Triumph over Dutton-style politics: A retrospective look

Of course, any election will have various reasons for why a particular…

Imperial Fruit: Bananas, Costs and Climate Change

The curved course of the ubiquitous banana has often been the peel…

The problems with a principled stand

In the past couple of weeks, the conservative parties have retained government…

Government approves Santos Barossa pipeline and sea dumping

The Australia Institute Media Release   Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s Department has approved a…

If The Jackboots Actually Fit …

By Jane Salmon   If The Jackboots Actually Fit … Why Does Labor Keep…

Distinctions Without Difference: The Security Council on Gaza…

The UN Security Council presents one of the great contradictions of power…

How the supermarkets lost their way in Oz

By Callen Sorensen Karklis   Many Australians are heard saying that they’re feeling the…

Purgatorial Torments: Assange and the UK High Court

What is it about British justice that has a certain rankness to…

«
»
Facebook

Where are the crooks?

By Ad astra

Ask Tony Abbott where the crooks are and he would repeat what he said when he set up the Royal Commission into Union Governance and Corruption: the crooks are clustered in the unions, particularly the construction unions, and most of all in the CFMEU. The last two words of the Commission’s title capture Abbott’s diagnosis. Unions are corrupt; the Commission’s task was to ascertain how corrupt.

Abbott contended that union officials were stand-over thugs who bullied and bribed construction firms to get what they wanted. He cited their behaviour as criminal, immoral, and reprehensible. No one is denying malfeasance in the union movement, yet there have been only 20 referrals from the Royal Commission, and so far no charge has been laid against any union official. Time will reveal how many crooks there really are.

Although Abbott has been ignominiously pushed into the background where no sensible person takes him seriously anymore, the diagnosis of corrupt behaviour in unions has been endorsed by his successor. Malcolm Turnbull has enlarged the extent of their ‘unlawful behaviour’ by asserting that it is a drag on productivity. He wants the Australian Building and Construction Commission reinstated in order to increase the productivity, competitiveness and profitability of the construction industry. He has added an economic twist to his pro-ABCC argument. If the ABCC bill is rejected again by the Senate, he will use that as a double dissolution election trigger.

The 2014 Productivity Commission report said that the evidence for aggregate productivity increases and cost savings was weak during the time of the ABCC. ACTU Secretary, Dave Oliver said: “Since the ABCC was abolished productivity has in fact increased and industrial disputes have decreased; the only thing that’s increased…is the incidence of workplace accidents, injuries and unfortunately fatalities as well.” But that has not inhibited Turnbull in pressing his economic case. After all, facts are irrelevant when making political points, especially at election time.

cfmu

Image from CFMEU

The point of this piece though is not to argue a contrary position on the ABCC, but to look around to check whether the crooks are confined to unions.

Where are the crooks?

Liberals need look no further than their own party. In recent days the Electoral Commission has refused to pay the Liberal party’s NSW branch more than $4.4m until the party reveals the secret donors who poured about $700,000 into its coffers before the 2011 state election. Now it happens that at the time Arthur Sinodinos (previously Chief of Staff to John Howard and now a Senator) was the party’s treasurer and finance director. He has indignantly denied any knowledge of the secret donors and the refusal to reveal them, has threatened to sool his lawyers onto the Commission, and has demanded a retraction of the statements that implicate him. The truth of the matter may emerge, but in the meantime Sinodinos is suspect, and is being pursued by Labor. As Tanya Plibersek said:“It beggars belief that the treasurer and finance director of the Liberal party of NSW didn’t know about an elaborate arrangement to channel hundreds of thousands of dollars of illegal donations to the Liberal party.” Many will agree with her.

Of course Sinodinos has form in amnesia. You will remember his lapses of memory when he faced the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiry to defend what he did to earn an alleged $200,000 salary from Australian Water Holdings after he left the public service. He seemed to be doing almost nothing to warrant that huge salary. The commission also heard that Sinodinos, a former AWH director and NSW Liberal Party treasurer, stood to make up to $20 million if AWH won a lucrative contract with the state-owned Sydney Water company. He denied any knowledge of donations from AWH to the Liberal Party although he was a key player in both. Even the ever-loyal Abbott was concerned enough to have him stand down from parliamentary duties temporarily. No charges have been laid regarding this matter, but suspicion remains in the minds of many who wonder how anyone so involved in both sides of a huge money transfer could not know about it.

Sinodinos comes across as a plausible fellow, so no one is calling him a crook. But how many more inexplicable lapses of memory will people tolerate before doubt about his integrity gives way to certainty about his lack of it?

