John Hewson and Malcolm Fraser blast Liberals over ANU divestment backlash

John Hewson and Malcolm Fraser blast Liberals over ANU divestment backlash

Date

October 13, 2014

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Heath Aston, political correspondent

EXCLUSIVE



John Hewson has lashed senior government figures, including
Treasurer Joe Hockey and Education Minister Christopher Pyne, for
attempting to "bully and coerce" the Australian National University into
reversing its decision to dump investments in fossil fuel companies.




The former Liberal Party leader and former Liberal prime
minister Malcolm Fraser are among more than 50 prominent Australians and
ethical investors who have signed an open letter urging the Abbott
government to call off its crusade against ANU. 



Mr Hewson also demanded members of the government reveal who
had urged them to take a public stance against ANU's decision to divest
its shareholdings in seven Australian resources companies, including
Santos, Oil Search and Iluka Resources.




"For politicians to try to bully, coerce and influence this university is just outrageous," Mr Hewson said.



"The big story here is what got the politicians so stirred
up? Was it the Minerals Council? It virtually owned the previous
government and appears to have large influence over this one.



"I'm surprised the superannuation industry isn't up in arms
about government trying to tell institutions how they should invest.
What if the big super funds were told they should be investing 25 per
cent of their money into infrastructure, 30 per cent into government
projects?"



Assistant Infrastructure Minister Jamie Briggs last week
called ANU "reckless" and Mr Hockey claimed the university was "removed
from reality" for deciding to spurn companies that he said help drive
the Australian economy and create jobs.



On Monday, Mr Pyne called the divestment decision "bizarre"
and Prime Minister Tony Abbott accused the ANU of "unnecessary
posturing" and risking the returns to its $1 billion investment
portfolio by selling off resources stocks.



Environment Minister Greg Hunt has spoken against ANU and
novice Liberal senator James McGrath, a former employee of Santos, said
the university had denied the seven companies "natural justice" by
failing to engage them before blacklisting their shares.



"You have a publicly funded organisation that essentially has
chosen to blacklist companies without giving them the right of reply. I
think the university should be condemned," he told Fairfax Media.



On Wednesday, left-leaning think tank the Australia Institute
will publish an open letter that calls on the government to respect
ANU's right to invest in or divest from any investments that it chooses.



"We support the role of choice in the Australian economy and
cannot understand why a government that is committed to deregulating the
university sector would question the ability of a university to make
investment decisions," the letter states.



"It is every investor's right to make their own investment
decisions without bullying from vested interests and government
ministers. It is ANU's obligation to invest responsibly, which includes
thinking about their environmental social standards, how they impacts on
financial returns and how they reflect on the character of the
institution."



Among the people who have added their names to the letter are
Wotif founder Graeme Wood, former Greens leader Bob Brown and
philanthropist Rob Purves.



The group said ANU's approach to ethical investing was
consistent  with investors around the world, including the Rockefeller
Brothers Fund and Stanford University.



Mr Hewson said the response had been disproportionate to the
scale of the investment portfolio rejig by ANU. The shareholdings to be
liquidated are worth an estimated $16 million, representing less than 2
per cent of the university's $1.1 billion portfolio.



ANU vice-chancellor Professor Ian Young said it was worrying
that certain groups felt they had the right to "tell an investor how to
invest".



Tim Buckley, a former head of equity research at Citigroup
who now works at the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial
Analysis, also accused the Coalition of attempting to bully ANU.



"I find it absolutely bizarre because, the last time I
checked, investment managers have the right to change their portfolios,"
he told Guardian Australia.



Santos vice-president for LNG markets and Eastern Australia
Commercial, Peter Cleary, questioned the sense of the divestment
movement's view that fossil fuels have no place in the future economy. 



"Our industry respects the challenge of minimising the impact
of our activities on the environment but we don't agree with the
extreme agenda that denies the continuing importance that energy plays
in supporting the everyday lives of Australia and Asia," he said.



