ROLLING THE HIGH ROLLERS
A joint-investigation into Crown’s high roller program by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes has revealed links to Chinese crime bosses, brothel owners and Communist Party figures.
Aided by leaked documents, the Nine outlets revealed Crown Resorts’ business partnership with Tom Zhou, an international fugitive and alleged crime boss. Crown reportedly gave Zhou access to private jets and hotel suites, as well as helping his associates get Australian visas, with former Border Force commissioner Roman Quaedvlieg telling 60 Minutes he was encouraged by MPs to fast-track Chinese high-roller visa applications.
The reports also allege Crown broke Chinese law, and reveals the company’s dealings with “VVIP” Ming Chai, a former official and cousin to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
ANTI-EXPLOITATION PUSH
Australia will lead a global push to tackle online child exploitation ($), The Australian reports, working with the Five Eyes intelligence network to shut down international paedophile networks.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton will today meet with his counterparts from other Five Eyes member countries — the US, UK, Canada, and New Zealand — to discuss how best to tackle the issue. Dutton is expected to push for increased pressure on Google, Facebook and Twitter to clamp down on live-streaming.
In news closer to home, The Age reports that Geelong College sent a letter to its community last week, warning it to expect “a small number of cases” to follow a civil trial launched by an alleged victim of historic child sex abuse, set to begin in the Supreme Court today.
NSW ABORTION PLAN
NSW is set to decriminalise abortion this week, with a private member’s bill with bipartisan support set to remove pregnancy termination from the Crimes Act, The Guardian reports.
The Reproductive Healthcare Reform Bill 2019 will be introduced to parliament by independent MP for Sydney Alex Greenwich. It was developed by a cross-party working group including the Nationals’ Trevor Khan and Labor’s Penny Sharpe and Jo Haylen, with the oversight of health minister Brad Hazzard. The group anticipates staunch opposition and “robust debate”, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.
[free_worm]
THEY REALLY SAID THAT?
“It’s not that I’m not getting money it’s just that it’s spread so thin. I’m just saying these circumstances have made me more vastly attuned … it’s just a great exercise in humility going from deputy prime minister to watching every dollar you get.”
Barnaby Joyce
The former deputy prime minister and father of six tells The Courier-Mail that he is “skint” ($), opening up about his money struggles to explain why he has broken ranks to call for an increase to Newstart.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Hong Kong city streets descend into chaos as riot police fire tear gas
‘Lies’: China slams Australia over reports of missing Uyghur Muslims
Keating blasts ‘monkeys’ for ‘grand theft’ super rejig
Personal battle to dominate last week of Parliament
Paul Fletcher dodges questions about intervening in Newstart review
Angus Taylor: Key crossbencher now backs inquiry into controversial grassland meeting
‘Permanent stain on our land’: Trump criticised for another ‘racist’ tweet storm
‘Gundagai’s in shock’: Vandals topple much-loved Dog on the Tuckerbox
Boris Johnson ‘turbo-charging’ no-deal Brexit plans, say ministers
Navy in deep water over lack of crew to operate $50bn subs ($)
Biggest native title deal in danger of dissident defeat ($)
Drugs in sport: Shayna Jack vows to clear name after revealing positive test for drug in B sample
US wants to ‘make an example’ of Assange in jail, UN expert claims
Government considers forcing Netflix to produce Australian content
Medicare data used to recruit people with bipolar for research
CRIKEY QUICKIE: THE BEST OF YESTERDAY
Trump and Johnson: parasites from the same bowel
“But ticking off the boxes of ways in which Trump and Johnson compare — hair, check; incompetence, check; bigot, check — isn’t overly useful. What is more productive is to identify what has produced them, for that is something they exactly have in common. Johnson and Trump are the prime examples of a phenomenon of the last five years across the West: wealthy establishment figures who opportunistically attack the very system that created them, declaring themselves to be aligned with the interests of those who are victims of the system.”
How Australia trashed its legacy in Timor-Leste
“Now, Scott Morrison and Cosgrove will be receiving their invitations to the spectacle of Timor-Leste’s referendum day celebrations (it’s rumoured 100 heads of state are invited). They’ll be welcomed warmly in Dili, arrive keen to valorise the INTERFET assistance, and to reinforce Australia’s role as Timor-Leste’s largest foreign aid donor; on paper, a close neighbour keen to see the nation thrive. But Witness K and Collaery are trapped in protracted and obfuscated legal proceedings with jail time hanging over their heads. That bitterly-won boundary treaty remains unratified by our parliament, and until it is, we continue to rake in millions of dollars per month from the Timor Sea that we’ve already agreed don’t belong to us. Conservatively estimated at $60 million, the amount we’ve taken may rival the $95.7 million in foreign aid we’ve pledged to Timor-Leste between 2018 and 2019.”
