How on earth do Barnaby Joyce and Angus Taylor still have their jobs?

“The Coalition paid the tax haven-linked Eastern Australia Agriculture nearly double what independent valuers recommended for water licences. Most of the record $80 million from the sale ended up with a Cayman Islands company established by Energy Minister Angus Taylor. Investigative journalist Kerry Brewster has this exclusive report.”

http://www.michaelwest.com.au/barnabys-boondoggle-documents-reveal-80m-price-for-watergate-licences-was-nearly-twice-valuation/

SteeleRedux,

If I had a dollar for every crooked politician, bureaucrat and business person in the country I would probably get arrested for money laundering.

Talk about money laundering, how many project home builders do you reckon might be laundering money for the Lebanese mafia, bikie gangs, etc?

Dear Steele,

Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.
(Sorry - I couldn't resist).

I am surprised that Barnaby has lasted this long. Tony
Windsor warned about Barnaby years ago. Yet the
man's still here. There should be an investigation
into this - a thorough one, that can't be
swept under the carpet.
Although I won't hold my breathe

How on earth do Barnaby Joyce and Angus Taylor still have their jobs?
SteeleRedux,
For exactly the same reasons most politicians still have theirs and, what's worse, many aren't even governing !
They're getting paid (by us) for disrupting everything the Govt is trying to do for us !

Foxy,

The level of corruption amongst politicians, bureaucrats and business people is absolutely amazing.

As a group, this social elite is enmeshed with organised crime.

We all know what is going on but nothing happens to change it.

I recommend watching the Netflix TV series 'Ozark' to get a good insight on how pervasive these people as a social group are entwined and how their operations reach into every aspect of our lives. (Apart from the message, the acting in 'Ozark' is superb and the narrative and directing are fantastic.)

Dear Mr Opinion,

Thanks for that - and I will watch.

It is disheartening about our politicians.

Was it always this way - Or is it just the current bunch
I wonder?

Foxy,

It always seems that we expect too much from the wealthy and powerful only to find that they are some of the most evil amongst us.

I wonder what our western civilisation would be like today if capitalism hadn't got in the way of popular democracy.

Sometimes I think all we seem to have done is replace absolute rulers with hierarchical thugs.

Oh come on SR, you know the answer as well as I do.

They have the goods on the lefty lots rip off system, so have to be protected. They probably have the story on Gillard's "donations" to the Clinton scam as well.

I have often wondered how we get reasonably poor Labor PMs, but very wealthy Labor ex PMs a couple of years later. Any clues SR?

Well we might live with the assumption that stuff goes on behind the scenes and that corruption is pervasive in our political landscape.

But this is now out in broad daylight and hardly anyone expects there will be an action taken. Why not is the question? This is so corrosive and shows how we have become numb to it and are prepared to accept such blatant corruption with hardly a whimper.

Are we really at such a divisive state in politics when people won't call out their own side even when they are clearly seen to transgress to such a degree? We are being taken for fools and they are laughing all the way to the Cayman Islands while they do it.

Wake up people!

SteeleRedux,

It's because they see themselves as untouchable and beyond reproach.

Why? Because the people who are charged with stopping them are themselves in on the act.

They are connected and support each other in their acts.

We have all witnessed examples of it.

Why? Because the people who are charged with stopping them are themselves in on the act.
Mr Opinion,
Yes and, the bulk of the Public Service is ..Drum Roll please... Labor !

individual,

Actually, from my observations it is the people on your side that are the most evil of malefactors.

And I am sure you know the reason that they are like this because you belong to that social group.

Are you a project home builder or someone else one might find in the money laundering business?

This is rich after the rampant corruption in federal and NSW Labor and Comrade Dan in Victoria using his powers to shut down the volunteer firefighters in favour of his buddies in the firey's union and then using them to campaign for him.

There is an old biblical saying before you tell someone to remove the splinter from their eye, you should remove the plank from yours.

the further away from God the country has moved the greater the corruption in society. That is why Greens/Labour/Turnbulites are miles ahead of conservatives when it comes to corruption.

Dear Shadow Minister,

What an absolutely pathetic response from you mate.

Taylor and Co enriching themselves getting paid 10s of millions of dollars which got slipped off shore into a Cayman Island bank account and you are playing whataboutism?

How is that in anyway comparable to Andrews?

Can you not find any means to get past the ideological ring fence you have built around yourself to condemn this?

