By guest columnist Tess Lawrence

Readers know that our guest columnist Tess Lawrence has the naughty habit of calling a spade a pickaxe, especially when excavating the toxic sewers of politics and bodily wastes left in the wake of certain politicians, in this case the erstwhile Attorney-General, Christian Porter who fancied himself a future prime minister.

Alas for him, and thankfully for us, the universe thought better of it.

Mr Very Ordinary Porter, devoid of the honorific ‘Honourable’ is now doing what so many ex-politicians do once they’ve nuanced their bloating pensions. What would that be you may ask? Why, using insider knowledge gained whilst AG to his greater benefit of course! Ergo, representing a notorious sanctioned Russian oligarch in Australian courts.

You wouldn’t read about it. And yet you shall. In this deep, deep dive series, Lawrence can’t help but wonder if it was the Ruski oligarch who poured those secret monies into the coffers of poligarch Porter’s blind trust to pay legal costs arising from his bungling attempt to sue the ABC for Defamation.

Read on, but only if you have the stomach for rancid nether regions of the body politic.

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He may have skulked off the political stage, exit hard right. But there is unfinished business with this dude.

Who is Christian Porter’s Sugar Daddy-Or Sugar Mama?

Who was it who may have poured tens of thousands of rubles, bitcoin, Perth Mint gold bullion, baubles, bangles, bright shiny beads, jinga-linga, rupees, yuan, riyals, dollars, ooshies or whatever, into Mr Porter’s notorious ‘blind trust’ for legal costs sustained in his very public private defamation action against the ABC?

Maybe it was Satoshi Nakamoto and if it was, does that mean millions of bitcoin poured in? How would we of The Great Unwashed know? The thing about Porter’s blind trust is that justice is sometimes blind and Porter has proved he can’t be trusted.

Porter’s donor(s) dirty little secret invites speculation

If we are denied truth and transparency we are not only invited to speculate but as responsible citizens, should also agitate for the truth until Porter the Christian and those key actors of the former Scott Morrison Coalition government including Opposition leader Peter Dutton, are held accountable and the identity of the donor(s) exposed.

Silence makes us inadvertent collaborators in what, by implication, is being kept a dirty, little secret from we who ultimately pay the wages of politicians.

Maybe there was enough moolah left in the BT coffers to also pay for Porter’s failed appeal in the Federal Court against the dismissal of his high profile lawyer Sue Chrysanthou after legal action brought against him by high profile producer, former Independent candidate and whistleblower, Jo Dyer.

Jo Dyer loyal to Porter’s alleged rape victim who suicided

Importantly, Dyer remains a loyal advocate for a woman who took her own life; a woman who alleged that Porter raped her when they were both teenagers.

There’s this from an article, Court reveals dossier of alleged rape by Christian Porter by Max Mason in the Financial Review on June 25^th, 2021:

“… Ms Dyer alleged a conflict of interest and potential use of confidential information after Ms Chrysanthou took part in a meeting in November last year with her and others, including defamation barrister Matthew Richardson and Mr Hooke.

… Ms Chrysanthou gave free advice to Ms Dyer on November 20 last year, and again on January 27 and 28 this year. The advice was in relation to an article published in The Australian after Ms Dyer appeared on Four Corners in November.

… The rape allegation against Mr Porter was not aired in this program…”

To be clear, Porter has always professed innocence of rape allegation

These much publicised legal cases were humiliating own goals for Porter. Bit of a shabby look innit for a then Attorney-General and wannabe prime minister?

But hey, these fails didn’t bother Oleg the Oligarch, Deripaska. When you’re taking on the Australian Government, who better to hire than a former federal AG; an insider and Morrison intimate who still keeps cabinet secrets hostage in his wallet? The ‘former politician’ labour hire industry is booming.

So what if Deripaska gave Porter the dosh?

But so what if Deripaska donated that money to Porter? It was always a matter of time before Porter would scurry from politics, despite earlier denials that he’d quit. Porter was already mostly self-inflicted damaged goods.

But what if that money was a sort of ‘down payment’ in exchange for favours ? What if an agreement was struck well before Porter quit, that he would represent Deripaska against the Australian Government and its laws? Only speculating. Only wot-iffing. We cannot say one way or t’other.

When did Deripaska and Porter first come into contact?

