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July 22, 2015 · 21:22

Spelling fraud with a ‘T’

So, after we see the events in Tesco, which has taken its billions in toll from September 2014 onwards, we now learn that Japan has its own version of Tesco, which we read in ‘Toshiba boss quits over £780m accounting scandal‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/21/toshiba-boss-quits-hisao-tanaka-accounting-scandal).

Here it is not the meagre 263 million that Deloitte discovered would only be the tip of the Titanic sinker, in the case of Japan, it is three times the amount, which initially might beckon the question whether the fall out for Toshiba could be 9 times worse. Is it that simple?

The Guardian gives us the following “Tanaka and Sasaki knew about the profit overstatement and created a pressurised corporate culture that prompted business heads to manipulate figures to meet targets, the investigators found“, the other one is “Improper accounting at Toshiba included overstatements and booking profits early or pushing back the recording of losses or charges. Those actions often resulted in still higher targets being set for business divisions in the following period“.

These two are aimed at one side of a picture, but what some sales people will know is that this is already a disjointed part. Before I go into this, there is one more quote that needs to be mentioned. It is “Despite its shares losing almost a quarter of their value since the irregularities surfaced in April, it is still Japan’s 10th biggest company by market value. It was created by a merger in 1938 but its roots date back to 1875 and it was one of the companies that turned Japan into an industrial power“, so these irregularities have been part of something already for months, in addition, from an article one day earlier we get “The report said much of the improper accounting, stretching back to fiscal year 2008, was intentional and would have been difficult for auditors to detect“.

The last paragraph alone implies that like with Tesco, this system could not be done without massive ‘support’ from accountancy firms, moreover in all this, we have to wonder if anything will be achieved, especially as PwC (Pricewaterhouse Coopers) seems to have fallen off the view of journalists, and as we have seen no news from the SFO (Serious Fraud Office) since December 2014, we can ask in equal measure, whether the now sparkly news on Toshiba will go anywhere at all. Is it not interesting that PwC added 64 new partners three weeks ago, they get all the limelight as we read “Luke Sayers, chief executive of PwC Australia, congratulated the new partners on their appointment, praising their outstanding professional expertise“, whilst at the same time we get “IOOF has hired accounting giant PwC to review its regulatory breach reporting policy and procedures within the firm’s research division“, whilst in all this, PwC should still be regarded as the number one problem, as for a long time Tesco’s ‘issues of monetary matters‘ ended up getting overstated by well over a quarter of a billion, and so far it seems that either the SFO is nowhere, it is hushed or it seems to pussyfoot around PwC as the PwC marketing engine goes on like there was never a glitch in their seamless sky to begin with.

Now it is important that the entire PwC issue hits the UK, so a global company like PwC should not get hindered by one rotten basket, especially as they have dozens of baskets. Yet as one basket was regarded to have gone ‘rotten through’, the fact that there remains a system of silence, gives way to ask the question why PwC should be trusted at all and in that light, in the case of Toshiba, how intensely damaged the accounting business has become, you see Tesco and if we go by the words of Sheldon Ray of the Financial times we see “non-GAAP earnings per share that were more than 100 per cent higher than its GAAP numbers in the last quarter. Another reported 2 cents a share non-GAAP profit vs $1.41 per share loss under GAAP in one quarter” (at http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f07720d4-c9b1-11e4-b2ef-00144feab7de.html#axzz3gWXJGSSF), so how deep goes all this? This grows in light when we consider ‘Richard Bove on Fannie Mae’s Accounting Irregularities‘ (at http://www.valuewalk.com/2015/07/fannie-mae-accounting/). Not a number one source, yet consider the quote “The result of their work is a conspiracy theory concerning the government takeover of Fannie Mae in which the public has been lied to concerning Fannie Mae’s financial condition in 2008 and in subsequent years“, this is linked to the work by Adam Spittler CPA, MS, and Mike Ciklin JD, MBA, MRE. Spittler is a Senior Associate at KPMG and Ciklin is an investor in a number of start-up digitally based companies, so we see that there is at least some Gravitas with these people, now add to that the information from the Washington Times (at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/mar/11/fannie-mae-recklessness-risks-future-financial-cri/), where we see ‘Mortgage giant hired unqualified auditor with conflict of interest for critical position‘ and “Nearly seven years after it was bailed out from the housing market crash, mortgage giant Fannie Mae is still engaging in behaviour that could precipitate future financial crises and taxpayer losses, a government watchdog warns in a report to be released Wednesday“, which was an article from last March. Now, the fact that this is not ‘new’ news is not the issue, what is the issue is that there is an almost Global act of blatant disregard, leaving the people the feeling that accounting seems to be set to levels of intentional misrepresenting companies for the need of bonuses and the ‘Holy Dow’. The fact that the activity against such transgressions is seemingly kept of the table in these economic times will only grow stronger unrest.

