War for Water: foreign investor firepower over Australian farmers in water deals
The “corporatisation” of Australian farming continues apace. Almost 14% of agricultural land is now owned by foreign investors who, according to a ruling by the ATO, do not have to pay capital gains tax on water rights. Callum Foote reports.
Bushfire money mystery: recovery funds withheld to fight the Election?
No figures are publicly available for the three largest bushfire recovery funds, which account for more than 55% of the $2.73 billion the federal Coalition has promised to devastated communities. By the end of last year, less than half of that $2.73 billion had been spent, some $500 million less than claimed by David Littleproud,
Free speech for the Public Service? Friends only, foes face prosecution
The Department of Parliamentary Services has been in the news following reports that it withheld its security incident report into the Brittany Higgins case from the Australian Federal Police, despite multiple requests, and was only provided after the police escalated inquiries. It seems the DPS has form in wanting to bury bad news. Marcus Reubenstein reports.
Barilaro overrules EPA, ramps up logging, funnels bushfire grants to loggers
Despite unprecedented damage to forests and wildlife, NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro overruled the Environment Protection Agency and determined that industrial-scale logging continues in NSW’s burnt and unburnt forests. Suzanne Arnold reports.
Bushfire Rorts: excess grants for sky-divers but no toilets for firefighters
A skydiving adventure park in a National Party electorate was showered in bushfire grants, getting far more than it asked for, while a host of bushfire recovery projects in the Blue Mountains were ignored, even badly needed toilet facilities for firefighters. Callum Foote reports on new documents in the bushfire rorts scandal.
Pay The Bully? Townsville paper hits peak nasty as Rupert Murdoch demands bail-out
Hiding behind a pay wall and in hoc to its advertisers, The Townsville Bulletin is a law unto itself in Queensland as its owners demand subsidies from the Government. Should we pay? asks Kim Wingerie?
Investigation: how political donations protect a cosy loophole for Australia’s plutocrats
“Political donations buy access to parliamentarians, they buy policy outcomes, and they buy a post-parliament career with the revolving door between politics and business”. Stephanie Tran and Michael West investigate the dark money which flows from Australia’s old-wealth family empires to the major political parties.
A Pushy Number: Libs’ pollster Crosby Textor granted access to 27 million unlisted mobiles
When the Coalition communications minister very quietly changed the regulations to enable access to millions of unlisted mobiles for ‘political research, the Liberal Party’s pollster Crosby Textor was quick out of the blocks with an application to access the database, writes Jommy Tee.
Outsourcing Government itself: the hidden privatisation of the public service
The privatisation of the Australian Public Service is proceeding at a staggering pace. Documents accessed under FoI laws reveal that even senior roles, including assistant directors, executive officers and ministerial advisers, are outsourced. It is hidden, unaccountable and rips off taxpayers. Geordie Wilson reports.
War for Water: foreign investor firepower over Australian farmers in water deals
The “corporatisation” of Australian farming continues apace. Almost 14% of agricultural land is now owned by foreign investors who, according to a ruling by the ATO, do not have to pay capital gains tax on water rights. Callum Foote reports.
Featured Stories
Bushfire money mystery: recovery funds withheld to fight the Election?
No figures are publicly available for the three largest bushfire recovery funds, which account for more than 55% of the $2.73 billion the federal Coalition has promised to devastated communities. By the end of last year, less than half of that $2.73 billion had been spent, some $500 million less than claimed by David Littleproud,
Free speech for the Public Service? Friends only, foes face prosecution
The Department of Parliamentary Services has been in the news following reports that it withheld its security incident report into the Brittany Higgins case from the Australian Federal Police, despite multiple requests, and was only provided after the police escalated inquiries. It seems the DPS has form in wanting to bury bad news. Marcus Reubenstein reports.
Barilaro overrules EPA, ramps up logging, funnels bushfire grants to loggers
Despite unprecedented damage to forests and wildlife, NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro overruled the Environment Protection Agency and determined that industrial-scale logging continues in NSW’s burnt and unburnt forests. Suzanne Arnold reports.
Bushfire Rorts: excess grants for sky-divers but no toilets for firefighters
A skydiving adventure park in a National Party electorate was showered in bushfire grants, getting far more than it asked for, while a host of bushfire recovery projects in the Blue Mountains were ignored, even badly needed toilet facilities for firefighters. Callum Foote reports on new documents in the bushfire rorts scandal.