When did Deripaska and Porter first come into contact with each other; when Porter was Attorney-General? This matters.

Former Foreign Minister Payne sanctions Russian oligarchs

On March 14 last year, Payne issued a press release about new sanctions against Russian oligarchs, immediate family members and businesspeople, naming the likes of Roman Abramovich who, at the time still owned Chelsea Football Club before he was forced to relinquish ownership after 19 years of propriety in May, 2022 and Gazprom’s Alexey Miller, whose energy organisation, according to the Ukrainian government, is said to be forming its own private militia. Move over, Wagner.

But no mention of gazillionaire Oleg Deripaska. Really?

I couldn’t help but notice there was no mention by Payne of Deripaska. Why not? At various times cited to be Russia’s wealthiest oligarch and a definite Putin bestie and beastie (apols to beasties) elsewhere, he was a walloping big fish caught in an international haul of lesser big fish.

Oleg giving a despondent Vladimir advice. Photo credit: Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters

Deripaska, the founder of Rusal, is an aluminium/metals/utilities behemoth and apparent gazillionaire. Like other kleptocrats he cannibalized Russia’s state assets privatised after the dissolution of the Soviet Union on Christmas Day, 1991.

Deripaska swapped hammer, sickle with Lafite and carnivorous capitalism

For Deripaska, now a Cypriot as well as Russian citizen, the hammer and sickle was replaced by the likes of Chateau Lafite and carnivorous capitalism.

A renowned luxury glutton, one of his associates described him to me as:

“… generous to his friends and genial company.”

“Tess, you journalists are quick to criticize. I am not saying Oleg is a saint, but he is not a big sinner either.”

Deripaska a serial Houdini, sanctionee

Deripaska is a serial sanctionee. He’s also a perennial Houdini, always plotting and scheming to extricate himself from sanction bondage, covertly and overtly, invariably with the help of ‘friends’ in high, low and subterranean places.

Unlike the quieter Miller, Deripaska is a noisy celebrity global player and headline magnet. Moreover, he’d already had sanctions slapped on him by the UK, USA and other countries.

US Prof Steven Hamilton tweets Payne’s sin of Debraska omission

Others noted Payne’s omission of Deripaska’s name, among them, George Washington University assistant professor of Economics, Steven Hamilton, who also happens to be a Visiting Fellow at the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute of the Australian National University. Hamilton rightly called out we journalists:

Four days later Payne issued yet another press statement about sanctions and oligarchs, this time naming and shaming Deripaska among other newcomers including banks, to our Russia sanctions list.

Payne, you recall, was enslaven to Morrison’s warped dictatorial one-mannish government and she was regarded as more a follower than a leader according to some who worked close by.

Why was Deripaska initially dropped from Oz sanctions list?

She was no doubt ‘outed’ by Granny England’s press release on March 10, that the ‘big two’ Abramovich and Deripaska were among seven oligarchs targeted in an estimated 15billion pounds “sanction hit.” Took a while for the ruble to drop.

In other words, she had no choice but to finger Deripaska.

It ain’t the international sequencing of sanctions that’s the main issue here but rather the fact that Deripaska was not initially named. Why was that? Had someone got into Payne’s ear? If so, who was that someone? Was it Porter? We don’t know.

Did delay buy time for Deripaska to secure Oz investments?

Did Rio Tinto give Porter the money?

Was the delay in citing Deripaska deliberate, giving the kleptocrat a chance to buy time, to implement strategies to further secure his investments in Oz? Where was Porter when all of this was going on? Did Deripasja’s business comrades in Rio Tinto exert any influence?

We don’t know. Show us the blind trust money Christian Porter. How much did you get and who or what entity gave it to you? Was it a loan? Was it a gift? You have to prove to us that no favors were asked and no favours were granted.

Or Rupert Murdoch a la Kerry Stokes?

The gross misconduct of the Morrison Coalition warrants a light shone into Porter’s blind trust legal costs deposit(s). We would be fools to accept the word of a politician without the provision of evidence.

Was Porter’s benefactor Rupert Murdoch doing a Kerry Stokes a la Ben Roberts-Smith? Or Twiggy deForrest? Or is it Clive Palmer?