Dear runner,

What are you talking about? Taylor is a bloody conservative you fool and was part of the mob trying to install Dutton.

“On Thursday night, while Malcolm Turnbull had his last supper at The Lodge, a group of Liberal MPs sequestered themselves for dinner at Kagawa Japanese restaurant in the northern Canberra suburb of Dickson.
Over tempura, sushi and beer - and far from the prying eyes of the parliamentary zone - Michael Sukkar, Angus Taylor, Andrew Hastie, Tony Pasin and Zed Seselja toasted a job almost done. The staff suspected the men were politicians, but had no idea they were hosting the cabal responsible for dislodging Australia's prime minister.”
“By morning, they would have the numbers to compel Turnbull to call a meeting of the parliamentary Liberal Party and quit as leader. What they would not achieve, however, was the second part of their plan: to install Peter Dutton as prime minister.”
http://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/inside-the-disastrous-attempt-to-install-peter-dutton-as-prime-minister-20180823-p4zzfu.html

Utterly slimy character who has enriched himself at the expense of taxpayers and you are trying to deflect any criticism from him? Grow a spine.

SteeleRedux,

People like shadowminister are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Foresight challenged people abound in the hindsight expert crowd !

Dear individual,

"Foresight challenged people abound in the hindsight expert crowd !"

What does that even mean in this context?

Lol.

you and Lucy the only ones crying over Turnbull reaping what he had sown Steelie. Oh sorry Steelie, I forgot Leigh Sales and the other abc ones that fawned over him! Dutton and co certainly did Australia a great favour.

Dutton and Co did Australia a great favour?

Really?

What by losing the seat of Wentworth to a moderate
Independent and with it the Coalition's Parliamentary
majority?

Not only that but losing Tony Abbott and his seat.
And who many others have since resigned?

Who needs those kind of "favours"? Certainly not the
Coalition.

'Really?

What by losing the seat of Wentworth to a moderate
Independent and with it the Coalition's Parliamentary
majority?'

Oh the guy that Turnbull undermined and stabbed in the back Foxy. Yeah we know morality means nothing to you.

runner,

I think - a thimble would be two big
to hold your knowledge. And I am being kind.
As for morality?
I doubt if you even know the meaning of that
word

I'll always remember seeing Scott Morrison on TV trying to coax the locals in Cobargo into shaking his hand and when he realised no one wanted to shake his hand he looked them up and down with contempt and signalled his entourage to jump into their car and head off as if to say "Let's get the hell out of here and leave these losers to themselves."

The people of Australia should be screaming out for a Federal ICAC, with Taylor and Joyce front and centre at its fist hearing. This "deal" with Eastern Australia Agriculture has corruption written all over it. Parliamentary accountability is now a thing of the past as ScumO' uses these "unprecedented" times as an excuse to avoid scrutiny and is ruling by decree. Unfortunately ScumO's weak kneed, jelly spine opponent Albo is showing himself to be less than useless in these "unprecedented" times.

SR,

You really are desperate

Once again you have taken some half-arsed polemic by left whinge journalist on a one-horse blog with no more than a high school education performing a superficial "investigation" into a rights trading exercise as gospel then try waving it in my face as "proof" and call on me to condemn it.

My response is simple. Come back when you have more than innuendo.

Perhaps you could comment on issues that you have ignored such as Juliar taking backhanders from a union-heavy after setting up a slush funding to steal money, or, Bill Shorten setting up a dodgy union deal that stripped $ms from workers in return for massive "donations". SHY taking taxpayer-funded holidays with her family etc.

If a federal ICAC is created Labor will be front and center.

Shadow, it's the Libs who are opposing a Federal ICAC. And considering the Abbott government set up a Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption which, among other things, thoroughly investigated Gillard and Shorten but did not find evidence of their wrongdoing, your whataboutery looks pathetic. You seem to have adopted runner's habit of ignoring most of the evidence against the side you favour, and downplaying the rest of it while assuming all the allegations against the side you oppose to be true!

We need a Federal ICAC as soon as possible. However I think this particular issue would be better suited to a Royal Commission. As well as whether Taylor and Joyce corruptly benefitted from ministerial decisions, we need to know why then government purchased floodwater rights rather than more reliable water rights, why they paid so much for it, and why the NAO failed to recognise that they'd paid too much.