Pay The Bully? Townsville paper hits peak nasty as Rupert Murdoch demands bail-out
Hiding behind a pay wall and in hoc to its advertisers, The Townsville Bulletin is a law unto itself in Queensland as its owners demand subsidies from the Government. Should we pay? asks Kim Wingerie?
The Government has struck a deal with Facebook to restore news in Australia. Also Facebook now owns Tasmania.
Treasurer and master negotiator Josh Frydenberg has come to an agreement with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to return news to the social media site, in a deal he says will be well received by users in all 5 Australian states. News will return to the platform early next...
Jobseeker Increase Means Recipients Can Now Afford To Rent An Apartment In Sydney In 1994
The announcement of a $3.47-a-day increase in the Jobseeker allowance has been met with jubilation by people across Australia, who say they will now have the funds to rent a rundown flat in outer Sydney 25 years ago. The weekly payment now totals $307, enough...
Craig Kelly Moves To Crossbench So He Can Finally Continue Saying Whatever He Wants
Saying he was sick of the idea of being hypothetically muzzled at some theoretical point in the imaginary future, Liberal MP Craig Kelly has quit the party to move to the crossbench, where he will finally be free to continue being an absolute peanut. In a move that...
Stuff made up by The Shovel
Tax Haven Weather
Pearls & Irritations
The Morrison method – if you don’t ask, you can’t tell
Some prime ministers are more practised liars than others. Some can confuse, distract and prevaricate in such a way as to strangle the truth. Morrison, however, is a special case. He does not seem...
Helen Coonan saw no evil and heard no evil over nine long years
For more than nine years, Helen Coonan has been a non-executive director of Crown. More than enough time to get wise about this criminal organisation, one would have thought. Helen Coonan is still...
The frightening cost of Morrison’s climate inaction
Scott Morrison loves saying he won’t take action on climate change without knowing what it will cost. Joel Fitzgibbon takes the same tack when defending his coal mining constituents. But now we have...
University of Sydney to silence voices of peace and conflict resolution
The University of Sydney looks set to close its Department of Peace and Conflict Studies when the need for voices to speak truth to power has never been more vital. Australia is in the throes of a...
I have never seen, over 50 years, a more slippery customer than Morrison
How Prime Minister Scott Morrison ‘feels’ the pain of others. For him, almost everything is a public relations problem. The fate of the Morrison government is unlikely to turn on its “management”...
Courtesy of John Menadue.
Tax Haven Weather
Pay The Bully? Townsville paper hits peak nasty as Rupert Murdoch demands bail-out
Hiding behind a pay wall and in hoc to its advertisers, The Townsville Bulletin is a law unto itself in Queensland as its owners demand subsidies from the Government. Should we pay? asks Kim Wingerie?
‘Not suitable’: where to now for James Packer and Crown’s other casinos?
The Packer directors are gone. Guy Jalland and Michael Johnston have left the Crown Resorts board in the wake of dramatic findings of the Bergin Report. Chair Helen Coonan and others will remain under pressure. After all, they are responsible, they are the directors, and Justice Bergin found Crown was not suitable to run a casino. So, what’s next, asks Charles Livingstone?
Uber Xploitation: Uber’s secret settlement presages a wave of lawsuits
The Government’s fetish for deregulation play right into the hands of predatory multinationals Uber and Deliveroo which exploit both Australia’s tax and labour laws to siphon profits overseas. Michael West and Callum Foote report on Uber’s exploitation and the prospective tsunami of lawsuits rolling its way.
The Usual Suspects: oil and gas majors star in Australian tax heist
Angus Taylor’s rescue package for the oil industry is a testament to governments getting gamed by large corporations. The latest Tax Office transparency data shows oil and gas juggernauts are Australia’s biggest tax cheats, again, yet now they are crying for public subsidies – and getting them – to prop up their oil refineries. Michael West reports on the good and the bad in multinational tax dodging land.
Confession time for Lendlease as Tax Office bears down on humungous tax rort
Nine Entertainment chief Hugh Marks dumped for having sex, Christine Holgate chopped at Australia Post over $20,000 in bonuses. Meanwhile, the top brass at Lendlease, having presided over a $500 million tax scam, nonchalantly say they are “continuing to engage with the ATO and await the finalisation of its draft determination”. Michael West reports.