One minute Palmer hires Porter in a $300 billion lawsuit against Australia. Next minute he drops him. What’s that all about? Conflict of interest? Did Palmer give that blind trust money to Porter, and then expected Porter to represent him for peanuts? We don’t know.

ACCR warns Oz business about Russian oligarchs, Putin cronies

In February 2022, The Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility​ (ACCR) issued a press release calling for Australian companies to immediately review their relationships with companies linked to oligarchs within Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.

Deripaska, Vekselberg joined at hip pocket with Rio Tinto

And wouldn’t you know it, Deripaska and Vekselberg are joined at the hip pocket with the world champion dynamiters of sacred sites, Rio Tinto; red river in name and red river in shame.

The fossil fuel behemoth committed a brutal act of corporate carnage and spiritual abuse when it blasted its desecrating way into a sacred cave in the Juukan Gorge in the Hamersley Range in WA’s Pilbara region on May 24, 2020; facetiously and disingenuously claiming its legal right to do so under a 2013 permission.

Juukan Gorge: Rio Tinto blasts into the very womb of Australia’s ancient soul

Rio Tinto may as well have blasted its way into the very womb of Australia’s ancient soul and time itself, given the familial lineage of the cave to the First Nations Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (Binigura) peoples.

The third anniversary of this corporate massacre has come and gone and many of us continue to grieve alongside the traditional owners at this calumny that can never be undone.

Is it possible Deripaska had some knowledge, even input into the Juukan blasting?

Yes.

We are the beneficiaries of ACCR’s deep dive into Rio Tinto and its entanglements with Russian kleptokrats, especially Deripaska and Vekselberg.

Have a squizzy at their hard work:

• Queensland Alumina Ltd is a joint venture between Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) (80%) and Rusal International PJSC (20%).
  • Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska owns approximately 44.5% of En+ Group International PJSC which in turn owns 56.9% of Rusal International PJSC.
  • Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg owns approximately 32.3% of Rusal International PJSC through subsidiary companies SUAL Partners Ltd (21.6%) and Zonoville Investments Ltd (10.7%).

Dan Gosher, ACCR’s Director, of Climate and Environment, was categoric:

“The world has spoken, and the strategy now is to isolate Russia completely. UK-listed petroleum giant BP has announced the sale of its stake in Russian oil company Rosneft, for example. Australian companies must fall in line with this strategy.

“Origin and Rio Tinto’s ongoing cooperation with oligarch-owned companies legitimises Putin’s regime.

“Furthermore, some of the profits from Australian alumina and oil and gas projects will end up in the hands of the people responsible for propping up Putin’s murderous regime.

“The federal government must also ensure that the Origin-Falcon joint venture has not or will not receive any government grants. Grants relating to the ‘gas-fired recovery’ are of particular concern.”

Here’s more forensic analyses from ACCR for those of us concerned about the lack of ethical corporate hygiene in our politics and multinational corporations. Porter’s client seems to have a bottomless supply of moolah and murky carpet baggery:

Top five shareholders in Rusal International PJSC as at 25 February 2022:

On March 10, 2022, Gosher made another statement welcoming Rio Tinto’s and Worley’s confirmation that they were severing their ties with Russia.

“We welcome the announcements from Rio Tinto and Worley today to ‘terminate commercial relationships’ and ‘withdrawal of services in and into Russia’, respectively.

“We look forward to seeing more detail about the implications for Rio Tinto’s Queensland Alumina joint venture.

“Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, all Australian companies should sever relationships with companies owned or part owned by oligarchs aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

Rape of Juukan Gorge implicates Derispaska as well as Rio Tinto

Rio Tinto’s destruction of a spiritual site within the earth’s craggy skin was a knowing act of sacrilege and blasphemy from those who understand only the language of money, the lingua franca of the stock exchange. There is little empathy for those things measured on the index of humanity, all things flesh and blood and the anima mundi in all its dialects.

The corporate and ecological rape of Juukan is unfinished business for Deripaska and his barrister, Christian Porter and the gangsta miners, Rio Tinto. It is unfinished business for Australia: the world.

Rio Tinto’s corporate colonization is well known

Rio Tinto’s record of corporate colonization is well known. Consider the fact that the blowing up of Juukan took place on the sabbath, a holy day for some but a traditionally slow day for newsrooms around the nation, with fewer staff rostered, on duty; not an easy day to scramble and get to Juukan Gorge in a hurry or phone for an uber to cover the story on the ground, notwithstanding the modern accoutrements of drone cameras.

