Tony doing quiet well with SBY
-unlike the last 2 PM's he's just going about the job and getting things done , no need for press conference every 5 minutes and adjusting hair

btw I believe in man made climate change - the climate changes have been going on for millions of years and then some , difference now is we make a difference to it in the order of .0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 of a percent
why spend trillions world wide especially with the collective economies all r00ted

yes Thebas Julia did go missing when the chips were down, failed Malaysian solution , East Timor solution (in her head only, no one not even the East Timorese knew), no carbon tax under ANY,repeat ANY government I lead - repeat "I" , as if the greens wouldn't support her if she didn't implement it LOLOLOL (BobDown Brown "we will support Tony if you don't bring in the carbon tax!" AS IF!!!!)

PUP with the balance of power - fascinating times

gonna be interesting for sure womble

greens and labor blocking the big stuff

shades of america lol ... reprehensible    ...

Questions about Senator's involvement with Sydney Water

Peter Lloyd reported this story on Wednesday, February 27, 2013


ELEANOR HALL: First to the revelations that the senior Federal Liberal Senator, Arthur Sinodinos, is giving up his shareholding in the infrastructure company Australian Water Holdings because of its links to the disgraced New South Wales Labor Party powerbroker Eddie Obeid.

Arthur Sinodinos was appointed chairman of Australian Water Holdings the day before the Obeid family signed a secret deal to buy one third of the company. He insists he was not told by the management of that arrangement.

Under the Senator's chairmanship, Australian Water Holdings went on to become a key donor to the State Liberal Party.

And a few months later, after the Liberals won power in the state, the company signed a 25-year deal with the new government to install infrastructure in Sydney's north-west growth corridor that increased the value of the company from $9 million to $75 million.

Peter Lloyd has been following the Independent Commission Against Corruption hearings into the business dealings of the Obeid family, and he joins us now.

Peter, is it clear that this Liberal Senator, Arthur Sinodinos, is breaking his links with this company specifically because of its connection to the Labor Party powerbrokers, the Obeids?

PETER LLOYD: Well Eleanor, the timing is certainly curious because Australian water holdings has been the subject of the ICAC's - part of it, part of the ICAC's - inquiries into the Obeid family, has been a subject which has come up for some months now.

The Senator Sinodinos has had time before this to make this announcement that he's putting this distance between himself and the Obeids' investment in that company but it only appears that today, after some inquiries by one media outlet that he's announcing that he's concerned at these deep links and he wants to put some distance, as he says, between the Obeid family and this company, because of their connections to it and the muck that's really come up at the ICAC.

This is what Senator Sinodinos had to say on our sister program AM this morning.

ARTHUR SINODINOS: I took the decision not to further pursue a shareholding which I believed I was entitled to, because of revelations around the management of the company having entered into an agreement with members of the Obeid family to gain, I think it was in the end, a loan and that should have been disclosed, I believe, to me, and at the time, which would have been towards the end of 2010.

ELEANOR HALL: That's Arthus Sinodinos speaking on AM this morning. Peter, he says he did not know of the connection with the Obeids, specifically this loan to buy a third of the company. Is it credible that the chairman of this company who had also served on its board since 2008 would not have known of the Obeids’ involvement?

PETER LLOYD: It certainly raises questions about the aspects of disclosure and due diligence on behalf of directors of the company in that this was not a small investment. At the time that we're talking about Arthur Sinodinos becoming the chairman, stepping up to that role, the Obeids were proposing to buy not a small amount of Australia Water Holdings, it was one-third of the company. It was a $3 million deal.

So a multi-million dollar deal for a significant stake in a company that the chairman was apparently told nothing about.

ELEANOR HALL: And the Obeids already had a small stake in the company, didn't they?

PETER LLOYD: That's right.

ELEANOR HALL: So they were increasing their stake. The Obeids, you've been following their case closely in the Independent Commission Against Corruption in Sydney. Has this company come up during the ICAC hearings?

PETER LLOYD: It most certainly has. In fact I'm looking at the transcript right now of a day about two weeks ago, on a Friday, when in the afternoon I was sitting there watching Moses Obeid, the son of Eddie Obeid, the ALP powerbroker from New South Wales who's at the centre of the ICAC inquiry, over that family's links to a suspect mining, lucrative mining licence exploration deal in the Hunter Valley that was granted by their mate, Ian Macdonald, the former minerals minister.