Responsible Lending? Coalition’s left hand not sure what its right hand is doing
The government is pushing hard to get rid of responsible lending obligations, but it doesn’t seem to realise that removing these obligations will pull the rug out from one of its signature pieces of legislation that Scott Morrison championed when he was treasurer – mandatory comprehensive credit reporting. Elizabeth Minter reports.
Laughing Stock: Australia’s new media code rivals our climate policy for absurdity
Google good, Facebook bad. That sums up mainstream media coverage of the Coalition government’s bizarre new media code. Google paid up, Facebook decided it was extortion and called Josh Frydenberg’s bluff, banning Australian news. Kim Wingerei and Michael West report on the corruption of mainstream media.
Bushfire Rorts: excess grants for sky-divers but no toilets for firefighters
A skydiving adventure park in a National Party electorate was showered in bushfire grants, getting far more than it asked for, while a host of bushfire recovery projects in the Blue Mountains were ignored, even badly needed toilet facilities for firefighters. Callum Foote reports on new documents in the bushfire rorts scandal.
AdRorts: Comrade Hunt deploys Communist propaganda tactics in government advertising
“I suspect Orwell would see, as he did back in the 1930s, the rich and outrageous irony of governments using the resources of the people to manipulate them and to keep them acquiescent, passive and apathetic.”
Bushfire money mystery: recovery funds withheld to fight the Election?
No figures are publicly available for the three largest bushfire recovery funds, which account for more than 55% of the $2.73 billion the federal Coalition has promised to devastated communities. By the end of last year, less than half of that $2.73 billion had been spent, some $500 million less than claimed by David Littleproud,
Barilaro overrules EPA, ramps up logging, funnels bushfire grants to loggers
Despite unprecedented damage to forests and wildlife, NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro overruled the Environment Protection Agency and determined that industrial-scale logging continues in NSW’s burnt and unburnt forests. Suzanne Arnold reports.
ABC Country Hour – mouthpiece of Liberal National Party and rural elites?
ABC Country Hour is marketed as the “voice of the bush”; but whose voice and whose bush? Brian Burkett, Dr Lisa Waller and Emma Mesikämmen investigate how Country Hour does the bidding of the Liberal and National Parties and their powerful friends while glossing over the likes of climate change, indigenous issues and the #watergate scandal.
Housing Hypocrites: Tim Wilson’s housing affordability crusade just an assault on super
Liberal MP Tim Wilson is the latest Coalition politician to cry crocodile tears over the housing affordability crisis, calling for Australians to access their superannuation to buy a house. Wilson’s call however is supreme hypocrisy, writes Elizabeth Minter. Coalition policies – including negative gearing, property subsidies, money-laundering, super fund borrowing and banking and lending standards – are ample evidence.
Donald Trump deserted by corporate funders now regulations are gutted and tax breaks banked
Corporate America is frantically distancing itself from Donald Trump in the dying days of his presidency after spending four years financing him, enjoying his tax giveaways, his attacks on workers and gutting of regulations to fatten corporate profits. Elizabeth Minter reports on the rank hypocrisy, even extending to Scott Morrison’s top adviser on Covid-19 economic recovery.
Labor backflip puts Coles and Woolies profits before indigenous health
The Northern Territory government has caved in to liquor lobby pressure and imperilled the health of First Nations People by approving a Dan Murphy’s Darwin mega-store for Woolworths and lifting the licence cap for Coles. The community will pay the price with their health, write Professor Lesley Russell and Dr Jeff McMullen. Will this be Woolworths’ Juukan Gorge moment?
Pay The Bully? Townsville paper hits peak nasty as Rupert Murdoch demands bail-out
Hiding behind a pay wall and in hoc to its advertisers, The Townsville Bulletin is a law unto itself in Queensland as its owners demand subsidies from the Government. Should we pay? asks Kim Wingerie?
‘Not suitable’: where to now for James Packer and Crown’s other casinos?
The Packer directors are gone. Guy Jalland and Michael Johnston have left the Crown Resorts board in the wake of dramatic findings of the Bergin Report. Chair Helen Coonan and others will remain under pressure. After all, they are responsible, they are the directors, and Justice Bergin found Crown was not suitable to run a casino. So, what’s next, asks Charles Livingstone?
Uber Xploitation: Uber’s secret settlement presages a wave of lawsuits
The Government’s fetish for deregulation play right into the hands of predatory multinationals Uber and Deliveroo which exploit both Australia’s tax and labour laws to siphon profits overseas. Michael West and Callum Foote report on Uber’s exploitation and the prospective tsunami of lawsuits rolling its way.