Why a banned book of sacred Indigenous knowledge is still available for sale
“I pointed out to staff in the shop that Nomads is a very dangerous book to have on display and for sale, particularly in Adelaide and because its subject matter — the secret and sacred knowledge of the Pitjantjara people, given to Mountford in confidence during fieldwork in the 1940s — was the subject not only of a strongly worded caveat by the author, but also a 1976 judgement by Justice James Muirhead of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory. This judgement restrained the book’s sale, display or distribution in the Northern Territory.”
THE COMMENTARIAT
Should our PM meet Trump? Discuss (even if the mere question sounds absurd) – Sean Kelly (The Age/Sydney Morning Herald): “Should our Prime Minister be meeting with this man? Will Morrison praise Trump again? I know that for many people who work in politics, or around politics, this will seem absurd. The American alliance is foundational. Even to ask such questions is taken as a sign of radical crackpottery. And so, if you are one of those people, ask yourself this instead: at what point will you think it is OK to ask those questions?”
Morrison’s still waiting for a policy spark but some colleagues have plenty of ideas – Katharine Murphy (The Guardian): “The prime minister used one of his early picture opportunities to engage in some vigorous-sounding talk about congestion-busting in the bureaucracy, and setting clear performance targets – the clear instruction being to get your service delivery to the public right, and crack on with implementing our agenda. I wondered at the time whether any of the senior officials lined up for their public remonstrance had the temerity to ask Morrison, once the summoned television cameras had left the cabinet suite: ‘Well, what agenda are we implementing prime minister? Did you happen to bring it with you?’”
Super: PM knows too many are still missing out ($) – Jim Chalmers (The Australian): “On behalf of the government, the Treasurer needs to give a far more definitive statement in support of the legislated increases to the superannuation guarantee on the current timeframe. Anything less risks a repeat of the national energy guarantee debacle, when extremists on his own backbench forced him into a humiliating retreat and proved that in the Liberal Party the tail wags the Treasurer. Australia’s retirement savings system is the envy of the world. It has its imperfections, but lifting the guarantee rate to 12 per cent by 2025 is not one of them. When the adequacy of retirement incomes is a pressing challenge, and when our ageing population puts pressure on pensions, Australians need more super, not less.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Canberra
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Parliament will sit for its final sitting week before the long winter break.
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Hundreds of holders and applicants of temporary protection and safe haven enterprise visas will hold a protest on the lawns of Parliament House.
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CommSec will release its latest State of the States report, with Victoria taking the sole economic top spot from NSW.
Melbourne
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Zhiling Ma, charged with importing $20 million of amphetamine mistakenly delivered to an elderly Hoppers Crossing couple, will appear in the Magistrates Court.
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Dale Ewins and Zita Sukys will launch their case in the Supreme Court, suing the state for damages after they were shot at a fancy-dress Saints and Sinners ball at Inflation nightclub in 2017.
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Coles and Commissioner of Taxation will appear in court, with Coles suing the ATO to try to get back some of the $40 million it spent on tax for fuel lost through evaporation or leakage before it could be sold.
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Author and literary reviewer Michael McGirr will give a talk on his new work, Books that saved my life, as part of the Boroondara Literary Festival.
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The Centre for Projection Art will host the Gertrude Street Projection Festival, with works from more than 20 artists.
Mildura
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The Aged Care Royal Commission will hold public hearing in Mildura, focusing on the needs of family, informal and unpaid carers.
Sydney
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A Stop Adani rally will be held, the first in a national week of action held at engineering and construction company GHD’s offices around Australia.
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Sarah Jane Chisholm Rogers, partner of former ABF boss Roman Quaedvlieg, will be sentenced for lying under oath to a federal integrity inquiry.
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Sydney-based doctor Sharif Fattah will be sentenced after being found guilty of 18 sex offences including sexual intercourse without the consent of female patients.
Adelaide
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Cult leader James Salerno, who operated a cult from a historic mansion in the Adelaide Hills, will be sentenced, after being found guilty of eight counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a child.
Tumut, NSW
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A NSW coroner will hand down findings on the death of pregnant Aboriginal woman Naomi Williams who presented around 50 times to medical service providers in the year before she died in Tumut hospital.