And as a sort of tangential part of that inquiry, what came up was questions about this Australian Water Holding investment, another one of the enterprises, the massive enterprises the Obeid family's involved with.

On that day, Moses Obeid was asked a number of times what he knew about this company and he said, and I'm counting them now, the "I don't recalls" on this page is about four of them. Now, he said "I don't recall" four or five times, and then the Counsel Assisting, Geoffrey Watson, produced a document.

It was the Heads of Agreement for the investment by the Obeids to buy this one-third stake in the company and there on about page six or eight was the signature of one Moses Obeid. So he'd been not fully truthful with the Commission at that point, and that was the Heads of Agreement which we're talking about which was the one third investment stake that the Obeid family was taking in Australia Water Holdings the day after Arthur Sinodinos became chairman.

ELEANOR HALL: So let's get to the heart of why the Obeids suddenly want a one third stake in this company?

PETER LLOYD: Well that's a curious question and perhaps what you'd need to do is look forward to what happened in the year after that investment process began. The New South Wales Labor Government lost power some months afterwards. The Liberals took over. In the period between the investment by the Obeids and the Liberals taking power in New South Wales, the Australia Water Holdings substantially increased its stake in investments, if you could call it that, or donations to the Liberal Party and became in fact a key donor to the Liberal Party of New South Wales.

Some time after that donation trail begins, the Water Corp Board of New South Wales grants to Australia Water Holdings, this company, a lucrative contract for basically putting pipes and plumbing into the north-west of Sydney, into the development corridor.

It increased the value of the company from $9 million on paper at the time of the investment by the Obeids to about $75 million, the estimate is, in December last year by the management of the company. So it's a massive investment increase in value of the company, thanks to a contract that was awarded without tender by the then new Liberal Government in New South Wales.

ELEANOR HALL: That's the interesting thing though here isn't it? Unlike some of the other deals we've been talking about in ICAC, we're talking about a Labor powerbroker family and a Liberal State Government. The Liberal state ministers say they were not involved in this decision to award this contract.

PETER LLOYD: Yeah well I suppose they say donors speak out of both sides of their mouth. But the key part of this equation is the actions that were taken by Sydney Water in the period of early, I think it was January 2012 finally that the contract was awarded to Water Holdings.

Now the ministers in the Liberal Party in the Liberal Government in New South Wales say they were hands off, they had nothing to do with this, this was a corporate decision made by the board of Sydney Water. No connection to any suggestions of influence from Arthur Sinodinos to them.

ELEANOR HALL: Just back to that question of the Obeid family wanting to buy one third of the company, the major shareholder then, Mr Girolamo, was to sell half of his 60 per cent shareholding. What was his connection to the Obeids?

PETER LLOYD: The connection to the Obeids is this. That Mr Girolamo was in fact a childhood schoolboy friend of the Obeid boys. So he is an investment partner and a family friend of the Obeids. This is not unusual, there are other people who are on the Australian Water Holdings Board for example who are also connected to the Cascade Coal deal which is at the centre of the ICAC inquiry. So this is wheels within wheels, friends amongst friends.

ELEANOR HALL: Indeed. Peter Lloyd, our ICAC specialist on the Obeid family, thanks very much.

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So The President of the NSW Liberal Party, Is appointed Chairman of Australian Water Holdings the day before the Obeid family signed a secret deal to buy one third of the company.

Then under the Senator's chairmanship, Australian Water Holdings went on to become a key donor to the State Liberal Party.

And a few months later, after the Liberals won power in the state,

The company signed a 25-year deal with the new government (With NO TENDER PROCESS) to install infrastructure in Sydney's north-west growth corridor that increased the value of the company from $9 million to $75 million.


And he expects us to believe that this was all a coincidence, and he had no idea what his company was doing...... and wasn't informed that the company he became Chairman of on one day...... had sold 1 third of the Company to Obied the day before.



The pigs of greed have been caught with their snouts in the trough.

Get this greedy pig out of public life.

very interesting article AFL ... cheers

seems its just one big club out there ... contracts without tenders ... crossing party borders ... money money money

icac appear to be doing more investigative depth than ever before that i can remember ... enjoyable reading

Seeing as Murdoch (and yourself) tried to draw a link and smear a couple of Labor people for taking a weekend at one of Obeids properties.......