The Usual Suspects: oil and gas majors star in Australian tax heist
Angus Taylor’s rescue package for the oil industry is a testament to governments getting gamed by large corporations. The latest Tax Office transparency data shows oil and gas juggernauts are Australia’s biggest tax cheats, again, yet now they are crying for public subsidies – and getting them – to prop up their oil refineries. Michael West reports on the good and the bad in multinational tax dodging land.
Confession time for Lendlease as Tax Office bears down on humungous tax rort
Nine Entertainment chief Hugh Marks dumped for having sex, Christine Holgate chopped at Australia Post over $20,000 in bonuses. Meanwhile, the top brass at Lendlease, having presided over a $500 million tax scam, nonchalantly say they are “continuing to engage with the ATO and await the finalisation of its draft determination”. Michael West reports.
Responsible Lending? Coalition’s left hand not sure what its right hand is doing
The government is pushing hard to get rid of responsible lending obligations, but it doesn’t seem to realise that removing these obligations will pull the rug out from one of its signature pieces of legislation that Scott Morrison championed when he was treasurer – mandatory comprehensive credit reporting. Elizabeth Minter reports.
Laughing Stock: Australia’s new media code rivals our climate policy for absurdity
Google good, Facebook bad. That sums up mainstream media coverage of the Coalition government’s bizarre new media code. Google paid up, Facebook decided it was extortion and called Josh Frydenberg’s bluff, banning Australian news. Kim Wingerei and Michael West report on the corruption of mainstream media.
Bushfire Rorts: excess grants for sky-divers but no toilets for firefighters
A skydiving adventure park in a National Party electorate was showered in bushfire grants, getting far more than it asked for, while a host of bushfire recovery projects in the Blue Mountains were ignored, even badly needed toilet facilities for firefighters. Callum Foote reports on new documents in the bushfire rorts scandal.
AdRorts: Comrade Hunt deploys Communist propaganda tactics in government advertising
“I suspect Orwell would see, as he did back in the 1930s, the rich and outrageous irony of governments using the resources of the people to manipulate them and to keep them acquiescent, passive and apathetic.”
Bushfire money mystery: recovery funds withheld to fight the Election?
No figures are publicly available for the three largest bushfire recovery funds, which account for more than 55% of the $2.73 billion the federal Coalition has promised to devastated communities. By the end of last year, less than half of that $2.73 billion had been spent, some $500 million less than claimed by David Littleproud,
Barilaro overrules EPA, ramps up logging, funnels bushfire grants to loggers
Despite unprecedented damage to forests and wildlife, NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro overruled the Environment Protection Agency and determined that industrial-scale logging continues in NSW’s burnt and unburnt forests. Suzanne Arnold reports.
ABC Country Hour – mouthpiece of Liberal National Party and rural elites?
ABC Country Hour is marketed as the “voice of the bush”; but whose voice and whose bush? Brian Burkett, Dr Lisa Waller and Emma Mesikämmen investigate how Country Hour does the bidding of the Liberal and National Parties and their powerful friends while glossing over the likes of climate change, indigenous issues and the #watergate scandal.
Housing Hypocrites: Tim Wilson’s housing affordability crusade just an assault on super
Liberal MP Tim Wilson is the latest Coalition politician to cry crocodile tears over the housing affordability crisis, calling for Australians to access their superannuation to buy a house. Wilson’s call however is supreme hypocrisy, writes Elizabeth Minter. Coalition policies – including negative gearing, property subsidies, money-laundering, super fund borrowing and banking and lending standards – are ample evidence.
Donald Trump deserted by corporate funders now regulations are gutted and tax breaks banked
Corporate America is frantically distancing itself from Donald Trump in the dying days of his presidency after spending four years financing him, enjoying his tax giveaways, his attacks on workers and gutting of regulations to fatten corporate profits. Elizabeth Minter reports on the rank hypocrisy, even extending to Scott Morrison’s top adviser on Covid-19 economic recovery.
Labor backflip puts Coles and Woolies profits before indigenous health
The Northern Territory government has caved in to liquor lobby pressure and imperilled the health of First Nations People by approving a Dan Murphy’s Darwin mega-store for Woolworths and lifting the licence cap for Coles. The community will pay the price with their health, write Professor Lesley Russell and Dr Jeff McMullen. Will this be Woolworths’ Juukan Gorge moment?
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