Morrison-government-backs-down-on-banning-milo-yiannopoulos-in-face-of-backlash-20190309-p512xc. Ato-whistleblower-faces-six-life-sentences-roughly-the-same-as-ivan-milat-20190226-p510d2. David Icke slams 'Orwellian totalitarian state' after his Australian visa is revoked ahead of planned speaking tour. Updated earlier today at 7:16amThu 21 Feb 2019, 7:16am British conspiracy theorist David Icke said he is "shocked and appalled" at the Australian Government's decision to revoke his visa ahead of a planned speaking tour of the country.
Mr Icke says he is the victim of a "smear campaign" and said he was banned "with no shred of evidence"He says he is not anti-Semitic and called on the Government to reverse the decisionOn Wednesday, Labor immigration spokesman Shayne Neumann said he supported the decision A number of community groups, including the Anti-Defamation Commission and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, successfully lobbied Immigration Minister David Coleman to ban Mr Icke.
Mr Icke is a Holocaust denier who says the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City were an inside job, and that the world is secretly run by shape-shifting alien lizards. "With no shred of evidence, these ploys have worked. Mr Icke ended his statement with a warning. Australia's global corruption ranking sparks urgent calls for federal integrity body.
Australia has failed to improve on its record low ranking in a global measure of government corruption, prompting renewed calls for a powerful federal integrity commission to be established “without delay and political wrangling”.
The most widely recognised measure of public-sector corruption, Transparency International’s corruption perception index (CPI), was released on Tuesday afternoon, ranking Australia 13th least corrupt in the world. Australia scored 77 from a possible 100, placing it just above Hong Kong, Iceland and Austria. New Zealand was ranked the second least corrupt nation in the world, just behind Denmark.
The score represents an equal record low for Australia, which has been unable to improve its anti-corruption and integrity efforts enough to reverse a slide that began in 2014. Australia has slipped from its best ranking of seventh in 2012 to ninth in 2013, and has remained at 13th from 2015 onwards. Australia is far from alone in failing to make progress. Afterpay-accessing-electoral-roll-data-under-laws-designed-to-target-terrorism-money-laundering-20190122-p50sw4.
Watchdogs-wined-dined-and-given-corporate-gifts-without-scrutiny-20190122-p50sy8. Honest Government Ad. Over blood results for toxic chemical. Blindingly-dangerous-the-big-lie-about-sydney-s-true-elites-20181011-p50910. Sydney Opera House: Why the backlash to Gladys Berejiklian's sails deal was so fierce. The most instructive part of this week’s Opera House furore was the parade of politicians who seemed so baffled it had even become an issue. “People should chill out a bit,” advised Labor’s Anthony Albanese – himself so chill about it he apparently went to the trouble of calling into ABC radio to make the point. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Scott Morrison couldn’t understand “why people are getting so precious about it”. That, of course, is precisely what’s so damning: he couldn’t even understand it. It might be too perfect that Morrison was the Prime Minister for this hour; that someone who spent his pre-parliamentary career so marinated in the world of advertising and promotions happened to be governing us at precisely the moment the public became so “precious” about the crass commercialisation of everything.
His defiant insistence that he “would put the Bathurst 1000 on the Harbour Bridge if I thought it would get more people there” makes the point starkly. CASH GRAB: Inactive bank accounts to be seized. HOUSEHOLDS face losing up to $109 million from their family savings as the Federal government moves to seize cash from inactive bank accounts.
After legislation was rushed through parliament, the government will from May 31 be able to transfer all money from accounts that have not been used for three years into their own revenues. This will mean that accounts with anything from $1 upwards that have not had any deposit or withdrawals in the past three years will be transferred to the Australian Securities and Investment Commission. The law is forecast to raise $109 million this year as inactive accounts for three years or more are raided by Treasury.OPINION: Just another boost for the coffers The money can be reclaimed from ASIC but the process can take months.