The destruction was a slyly crafted Special Op affair and I am told by an insider that few people other than a small team knew what was going to happen that day. Another insider said that even now, some employees feel ashamed and aggrieved about what Rio Tinto’s senior executives did and remain angry with the discredit and shame they brought to ‘their’ organisation. “So do some of their family members and their mates,” he said. “It was a low act. No getting away from it.”

Low act by Rio Tinto

It was indeed a low act amongst an international charge sheet of low acts by Rio Tinto.

This destructive act was rightly compared with the Taliban’s 2001 pulverising of Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Buddhas with rocket launches, tanks and machine guns.

You might think that Rio Tinto learned a salutary lesson from this spiritual and ecological scandal, but no, they’re still up to their dirty tricks.

Rio Tinto still into dirty tricks – check out crime and corruption project

In March this year the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project’s Daniel Balint-Kurti, a former head of Global Witness, outed a matter concerning Rio Tinto and the former President of Guinea, the aptly named Alpha Conde.’

Here’s a couple of excerpts:

“The Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto agreed to pay a US$15 million penalty to settle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) the accusation that it had paid $10.5 million to a friend of former Guinean President Alpha Condé to retain globally important iron ore rights.

…The settlement agreement with the U.S. stock exchange regulator said that in 2011, Rio hired a “close friend of a former senior Guinean government official” to help it keep hold of blocks 3 and 4 of the Simandou mountain range, considered to hold some of the world’s largest iron ore reserves.

… The SEC found that the consultant in the middle of the scandal paid $200,000 to buy T-shirts for Condé’s re-election campaign, soon after receiving his first payment from Rio Tinto.

… While the settlement anonymises individuals connected to the bribery, leaked emails reveal that the unnamed “senior government official” is President Condé, and the anonymous “French investment banker” is François Polge de Combret, a friend of Condé from his student days in Paris.

The settlement includes quotes from these emails, which were published in the press seven years ago without Combret’s name and references to “the President.” Condé has denied any knowledge of the payments.

After becoming Guinea’s first democratically elected president since independence in 2010, Condé promised to fight corruption and launched a review of mining contracts, leading Rio Tinto to fear losing its remaining blocks. The company paid $7.5 million into de Combret’s Swiss bank account in July 2011, and a further $3 million in February 2016 as a reward for his influence in allowing the company to keep the licenses.

Rio Tinto also paid $700 million to the Guinean Treasury, under a publicly announced agreement in April 2011, formalizing its continued control over blocks 3 and 4.”

Again, is it possible that Rio Tinto is Porter’s mystery donor? Of course it is. And we must remember that Rio Tinto and Deripaska are in business together. They both have serious form. There’s more.

Take Deripska’s legal Rio Tinto stoush with a grain of basalt

There have since been a succession of legal stoushes between Derispaska and Rio Tinto. We have to take them with a grain of basalt in Rio Tinto’s case. It may be a charade all for show, to prove the multinational is indeed disassociating itself from Deripaska as promised.

US salacious bombshell about Deripaska

On September 29 last year, the United States Justice Department’s Office of Public Affairs released a salacious bombshell headline that screamed:

Russian Oligarch Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska and Associates Indicted for Sanctions Evasion and Obstruction of Justice

U.S. Citizen Arrested for Her Role in Facilitating Illicit Travel by Deripaska’s Girlfriend and in Real Estate Transactions

* AIM Network is publishing this official document in full below to reveal the extent of the serious US allegations against Deripaska and the alleged extraordinary lengths he will pursue to avoid sanctions, including allegations that his girlfriend Veronina, pregnant with his baby went to the States to have the baby and accrue US benefits and status. Note the US DOJ public affairs gives extensive reasons and evidence. We don’t.

The Press Release continues:

The Justice Department announced today the unsealing of an indictment charging a U.S. citizen and three citizens of the Russian Federation with violating new U.S. sanctions imposed earlier this year in response to Russia’s unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine.

