood down after refusing the vaccine.

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Kerry O’Brien Speaks for Julian Assange

24 December 2021

Kerry O’Brien, who was for a long time host of ABC’s 7.30 Report took the opportunity at the Walkley Awards on 29 November to call for Julian Assange to be released. Hear what he said on the link below.

It seems to me that as an Australia, not living in the USA, Julian Assange was in no way subject to their laws, but it seems the US wants to charge him under their laws, then demand that countries with extradition treaties simply hand him over, effectively making their laws world laws.  This might be OK for most murders and frauds etc, but for political crimes, it is a different matter.

Another significant fact that is deliberately overlooked is that Assange was not the first to release all the Wikileaks information.  He had spent a lot of time with major media journalists and they had their front pages ready to roll.  He was advised that if he released the information, he could be solely liable and they would merely be republishing material that was already public.  So he delayed his release. The major media called him and demanded that he release the material, but he did not. They could not stop their front pages, so put it out before he did.  They may accuse him of bad faith by not taking all the risk himself, but technically in a legal sense, these huge outlets did it before he did.  And the US government, rather than target the major media who actually did it before he did, have given them impunity and are targeting Assange only.  The lack of support from the major media is perhaps because they could be targeted; presumably that is the US government’s message, ‘See what happens to him- you would not like it to happen to you’.

Our government has no commitment to freedom of the press, and simply manipulates the media as much as it can, that is no news to anyone. Assange must be freed.  We can only hope that Labor gets the courage to do something if they are elected.  Don’t hold your breath.

www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-28/kerry-obrien-press-freedom-walkley-awards-julian-assange/11748198

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