By Michael Griffin
The Turnbull Government claims, on the Department of Human Services website, that the cashless welfare card programme is:
an effective tool for supporting disadvantaged communities to reduce the consumption and effects of drugs, alcohol and gambling that impact on the health and wellbeing of communities, families and children.
Rarely can such rank hypocrisy and idiocy be seen in a government as that exhibited by Turnbull and his moronic LNP colleagues. Do they take the Australian people they purport to represent as complete morons? If so, they are surely mistaken because this little black duck is just one that is not convinced one little bit by their incompetent and corrupt nonsense.
The blatant stupidity and ideologically driven policies of the group of absolutely corrupt neo-fascist cretins who currently run my unfortunate country can nowhere be more evident than in the fact that the corporation to whom the contracts to manage and operate the cashless welfare card, with its purported philanthropic anti-gambling purpose, Indue, is now majority owned by a Hong Kong corporation, Stargroup, that has direct interests in and commercial dealings in, you guessed it, the very thing the welfare card program seeks to eradicate – gambling and casinos! What an astonishing fact! Such blatant stupidity and rank hypocrisy is almost unbelievable yet it is entirely true. Such a circumstance can only eventuate by carelessness and incompetence at a Ministerial level where the responsible minister has failed to do proper appraisals when awarding a lucrative government contract or by corruption arising from turning a blind eye to the obvious facts in the interest of obtaining a political donation from the company awarded the contract and the accompanying generous public funds as administrative fees.
The question is how can a government discourage gambling by rewarding an organisation that profits from it with lucrative contracts involving vast amounts of public funds? This is absurdity at its very highest!
On a visit to the Stargroup website one can read several updates of Stargroup’s purchase of Indue. The update to the purchase of Indue on the Stargroup website dated 11 April 2017 is an official Stargroup report to the Australian Stock Exchange and states the following:
Financial Technology and ATM machine company Stargroup Limited (ASX: STL) wishes to advise it and its wholly owned subsidiary, StarLink Pty Ltd, have made the part payment of $2,600,000 to Indue Limited in relation to the acquisition of its Automatic Teller Machine (“ATM”) switching, settlement, processing, telecommunications and reseller business which was required to be made on or before 14 April 2017.
In other words, Stargroup has purchased most of Indue and its business assets and will acquire the rest of Indue soon.
On the same website one can also read Stargroup’s annual report for 2016 which, at page 13, states the following:
Casino and Gaming Market – The Company will further benefit from the product development and growth within the casino gaming related products such as cash redemption terminals and gaming table automatic settlement products for the Australian market off the back of the NeoICP developments in Macau and other Asian casino gaming markets which were successfully rolled out by NeoICP in the 2016 financial year.
‘NeoICP’ is a Stargroup subsidiary in Asia – that is disclosed further in the same stock market update. The point is, Stargroup already has gambling interests in Asia and intends to also get into gambling in Australia very soon.
Astonishing as it may seem, Stargroup, the soon to be sole owner of Indue – to whom the ‘boy wonders’ of the LNP Tudge and Porter awarded the contracts for the management of the anti-gambling welfare card – derives its revenue from, and intends to extend its interests in, the very thing the welfare card is purportedly designed to discourage – gambling! Such ridiculous hypocrisy makes the mind boggle!
Why is it acceptable that the rich can gamble in luxurious resort casinos in Asia while pensioners and welfare recipients in Australia cannot even enjoy a flutter on the Melbourne Cup? What’s the difference I ask? Is it not defeating the purpose of the welfare card program to condone gambling for one group but condemn it for another? Is this not rank hypocrisy or is it just plain stupidity and incompetence? Either of these are sufficient to warrant dismissal of the morons responsible.
Furthermore, prudent economic management would require that the risks posed to public funds by the welfare card contractual arrangements with Indue (aka Stargroup) are to be avoided. All government contracts with Indue should be cancelled forthwith! More than four billion dollars of public money could be at risk if the welfare card is extended to all welfare recipients. That does not include the welfare entitlements of Australian citizens that Stargroup via Indue will ‘manage’. That is $4 billion plus that could be used for the proper public purposes of health, education, training or debt repayment that would benefit all Australians and not on rewarding and lining the pockets of multinational corporate players with interests in gambling and that have a vested interest in the furtherance of gambling and with exposure to the risks inherent in gambling enterprises.
Alan Tudge and Christian Porter are the ministers responsible for this ludicrous incompetent and deceptive stuff-up and have put public funds at risk by exposing them to an organisation up to its knees in the criminal infested Asian gambling market and with the associated risks that accompany gambling ‘enterprises’.
The ludicrous facts of this outstanding incompetence do not require any embellishment or enhancement by the techniques used in fake news or in the master works of comedic fiction for the astounding stupidity and hypocrisy behind it to be any more apparent than they already are and there is only one solution for it. TUDGE & PORTER MUST GO and the Turnbull Government must be sacked forthwith! How much more incompetent mismanagement and deception must the Australian people tolerate before the comedian of Kirribilli acts, resigns or is sacked?
Michael Griffin © 2017