According to court documents, Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska, aka Oleg Mukhamedshin, 52; and Natalia Mikhaylovna Bardakova, aka Natalya Mikhaylovna Bardakova, 45, both citizens of the Russian Federation (Russia), and Olga Shriki, 42, a New Jersey resident and naturalized U.S. citizen, are charged with conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions imposed on Deripaska and one of Deripaska’s corporate entities, Basic Element Limited (Basic Element). Shriki is further charged with obstruction of justice based on her alleged deletion of electronic records relating to her participation in Deripaska’s sanctions evasion scheme following receipt of a grand jury subpoena requiring the production of those records. Bardakova is charged with one count with making false statements to agents of the FBI. Additionally, Ekaterina Olegovna Voronina, aka Ekaterina Lobanova, 33, is charged with making false statements to agents of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security at the time of Voronina’s attempted entry into the United States for the purpose of giving birth to Deripaska’s child. Shriki was arrested this morning.

“In the wake of Russia’s unjust and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, I promised the American people that the Justice Department would work to hold accountable those who break our laws and threaten our national security. Today’s charges demonstrate we are keeping that promise,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The Justice Department will not stop working to identify, find, and bring to justice those who evade U.S. sanctions in order to enable the Russian regime.”

“As today’s charges reveal, while serving the Russian state and energy sector, Oleg Deripaska sought to circumvent U.S. sanctions through lies and deceit to cash in on and benefit from the American way of life,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco. “But shell companies and webs of lies will not shield Deripaska and his cronies from American law enforcement, nor will they protect others who support the Putin regime. The Department of Justice remains dedicated to the global fight against those who aid and abet the Russian war machine.”

According to court documents, Deripaska, the owner and controller of Basic Element, a private investment and management company for Deripaska’s various business interests, was subjected to economic sanctions on April 6, 2018. On that day, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Deripaska as a Specially Designated National (SDN), in connection with its finding that the actions of the Government of the Russian Federation with respect to Ukraine constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States (the OFAC Sanctions). In designating Deripaska, OFAC explained that Deripaska was sanctioned for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, a senior official of the Government of the Russian Federation, as well as for operating in the energy sector of the Russian Federation economy.

“Today’s indictment reflects the FBI’s commitment to use all of the tools at our disposal to aggressively pursue those who attempt to evade the United States’ economic countermeasures against the Russian government,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “We will continue to aggressively prosecute those who violate measures imposed to protect the national security and foreign policy of the United States, especially in this time of Russia’s unprovoked aggression toward Ukraine.”

“The indictment unsealed today signals the United States’ ongoing support for the people of Ukraine in the face of continued Russian belligerence,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York. “The enforcement of sanctions is a vital tool wielded by this Office and our law enforcement partners as we seek to deter Russian aggression, and today’s indictment should be taken as a warning that, try as they might, individuals violating these sanctions will be held accountable.”

Following his designation by OFAC, Deripaska conspired with others to evade and to violate those sanctions in various ways and over the course of several years. Deripaska, through the corporate entity Gracetown Inc., illegally utilized the U.S. financial system to maintain and retain three luxury properties in the United States (the U.S. Properties), and further employed Olga Shriki and Natalia Mikhaylovna Bardakova to utilize U.S. financial institutions to provide hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of services for his benefit in the United States. For example, in or about 2019, Shriki facilitated for Deripaska’s benefit the sale of a music studio in California for over $3 million. Deripaska had owned the studio through a series of corporate shell companies that obscured his actual ownership. Following the sale of the studio, Shriki attempted to expatriate over $3 million in proceeds through one such shell company, Ocean Studios California LLC, to a Russia-based account belonging to another Deripaska company.

Bardakova – largely based in Russia – directed Shriki to engage in particular illegal transactions on Deripaska’s behalf. These instructions included directing Shriki to obtain U.S. goods and technology for Deripaska. Moreover, between in or about May 2018 and in or about 2020, Bardakova instructed Shriki to purchase and send flower and gift deliveries on behalf of Deripaska to Deripaska’s social contacts in the United States and Canada. The deliveries included, among others, Easter gift deliveries to a U.S. television host, two flower deliveries to a then-former Canadian Parliament member, and two flower deliveries in 2020 to Voronina while she was in the United States in 2020 to give birth to Deripaska’s child.