International
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Australia Zoo will mark International Tiger Day with newest tiger cub, Nelson, enjoying his first appearance in the cub yard. Down in Melbourne, Tigers will meet tigers, with Richmond players Nick Vlastuin, Jack Graham and Shane Edwards at Melbourne Zoo’s Sumatran Tiger Exhibit to raise awareness for tiger conservation.
Old news the links between Packer and Lawrence Ho. I was writing about this in 2015.
I wrote:
Ah, casino capitalism. Now that is so close to the truth. Where seedy organized criminals had to hand over their turf to respectable shoulder rubbing PM mates so the government could get a cut of the sordid proceeds.
Some may wonder what the story below has to do with the government, the RBA the housing bubble, the fortunes of Mal Taxfree Trunbull, well it’s all there, an intricate web of who controls whom.
The flood of money from China into our housing market..l.ook no further.
Interest rate rises and the casino….more closely linked than some would want known.
“The opening of his new casino in Macau this week had every bit of glitter James Packer could throw at it…Guests at the $US3.2 billion Studio City resort marvelled at its “family friendly” features including a 130-metre Ferris wheel, an entertainment centre with cartoon characters such as Tom and Jerry, Superman and Wonder Woman, and a virtual reality ride called Batman Dark Flight.”
…”Packer and local partner Lawrence Ho were expecting up until just a few days before the opening, the Macau authorities have permitted just 250. The partners have been forced to renegotiate with their lenders and two US-based investment funds which own a 40 per cent share.”
Nothing new here, move on, the goanna’s son and the spy catcher good mates. Such a shame that ICAC removed a Premier and 10 of his MP’s but Baird nobbled ICAC for that effort.
“Has Packer’s luck turned? He’d been on a winning streak in Macau since 2002.
In New South Wales, Barry O’Farrell announced a new “unsolicited proposal” process tailor-made for Packer to insert his casino-hotel into Sydney’s Barangaroo harbourside redevelopment. This was duly approved, and the existing Star casino monopoly of Echo Entertainment set aside for him (on condition Stanley Ho is not involved). Packer’s planned tower now includes 66 luxury apartments for sale, knocking several hundred million dollars off the $1.5 billion cost.”
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/2015/10/31/james-packers-macau-casinos-suffer-setbacks/14462100002576
Once cult leader up on charges, others walk free, still enjoying their tax free dollars and their religious freedoms to damage others.
Mate turned 65 last week but no aged pension for him. He gets to remain on Newstart until 67 years old thanks to Labor.
Morrison and Paul Fletcher, both lechers of money.
“Paul Fletcher dodges questions about intervening in Newstart review”
The crooks thrive.
Charity raiding Chilla Porter’s son lies as usual he is a chip off the old maggot:
“I would actually put to you that the fact that people who find it challenging to subsist off Newstart, do so for short periods of time, might actually speak to the fact that that’s one of the design points of the system that’s working okay because the encouragement is there to move off those payments quickly.”
One Nation preference whisperer Mathias Corman lies too.
“Bureau of Statistics data show there were 243,000 job vacancies in Australia in May, and some 697,000 unemployed. And, of course, employers often require specific skills that unemployed people may not have.
Despite all evidence of need, Scott Morrison remains implacably opposed to further assisting Australia’s most needy citizens.”
Seniors the face of poverty, especially women. Baby boomers cashed up on franking credits and pretending to be self funded retirees.
“As the upper house this week backs an inquiry into raising Newstart, analysis shows it is Australian seniors who are most likely to be living on just $38 a day.”
When they are looking for cost savings, they commonly make older employees redundant and hire younger, cheaper labour.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2019/07/27/newstart-thaw-senate-may-end-25-year-freeze/15641496008505
Newstart rate?
Reverend Tim Costello questions the tax free theology prosperity cult’s high profile adherent on his much publicized so called Christian faith.
“The context of all Jesus’ ministry starts with his first sermon … quoting from the prophet Isaiah: ‘The spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach the good news. Liberty for the captives, sight for the blind, the poor given hope’,” Costello says. “The signature of almost everything Jesus talked about was good news for the poor.”
Rev Costell reckons the clap happy cult devotee has misunderstood what Christ meant when he said, “The poor you will have with you always.”
Costello: “It was not simple fatalism or an invitation to accept the inevitability of poverty; he was saying to his disciples … you cannot follow me without having the poor always in your heart. You’ll always be working for them.”
Costello says, for “having been so open about his faith” Morrison has invited “a three-year discussion about what Christianity really teaches”.
Which tax free brand of Christianity are we talking about!