"We face misleading and scaremongering campaigns. As an
industry, we must do all to inform our communities and to make sure the
debate is based on the strong science around the risks and about robust
economics when we look at the positive impacts on communities."



ANU is the first Australian university to divest from fossil
fuels, although it has retained shares in BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto. In
the US, 19 universities have sold out of fossil fuels investments,
including Stanford University, which has cleaned out its $US19 billion
($22 billion) investment fund.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/john-hewson-and-malcolm-fraser-blast-liberals-over-anu-divestment-backlash-20141014-115g2r.html#ixzz3G8kyT1Mw

Daily Telegraph 30s ExtraExtra TVC

THE MORAL CORRUPTION OF THE LNP AND MURDOCH

THE MURDOCH AN ABBOTT AND CO. COALITION OF DECEIPT
THE MORAL CORRUPTION OF THE LNP AND MURDOCH
THE COALITION OF DECEIT MURDOCH/LNP
Excerpt from an article by WIXXYLEAKS
I know what you may be thinking, it was not the sight of Andrew Bolt and Miranda Devine that made me uncomfortable, although I normally do find them and their far-right views quite disturbing, it was the guy sitting opposite them that really disturbed me.
It would seem that while the taxpayer pays his wage the Premier is off filming commercials for News Ltd, I would question whether that is a good use of taxpayer funds. Then again, Baird is a guy that as Treasurer managed to misplace a cool Billion dollars, so I guess he considers donating his taxpayer billed time as a political favour as small change.
For years there have been theories about how News Ltd is biased towards the Coalition, now News Ltd have embarked on an advertising campaign that seems to be calling Premier Baird one of their own team. If anyone ever needed confirmation of News Ltd’s bias this is it.
TO READ MORE = http://wixxyleaks.com/hitchin-a-ride-public-transport-and-premiers-used-to-promote-news-ltd/

Albo finally weighs into press freedom — but it’s more complicated than you think –

Albo finally weighs into press freedom — but it’s more complicated than you think –

Albo finally weighs into press freedom — but it’s more complicated than you think

Bernard Keane
|

Oct 13, 2014 1:04PM 

The debate over jailing journalists who reveal ASIO’s covert
operations is welcome but missing some context — and it’s not the
biggest threat to media freedom on the agenda.

After weeks of marching in lockstep with the Coalition on
matters of “national security” (including provisions that would jail
journalists — or anyone else — for up to 10 years for revealing secret
ASIO operations), a senior Labor politician has suggested it might be
useful to debate the proposals rather than passing them with a minimum
of scrutiny.


Anthony Albanese said on Sky News Sunday morning:

“I believe that the media laws,
much of them, are draconian.  When we talk about potential penalties of
five to 10 years’ jail for exposing what might be an error made by the
security agencies then I think when people like [Australian scribe] Greg
Sheridan, as you say, are drawing it into question, as well as, I’ve
had approaches from the media alliance, you know, we are all concerned
as Australians about the jailing of Peter Greste in Egypt.  Why has he
been jailed?  Because he was reporting, and therefore seen to be somehow
supportive of, these actions.”

But when it comes to the Australian Security Intelligence
Organisation’s special intelligence operations” (or covert ops)
provisions of the government’s now-legislated first round of national
security reforms, things are a little more complicated than they appear.


The SIO provisions have been in the public domain since
mid-2012, when then-attorney-general Nicola Roxon initiated an inquiry
by the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security into a range of
national security reform proposals. Current Attorney-General George
Brandis is thus quite right to note that these laws haven’t exactly been
rushed through Parliament. But the focus at the time was not on the
implications of revealing covert operations, but on the fact that ASIO
wanted an exemption from prosecution for its officers for any criminal
activities they might be involved in while undercover. I made a lengthy
submission to the JCIS inquiry in a private capacity, but I confess the
issue of revealing information about such operations never occurred to
me; I’m not aware of anyone else raising that issue either, although I
certainly didn’t read all of the hundreds of submissions made to that
inquiry. The JCIS had a better grasp of the issue, however, and
understood that ASIO was asking for a similar scheme to the Australian
Federal Police’s “controlled operations”. JCIS recommended that any such
scheme for ASIO be modelled on controlled operations.