Anyway, we know there are crooks in the Liberal Party. Former Victorian state director Damien Mantach embezzled $1.5 million of party funds and is now behind bars.

How many crooks does it take for the NSW state branch to accept large donations from banned donors, hide these donations from the Electoral Commission, and be prepared to forgo $4.4 million due to it from the Commission rather than reveal the donors? There is much more to come out about this ugly matter; perhaps in time we will be able to identify the crooks.

Let’s cast our net wider. Where are the crooks?

Look at the banks. We need go no further than the CBA.

How many crooks did it have in its financial planning arm? How many financial advisers were there who invested clients’ money in ventures where they earned fat commissions but which failed because they did not carry out due diligence, where they put their personal gain so far ahead of clients’ interests that they lost their clients’ life’s savings? CBA chief Ian Narev has apologized profusely, but many are still awaiting the promised compensation.

How many crooks have they still got in the claims division of Comminsure, where scores of clients have been denied their legitimate insurance claims because the fewer the claims the bigger the bonuses that flow to the claims managers?

How bad is the culture of our premier bank when it enabled such behaviour to flourish? Are there more crooks there hoping not to be exposed?

Other banks are not entirely blameless.

Where are the crooks?

Looking further afield at industry, how many crooks were there at Volkswagen when it ‘engineered’ false emissions data to mislead the public and the regulatory authorities? What did VW CEO Martin Wintercom know? Was the culprit Falko Rudolph, head of diesel engineering, or Burkhard Veldten, head of software design, or Heinz-Jakob Neusser, head of development at VW, or Wolfgang Hatz, head of research at Porsche, all now suspended or left? Plenty of suspected crooks to choose from there!

Where are the crooks?

Closer to home, there was 7-Eleven where for years franchisees cruelly underpaid their workers, particularly students on temporary visas. It was later revealed that this was with the knowledge of the chairman of 7-Eleven, Russ Withers, who was forced to admit liability and offer recompense. He and chief executive Warren Wilmon have both announced their resignation from the company.

Where are the crooks?

Let’s look at the wider scene where the ATO reported recently that almost 600 of the largest companies operating in Australia did not pay income tax in the 2013-14 financial year. We are entitled to ask how many crooks there are out there avoiding paying their proper share of tax. They all insist that what they do is legal, and perhaps in the formal sense it is, but how moral is it to make huge profits in this country but contribute nothing via taxes to support the services the community needs, and ought to have? Many are household names: Qantas, Virgin Australia, General Motors, Vodafone, ExxonMobil, Warner Bros Entertainment, Lend Lease and Ten Network Holdings. Others made huge profits but paid miniscule tax: Apple, Microsoft, Google, VW and Spotless.

How many crooks does it take to achieve these immoral outcomes?

This piece is long enough already. To expose all the crooks out there would take ten times as many words. I hope though that this piece does demonstrate that to imply that the crooks are clustered in the unions, and insinuate that by comparison big business is populated with blameless individuals who are as pure as the driven snow, is entirely fictional.

Where are the crooks? They are everywhere. So why is the Turnbull government so ruthlessly targeting unions, and specifically the construction industry and the dreaded CFMEU?

It’s political of course! To appease the Abbottites, Turnbull feels compelled to adopt Abbott policies, use Abbott catchphrases, even recite his appalling slogans that demean and condemn the whole union movement and unionists with it, knowing full well that only a tiny fraction likely deserve the condemnation he heaps upon them.

How obscene, how outrageous is it to revile just one small part of industry, the construction industry, when we know that crooks abound all through industry and commerce, even in our most prestigious institutions, the banks; when we see corruption in the Liberal party itself? And all this Turnbull does to gain political advantage.

When might we see him launching a Royal Commission into Banking, or a Royal Commission into Tax Avoidance, or perhaps a Royal Commission into the Liberal Party? Don’t hold your breath!

Where are the crooks? We know!

This article was originally published on The Political Sword

For Facebook users, The Political Sword has a Facebook page:
Putting politicians and commentators to the verbal sword

Like what we do at The AIMN?

You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight.

Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!

Your contribution to help with the running costs of this site will be gratefully accepted.

You can donate through PayPal via the button below, or donate via bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969

Donate Button

 

12 comments

Login here Register here
  1. keerti

    define crooked? Wouldn’t be crooked to take money for doing a job that you don’t need for the sake of your enormous ego and then hold out your hand for a pay cheque?