Experts warn this will have a negative impact on people that may have put money away in a special account for their children's education or decided to put an inheritance in a separate account for a rainy day. ‘Surveillance society’ fears as government targets Facebook, Google. Independent scrutiny? No, we'll take the other path on stadium rebuild. We will all pay for NSW ports scandal. Everyday heroes compelled to break the law when government fails to protect us. The $1 billion cost of pork barrelling revealed. Voters in marginal seats collect tens of millions of dollars more than those in safer electorates, a Fairfax Media analysis of seven years of pork barrelling by both Labor and Coalition governments shows.
This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. End of dialog window. Older train usage brings safety concerns 2017: Federal politics year in review From same-sex marriage to citizenship, join Fairfax's Mark Kenny, Stephanie Peatling and Judith Ireland as they discuss the biggest political stories of 2017. Trying to meet the demands of the new timetable, Sydney Trains have been making more use of their older trains than some would like, leading to serious safety concerns.
Political donations are 'an unregulated arms race,' Senate committee told. Australia's system of political finance law is broken, open to exploitation and soft-corruption, a Senate inquiry has heard.
"You can get a politician for $2000 a year, a party for $100,000 a year and policy for $200,000 a year," Monash University academic Charles Livingstone said in Melbourne on Thursday. This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Larry Anthony's lobbying story represents a wider malaise. On the weekend, Fairfax reporters revealed that Larry Anthony, in his capacity as a founding director and part owner of a lobbying firm, SAS Consulting Group, while also president of the National party, had not been on the lobbyist register.
This apparent conflict of interest demonstrates a wider problem with Australia’s democracy. In response to the revelations, Anthony was keen to point out that he takes the lobbying code of conduct “very seriously” and complies with it “to the letter”. The lobbying code requires that all lobbyists be registered, but further states that members of a state or federal party executives cannot be on the register. Manildra had 20 meetings with NSW ministers before new ethanol laws introduced. Ethanol producer Manildra secured 20 meetings with NSW ministers and donated more than $160,000 to the Coalition in a ferocious lobbying effort before the introduction of new laws set to benefit the company, but which critics say will increase petrol prices by as much as 8 cents a litre.
Diary disclosures reveal Manildra representatives including chairman Dick Honan secured the meetings in the 15 months before cabinet backed changes to require small petrol retailers to sell an ethanol blend, E10, for the first time. They show Premier Mike Baird and Energy Minister Anthony Roberts met with Manildra on February 24 last year, shortly before the March 28 state election, after the company poured $35,000 into NSW Liberal Party coffers duringthe previous nine months. Mr Roberts had four other meetings with Manildra before the election – one of which saw him take a tour of an ethanol plant – and one immediately afterwards.
Pay TV? We're all paying for Foxtel, to the tune of $30 million. It's hard to believe, but it looks like the Turnbull government is going to get away with its $30 million backhander to Rupert Murdoch.
I know life comes at you fast these days, but it seems odd that the story of the undocumented grant to Foxtel is going to recede into the fog of winter. This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button. Australian oil well leaked into ocean for months – but spill kept secret. An offshore oil and gas well in Australia leaked oil continuously into the ocean for two months in 2016, releasing an estimated 10,500 litres.
But the spill was never made public by the regulator and details about the well, its whereabouts and operator remain secret. In its annual offshore performance report released this week, the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority included a mention of a 10,500-litre spill in April 2016. It provided limited details about, noting that it had been identified during a routine inspection. After inquiries from the Guardian, Nopsema said the leak went on for two months, at a rate of about 175 litres a day.
It went unnoticed while the floating platform was undergoing maintenance and was only discovered when the platform returned. The threat of terrorism in Australia is a scam that costs us dearly. These days there aren't many scams bigger than all the fuss we're making about the threat of terrorism coming to our shores.
What makes the scam worse is that we bring it on ourselves. This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. How our progressive tax system doesn't reach the ultra-rich. There's something just a little obscene about the juxtaposition of the 2017 Rich List with claims that our "wealth creators" are burdened by a progressive tax system, never mind alleged concern over the common herd's shrinking real wages. As The Australian Financial Review reported, our richest 200 are collectively worth $232 billion. That's 17.6 per cent more than last year. Sweating on every word – how ASIC massaged the banking message.
