quote:

Clive Palmer’s deal for ailing firms to be bought out with taxpayer funds

TAXPAYER funds would be used to buy struggling companies and pour cash into risky new ventures under a revolutionary industry plan being pursued by Clive Palmer in a new inquiry backed by the federal government. Amid questions over the fin­ances of his private companies, the Palmer United Party leader has secured Coalition support to ­investigate radical ideas such as government loans and debt guarantees to businesses in strife. The details of the plan, obtained by The Australian, include emergency fin­ancial help for industries in crisis so that private companies could use public cash to buy new equipment. Central to the concept is a new government bank, the Australia Fund, that could issue loans to companies and assume control of a business in trouble so it could be rescued with grants or guarantees backed by taxpayers.

Tommofork posted:

Anyone have full access to the Australian?

Wanna read the rest of this shitshow.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...x-1227046979565

quote:

TAXPAYER funds would be used to buy struggling companies and pour cash into risky new ventures under a revolutionary industry plan being pursued by Clive Palmer in a new inquiry backed by the federal government.

Amid questions over the fin­ances of his private companies, the Palmer United Party leader has secured Coalition support to ­investigate radical ideas such as government loans and debt guarantees to businesses in strife. The details of the plan, obtained by The Australian, include emergency fin­ancial help for industries in crisis so that private companies could use public cash to buy new equipment. Central to the concept is a new government bank, the Australia Fund, that could issue loans to companies and assume control of a business in trouble so it could be rescued with grants or guarantees backed by taxpayers.

Dubbed the “Palmer Fund” by some and the “Slush Puppy” by others, the proposal flouts advice from the Productivity Commission against increasing grants to companies that should be able to survive without handouts. But it could shape debate on industry aid at a time when there are questions over the finances of Mr Palmer’s prize asset, Queensland Nickel, and concerns about the decline of his hotel business, the Palmer Coolum Resort.

Mr Palmer denied any conflict of interest in his political man­oeuvres this week, despite the fact his operations were likely to gain from his surprise decision to vote for the repeal of the mining tax.

The scrapping of the mining tax could increase the value of Mr Palmer’s coal assets and the associated delay to superannuation increases would ease payroll pressures on his companies, just as with other employers.

A key feature of the new inquiry is a study into changes to bankruptcy law that would make it easier for companies to trade their way out of trouble, using an approach such as the Chapter 11 provisions in the US.

Tony Abbott has hardened his language on industry assistance this year after turning down pleas to help Ford, Holden, Toyota, SPC Ardmona and Qantas, which wanted a debt guarantee.

“You can’t subsidise your way to prosperity,” the Prime Minister told the Liberal Party federal council in June. Yet the government has backed the inquiry to explore Mr Palmer’s financing plan and report next June on whether to set up the new fund.

The government will back the joint select committee after PUP senator Glenn Lazarus moves in the upper house to establish the inquiry under terms of reference circulated to some late yesterday.

There was no government offer to create the fund and ­Coalition senators could use the exercise to reject some of Mr Palmer’s proposals.

Support for the inquiry is one of the assurances in a letter from ­Finance Minister Mathias Cormann to Mr Palmer on Tuesday to ensure PUP voted to repeal the mining tax.

The details were not disclosed and appear certain to trigger doubts among Liberal and Labor senators when the motion is formally moved today.

The terms of reference stipulate the fund could offer “emergency or ongoing financial relief” to industry and “act as a guarantor for all or part of a loan or proposed loan” to an individual business. The fund could “purchase all or part of an existing loan to a business” or “assume control of such a business” to leave government officials in charge of private enterprises.

A separate inquiry will be set up to examine government responses to natural disasters as another condition of the PUP support for the mining tax repeal.

The Australia Fund will be examined by a joint select committee of both houses of parliament, with Mr Palmer as one of its members along with representatives from Labor and Liberal and possibly the Greens.

Queensland Nickel, which runs a refinery in Townsville, lost an estimated $58 million in 2012 and refused to pay its carbon tax bill for more than six months. Mr Palmer has rejected arguments that voters should know the state of his financial affairs. This week Mr Palmer rejected the proposition he had any conflict of interest in the outcome on the mining tax, which he personally arranged with Senator Cormann.

