The Centro collapse:

David Havyatt writes: Re. “Centro calamity: $5 billion in equity destroyed today” (yesterday, item 1). Would it be possible for one of your extensive list of financial journalists or your equally well accredited readership to explain the Centro story to me? This as I understand it is a commercial property group in which the equity holders are mostly other financial institutions and the lenders are also financial institutions. The group itself was very highly geared – on Stephen Mayne’s figures $17.9B of debt on a market capitalisation of $4.817B. That means the group was always highly exposed to interest rate risk. Interest or market risk is a “standard” risk in financial institutions and is one that prudent organisations incorporate into detailed risk management plans. Once again as Stephen Mayne points out MacBank hedges a large amount of this risk. So why do we have such a large entity with such supposedly impeccable investors getting caught out? Is it because each investor (and director) is assuming that the other guy is checking these details so it must be okay? Is it because, as Robert Gottliebsen detailed, the structure was just too complicated to clearly measure risk? Or is it because ultimately most of the people transacting in these markets don’t really understand the complexities of the markets in which they trade? Don’t get me wrong, I understand that a functioning capital market results in companies that fail. I’m just surprised when it is a failure of this magnitude, with this apparent suddenness and with the supposedly knowledgeable investors.

Stephen Magee writes: It says a lot about the chattering classes when the Maxine McKew upskirt non-story produces a flood of comments to Crikey’s website, while the Centro meltdown remains little remarked. In the short, medium and long term, Centro is the more important of the stories, given its importance to both the economy as a whole and to the retirement plans of many working Australians. For all their finer sensibilities, Crikey readers are really just New Idea readers with a carbon offset.

Robert Lloyd writes: It’s no surprise to me that this happened, small retailers can no longer pay the rentals needed to support the inflated asset values demanded by centres, sales haven’t gone up in line with rents so the whole equation fails. Who’s next? People only lend to credit worthy clients, if they had the rental flows debt would not be a problem.

The Bali Road Map:

Mark Hardcastle writes: Re. “Bali: A Crikey Q&A” (yesterday, item 18). Despite dobbing in the fascist dictatorship of George Bush as the only country not to sign up for the Bali Road Map at the UN conference on climate change, Terry Maher was too soft. I’m all for heaping dirt on the Euro cheese eating surrender monkeys, but Maher did so at the expense of applying the blow torch and pliers to Bush where he deserves it. The garlic munching fat burghers have had 300 years of free pollution to our atmosphere. But credit where due, the New World’s corporate-government complex has over-thrown the old-world spider pigs as supreme cumulative greenhouse polluters.

Martyn Smith writes: Re. “Flint: Bali, more socialist than scientific” (yesterday, item 16). Regarding the item from the quill pen of David Flint. Only the scientists know whether climate change is man made, we laymen can only wonder. However most of us do recognise that the climate has changed and is continuing to do so at an increasing rate. Caution and good sense make most of us think that we should investigate this phenomenon and try to remedy it, if it is true and assuming that a solution is possible. Then we have Professor Flint, who denies all of it and willfully understands nothing. His “article” was obviously not written from the Bali conference that other commentators have written about. He must have been in a Bali on a different planet.

Andrew Lewis writes: Having read David Flint’s diatribe today regarding the Bali Conference and matters climate change I am left with just this question. Is Our Man Flint incapable of coherent thought, or is he just incapable of imparting a coherent thought to paper/keyboard? It is beyond my capacity to decide where to begin to discuss the flaws in his argument, if I may so debase the word “argument”. No doubt other readers will attempt it.