Then, in or about 2020, Shriki and Bardakova helped Deripaska’s girlfriend, Voronina, travel from Russia to the United States, so she could give birth to Deripaska’s and Voronina’s child in the United States. Despite Deripaska’s ongoing support for the Russian regime, he funded hundreds of thousands of dollars of transactions so that his child would take advantage of the U.S. health care system and U.S. birthright citizenship. Despite Deripaska’s ongoing support for the Russian regime, Deripaska distrusted the safety of the Russian hospital system. As alleged, Shriki orchestrated the payment of approximately $300,000 worth of U.S. medical care, housing, childcare, and other logistics to support Voronina to give birth in the United States, which resulted in the child receiving U.S. citizenship. As part of this scheme, Deripaska counseled Voronina on obtaining a U.S. visa, including by telling her to be “careful” ahead of an interview by U.S. immigration authorities. Voronina thereafter applied for and obtained a U.S. visa for a purported 10-day tourism visit without disclosing her intent to travel and stay in the United States for approximately six months to give birth to Deripaska’s child. Following the birth, Shriki, Bardakova, and Voronina conspired to conceal the name of the child’s true father, Deripaska, going so far as to change, slightly, the spelling of the child’s last name.

Later, in or about 2022, Shriki and Bardakova attempted to facilitate Voronina’s return to the United States to give birth to Deripaska’s and Voronina’s second child. This second attempt included Bardakova and Voronina’s attempt to use false statements to conceal Deripaska’s funding and secure Voronina’s entry into the United States – an attempt that was thwarted, and Voronina was denied entry and returned immediately to Istanbul, through which she had flown from Russia to the United States.

Deripaska, Bardakova and Shriki, are charged with one count of conspiring to violate and evade U.S. sanctions, in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Shriki is further charged in one count of destruction of records, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Bardakova and Voronina are each further charged with one count of making false statements to federal agents, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The indictment also provides notice of the United States’ intention to forfeit from Deripaska the proceeds of his offense, including the U.S. Properties and the proceeds from the sale of the music studio. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The FBI New York Field Office and Counterintelligence Division are investigating the case, with valuable assistance provided by the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department’s National Security Division, Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Anden Chow and Vladislav Vainberg are prosecuting the case.

The investigation was coordinated through the Justice Department’s Task Force KleptoCapture, an interagency law enforcement task force dedicated to enforcing the sweeping sanctions, export controls and economic countermeasures that the United States, along with its foreign allies and partners, has imposed in response to Russia’s unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine. Announced by the Attorney General on March 2 and run out of the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, the task force will continue to leverage all of the department’s tools and authorities to combat efforts to evade or undermine the collective actions taken by the U.S. government in response to Russian military aggression.

An indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

It’s time to act NOW, Albo

It is time for Albo to rectify the great wrong done to the Australian people not only by Porter but also the previous government. Parliament voted against Porter’s blind trust matter being examined by the privileges committee.

This from The Guardian’s Katharine Murphy:

“… Porter’s blind trust issue should have gone to the privileges committee.

No ifs, buts or maybes.

Nobody has anything to fear from the conventional deliberative processes of the parliament. This is no big deal. This is how the system is supposed to work.

An inquiry would have been entirely routine. After examining the facts, if the privileges committee was troubled by the blind trust precedent – and from my vantage point there are a bunch of reasons why it should be – then it could have set some boundaries.

But instead we had stonewalling. We had the sound of wagons being circled.

We had the appearance of the government sweeping something important under a rug…”

I share Murphy’s views on this and remind our Prime Minister that he has spoken against the Porter blind trust matter both in and outside of Parliament.

The then Speaker, Tony Smith agreed there was a “prima facie” case for the Porter matter to go to the privileges committee. In an unprecedented rebuff of a Speaker’s recommendation, the then Morrison government voted against the Labor motion referring the matter, and was narrowly defeated, 52 votes to 49.

There is much unfinished business in this squalid affair and it is now up to the Albanese government and this parliament to do the right thing and right this wrong.

It’s not just about the money, Albo. And you know it. We all know it. Get this sorted. Please.

DISCLAIMER: Once again, neither I nor AIM Network are imputing anyone of wrongdoing. In the face of deliberate government suppression to exact the true facts of Porter’s donors, we are all invited to speculate as to who or what they were.

Part Two: More Deripaska’s links, Cristian Porter, Bob Dole, Manafort, Kushner and others

© Tess Lawrence