“Politicians
also need to understand the threat data retention poses to them: the
AFP can go and get their metadata just as easily …”

This is significant, because when journalists raise the
possibility of being jailed in relation to SIOs, and when Albanese
suggests they need to be wound back, that raises a question of whether
the controlled operations laws, too, should be wound back, because a
journalist — or whistleblower, or politician — can be jailed for
revealing information about a controlled operation, although the penalty
for revealing AFP operations is two years, rather than five for SIOs
(both have 10-year jail terms for revealing information that harms or is
intended to harm an individual or operation). So far, there has been
virtually no discussion of whether the existing AFP laws chill free
speech or are a threat to journalists in the same way as the ASIO laws
do, even though exactly the same concerns could be raised about the
abuse of those laws.


As we’ve repeatedly explained, however, there is a signal
difference between the ASIO and AFP laws in that — contrary to the
original JCIS committee report — there are external oversight
requirements for the AFP that don’t apply to ASIO, unless you believe
the fiction that the Australian Intelligence Community’s tame, in-house
watchdog, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, seriously
represents external oversight.


It was the oversight issue that Labor members pursued in
relation to SIOs during the recent JCIS inquiry into the draft
legislation, unsuccessfully.
Labor’s Penny Wong, with some support from South Australian Liberal
David Fawcett, also pushed, with more success, for the element of
“recklessness” in the relevant offence to be clarified in a way that
lifted the threshold for prosecution. But there’s no public interest
defence available to journalists in relation to revealing information
about an SIO, just as there’s no public interest defence in relation to
AFP-controlled operations. The plausible and consistent options to
ameliorate the SIO provisions would thus either be to provide
like-for-like independent oversight safeguards in relation to SIOs, in
line with the original JCIS recommendations — thereby reducing the
possibility of SIOs being abused — or inserting a public interest
defence in relation to revealing information about both SIOs and
controlled operations. The latter would induce a paroxysm of rage from
ASIO and the AFP, where there is a very strict demarcation between leaks
that serve the interests of the agency and the government — which are
never investigated — and leaks that tell people something the agencies
don’t want them to know, which are aggressively pursued.


And yet again, it’s important to note that the SIO
provisions aren’t the main event when it comes to a threat to media
freedom. That belongs to data retention, which is a direct threat to
journalists and their sources. It’s also a direct threat to any
politician who has relied on whistleblowers to tell them what’s really
happening within an organisation. Hopefully those journalists who have
criticised the SIO provisions will muster the same energy when the data
retention bill emerges from the incompetent clutches of the
Attorney-General’s Department in coming weeks — indeed, Laurie Oakes has already done so.
And politicians also need to understand the threat data retention poses
to them: the AFP can go and get their metadata just as easily as it can
a journalist’s, or public servant’s. We look forward to seeing them
join the fight.

Politicians and media let us down in fight to curb rising Islamophobia

10 October 2014, 12.56pm AEDT

Politicians and media let us down in fight to curb rising Islamophobia

Many incidents of violence and harassment directed at
Australian Muslims have been reported recently. These are visible
confirmation of fears expressed by their community, that support for the
government’s…

Author

1. 
   
   
   

   Leticia Anderson
   

   
   
   Lecturer, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at University of Sydney
   
   
   
   
   

Disclosure Statement

Leticia Anderson does not work for, consult to, own shares in
or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit
from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

Provides funding as a Member of The Conversation.
sydney.edu.au

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Religious leaders have come together to promote community
harmony, but some political and media agendas have encouraged
Islamophobia.
AAP/Tracey Nearmy

Many incidents of violence and harassment directed at Australian Muslims have been reported recently. These are visible confirmation of fears expressed by their community,
that support for the government’s new security laws and military action
in Iraq would be rallied with “racist caricatures of Muslims as
backwards, prone to violence and inherently problematic”.