Yet, is my view correct, is it not me that is in error? Let’s face it, One in the US, one in Japan and one in UK does not a conspiracy make, it does not reflect on some non-existing criminal empire based on the quill, ink and parchment (as accounting used to go in the old days). What is an issue is how on a global scale governments seem to act or not act is matter for discussion, yet in all this external forces have been at work too, let’s face it that the US in 2008 was a place of desperation, even as it is now still on the ‘to-be-regarded-as-bankrupt’ even governments will make weird leaps when they are pushed into a corner. In my view, the fact that the bulk of global accounting is pretty much in the hands of half a dozen accounting firms remains cause for alarm and PwC is in the thick of many events. Including the 40 million property scandal surrounding Xu Jiayin last march.

Yet back we go to Japan, the land of yummy Sushi and as it seems shady bookkeeping. You see, there is no way to tell how deep Toshiba will get gutted, if Tesco is any form of indication, there will be a massive backlash, If 256 million leads to a well over 3 billion drop in value, what will it do to Toshiba? More important, with Japan so deep in debt, would it push Japan over the edge of bankruptcy? Let’s not forget that Japan hung over that Abyss a few times and the US seemed to have ‘intervened’ in favour of Japan in the past, in this case, that might not ever be an option again. For those who think that I overreact, think again. Tesco lost value factor 12. Now, we all agree that this is extremely unlikely to hit Toshiba to that degree, but what happens when stockholders walk out? Now consider that Toshiba is amongst the 10 largest Japanese companies with a global reach that equals IBM, that whilst Japan has a debt of $10 trillion, the fallout will hit Japan (again). To give view to the next part, I need to revisit a part I mentioned in the past. Let us take a look at the following example:

In week 10 a salesperson makes a sale, knowing it will not be a solution, during the next week that customer gets managed all over support and after a week, they escalate and communicate with the customer on solving it, a week after that the customer gets the apology that there is no solution, but that the customer will get a full refund, case closed.

Week 10 Sale made
Week 11  Support starts
Week 12 Escalation
Week 13 No resolution
Week 15 Refund

Now the part, the sale was made, in Week 13 no resolution, now we leave one quarter and go into the new quarter, the refund will not affect the sales person’s bonus, nor will the sales target be affected due to negative sale.

This is based on actual events, now think of the impact when this is not mere sales, but 1.2 billion in sales. Did this happen? I cannot state that all of the funds were done in that way, but consider the impact of increased sales and the people who enjoyed their bonuses from that (if that happens in Japan).

Consider the quote “blamed on management’s overzealous pursuit of profit“, which we get from the ABC article (at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-21/toshiba-top-executives-quit-over-us12-billion-scandal/6637976). Now add to that the quote “underlings could not challenge powerful bosses who were intent on boosting profits at almost any cost“, so how was the profit boosted? You see, this is not just an auditing issue, when we look at these large companies and the way that sales are arranged and forecasted, consider the events involved. To name but a few

  1. Leads
  2. Contacts (the consequence of a lead)
  3. Forecasting (the consequence of contact and the push for sale)
  4. Sales registration (Scopus, Salesforce, SAP)
  5. Accounting
  6. Reporting

