On retail Super funds
John Richardson writes: Re. “How retail super funds siphon off your money to the big banks” (Friday)
Once again Bernard Keane neatly exposes the dishonest efforts by those on the conservative side of politics, representing big money interests like the banks, to discredit trade unions for the very worst of crimes: successfully meeting their responsibilities to enhance the interests of their members better than the banks could ever hope or wish to .
For the federal director of the Liberal Party, the aptly named Andrew Bragg, to suggest that there is somehow something “improper” about a union official acting as a director of an industry super fund deciding to donate his director’s fees to his union is not only wrong-headed, but entirely consistent with what Australians have learnt to expect from this dishonest lot.
Perhaps Bragg could find a moment to explain why it is not equally unacceptable for the Prime Minister to make a $1.75M donation to the ineptly managed federal Liberal Party?
Hardly something likely to happen of course, given that the Liberal Party’s high expectations when it comes to appropriate behaviour only ever apply to everyone other than itself.
On the NBN
Alex Anderson writes: Re. “On the NBN” (Friday)
As a senior citizen it is with a touch of sadness that I read Paul Hampton-Smith’s comments. I am fortunate to live in a sea-side rural area where the copper was so rotten that the only feasible economic rollout for the local NBN was FTTP. I enjoy on my PC the fastest speeds for internet news and TV, ABC, SBS and Swiss TV with brilliant results.
The idea that G4 and G5 is likely to make FTTP redundant reflects the Abbott Government’s attitude and understanding of the potential of the internet when FTTN was mooted and which was clear from my correspondence with the then minister Malcolm Turnbull on why we needed FTTP in our district. From the polite reply filled with party mantra I have however no illusion that my letter had any influence.
My impression was that the Abbott Government’s regarded the internet and broadband as something that mum used to email her friends and relatives, for little Jimmy to play online games and for granny to look up recipes. I am not convinced that there has been much change in attitude in more recent times.
Crikey has published many articles pointing out how backward we are as a nation with our speeds. I understand that in the CBDs of some Swiss cities up to 1000 Mbps is offered. That is a nation with a sound economy, with an excellent education and research base where high speeds are put to good use. The comment however reflect the notion that social media on mobile gadgets is of the highest priority. In fairness I fear he is not alone in this regard. It might also be indicative of understanding at large of what relevant infrastructure improvement is. To quote the US President: Sad!
Quote: “Hardly something likely to happen of course, given that the Liberal Party’s high expectations when it comes to appropriate behaviour only ever apply to everyone other than itself.”
Shh! You will cause a demarcation dispute with News Corp.
Australian politicians of the profit driven ” not doing anything illegal” party, only need the mental age required to read Ruperts directives via the Daily Telegraph. This and the less subtle Australian propaganda program, Sky /Bolt/ Credlin dripfeed is the only intellectual input required to promote Croney Capitalism via The Murdoch foreign interferance in Australian politics.
Of course they knew the technical implications, its just that Murdoch had to have his way.
Gerard Henderson nailed very early in the history of the NBN when he wrote a piece in the SMH about how Murdoch saw the NBN as a threat to his profits and set out to manipulate his chosen minions to crush it. He was soon put back in his box.
On the now mangled NBN :- I fully endorse Gerard Henderson’s own words, published in the SMH.
Why Murdoch wants Rudd to lose the coming federal election is not merely political, it is commercial. News Corp hates the government’s National Broadband Network (NBN). The company has formed a view that it poses a threat to the business model of by far its most important asset in Australia, the Foxtel cable TV monopoly it jointly owns with Telstra.
Murdoch has declared war on Rudd by dispatching his most trusted field general, Allan, whose reputation is built on his closeness to Murdoch and his long history of producing pungent front-page splashes and pugnacious campaigns as editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph and, for the past 12 years, The New York Post.
Allan’s mission is to help consign Rudd to the dustbin of history reserved for failed leaders.
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The ramp-up of the war effort has been rapid and intense.
Friday, July 26: the chief executive of News Corp, Robert Thomson, announced in New York that Allan would be returning to Australia to provide ”extra editorial leadership for our papers …”.
Monday, July 29: Allan is at work in Australia within 72 hours of the announcement.
Tuesday, July 30: he begins several days of meeting with editors. The message is simple and brutal: you have been going hard on Labor but now, with Rudd’s revival in the opinion polls, you have to go harder.
Wednesday, July 31: he is reported as lunching with Lachlan Murdoch and other executives.
Friday, August 2: The Daily Telegraph depicts Rudd in a hoodie escaping from a bank he has just robbed, with the headline: ”Rudd’s $733m hoist on people’s savings”.
Yesterday, August 3, The Australian runs four negative headlines about the Rudd government on its front page alone, including ”Revealed: How Rudd blew $250bn”. The Daily Telegraph splashes with a front-page banner headline: ”Price of Labor – another huge budget shambles … and now we’re $30bn in the red”. In Melbourne, the Herald-Sun took out page one with ”It’s a ruddy mess”.
Rudd is a broad target. His own parliamentary colleagues could not stomach him and removed him from office after less than three years. After he rose like Lazarus to return as Prime Minister on June 26, one third of the cabinet departed rather than serve with him. His election-eve policy reversal on asylum-seekers was spectacular. His Papua New Guinea detention strategy was exposed as a bluff.
On June 26, Rupert Murdoch used Twitter to write: ”Australian public now totally disgusted with Labor Party wrecking country with it’s sordid intrigues. Now for a quick election.” Rudd’s greatest failing, in the eyes of News Corp management, and the greatest threat he poses, is his $45+ billion NBN, a massive project announced without any serious costing. News Corp views this as a threat to the business model of its most important Australian asset, Foxtel, jointly owned with Telstra.
The company much prefers the Coalition’s less costly but also less ambitious national broadband strategy. News Corp newspapers have reported the numerous failings and cost-over-runs of the NBN in hundreds of stories.
Although the Coalition’s alternative is less costly, it offers an inferior capacity for downloading content at a time when consumer demand is shifting dramatically towards content-on-demand and content via computers.
This shift is reflected in the enormous run-up in the shares of the market leader in content-on-demand, Netflix. Shares in Netflix closed at $US246 (A$276) in New York on Friday, a prodigious run-up from its $52 price a year ago. Netflix now has a market valuation of $US14.5billion compared with $3 billion a year ago.
Foxtel has responded to this threat by launching its own content-on-demand product, FoxtelGo, and is launching an online-only version, FoxtelPlay.
Foxtel’s co-parent, News Corp, is engaging in a more structural response.
It wants to kill the NBN threat at its ultimate source – Kevin Rudd.
…………………..Gerard Henderson.
My comment:-I fully agree.
Keep in mind that this is in fact a foreign citizen interfering in our political election process and our critical nation building infrastructure for his own commercial interests.
Keep in mind that his favoured Australian political sycophants and his own pet “think tank”, The IPA, are also involved in corrupting the NBN.
Dont let anyone kid you that the NBN just fell apart by accident!!!