Dear Shadow Minister,

This is the calibre of journalist you are trying to disparage;

“Kerry Brewster is a Walkley-award winning investigative journalist and documentary maker. As a specialist water writer, she has contributed to The Saturday Paper, Guardian Australia and The New Daily. A former ABC Lateline reporter, she investigated water corruption issues. She has also produced and directed independent documentary films, including “Demons at Drivetime”, which won the Dendy award for Best Australian documentary and the ABC TV series "Our Boys". “

A Walkley award winning!

And you are dismissing it as innuendo?

Mate, tell me who do you think would be more qualified to have done the investigation? Sky News? Bolt?

You really are little more than an apologist for blatant corruption aren't you. Believe me if there was anything Brewster had written that wasn't factual Taylor and Joyce would be taking her straight to court. The fact that you can't bring yourself to be even the least bit critical of this behaviour is shameful.

Again, grow a spine for once.

A Walkley award winning!
SteeleRedux,
So, that only means the right boxes were ticked for a particular kind of crowd !

SR,

KB is a competent writer for minor far-left "news organisations" who specialises in gotcha pieces. However, as I said before she has zero experience in arbitrage for example.

For anyone with a brain would know that when a government openly starts to buy anything on a free to sell basis that it seldom pays the price recommended by an independent seller. The huge range that the independent specialist recommended also indicated the uncertainty in the pricing mechanism.

To even begin to make a case of corruption KB would have to show that these water rights could have been bought by the taxpayer for less elsewhere, otherwise, this is just another left whinge beat up.

If its not in the moronic Murdoch gutter press, and championed by the dill himself 'Beat Up'Bolt, Shadow is not interested in the truth. A Federal ICAC to look into these corrupt bastards from all sides of politics is way overdue!

Paul1405,
So, what is the truth then ?

Dear Shadow Minister,

"The Commonwealth purchased overland flow licences from the nearby Balandool cotton property south of Kia Ora and Clyde for $800/ML, less than a third of the price it paid to Eastern Australia Agriculture."

Well they didn't have the then Water Minister in their pocket nor did they have a Cayman Islands bank account for the company set up by another Minister into which the millions of taxpayer's dollars were poured.

Come on mate, why on earth are you defending this. Blowhards like Hasbeen might try and divert but you are actively defending what went on?

Are you a multi-millionaire? I wouldn't think so. In many senses you are just like the rest of us, being played for fools by corrupt politicians. They must wet themselves with laughter as they scoff high end brandy in their clubs thinking how many ordinary people are not only prepared to look the other way but to actively support them.

Wake up.

Its okay Steele, Shadow has a big investment in the cotton industry, he has a pair of cotton undies he got from Kmart. Oh! If only we too could worship at the alter of the great god Rupert, and be enlightened like Shadowminister on these matters of state.

Indy, read the post by Steele above, if you are interested in the truth.

Paul1405,

You need to take account of the fact that shadowminister is just an engineer and talks in engineer-speak which is reverse-talk in the context of the subject already being completed.

For example, if he is telling you about how to design something new he talks as though the item is already finished and hence he only has to tell you bits and pieces because YOU the listener already know everything because the item to be designed is already complete.

I've been studying engineers for a long time and the vast majority of them talk in engineer-speak and it is very hard to understand.

SR,

You are starting to sound a bit slow like your mate Paul. Comparing prices of water years apart is simply moronic. Prices fluctuate due to rain, how much stock has already been bought etc.

When you compare prices in the same area at the same time then maybe you have something otherwise it is just piss and vinegar.

Paul,

Your g string strangled your nuts which is why you sound like a whiny old woman.

Dear Shadow Minister,

G-strings are not all that comfortable - young or old.

Paul1405,

I'll give you another example of shadowminister's reverse talk engineer-speak.

An engineer I was working for came to me and said "I have something for you to do. It will only take you an hour." It took me one and a half days because I had to survey the site, do the design and give a sketch to the draftsman. The trip to the site took an hour by itself.

But to the engineer my job was already complete when he told me to do it therefore he saw no reason for it to take any longer than an hour. Yes, you guessed it, he was communicating in reverse talk engineer-speak.

Pay close attention to the way shadowminister constructs his narratives and you will pick it up. It's quite fascinating.

I had another look at this thread and noticed something that I failed to before: the sheer absurdity of the prices! The price quoted is per ML, not per GL... so correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like the government has paid tapwater prices for floodwater rights!