Ler posted:

drunkill posted:

http://mashable.com/2014/09/01/australia-government-purchases-bombproof-bmw-fleet-for-g20-summit/

Quantum Mechanic posted:

I'd actually be 100% okay with this as long as the government buys ownership. Industry assistance should involve the purchase of stock.

Gough Suppressant posted:

You know it won't be though, it will just be furthering of nationalising losses privatising profits.

adamantium|wang posted:

Madigan's resigning from the DLP.

adamantium|wang posted:

Madigan's resigning from the DLP.

Tommofork posted:

Anyone have full access to the Australian?

Wanna read the rest of this shitshow.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...x-1227046979565

adamantium|wang posted:

He's saying one of his staff has been conducting a misinformation campaign and warns the DLP's greatest enemies lie inside it. He'll now be sitting as an Independent.

Sounds like there's trouble brewing in the DLP.

adamantium|wang posted:

He's saying one of his staff has been conducting a misinformation campaign and warns the DLP's greatest enemies lie inside it. He'll now be sitting as an Independent.

Sounds like there's trouble brewing in the DLP.

SMH posted:

Secret isolation unit used for 'misbehaving' asylum seekers on Manus Island

The most notorious compound at the Manus Island detention centre does not appear on the official map. The four main compounds, Delta, Foxtrot, Mike and Oscar, are all clearly marked. But not this one.

They call it Chauka, and it is made up of a series of converted shipping containers, each containing a single bed and no windows.

Its official name is the Managed Accommodation Area and it is where "misbehaving" asylum seekers are taken as part of the centre's Behavioural Modification Program.

Several weeks ago, two of the asylum seekers who were housed in Mike compound had never heard of Chauka. One of them was an eyewitness to the murder of Reza Barati during the night of violence that engulfed the centre in February.

All that changed when they voiced their opposition to changes to the detention centre policy covering phone and internet access, insisting the changes made it almost impossible to talk to family members in the Middle East.

In a graphic account subsequently posted on Facebook, the Iranian who witnessed Barati's murder said he had been taken to Chauka, fed bread and water for three days and made to sleep on the muddy ground.

"We were crying and asking what is our fault?" he wrote on the post. "They said: 'Because you always object to all of our rules'." During their ordeal, the men claim they were cable-tied to chairs and beaten about the body to avoid noticeable bruises. They also assert they were threatened with rape and murder if they did not retract their statements to police on what they saw at the centre on February 17.

Their case was taken up Benjamin Pynt, the director of human rights advocacy for Perth-based Humanitarian Research Partners, who forwarded their complaints to Australian Federal Police and the office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. But they seemed to go nowhere.

It was the asylum seekers' word against those running the centre and their allegations of inhumane treatment were dismissed as baseless by Immigration Minister Scott Morrison, who said through a spokesperson that he been advised that "two men became abusive and aggressive and were moved in accordance with operational policy within the centre".
A recent glimpse of sleeping arrangements inside the Oscar compound.

A recent glimpse of sleeping arrangements inside the Oscar compound. Photo: Supplied

Now, Mr Pynt's calls for an independent examination of what took place have been strengthened with the leaking of dozens of pages of internal documents that describe the circumstances of the two men's transfer to Chauka.

They shed light on the sad, bleak and surreal world inside one of the world's most remote and controversial immigration detention centres.

It is a crowded parallel universe, where common sense ideas for making life more interesting and bearable, such as allowing detainees to cook for themselves or grow vegetables, are seen as potential dangers and forbidden.

Daily "sitreps" (situation reports) begin with an executive summary of major or critical incidents that took place in the preceding 24-hour period and a "mood indicator" indicating the tension level in the preceding weeks.

It looks like a bushfire alert graphic you might find on the weather pages, except that the temperature gauge relates to levels of anxiety, with anything under 10 denoting calm; between 11 and 12, "unsettled"; between 13 and 14, "agitated"; between 15 and 16, "aggressive" and anything between 17 and 20 "volatile".

A footnote explains that each mood indicator is calculated by "analysing inputs from baseline support monitor engage plans, baseline behavioural management plans, adverse incidents, missed meals and known intelligence reports".

A typical report notes the number of "transferees" who missed all meals in the 24-hour period in each compound, the number of assaults or acts of self-harm, and the number of people on high or moderate "Whiskey Watch".