So they were guilty by association according to their newspapers..

That link pales in comparison....

How hard will they go on their FRIEND ARTHUR?

Looks like Hockey is softening up the public to increase debt to pay for infrastructure. It's actually a good idea at current interest rates BUT totally against their narrative before the election

Why is Abbott flying to Indonesia twice in a week - surely it could've all been done in just one trip??? I thought we had a "budget emergency"???

someone should report it in the papers afl .. i agree

NSW is a mess regarding (substantial) govt contracts it seems ... and it appears the club has no Party political borders 

so just to clarify - turning back boats vs towing back boats - is there really that much difference and does Scott Morrison really think they'll just cruise on back on their own???

did I hear right.. 'Today everyone feels like a monarchist'.
Go get get  ****ed u ****..speak for yourself..not me

Sickening stuff in 2013 imo

Abbott set to sign highly secretive TPP agreement this month

Posted by admin in Business, Economics, International, Law on 5 October, 2013 10:13 am / 21 comments
independentaustraliadotnet

The Abbott Coalition looks set to sign off on the highly secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership later this month, but what will it mean for ordinary Australians? Dr Matthew Mitchell reports.

WHAT SORT of “Trade Agreement” manages to both criminalise internet use and force coal seam fracking onto communities?

The answer to this is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a pact that has the ominous potential to achieve both these corporate objectives — and many more.

Of course, we cannot know the exact effects of the TPP, as the negotiations over the past few years have been held in secret.  However, two leaked chapters – out of the 26 or more under negotiation – have caused more than their fair share of concern.

One of these chapters threatens to undermine both our existing domestic and international legal systems, throwing away the protections and rights achieved over hundreds of years.

How? Through tribunals linked to a system of International Investor-State Dispute Settlements (ISDS). The one in the TPP led to an open letter signed by prominent Australian judges, lawyers, politicians and academics insisting that the government should not sign an agreement that includes ISDS. The letter states:

    ‘…the increasing use of this mechanism to skirt domestic court systems and the structural problems inherent in the arbitral regime are corrosive of the rule of law and fairness.’

But ISDS is most definitely included in the proposed TPP put forward by United States negotiators.

The Gillard government made it clear that Australia would not sign another trade agreement that included international dispute settlement by tribunals. This followed Australians being burnt by an agreement that has allowed Phillip-Morris to take Australia to an international tribunal over its plain packaging laws, even though our own High Court already decided against Phillip-Morris.
Other countries are experiencing equally serious consequences.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is being used by gas and oil company Lone Pine Resources to sue Canada over Quebec’s moratorium on fracking. A trade agreement was also used to sue Ecuador for USD $1.77 billion.

The Coalition’s trade policy document indicates that Abbott’s government will sign the TPP with acceptance of ISDSs because the Coalition is

    ‘…open to utilising investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) clauses as part of Australia’s negotiating position.’

Not only that, but it says it will

    ‘…fast track the conclusion of free trade agreements.’ 

Tom J. Donohue, CEO and President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told CNBC that the TPP deal will be completed in a month.

Added to the threat of ISDSs are many other concerns, including those raised by the leaked chapters.

For instance, based on the leaked IP chapter, Aaron Bailey of OpenMedia.ca is concerned about the new powers that may be given to massive international media organisations [IA emphasis]:

    The TPP seeks, among other things, to rewrite the global rules on intellectual property enforcement that would give Big Media new powers to lock users out of our own content and services, provide new liabilities that might force ISPs to police our online activity, and give giant media companies even greater powers to shut down websites and remove content at will.

It also encourages ISPs to block accused infringers’ Internet access, and could force ISPs to hand over our private information to big media conglomerates without appropriate privacy safeguards. You can see a more complete list of new restrictions below, but it appears that the TPP would turn all Internet users into suspected copyright criminals. In fact it appears to criminalize content sharing in general.

A statement by a U.S. trade representative at the recent ASEAN meeting in Brunei said that the TPP Ministerial Meeting held at the APEC meeting in Bali in early October would be a “milestone” and that the aim was to finish the TPP agreement “by the end of the year“.

President Obama is scheduled to address the APEC leaders, including Tony Abbott, on October 7.