Policing and intelligence operations have focused exclusively on members of the Muslim community. This has contributed to a public backlash against Muslims and supposed Muslims. The immediacy and scale of this outbreak of Islamophobia is alarming.

Stereotypes do terrible damage

Australia has emerged as a fertile environment for Islamophobia.
Stereotypical representations of Muslims in the early years of the “War
on Terror” – which linked terrorism, violence and Islam – gained wide
currency by the mid-2000s.



Sections of the news media, politicians and social media
have re-activated these stereotypes. Muslim Australians are made to
feel they are targets - for everything from the everyday racism
encountered in schools and on the streets, to draconian
counter-terrorism legislation that restricts civil liberties, to war and
the preparations for war.



Social psychological research
has shown that when public figures and media endorse negative
stereotypes this legitimises prejudicial attitudes. This can influence
the translation of such attitudes into discriminatory actions, as we
have seen in the recent spate of attacks.



Australia now has several openly Islamophobic far-right social
movements and political parties. Until recently these were generally
small and operated largely in isolation. However, such groups have begun
to collaborate on campaigns.



These groups also appear to be attracting more support
from the wider community. The re-emergence of anti-Muslim rhetoric in
public discourse has provided legitimisation for their views.

Those
Australians who are openly hostile to Muslims and their institutions
feel emboldened by anti-Islamic rhetoric in public discourse.
AAP/Tertius Pickard

Muslims suffer when Coalition dons khaki

The government also appears to be a political beneficiary of the
resurgence in Islamophobia. As national security concerns top the news
agenda, pressures on the government on a range of other fronts,
particularly the deeply unpopular May budget, have faded into the
background.



The increased “terror threat” was followed by rises in the approval rating of Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Coalition voting intentions.



The amplification of threats to national security has worked for
struggling conservative governments before. In 2001, the Howard
government was polling poorly, yet managed to snatch victory later that
year. The Coalition election campaign played on racial anxieties and
national security fears following the “children overboard” affair and
the September 11 terrorist attacks.



In 2010, with the Coalition again languishing in the polls, then
opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison sought to replicate this
strategy. He urged the shadow cabinet to “capitalise on the electorate’s growing concerns about “Muslim immigration” and Muslims’ “inability to integrate”.

Tony Abbott’s each-way bet in his remarks on Muslim women’s dress sent a terrible message.
AAP/Alan Porritt

The Prime Minister has not been nearly as forthright in condemning
acts of Islamophobia as he has been in denouncing Islamic extremists. He
even weighed into the debate to dismiss Muslim community concerns. And Abbott failed to condemn the inflammatory push from within his party for a “burqa ban”.



This is in contrast to the firm and admirable stance taken by Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett.
He emphasised that “Australia as a country has a history of respecting
different cultures and faiths”. The reported taunting and terrorising of
Muslim women and children in Perth was “unacceptable”.

Media reports that marginalise harm us all

The media is not blameless either, as some journalists have acknowledged. Australian Muslims have consistently identified the media as a central social institution that contributes to their marginalisation and exclusion.



Media reporting has frequently perpetuated stereotypes. It has also
failed to reflect the diversity of origins, outlooks and aspirations of
Muslim Australians. Journalism of this sort negatively affects other
Australians' perceptions of Islam and the Muslim community.



My research has shown that articles with lower levels of Islamophobia
feature the voices of “ordinary” Muslim men and women. They humanise
them. Such articles contextualise conflicts and avoid simplistic
frameworks such as “good versus evil” or “War on Terror”.



The media can do more to highlight positive efforts by individuals
and groups to resist and respond to oppression and conflict. More
balanced perspectives can reduce the reinforcing and perpetuation of
Islamophobia.



The “newsworthiness” of stories related to Islam and conflict, and
the concentration of negative reporting patterns, suggest that adoption
of conflict reporting standards could be another key way to curb
Islamophobia.