Whiskey Watch? According to another footnote, "Whiskey Watch is monitoring of a transferee by BMT [the Behavioural management Team]." It explains that Whiskey Watch observations can be "ongoing" (minimum three-hourly checks in); "moderate" (minimum half-hourly checks) and "high" (requiring the detainee to be kept within arms' length or line of sight, depending on the circumstances).

While many are being observed for aggressive or "non-compliant" behaviour, others are being monitored because they have undertaken real or threatened acts of self-harm.

Then there are those among the all-male population who simply appear to have lost it: "Found in toilet naked and semi-conscious," was one description. "Noose discovered in room. Mood appears very low," says another.

The contents of the documents come as no surprise to Dr Peter Young, who until July was director of mental health for International Health and Medical Services (IHMS), the private contractor that provides medical care to detention centres on the Australian mainland, Christmas Island, Nauru and Manus Island.

"What we are talking about here is a total institution where there is no independent scrutiny of what goes on and we know that, within those types of institutions, abusive practices inevitably arise," Dr Young told Fairfax Media.

The incident that prompted the transfer of the two asylum seekers to Chauka is described in the report covering July 14 and 15, with the two men described as "community leaders" within the centre who "behaved in an anti-social manner" during a meeting to discuss new rules covering phone and internet access, prompting the decision to "remove both transferees to the Chauka compound".

Under the heading "Assessment and Outlook", the same report noted that the meeting was "certain" to have unsettled some of the transferees, with the word "certain" given emphasis by the use of bold type.

"The subsequent removal of two transferees to Chauka compound for anti-social behaviour is likely to have unsettled the friends of the transferees removed," it added.

After Fairfax Media reported the Facebook entry and that Pynt had lodged a complaint with the Australian Federal Police and the office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, another report, dated August 18, said the men's claims were unsupported and "deliberately misleading to create negative public opinion". But the initial explanation for their transfer to Chauka for "anti-social behaviour" was upgraded. Now it was stated that they had spent "several days" in Chauka for "inciting mass unrest". Having gone public with their claims of torture, the pair previously portrayed as "community leaders" were now described as having an "extensive history" of intimidation and threats and of making false claims about their treatment.

More than 1000 asylum are detained at the centre, but fewer than 80 have been given refugee status interim assessments (41 of them positive). Despite Tony Abbott predicting earlier this year that resettlement in PNG would begin in May, the Papua New Guinea government is yet to approve a refugee policy that might deliver on the formal agreement between the Australian and PNG government that is underpinned by Australian funding.

It was the lack of certainty about their future – indeed the certainty that they would be in detention for a long time with no prospect of resettlement in Australia or a third country – that was a catalyst for the unrest that preceded the violence in February.

In a numbing environment of low or no expectations of resettlement in a country that might offer some opportunity for what might be considered a normal life, those who remain resilient are the exceptions, and attempts to seek out some form of stimulation are viewed as unnatural, and even suspicious.

quote:

4 Sep 2014 The Australian ADAM CREIGHTON ANALYSIS

Super debate ignores failures

DEBATE about the delay to the superannuation guarantee ignores the policy’s profound failure to reduce dependency on the pension. It also reveals a widespread and damaging misunderstanding about the policy’s budget impact. As the recent Commission of Audit noted, even by 2050 — that is, after 60 years of compulsory superannuation — about 80 per cent of retirees will receive a full or part age pension, the biggest and among the fastest growing of federal expenses. This is because the age pension eligibility test is a joke, granting a part-pension to retirees with “family homes” of any value and financial assets up to $1.134 million. Until this is changed — both Labor and the Coalition ran away from the commission’s sensible recommendations to fix it — compulsory superannuation will remain a costly, unfair burden and lucrative subsidy to fund managers.

For all the attacks on the government’s decision, it has heeded a key recommendation of former Treasury secretary Ken Henry’s tax review, which is not to increase the superannuation guarantee (SG). It also busted the two key myths that pervade the super debate. Myth number 1: lifting the SG helps the budget. “An increase in the superannuation guarantee would also have a net cost to government revenue even over the long term (that is, the loss of income tax revenue would not be replaced fully by an increase in superannuation tax collections or a reduction in Age Pension costs)”, the review says. “Increasing the superannuation guarantee rate would increase national saving, but reduce public saving (ie, the budget surplus) since only part of the revenue forgone in tax concessions for superannuation would be offset by a reduction in pension outlays.”