"Sorry about this, it's obviously a huge deal for CFP [Commonwealth Bank's financial planning unit]. They have sweated over EVERY word in the media release, believe me ... " Rather than being an email from a CBA PR about a press release it was about to issue, it is an email from an ASIC executive, relating to an enforceable undertaking after finding gross misconduct in its financial planning division, thanks to a tip-off from CBA whistleblower Jeff Morris. This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button.
Caption Settings Dialog. ASIC Plot: Corporate Database Close to Sale. Flogging the nation’s company database to a monopoly private operator must be one of the zanier ideas to have been hatched in Canberra but that is precisely what is now being plotted by our elected representatives. The plan is well advanced. Treasury is moving to the final stage of the tender process to privatise the database of the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC). 'Fallen well short' of standards: Audit slams Immigration Department over Nauru and Manus Island contracts.
Billions of taxpayer dollars were handed to the private contractors running Australia's offshore detention centres without adequate authorisation or value-for-money assessments, the Commonwealth auditor has found. In a scathing report, the Australian National Audit Office said the Immigration Department had "fallen well short" of expected standards in its management of contracts for detention facilities on Manus Island and Nauru. This is a modal window.
This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button. Caption Settings Dialog Beginning of dialog window. Witness testifies against Sara Connor Audit slams Immigration Department over ... Audit slams Immigration Department over Nauru, Manus contracts. Sussan Ley controversy reopens debate about federal ICAC.
There is a certain predictability to the way scandals play out in Canberra. If a government MP is up to their neck in it, a gleeful opposition will wheel out a shadow minister to make appalled noises about those awful Tories or lefties circling the trough. 'Outrageous': Coal mine gets expansion nod despite secret, incomplete studies. There is nothing illegal about Stephen Conroy's new job - but it smells bad. Year's end can be a contemplative time, a time when we reassess our lives or even commit to changes to embrace in the New Year. Federal donations system: The rules stink! You know it, I know it and most MPs know it too. We are having the wrong conversation.
Everyone agrees Sam Dastyari did the wrong thing. Even Senator Dastyari. Tax Office's 'covert operations' against taxpayers exposed. This former tax official blew the whistle on the Australian Taxation Office's "covert operations" against taxpayers. Corruption and crime syndicates threaten Australia's border security. Michael Pezzullo, Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen Bark but no bite: Independent senator Nick Xenophon has called for greater powers for corruption investigators. Sydney will be unrecognisable now that the planners have gone.
Progress done badly: why Mike Baird's light rail is bastardry of the first order. Why Arthur Sinodinos fails the pub test. Auburn council had valuation showing Salim Mehajer's car park deal was worth extra $5 million. Workers missing out on $2.6b in super. Workers owed $2.6b in unpaid super as government tries to reduce penalties. The 'institute' with no members embarrasses Senate committee. Labor attacks Malcolm Turnbull over investments in Cayman Islands tax haven. Rezoning open to routine corruption by both sides of politics: economist. In the zone: Insider trading rife in land rezoning racket. Pirate website blocking laws readied for parliament. NSW election 2015: Premier Mike Baird's office sought to influence report critical of electricity privatisation. NSW Government rejected advice on Newcastle light rail, opted for developers' preference. Australian govt blindfolds citizens with ‘unprecedented’ media gag - WikiLeaks.
NSW Government rejected advice on Newcastle light rail, opted for developers' preference. Call on CommBank Royal Commission disappointing and shallow. Australia: You Wouldn't Steal a DVD, But You Would Block Websites and Suspend Internet Accounts. Laws of the land make Facebook fantasies come true. Environment Protection Authority to be investigated following string of controversies. Pensioners lose savings in government cash grab. System that awarded scholarship to Frances Abbott is still a mystery. Treasurer for sale: Joe Hockey offers privileged access. Cash for a chat is corrupting our democratic integrity. Barangaroo building plans double in size. Score-settling budget looks after mates.