  2. Kaye Lee

    Master Builders Australia chief executive Wilhelm Harnisch, when insisting we need to reinstate the ABCC, said:

    “In no other industry are ordinary people, when going about their daily work, confronted by overt aggression, denigration and bullying. In no other industry are women subjected to aggression and abuse. Most of these behaviours would not be tolerated at home, let alone in a workplace. But it happens and it is getting worse.”

    He has obviously never watched question time in parliament.

  3. paul walter

    The piece did my heart good. I wonder how few people have thought outside the box enough to realise what a monumental corruption, prostitution and mockery of the law this lawyer’s junket has been, how cosy the legal arrangements and fees involved.

  4. Gangey1959

    Our noble pm, mr turdbullshitartist is just opening himself up to a hos of new 3 word election slogans.
    Don’t vote liberal.
    Vote liberal last.
    malcolm’s a WOOS
    liarbrals are bent.

    etc etc etc

    May they all stand together forever in a bath of their own excrement that is 6 inches deeper than the tallest of them.

  5. diannaart

    Excellent report.

    I continue to be outraged by the deliberate absence of investigation into workplace deaths.

    In any other industry such a death toll would demand scrutiny.

    …and don’t anyone, pro Liberal, mention pink batts – had enough hypocrisy to last a lifetime.

  6. Möbius Ecko

    Well Mr. Wilhelm Harnisch in no other industry are injuries and deaths as a direct cause of deliberate neglect and cost cutting so lightly punished, if punished at all.

  7. astra5

    Folks
    Thank you for your comments. I’m pleased that you enjoyed the read.

    The piece could have been much longer: this week we have heard about the crooks that are running government-subsidized training courses. Many are paltry, if not worthless; teaching is poor; outcomes are problematic; costs are high; profits are unseemly; and government supervision seemingly unable to detect and extrude the crooks.

    Crooks are everywhere!

  8. Kaye Lee

    Turnbull is now saying that the federal government should only fund private schools and let the states fund public schools. My father used to say we fund a public transport system – if you would rather travel by car, pay for it yourself.

    “The Sydney Catholic archdiocese controls funds worth more than $1.2 billion and has regularly made multi-million dollar tax-free profits.

    The royal commission into child sex abuse heard the archdiocese banked surpluses of between $7.7 million and $44 million between 2004 and 2007”

  9. Matters Not

    So Turnbull will continue to fund the Private School sector. Turnbull went to Sydney Grammar. Look at the ICSEA profile. There were no students in the lowest quarter. No students in the lower middle quarter. Only 1% in the (upper) middle quarter. But a staggering 98% in the top quarter.

    No doubt you will have heard of the widows who scrimp and save to send children to such schools. But not Sydney Grammar.

    The recurrent expenditure per student is $28,936, making it one of the most expensive schools in Australia. You can check out the details here

    https://www.myschool.edu.au/SchoolProfile/Index/96581/SydneyGrammarSchoolEdgecliffPreparatorySchool/43895/2015

  10. Kyran

    There is another class action being considered on behalf of 7-eleven franchisee’s that is worthy of mention. It pertains to the routine inflation of turnover figures as provided to prospective franchisee’s, with the main ‘discrepancy’ being wage costs! It seems the franchisee’s are then enticed into obtaining loans (ANZ is in the cross hairs) up to 100% of the purchase price. The action is being contemplated by Levitt Robinson solicitors.
    Even more insidious, the lead solicitor has stated that, in his consultations to date, he cannot help but note that ‘ethnicity’ is a factor. It seems most franchisee’s are from the subcontinent (as are most of the effected workers) and he is speculating that they are targeted specifically because ‘whistleblowing’ is culturally discouraged.

    The “government-subsidized training courses” and the RTO scams alone would need a RC to unravel the ponzi!

    But back to more important things. Look over there, a unionist.

    In breaking news, Arfur has told the Electoral Commission that if the liberal’s are forced to reveal their donors, big business will have to lay off at least 40 liberal politicians. It’s not about corruption, it’s about jobs.
    Thank you Ad astra. Take care

  11. David Bruce

    Perhaps the senator who can’t be named will have a jewish stocktake before the election? He is already lawyered up!

  12. Michael

    We, who have the greatest individual power (1 vote, 1 value) or the “democracy money” but pity the menu compilation process is broken.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The maximum upload file size: 2 MB. You can upload: image, audio, video, document, spreadsheet, interactive, text, archive, code, other. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop file here

Return to home page