Demetriou plots the demise of North Melbourne:

Terry Costello writes: Re. “Broke ‘within six months’: Demetriou plots a Kangaroo cull” (yesterday, item 3). It looks like North’s inability to runaway or elope to the Gold Coast will cost it dearly if Charles Happell’s report is accurate. The AFL has form in the club killing business. The comments allegedly made by the AFL head honcho are not a bolt from the blue. Passion and history don’t cut it in the 21st Century era of drafts, corporate superboxes, drugs, nightclubs, flooding and the mass media which too often has sadly ended up being the news instead of reporting it. Passion and history in a perfect world is everything but it appears to have been the bait swallowed by North Melbourne supporters egged on by those who should know better. 8000-10000 members cannot generate the revenue needed to survive and thrive. North Melbourne’s supporter base is far too small for the club to be self sufficient in the modern day AFL where club running costs are out of control. Only time will tell if incoming chairman James Brayshaw will end up being the club’s last.

Alan Kennedy writes: It is hard to understand who the giant egos running the Kangaroos think they are helping apart from big noting themselves. The never mighty club has a diminishing membership and no hope of making it in Melbourne. Essendon, Collingwood, Carlton, St Kilda, Hawthorn and Richmond just suck the oxygen and the money out of the place. The Doggies are always struggling to be anything other than autumn and winter wonders that fade and die come spring. The money on offer for the Roos from the AFL is astonishing. If the members, whoever they may be, look at previous examples in the Swans and Lions they will see a transition that took time but it eventually produced four flags with more to come. I am not a Lions fan so I don’t know what they do in Melbourne but as a Swans fan I know that South Melbourne are very much part of the picture in all the Swans publications and Sydney-based Swans fans going to a game in Melbourne are able to sit with thousands of the red and white faithful at the MCG or Telstra Dome. The banner at the 2005 grand final said it all “two cities one dream”. The Melbourne Roos fans will get “home games” plus the Roos will have more money, new facilities and the chance to be competitive. It is probably time the grassroots told these blokes to stop grandstanding and pull their heads in before the old shin boner spirit becomes just a piece of memorabilia at the AFL museum.

Maxine McKew:

Jim Hart writes: Re. “A great week for women in power … and Maxine’s skirt” (yesterday, item 5). Julie Posetti is outraged over the editorial disrespect shown to Maxine the Magnificent by the Canberra Times though she is such a great journalist herself that she omits the name of the paper until late in the article. Meanwhile an anonymous tipster is outraged that Maxine the Class Traitor was seen shopping in Mosman. To both of them – give it a rest. And to Crikey – do us all a favour and declare a moratorium on anything at all about Maximum McKew until there is actually something worth saying.

Barry McMillan writes: Since when have we become a nation of perverts. I looked at the photo… thought, nice legs… I did not attempt to look up her skirt and it says a lot for the ones that did. What a sick society we have become. Let’s get back to looking at what a person has between their ears it would be much more relevant.

Jody Bailey writes: Anyone who thought that photo was exposing Maxine’s knickerless Brazilian needs a lesson in anatomy. Anyone who got excited or offended by it needs to get out more.

Peter Rosier writes: Re. “Tips and rumours” (yesterday, item 8). May I ask the correspondent who complains of seeing Maxine McKew at the Mosman shops – what were you doing there? Are you, too, a Bennelong constituent who flies the coop for a bit of up-market retail therapy (in which case, explain yourself) or are you a happy little Mosmanite, very unhappy that Johnny, with his generous tax funded welfare for you all, has gone, leaving you to pay for your own Moet and seeking nothing more than an arrow to the heart of the dragon-slayer? Frankly, sounds like petulance to me.

The intervention:

Bob Durnan writes: Re. “What the intervention will mean for communities this Christmas” (yesterday, item 21). Claire Smith – a determined, ideologically driven anti-interventionist – endeavours to galvanise anti-welfare quarantining sentiment. Smith also claims that Macklin’s interruption of CDEP closures “speaks to the Minister’s willingness to redress unnecessary distress and to act quickly to address maladministration in the implementation of the intervention”, when in fact Macklin’s action honours a widely publicised election promise to completely reform the CDEP rather than simply abolish it. Admittedly there have been a number of glitches in the change from CDEP to Work for the Dole, including some occasioned by opponents of the change; others have been the mistakes or inefficiencies of government agencies or NGOs. Smith uses these mistakes to launch a wholesale attack on an unrelated issue – the role and performances of GBMs (Government – not General – Business Managers). Having worked alongside a number of these GBMs, I believe Smith truly demonstrates her ignorance rather than her knowledge when making this attack. The GBMs are generally highly professional and competent, and from my experience I know that a number of them have gone out of their way to sort out problems, including by digging into their own pockets to assist people with food when needed. Smith’s statement that “the Intervention is turning functional communities into dysfunctional” is another example of this uninformed and simpleminded pattern in her arguments. We could quibble over definitions of dysfunctional, but suffice to say that Indigenous advocate Jack Ah Kitt, when he was NT Local Government Minister, stated in a landmark speech to the NT Legislative Assembly that there appeared to be no remote Aboriginal communities in the NT that could be classed as functional. His position has since been affirmed by other Indigenous members of the Assembly.

David Hicks:

Fran Harris writes: Re. “Rudd takes the cowardly way out on Hicks control order” (yesterday, item 13). My elation of getting rid of Howard has turned to anger when I heard that the Rudd government has approved the decision by the AFP to seek a restraining order against David Hicks. He accepted a plea to get himself out of the hell hole that is Guantanamo Bay. I might say I am also sick and tired of the ABC newsreaders referring to him as the convicted terrorist; I would have done the same thing in his position. Shame on the Rudd government!

Anthony Lyons writes: Greg Barns is quite correct when he refers to the cowardly treatment of David Hicks. Yesterday on ABC radio two South Australian politicians (Chris Pyne and Chris Schott) each stated, that “David Hicks pleaded guilty to terrorism”. David Hicks did not plead guilty, he accepted “a plea bargain” to get out of a United States torture chamber. Who wouldn’t do the same in similar circumstances?

David Hand writes: Greg Barns seems to have personal knowledge of David Hicks’ character and intelligence, painting him as a bit of a bumbling harmless fool who got in over his head in Afghanistan in 2001. He seems outraged that a new ALP government has taken a more circumspect view, maintaining a control order on Mr Hicks when he gets released from prison. Mr Barns might consider the fact that two governments from different sides of the political divide are both of the opinion that David Hicks requires surveillance. Has he considered that there might be substance to the government’s view? Maybe the Rudd government is putting the security of the country ahead of a foolish adventurer who went to Afghanistan. Maybe Greg Barns is so confident in David Hicks’ ineffectiveness that he will personally vouch for him? Maybe Greg Barns is on some ideological crusade himself?

A second Sydney airport:

Paul Willett writes: Re. “A second Sydney airport back on the cards” (yesterday, item 15). Why does nobody ever mention the obvious – RAAF Richmond. Underutilised by the RAAF, the ATC is now civilian, there are many civilian maintenance facilities there, including a QANTAS paint shop. It is on a railway line and it has a long runway that takes US MAC Heavy Transports. It is close to central, northern and hills population and would be cheap and ready quickly.

Alan Greenspan:

Ben Scheltus writes: Re. “Alan Greenspan – the backseat driver from hell” (yesterday, item 31). Why doesn’t anyone silence Greenspan by asking him how he managed to allow the US financial sector to sail into the sub-prime morass whilst under his watch? Time for him to retire – quietly – methinks.

Protecting the orangutans:

Keith Williams writes: Re. “Protecting the orangutans: One last ‘me too’?” So Richard Farmer thinks that a test of the new government’s environmental credentials is whether we give money to a project to help save the orangutan from massive deforestation in Indonesia. No doubt a worthy and needed project, but a suitable test? Where’s the downside for the government? A real test of commitment will be doing something that might also have a political cost. Last Friday, I attempted to rescue four endangered Sea Turtles that had washed up on beaches in northern NSW, following a few days’ rough seas. Sadly, not one of them survived (a real sh-tty day!). One of leading causes of turtle strandings is the ingestion of plastics. Want to do something to help? Support a campaign to stop the mass release of helium balloons in Australia. NSW has a ban, but no other states or territories. Peter Garrett knows about this campaign. He visited Australian Seabird Rescue in October following the death of our founder and wildlife hero, Lance Ferris, and pledged his support. While the plight of the Orangutans is truly dire, so too is the outlook for the less photogenic Loggerhead, Hawksbill and Leatherback sea turtles. Whether the new government gives a stuff, will be the real test.