The mass media and our politicians will be central to either
exacerbating or stemming Islamophobia. Gestures of support and
solidarity from the non-Muslim community, and standing up to racism, are also important.



Combating Islamophobia is vital to the wellbeing of the Muslim
community, to wider community cohesion and to limiting recruitment for
groups such as Islamic State (ISIS)/Da’ish. To curb Islamophobia, we
must contest the political spectacle that gives rise to discriminatory
and violent treatment against Muslims by the state and some non-Muslim
Australians.

Here we Joh again! Newman’s $32 billion whopper — and other LNP lies

Here we Joh again! Newman’s $32 billion whopper — and other LNP lies

Steve Bishop 9 October 2014, 5:30pm 24

EconomicsPoliticsQueensland

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Campbell Newman and his cronies have been telling porkies again. What $80 billion debt?

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman and his Treasurer Tim Nicholls continue to lie blatantly and shamelessly to Queenslanders about the size of the debt the Budget has to deal with.



It is one of many demonstrable lies (but by far the biggest) told by
the LNP — which truly deserves the title of the Lying Newman Party.



It has also lied about the crime rate, hospital waiting lists,
electricity assets and electricity prices — all potentially
vote-changing issues.



Treasurer Tim Nicholls was at it again on Tuesday (October 7) in trying to convince Queenslanders that the State Budget has to deal with an $80 billion debt and interest repayments of $4 billion a year and, therefore, we have to part with the family silver.



It is a fact that the correct figure, using the LNP’s skewed accounting method, spelled out in State Budget Paper Number Two for 2014/15 (p96), is $$48 billion.

General Government borrowings of $48.141 billion are forecast for
2014-15, an increase of $3.162 billion over 2013-14. This increase is
primarily to support the capital program of $5.972 billion in 2014-15…”

You might notice that not only is this $32,000,000,000 less than the
debt claimed by the Treasurer as part of his “crisis” spiel but the LNP
has added $3 billion to the debt with its own spending — an increase of
nearly 7% in one year.



And repayments of $4 billion a year? Another lie.



Again the Treasurer’s own Budget Paper spells out the true figure on page 82:

“In 2014-15, the General Government sector has total debt servicing costs forecast at $2.379 billion…”

Yesterday, Treasurer Nicholls stood in front of a Government banner saying ‘No asset sales’ and insisted that the Government’s plan to lease major assets was completely different.



But on March 23 2010, Treasurer Nicholls told Parliament:

“…a 99-year lease is as good as giving away the farm….”

Then again, on 12 October 2010, the treasurer was adamant that leasing assets was equivalent to selling them.



He told the Brisbane Times that the then Labor Government’s decision to lease rail tracks was

“… a fire sale, and asset sales will not fix the structural deficit created by Labor.”

And notice: he was also adamant that asset sales wouldn’t fix the deficit.



On electricity assets, Premier Newman vowed in November 2012:

"The poles and wires transmissions stuff, I believe, should be owned by the people because they are natural monopolies."

And:

“I am not going to be bullied by the Prime Minister into selling electricity assets."

On 7 October 2014, he announced the plan to privatise the poles and wires.





Another big lie in Budget Paper Two was that all the money from the sale of assets would go into reducing debt and

‘… investment funds and projects to help grow the State’s economy now and for future generations.’

Now $3.4 billion is going to be frittered away in buying Queenslanders’ votes by promising them, in the lead up to an election, that an LNP government will

“… relieve cost-of-living pressure”.

Mr Newman used a similar vote-buying tactic before the 2012 state election, when he promised to lower electricity bills by $120 a year. They’ve gone up.



But wait these more — including lies about crime figures.



On 5 August, Premier Newman released a Joh-style ‘Queensland Unlimited’ video segment on YouTube with a caption that read:

‘Premier Campbell Newman today joined Minister for
Police, Fire and Emergency Services Jack Dempsey and Police Commissioner
Ian Stewart to reveal the rate of Queensland reported offences were
dramatically down 11 per cent for the 2013/14 financial year.’