Six iterations of paper and electronic trails that had to handle 1.2 billion in virtual revenue to some extent. Even if the leads cycle was avoided (by going through existing customers), there are other divisions that needed to be aware of a large non existing sale. You see, twelve hundred million dollars makes for a massive amount of monitors, laptops and other items Toshiba makes. Even over time, flags should have been raised on several levels, so when I read “The report said much of the improper accounting, which stretched back to 2008, was intentional and would have been difficult for auditors to detect“, which implies that the intentional misdirection was done over 6 iterations, which means that the group involved was a bit larger than we read in the articles at present. More important, how well did the Auditors seek in this regard? Which now takes me back to the reference I made earlier regarding “PwC added 64 new partners“, so how good are these ‘senior’ players? Making someone a partner, so that they can be misdirected by a senior partner would be equally disturbing. The fact that Toshiba falls through just like Olympus did, in a place where these events are regarded as ‘shocking’ according to investigating lawyer Koichi Ueda does not make me any less nervous. How institutionalised is overstating revenues on a global scale? You see, this is happening a lot more than many realise and even though many are not found, it does not mean it is not happening next to your own place of business. Now we get back to the issue I raised regarding Fannie Mae. The fact that it is not unrealistic that the government looked the other way here is still a fact we must consider. More important, are the two parts not mentioned in any of this. The first is linked to the issue I reported on January 30th 2013 (yes over 2 years ago at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/01/30/time-for-another-collapse/) in my article ‘Time for another collapse‘, I questioned the way the Dow did not just recover, it did so whilst places all around us were remaining below par for a very long time after that. Now consider the following speculative theory:

What if places like Fannie Mae used the ‘leave one in’ approach. So there were mortgage packages and derivatives. So, we have four properties that are doing fine and we add one worthless one to the mix. The package deal as the salesperson states. So the buyer ends up with a ‘value’ and whilst one part is ‘given’ without value, that person has a good deal, now consider that this one place is no longer a lost place, it is no longer a write off. Over time the market would recover with less losses, so is this truly an action that is virtually impossible? Moreover, if such a thing truly happens, would it be fraud? How could an auditor ever find the event in the first place?

This now links back to Toshiba, not just in how you push up 1.2 billion, but how to get it passing the view of a ton of auditors. In the case of Tesco, I personally considered the involvement of PwC from the first moment the news came out, there it was a less murky place because as supermarket chain their product goes to Joe and Jolene Public. That is not the case with Toshiba. Not only are they global, but with a power plant division (including the one that makes you grow in the dark) as well as medical equipment (likely needed for previous mentioned division), Toshiba deals with consumers, corporations and governments, which on one side requires a lot more administration, but that administration would have the ability to go murky on an exponential level, which gives added value to the claim “difficult for auditors to detect” yet that gives option to two parts, is there a questionable level of administration, or are we confronted that the auditing partner in this case was a 28 year old recently promoted individual who now gets his/her first real large account?

Why these statements?

You see in all this, on a global scale, the law has failed. It fails because the rewards are just too good to pass up for those playing that game, the chance to get away with it and the option to keep at least a decent part of these earnings safe makes the option to do this again and again almost a certainty. The law has no bite and the corporations involved are too powerful to get smitten down, so this avenue will continue for a long time to come. In addition to this we ask what else is affected and why is there a tendency from the press to not keep these matters a lot more visible? Consider how much the Guardian and others reported in 2014, if you now Google ‘PwC Fraud SFO Tesco‘ we get nothing after December 22nd, what a Christmas present that is! What is funny that one other part showed up, which is Keith McCarthy, now director at PwC London, who was Chief Investigator with the UK Serious Fraud Office before that, so would it be mere speculation that the best way to avoid prison is to hire the police officer so you know where they will be looking? #JustAsking

I am only asking!

Anyway, with a wish for a better lifestyle, I will consider helping Toshiba to retrench their IP and Patents for a mere 0.4% of the value, now if I could only persuade my Law Professor to help me out, 0.3% for her and 0.1% for me, I should end up with enough to buy http://www.cooperbrouard.com/St-Peter-Port/Ridge-House-property/3835453 and retire in a relaxing way!