Before Prime Minister Abbott signs this agreement, Australians deserve to know what rights we may be signing away.

Upcoming Information sessions on the TPP:

    Melbourne, Oct 15. Hosted by Swinburne University. See here for details.
    Sydney October, 22. Hosted by AFTINET.  12-2pm Macquarie Room, NSW Parliament, 6 Macquarie Street, Sydney. RSVP by Oct 21: campaign@aftinet.org.au

Abbott repaid wedding travel costs

AAP
October 6, 2013, 7:30 am

Prime Minister Tony Abbott repaid travel expenses after charging taxpayers when he attended the wedding of Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella in Victoria, it's been reported.

Mr Abbott's office says he repaid $1094 for a 2006 trip to Wangaratta for the wedding of the recently defeated frontbencher, News Corp Australia reported on Sunday.

A spokesman for Mr Abbott said he had repaid the money after the Department of Finance told him it could not guarantee he was entitled to it.

At the time of the June 2006 wedding, Mr Abbott was health minister in the Howard government.

A week ago Attorney-General George Brandis and Federal Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce agreed to repay money they had charged taxpayers to attend the 2011 wedding of Sydney radio broadcaster Michael Smith.

News Corps said Mr Abbott's spokesman James Boyce confirmed on Saturday the prime minister had "utilised entitlements".

"When the matter was brought to his attention, he immediately sought advice from the Department of Finance," Mr Boyce said.

"The advice received said it was not possible to determine if the travel was within entitlement.

"For the avoidance of any doubt, Mr Abbott has repaid all costs associated with this travel totalling $1,094.64 and the matter is resolved."

It is the second time Mr Abbott has repaid travel entitlements he had claimed from taxpayers.

In 2010 he repaid $9400 he had claimed for a 2009 book-tour to promote his book Battlelines.

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OINK, OINK, OINK.

you should also i guess ask why gillard was allowed to repay hers 


but i agree completely AFL

the public purse has been used far too often and for too long ... on both sides of politics ..

OINK OINK OINK is the tragedy of australian political behaviour it seems

---

(slipper of course was the porkiest porker in the pen )


Mr Slipper has explained much of this travel occurred during the period he was Speaker and was expected to travel and host guests.

He did not mention that he stood down as Speaker months before, on April 22.

"You cannot, with any integrity, compare the expenditure of the Speaker's office with that of a backbencher's office," Mr Slipper told the Daily yesterday.

"For most of that period I was Speaker and any overseas travel, one trip to the Middle East, was in my capacity as Speaker and my wife did not accompany me as she was entitled to do."

However, Mr Slipper also claimed $5463 for "family travel costs" during that period.

When it came to "office facilities", Mr Slipper's figures were again the highest of the four MPs in the region, spending $79,946.33.

----

and gillard too AFL ... you keep forgetting her

---

good article also on the TPP agreement

i'm at mixed odds on this one ... and was a little surprised when the gillard went down the rejection path

hard to beat the global controllers at their game ... and she drew us into their clutches in so many other areas

but well done to her govt for making a verbal stand at least towards the agreement

it does however have greater implications to us as a nation if we don;t sign off

(and i knew at the time thae silly 'plain cigarette packaging law' was going to come back at us .. telling international companies how they can 'present' their product .. whether a desirable product or not ... was well crazy ... socialist govt control over capitalist enterprise never goes down too well .. and the eduction and non advertising of the awful ciggies seemed enough .. in my book anyway)

there is a university article somewhere looking at both sides of the TPP ... give me a while and i'll try and track it down

TPP ... was a uni of nsw law faculty doc

http://law.bepress.com/unswwps-flrps13/65/

download link is near the top
Resolving Investor-State Disputes: Australia's Dilemma and Choices

48 pages ... conclusion can be read first ... but needs to be done in conjucntion with whole document to get the braod picture of argument ... rather than a 'whippy' conclusion without grabbing the points that led to it

Former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull said he made two "unprompted" repayments for interstate travel by his wife, Lucy, and son.

... got the phone call early imo


it's a big club ... the rorting club ... so let's not start on big business, high finance/investment groups, and major union hierarchies 

Abbott,Brandis,Bishop etc...Joyce.. 

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all the better reason to increase their salaries and dump all the allowances imo

There is nothing wrong with haircare