But media reports, typified by the ABC, reported:

‘The QPS data shows that in 2013-14 there were 436,720 offences
recorded. That compares to 437,465 the year before. Allowing for
population growth it translates to a 2.1 per cent drop in the crime
rate.’

And then some lies about health.



On 9 September this year, Health Minister Lawrence Springborg told Parliament:

“There has been a virtual elimination of surgical long waits in this state…”

But the LNP was at pains when it was in Opposition to say that there
was a huge waiting list hidden behind the waiting list for surgery — and
that this was a crucial measure.





On 14 February 2012, then LNP health spokesman Mark McArdle said in a media release:

‘When Ms Bligh claims Labor has the shortest elective surgery
waiting times, she fails to admit there are over 220,000 patients
waiting to get on the elective surgery waiting list.’

Is this the list which we should be talking about? Australian Medical Association Queensland president Richard Kidd said on 1 March 2012:

“The premier lied when she said that we had the shortest waiting
lists ... We need to talk about the waiting list; the waiting list for
the waiting list; and the 'I'm never going to get onto the waiting list'
waiting list.”

On August 4 this year Queensland Health Minister Lawrence Springborg was asked on Radio 4BC:

“So how many people are on the waiting list to get on the waiting list?”

Mr Springborg confessed:

“There’s around 300,000 people as I understand it off the top of my head.”

He saw no need to change that figure after the interview.





That’s up from 220,000 in 2012. In other words, according to the
minister, the waiting list for the waiting list has grown even longer —
up by more than a third.



If it was a lie, as alleged by the Australian Medical Association in
2012 to ignore the waiting lists to see a specialist, it’s a lie today.
And it’s a bigger lie by 80,000 people.



The list of lies goes on, of course, but this article must come to an end.



You can read more by Steve Bishop at stevebishop.net.





This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Senate Inquiry into Queensland Gov’t reveals Courier-Mail’s corruption

Senate Inquiry into Queensland Gov’t reveals Courier-Mail’s corruption

Alex McKean 7 October 2014, 5:00pm 77

LawMediaPoliticsQueensland

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Murdoch’s Brisbane masthead The Courier Mail has clearly
displayed bias and inconsistency in its hysterical coverage of the
Senate Inquiry into the Newman Government, writes Alex McKean and Stephen Keim SC.



THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF A SENATE INQUIRY into certain aspects of the
Newman Government in Queensland has been greeted with howls of derision
from Brisbane’s daily print newspaper, the Courier-Mail.



There was little evidence of balance in the coverage of the issue on 2
October 2014, when the paper contained a two-page spread condemning the
Inquiry (nor again in today’s issue).



Liberal Senator Eric Abetz was reported as sounding the dire warning that the Inquiry, an instrument of Clive Palmer’s retribution, would cost Queensland 70,000 jobs.



Dennis Atkins said that the Inquiry would render Parliament a crime scene.



Another story, authored by Steven Scott, Sarah Vogler and Renee
Viellaris, stated that the ‘taxpayer-funded’ Inquiry would double as a ‘PUP pre-election spruik’.



Yet another article,
by Greg Stoltz, drew a connection between the Inquiry and outlaw
bikies, who were said to be thanking Clive Palmer for taking up their
fight against the Newman Government. Mr Stoltz said that both Clive
Palmer and Senator Glenn Lazarus had emerged as ‘heroes of the violent
motorcycle gangs that police have spent years battling to bring under
control’.



The big guns have been brought to bear, with Andrew Bolt contributing a lengthy piece in which he described the Inquiry as a ‘witch-hunt’. Bolt said the Inquiry was a ‘posse’ which had been created to ‘dig for dirt’ on the Newman Government.



Readers were exhorted to ‘be in no doubt that this is personal’ and were directed to ‘look at the grubbiness’. Bolt derided the Labor Party for ‘sinking to Palmer’s level’ by backing the Inquiry before signing off with the phrase: ‘grubby, grubby, grubby’.