Perhaps no policy truth has been hidden for so long to the detriment of so many, for the benefit of so few. Yet the Financial Services Council, which represents an industry that stands to make billions from lifting the SG, gets away with claiming compulsory super was “significantly” reducing pressure on the budget, pointing to savings of $11 billion a year by 2030.

Because the age pension test is so lenient, lifting the SG punches a long-run hole in the budget that logically forces all other taxes to be higher given spending. Myth number 2: business pays for increases in the SG. “Although employers are required to make superannuation guarantee contributions, employees bear the cost of these contributions through lower wage growth,” the review says, contradicting Labor Senate Leader Penny Wong this week, who denied on ABC TV a link with take-home pay. “The effect of this reduction in a person’s standard of living falls most heavily on low to middleincome earners who are unlikely to be in a position to offset the increase in the superannuation guarantee by reducing their other savings,” it adds. Tax economist John Freebairn bemoans the pervasive belief that business rather than workers pay for compulsory super.

The Rudd government ignored the Henry review, announcing without justification in May 2010 the share of workers’ wages to be siphoned into remote, untouchable accounts destined to be ravaged by fees would rise to 12 per cent, come hell or high water.

Ragingsheep posted:

"Noose discovered in room. Mood appears very low,"

Cartoon posted:

Why does the Arsetralian have such a ragging boner for trashing superannuation?

Cassa posted:

If they're northsiders wouldn't they want dice spot or fast break sports?

I'd be down for a goon RPG, especially if it means early bird access to Anidav's extreme job craziness.

Anidav posted:

I haven't been looking for a job recently, I've been too busy studying for mid-semester.

After exams though I will look again. I hope to get something because looking at my bank account I really need it.

quote:

Mike Gallacher tells ICAC text message referring to “the big man” was Barry O’Farrell, not Nathan Tinkler


FORMER police minister Mike Gallacher has testified that a text message ICAC painted as referring to Nathan Tinkler as “the big man” refers to former premier Barry O’Farrell being asked for $120,000 for the Newcastle 2011 election campaign.

Lid posted:

WELP

quote:

Its official name is the Managed Accommodation Area and it is where "misbehaving" asylum seekers are taken as part of the centre's Behavioural Modification Program.

quote:

Then there are those among the all-male population who simply appear to have lost it: "Found in toilet naked and semi-conscious," was one description. "Noose discovered in room. Mood appears very low," says another.

Anidav posted:

I haven't been looking for a job recently, I've been too busy studying for mid-semester.

After exams though I will look again. I hope to get something because looking at my bank account I really need it.

Gough Suppressant posted:

Victoria producing the goods today.

Geoff Shaw yesterday gave his apology in parliament. Liberal Premier Dennis Napthine didn't like it, and is moving a vote to expel Shaw, after protecting Shaw from expulsion when Labor put up a vote to do so some months ago. An anonymous Labor leader of the opposition has stated Labor's intent to reverse their position and now vote against expulsion because it now won't trigger a by-election as the November poll date is too soon.

Urcher posted:

I sent you an email about a (potential future) job and you never got back to me. Maybe this is why you can't find work.

Bompacho posted:

I just sent you a PM also.

Ragingsheep posted:

gently caress it.


http://www.smh.com.au/federal-polit...903-10bwol.html

Gough Suppressant posted:

You know it won't be though, it will just be furthering of nationalising losses privatising profits.

Cartoon posted:

Why does the Arsetralian have such a ragging boner for trashing superannuation?

Gorilla Salad posted:

What it will be is endless handouts and bailouts for mates.


This is why I don't make any extra super contributions. I know it baffled some people last time I brought it up, but I honestly believe that superannuation as we know it will just not be there when I retire.

There will be taxes, fees, national budget emergencies where "we all have to do our part (but only if you were born after 1965)".

It will be like the Detroit bankruptcy, where public employees who had a lifetime of sacrifice in their pension funds suddenly found themselves with large holes where they thought their retirement savings were.


Superannuation, unless you're rich, means 'sacrifice now, so the government has something else to take from you later'.

Anidav posted:

Spam folder, sorry.


My inbox is empty?