NSW public transport:

Matthew Weston writes: Re. Niall Clugston (yesterday, comments). Of all the pathetic apologists for the current farce that runs NSW, yours is arguably the most pathetic; it’s the public’s fault, puhlease! This is the same government that announced the Parramatta to Epping rail link so many times it was embarrassing, and yet now we find out from you that they had to re-announce it because the general public raised a ruckus. NSW has the arguably the worst government in the land, one that is all spin, a premier who walks out of press conferences if it gets to hard, and is content to continue to make big spending announcements like his erstwhile predecessor, knowing full well that he can’t and won’t deliver on any of it. This coupled with the desperate attempt to sell of some of the few remaining assets of value to create a bribe to dangle in front of the electorate is the icing on the cake! So don’t offer blame shifting as the rationale for this governments performance, its woeful, and provides the idiots that run the state [and the twits that want to] with hope that they will be able to continue in the same way.

Tom McLoughlin writes: Niall Clugston is ignorant about the faulty Bondi heavy rail plan of 1996-7. The files are damning of the inept Carr government. Most believed and the government never denied the huge Meriton high rise today over Bondi Junction station was in store for the privately owned station at the Beach side park (a 14m height limit defended for decades), the ticket price was going to be about $10 a trip at 1998 prices (a rip off). Then to really rub salt in, the highly profitable 380 bus line – a major revenue source that cranks the generally loss making city wide bus routes – was to be discontinued in one of those funnel traps like the Cross City Tunnel. Thousands would have to walk a kilometre either way to get to a station (they cancelled the mid station stop, too expensive). All in an area with very high patronage and dependence rates. The community caught Carr red handed trying to privatise the profit, and socialise the cost, and slash other city bus services. It was a scandal. Superior light rail was also ruled out. No surprises MacBank sponsored the heavy rail who embraced Carr in retirement. Mmm. Wrong again about the controversial Lave Cove River rail crossing front page of the Daily Telegraph here. A fair reading of Hansard of 20 May 2000 extracted at length here shows the democratic base of the green movement and Green Party supported a 14 metre high bridge in 2000 to smooth the project’s way, the Upper House so voted, but were aghast when the Carr govt played favourites with one narrow splinter to reconfigure this in 2001, adding 800 metres of line. Why all these stuff ups? Suspicions abound in Sydney the tollway sector have too many ex MPs and ex union hacks who are more than happy to see public transport falter and stall with lousy planning and management to keep their road business in profit. The M2 is one, Eastern Distributor is another.

Thank you:

Alan Lander writes: As we approach the end of a fascinating year – especially the November 24 bit – may I just say thank you, Crikey, for the embarrassment of comedy riches, not least the Toshiro Mifune-like cut-through caricaturing of Cornwall; First Dog On The Moon showing there is indeed intelligent life beyond this planet; and Our Man Flint…

Werribee:

Guy Rundle writes: Vern Hughes (yesterday, comments), in the usual temperate style we have come to expect from the Right, suggests that there was plenty of outrage at the sentences for the youths convicted in the Werribee “Teenage Kings” video – from parents and the community. I have no doubt there was. What there wasn’t was any corresponding week-long campaign and investigation by national newspapers about “social dysfunction in the white working class etc etc”. I’m glad there wasn’t and I have no idea whether the community supervision order sentences were the best or not, but it’s all indicative of the use of selective outrage applied to complex problems. I haven’t been politically active for thirty years, Vern, least of all on aboriginal issues – save to publish half a dozen essays and articles by Noel Pearson in Arena Magazine over the years. But you’ve been around. Matter of fact you were a member of the Communist Party at a time when it was running strongly (and correctly) on a rights campaign for aboriginal people. So is your anger directed rather closer to home?

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