The editorial ran many of the same lines, accusing the Palmer United Party of cynically playing Labor and the Greens to set up the Inquiry.





The Inquiry, itself, was described as

‘… one of the most outrageous abuses of power and process seen in the history of the Senate.’

The editor’s language became even more intemperate when he described the Inquiry as a

‘… voodoo mix of conspiracies and prejudices about the Newman government.’

Readers of the Courier Mail might be forgiven for missing, amongst the hyperbole, the facts
that the Inquiry is targeted at investigating the disposition of moneys
flowing from the Commonwealth toward Queensland in the days after the
Newman Government came to power; the propriety of the Commonwealth’s
devolving powers to issue environmental approvals to the Queensland
State government; the separation of powers and judicial independence in
Queensland; and the extent to which Queensland government policies and
practices are consistent with international human rights obligations.



These terms of reference raise, among other things, issues of
possible misappropriation of Commonwealth funds, originating from the
taxpayer, by a State government. The focus of the inquiry appears to be
whether those funds were applied to party political purposes here in
Queensland.



These are important issues involving possible high-level government corruption and misuse of taxpayer funds.



The prospect of the Newman Government being released From federal
restraints on approval of development on environmental grounds is
disturbing and, seemingly, an appropriate area for inquiry by a body
truly independent of that government.



There has been a series of revelations
of political donations to the Newman Government or individuals,
therein, principally, by proponents of development and mining proposals
being closely followed or preceded by favourable legislation or
administrative actions which have benefitted those donors.



The premier, Campbell Newman, is strongly supportive of developers
and miners, seemingly, over many other public policy considerations.



Premier Newman has declared, on a number of occasions, that Queensland is ‘open for business’.



In very recent times, legislation was rushed through the Parliament under cover of darkness to remove, effectively, the public’s right to object to huge mining developments.





It is informative to compare the response of the Courier Mail
to this decision by the Senate to establish an Inquiry to its editorial
reaction to the announcement of other recent inquiries which may have
been thought by some to have political, as well as public policy,
motivations .



For example, on 9 February, this year, the newspaper’s headline blared

‘Royal Commission into Trade Unions is Overdue’.

This opinion piece was attributed to unidentified ‘staff writers’. It
is tempting to speculate that none of the ‘staff writers’ wished their
by-line to be used to identify them as endorsing the establishment of an
inquiry that clearly had a strongly partisan purpose.



The ‘staff writers’ began with a series of unsupported assertions, an example of which was:

‘It is no secret that unions… are a haven for crooks and swindlers.’

The writers then heaped praise upon Prime Minister Tony Abbott for
having the courage to look into the shadowy world of trade unions. The
writers compared PM Abbott, favourably, with Premier Newman, who was
also cast in a favourable light.



The staff writers drew favourable connections between PM Abbott’s
campaign against the criminal trade unionists and Premier Newman’s
legislative campaign against motorcycle gangs in Queensland. It is
worthy of note that the manner in which Mr. Newman’s government has
legislated, purportedly, against “bikies” has also been controversial, including among experts on law enforcement.



The staff writers ended their by laying down the gauntlet to the Opposition Leader, Bill Shorten, to

‘… play a prominent role in stamping out the cancer of corruption.’

Similarly, on 7 October 2013, the same or different ‘staff writers’ welcomed the announcement of the Home Insulation Program, or ‘pink batts’ Inquiry
by the then newly elected Abbott Government. Many observers felt that
the decision to establish this Inquiry into a subject that had been
investigated by a Parliamentary Committee, an administrative inquiry,
the CSIRO, coroners from New South Wales and Queensland, and the
auditor-general was politically motivated.





Political motivation was not a word in the vocabulary of Courier-Mail staff writers on that occasion.



The opinion piece ran under the headline:

‘Next insulation inquiry merits the whole truth’.

