By Bob Rafto
Follow the money on Flight MH370
There’s hardly a week that goes that doesn’t have some human drama of folks in distress reported on your favourite media.
The government, along with our dedicated rescue personnel and volunteers pull out all stops to locate and rescue these distressed folks, but in some circumstances there comes a point when the search becomes futile and is abandoned.
In the case of Malaysian Airlines MH370 that went missing on 8 March 2014, Australia has been searching for it for over two years, however the search will be ceasing in a few months time.
The search area is 120,000 square kilometres and the contract for the search went to a Dutch company called Fugro which has three vessels undertaking a comprehensive survey of the ocean floor.
The cost of this oceanic survey was $76 million over 12 months ago and it will peak to well in excess of $100 Million on completion.
What time frame would one suggest that the search for MH370 should have been abandoned? I would though about a month would have more than sufficed.
I’m sure I’m not the only one with this burning question, “why did Abbott insist on using tax payers money on a futile search?”
About a week ago I received two emails with links to the following articles:
Bribery allegations against Australia’s $50 billion submarine contract winner
Australian Senate corruption inquiry investigating $50 Billion Submarine contract winner
The first article was the entree to solving my burning question and in the second article (third paragraph) there is a link titled ‘tipped off‘ which leads one to the AuntyPru website where upon reading I came across a comment that the search vessels for MH370 was conducting surveys of the ocean floors and asked who is going to benefit from this massive survey.
If one goes to the Fugro website they boast that they are experts in Oil and Gas exploration.
So is this the answer to my burning question:
That the Abbott (now Turnbull) government, under the pretext of giving closure to bereaved families is actually using taxpayers money to search for oil and gas on behalf of the miners?
I like your thinking re bribery but I don’t let my conspiracy thinking get away from me these days otherwise I would want to be heading for the hills to become a ‘prepper’. Alas you may be right but I, from the outset, thought along the lines of the government wanting to finally survey the regions beyond the west coast of Australia for naval reasons, specifically for submarine operations, as this region has always been an unknown and using the guise of doing the right thing by people in distress makes for an easy sell to the Australian public. A conspiracy theory is plausible thou because nothing moves on the earth’s surface without various spy/satellite/agencies knowing what is going on and maybe they know where it is and they will magically find said plane in the last week of operations. We will see won’t we.
nothing abbott advocated for, argued for, or supported in any way ever has had any semblance of actually being in the public good. Everything he has done has been to somehow support big business, corporations or just himself. I dare anyone to name one thing he did which indicates otherwise. Turnbull isnt any more honest either, and is basically just more adept and financially successful at bullshitting and stepping on heads then abbott.
armakone,
For me the first principle in examining the potential validity of a conspiracy theory is to ask the question; ‘is there a clear benefit to be gained in terms of financial profit or power?’.
On this, yes, Fugro, who ‘operate around the globe, predominantly in the energy and infrastructure markets, both offshore and onshore’, there is a clear secondary benefit to be gained through the extensive undersea exploration and mapping that they are conducting whilst being paid to look for that long-drowned aircraft.
I’m almost surprised Fran hasn’t come up with another fake eye witness doctor and blamed al-Assad or the Russians
You all make valid points
Confidence must be propped up in aeroplane travel it already has a lot going against it with terrorism threats.
I don’t think so. I know someone who is working with the company doing the work, and don’t get the impression that there is anything more sinister going on than they are being tasked to do something that has been paid for, and they really want to get a positive result.
But why Abbott did it in the first place? I think you’d probably need to look at what he was trying to distract us from at the time. Bloody expensive these distractions, but that’s the LNP.
I’m definitely not one for conspiracy theories, but this one definitely has a more than a modest amount of plausibility about it.
Although, I wouldn’t have thought Abbott smart enough to consider something that elaborate, but there are some clever conniving bastards in their party who would have seized upon the opportunity to get the taxpayer to pay for two years worth of details oil and gas exploration and surveying.
I’ll bet they laughed and laughed when they came-up with that idea.
It has cost Australia millions of dollars that could have been spent on health and schools. What a stupid decision.
One can hope records are kept of the surveyed area that can be used for other scientific endeavours.
I’m with you Florence née Fedup….however if the data is used for commercial purposes and big business again benefits from tax payers I will be angry.
Now look here people before you go off thinking that Mr Abbott would do anything so underhand, lying and dishonest. Consider another theory: he might have had a good idea that there are oil and gas reserves in the Indian Ocean, but it is outside australia’s territory and since we couldn’t steal it like we did with East Timor, he came up with a brilliant idea. One which would leave a financial dividend for all australians. He’d have them do all this searching and mapping, much of it in an area where the plane is unlikely to have come down. Find the mineral treasures he was hunting for , then sell the information to the highest bidder. This would be worth billions which would save the deficit and make tony a national treasure (they might have him after he tries to oust poor malcolm turnscum from the leadership post erection).Or a dishonest, moronic cxxxx. I’m willing to take bets on either proposition!
It’s true, another thing that this data could be used for is geological research. It’s not a black and white world, it’s full colour.