And the website linked to earlier also includes a report saying failure to decommission dams and levies may have prevented the government from exercising the rights it paid so much for.
https//www.michaelwest.com.au/watergate-when-two-rights-do-make-a-wrong/
Even if it isn't evidence of corruption, it seems to be evidence of incompetence. Though of course Barnaby Joyce and Angus Taylor already have form for that!

Dear shadowminister,

The Border Rivers catchment sits next to Condamine Catchment. The price there was $1,600 per ML just a year earlier. Note - not "years". The Condamine purchase was the largest of the scheme and went to a Cayman Island account from which we have little to no idea of the ultimate beneficiaries.

Which begs the question, should the government be doing deals with Cayman Island companies in the first place? Never mind the tax foregone, just the lack of transparency alone should have any decent citizen of this country balking.

What do you think?

SteeleRedux,

It takes 1600 kg of water to grow 1 kg of raw cotton and when a lot of that cotton is owned by the Chinese it is obvious that a lot of politicians and bureaucrats know that the Chinese are using Australian water to grow Chinese cotton for next to nothing putting the Chinese in a position to grant 'gratuities' to a lot of people.

I get the impression that shadowminister is well and truly entrenched in the pro-China camp. Probably thinks he's another Andrew Forrest.

Paul1405,
Don't forget the 'Truth' will ya ?

G-strings are not all that comfortable - young or old.
Foxy,
Our DON discarded hers for that reason but we salvaged it & gave to the local shipping company for their 50 tonne Tugs !

Individual,

I'm sure that your comment was meant to be clever -
but I don't understand what on earth you're talking
about.

Foxy,

individual said his DON discarded hers for that reason but they salvaged it and gave to the local shipping company for their 50 tonne tugs.

What's there not to understand?

Indy in nought more than his G-String, all 85 years of Indy, fronting up to his local Centrelink office to do battle with the dreaded PS. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! The thought of it all! Would Indy make a point, or just fizzle away to nothing?

SR,

I once bought a house for about $500 000 and due to a great job offer moved to Sydney and sold it 18 months later for just less than $1m. At both times the price was market-related. The water market fluctuates even more. I don't know what the real market price of the water rights that were traded, and clearly neither did the author.

Secondly, setting up a company in the Caymen Islands is a hell of a lot simpler and cheaper than setting up one in Aus, and avoids principally 1000s of BS reporting regulations. Tax is paid on P&L just as for native companies.

Perhaps you remember Emma Alberici who torched her career writing a similar left whinge polemic but clearly couldn't differentiate between revenue and profit and who is now unemployed.

Paul1405,
being socially inept is no ringing endorsement, give up trying to be a comedian !

individual,

You never got back to me on whether or not you are a money laundering project home builder.

Dear shadowminister,

What utterly fatuous tripe.

The whole purpose of putting money offshore is to hide things that would otherwise be revealed through transparency regulations and data matching in your own country. In fact Cayman Island residents have $1.6 billion dollars held in Australian banks.

The fact you are happy that the beneficiaries of 10s of millions of dollars paid above the odds for water are not fully revealed makes you complicit in the corruption that pervades our political system.

You never got back to me on whether or not you are a money laundering project home builder.
Paul1405,
No, I'm not a Leftie exploiting the rots within bureaucracy !

Paul1405,
Don't forget to tell us the 'Truth' !

SR,

Get that rod out of your backside. If corruption is revealed I will condemn it. My point is that KB has yet to do so only managing to cobble together information that at best looks suspicious to the uneducated as did Emma Alberici's flawed report.

As for the Caymen Island registered companies, there are definitely a couple of bad eggs among the many 1000s of companies, but claiming that all these companies are fraudulent is akin to claiming that all labor and greens members are paedophiles because of a few bad eggs.

SteeleRedux,

Don't worry about Signor Engineer ShadowMinister.

He still thinks St Ferdinand Marcos was canonized because of his charitable works amongst the poor of the Philippines.

Corruption in the Liberal party, branch stacking in the Victorian party have been alleged, benefiting the parties federal right members Michael Sukkar and Kevin Andrews.

"The Nine TV channel report alleges party powerbroker Marcus Bastiaan directed taxpayer-funded electorate officers to recruit party members to boost factional numbers while they were working in Mr Andrews's office.