The piece concluded by expressing the satisfaction of the authors that the terms of reference drawn up by the Abbott cabinet,

‘… included the ability to call former Labor ministers, including
Mr Rudd and Mr Garrett, to testify as to what they really knew.’

It is the case that political institutions can establish inquiries
with mixed motives. Very few decisions of politicians do not involve
some calculation of political advantage as well as public benefit.



It is a legitimate concern, however, when the political calculus appears to dominate the considerations of the public good.



It is important that journalists and news organisations monitor and
report both the public benefit and political advantage aspects of
politicians’ actions so that the public is informed about these matters.



The public and, especially, the journalists’ readers are entitled to
accept a degree of balance, consistency and impartiality in the way this
task is carried out.



The recent history of the Courier-Mail in reporting the
establishment of public inquiries shows that that news organisation, and
its journalists (who, presumably, have little choice in the matter),
have fallen well below these basic journalistic standards.



You can follow Stephen Keim on Twitter @StephenKeim1.





This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Anti-crime prevention funds mostly allocated to Coalition electorates

Anti-crime prevention funds mostly allocated to Coalition electorates

Date

October 5, 2014

• 
  

Heath Aston

Political reporter

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Looking into the eligibility criteria and selection process for the Safer Streets program: Auditor General Ian McPhee. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

EXCLUSIVE



The Abbott government has been accused of "rampant pork
barrelling" over a $50 million crime prevention program that has so far
seen nearly 90 per cent of the money spent in Coalition electorates.




The Commonwealth Auditor-General is investigating management
of the fund, aimed at deterring anti-social behaviour and cleaning up
crime hot spots, it was announced in September.

Illustration: Matt Golding.

It has now emerged in figures released by the
Attorney-General's Department that of the 34 grants approved, 30 are in
Liberal and National seats.




Every one of the largest seven grants has gone to electorates with a sitting Coalition member.



And one of the biggest outlays – $550,000 for 33
closed-circuit TV cameras in the city of Stirling, Western Australia –
is in the electorate of Justice Minister Michael Keenan, the minister
responsible for the Safer Streets program.



The biggest single spend went to the Liberal-held marginal
seat of Herbert – held by just 2.2 per cent – where the Townsville City
Council has been given $1.3 million to install LED lighting along a
street in Thuringowa.



The City of Wagga Wagga in regional NSW has been allocated
$464,000 for CCTV cameras. Wagga Wagga is part of the bellwether seat of
Riverina, won back from Labor by the National Party last year.



In Victoria, $110,000 was provided for 18 CCTV cameras in
Lilydale and $110,000 for 12 CCTV cameras in Healesville – both in the
Liberal seat of Casey.



Auditor-General Ian McPhee is looking into the eligibility
criteria and selection process for Safer Streets after Labor's justice
spokesman David Feeney raised concerns.



He has also voiced concerns over the $314 million Community
Development Grants scheme, likening it to the Howard government's
notorious "regional rorts" program.



Mr Feeney said he wanted to know whether the program's aim was "safer streets or safer seats".



"The allocation of taxpayer funds increasingly appears politically motivated," he said.



Mr Feeney's office has requested detail on the approval's
process under Freedom of Information laws but was refused on the grounds
that it would "substantially and unreasonably divert resources" of the
Attorney-General's Department.



Mr Feeney described the decision as "cynical attempt to cover up this rampant pork barrelling".



Mr Keenan's office has previously said it was normal practice for the Auditor-General to look into government spending programs.



The fund uses the proceeds of crime and was a Labor
initiative known as The National Crime Prevention Fund, but was rebadged
after the election as Safer Streets.



Figures show that $20 million of the $50 million fund has so far been allocated.



A spokeswoman for Mr Keenan said all applicants had met the
programs of expenditure guidelines laid out in the Proceeds of Crime Act
2002.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/anticrime-prevention-funds-mostly-allocated-to-coalition-electorates-20141004-10q9nh.html#ixzz3FCTmj1i4