Dear shadowminister,

Sorry mate but you are as likely to condemn any corrupt activity from your side of politics and you are to applaud the ABC for a single piece of investigative journalism.

Why are you raising Emma Alberici? Most accept her report was flawed and should have been properly vetted by the ABC's economics editor, but the blowtorch that was then applied was completely over the top. The number of times the Murdoch press stuff up or intentionally over blow issues in astounding, and it is orders of magnitude worse than anything the ABC does. But more importantly it is hardly ever held accountable.

Organisations like the ABC will always come under attack for the slightest transgression simply because they are holding big business and the wealthy to account.

The fact you are part of the attack squad without being part of the club means they have in you what is colloquially termed as a 'useful idiot'.

Time to get some autonomy back.

What is shadowminister's excuse for this:

http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/federal-minister-accused-of-liberal-party-branch-stacking/ar-BB18hTyh

SR,

EA not only made a serious blunder in the article she submitted but refused to correct, withdraw or apologize for it until forced to by the senior management and subsequently has made a series of unsubstantiated claims against both the ABC management and Turnbull precipitating her dismissal.

Her fate was entirely due to her arrogance and intransigence.

Secondly, the string of falsehoods the ABC has published over climate change and illegals dwarf the odd error the Australian has made.

Shadow,

What do you have to say about that Liberal far right fruitcake who resigned. The grub claimed a Liberal MP from the Victorian moderate faction was some kind of queer, because he and his wife don't have children. Like you have insinuated about me, calling me a pedogreen, was he referring to something of a paedophile nature in the Liberal party? A favourite subject of yours.

Will you answer that question.

Paul1405,

Don't pay any attention to what shadowminister calls anyone because he is an engineer and engineers are well known for that sort of behaviour.

Paul,

Working hard on your reputation as a liar I see, no such claim was made. Unlike the pedogreens, art majors, and Labor, I don't know of any kiddie fiddlers in the liberals.

Not living in the plague state of Danistan, I am not up to date with the corruption in that socialist paradise.

Hi Mr O,

Have you noticed that every thread Shonky Minister contributes to, he has to mention the "P" word. Just recently on the discussion topic 'Flower Arranging for Fun and Profit', between the firey comments on Bluebells and Buttercups here was good ole' Shadow chiming in with references to the "P" people. Strange lad that boy, strange lad indeed!

Paul1405,

Problem with shadowminister is that he hates the fact that he is just an engineer and really wanted to be an Arts graduate in something like history, anthropology, archaeology, sociology, philosophy, etc.

But it's too late to fix his life so he unleashes all of his pent up hatred onto anything and everything in order to make him feel good about himself. And he does this by denigrating people in order to elevate his own importance and preponderance. But he will always be just an engineer.

VOTE 1 Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party. Corruption Free.

Dear Is Mise,

Lol.

Is Mise,

Do people in the SFFP like Asian identity?

Issy; Where have you been? Vote for the Shooters and Hooters, are they still giving preferences to the Bolshevik Party?

Paul1405,

You leave Is Mise alone. He is just exercising his new found Asiatic identity derived from the cultural transformation of the Great Asianisation Period (1980-2020) in Australian history.

Paul1405,
Have you ever sat back & pondered why you are the way you are & think ?
I'm at a loss how you could possibly be categorised, you're of a strange mentality indeed !
Try to think 'for' people for a change instead of against them !
What people need is totally divorced from what they want !
btw. we're still waiting on this 'Truth' of yours !

individual,

We can't all be money laundering project home builders.

Certainly Issy,

People have basic needs, and here in Australia generally a large amounts of wants. For most the needs are easily satisfied, the wants on the other hand seem to be endless, and never satisfied completely.

And what is your point?

Paul,

What is your point?
Or are you simply confused or smoking heads?

The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party are corruption-free, that can be taken as gospel otherwise Steele, Paul and Opinion would have told us why they were not.
Thanks for the endorsement, gents.

Issy, after Eden Monaro, its obvious The Shooters and Hooters have gone Commie, giving preferences to the Labor Party! Indeed! What next supporting the Greens. I'm still red and green myself, the Bunnies demolished the Eels 38 blot Thursday night. Issy, its talking heads, and smoking herbs! As Clark Griswold said; "Burn some dust....eat my rubber!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozksR8QLWzM

Corruption free, done any cash runs from the Yankee NRA to Aussie lately?