I agree that I could do better, but then I was never a greedy person, which is a failing the Toshiba executive clearly lacked.

 

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May 23, 2015 · 20:45

The outspoken lie

This is the issue we have seen many times in the last months. The lie perpetrated by people (including journalists) to keep them in some fake shape of ethical non-prosecution. The clearest one was shown by the Guardian Yesterday (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/22/secret-bank-of-england-taskforce-investigates-financial-fallout-brexit), it is not the first one, it will not be the last one and until some individuals get out of their lazy chair, it will never improve. The quote “News of undercover project emerges after Bank staff accidentally email details to the Guardian including PR notes on how to deny its existence“. This is not even close to an accident, you do not ‘accidently‘ add journalists to confidential e-mails. This is almost like me going to Lucy Pinder (famous UK Presenter) stating: “Can you please stand there, now bend backwards a little and please keep your legs spread and without knickers, so I can ‘accidently’ land my penis into your vagina” (sorry about the graphical intensity Miss Pinder)! Either event does not happen accidently, only intentional or orchestrated as I see it! We will likely hear on ‘accidental’ typos, on how names were the same, but the cold reality is, is the mere fact that some people are trying to be some misguided whistle-blower yet the other group are doing that intentionally, some to warn ‘friends’, some to influence the market. And this event is nowhere near the only one. I wrote about Brexit yesterday in my article ‘Is it all Greek to you?‘ there are several issues in play. There is the link to Natixis, regarding their over half a Trillion Euro issue. Is that information not really handy to have? So in my view what is currently ‘regarded’ as an accident is possibly a simple case of either whistleblowing or corruption! The next quote is another one we need to take issue with “The revelation is likely to embarrass the bank governor, Mark Carney, who has overhauled the central bank’s operations and promised greater transparency over its decision-making“. The issue is, is that there is no issue. The Bank of England has a clear responsibility to investigate economic impacts, this means that both Brexit and Grexit are to be investigated. You see, if Brexit becomes a necessarily evil, those making the decisions would need to have all the facts, not just ask for the facts at that point. So, 30 seconds after the Guardian revelation, Natixis and all its links, Airbus, HSBC and a few other players will now be preparing their own kind of noose, threatening the UK government on the consequences of going forward on Brexit, the equations as per today will be pushed in other directions, including by the US, who would get into deep insolvent waters the moment Brexit becomes a fact. So, the accidental mailer is in my view an intentional traitor to the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. That person is an even bigger traitor as this is not about where the freedom of choice for a sovereign nation lies, but the fact that it is no longer able to get the true facts ready for the people to freely make a choice on, so when the referendum does come, the people are likely to get misinformed because powerful players do not like it when their profitability is on the line. It is of course every little bit useful for the large industries who believe in keeping the status quo of exploitations high, dry and mighty. So even though Mark Carney will likely be under fire of questions as per Monday, we must also see that in this case our Canadian Marky Mark is totally innocent (in this case). He did what a responsible governor of the Bank of England did. He made sure the correct facts were collected (tried to do so without kicking a fuss), a task that is now less likely to be successful. So as we look at what happened, according to the Guardian article, we see “The email, from Cunliffe’s private secretary to four senior executives, was written on May 21st and forwarded by mistake to a Guardian editor by the Bank’s head of press, Jeremy Harrison“, so as I see it a mail from Sir Jonathan Cunliffe went to 4 senior executives. Now we suddenly see that Jeremy Harrison had it. Was he one of the 4 recipients? It seems unlikely as the text would have stated something slightly different. It is the formulation that gives way to the notion that it is likely (read: possible) that one of those executives forwarded the mail to Jeremy Harrison and he did give it to the Guardian. So we have two issues. Who gave it to Jeremy and was the release to the press more intentional than not? That question remains an issue. Is this orchestration or blatant treason. Let’s not forget that treason means: ‘The betrayal of someone’s trust or confidence‘, in this case the trust AND confidence of the British parliament. So the people are confronted with a spokesperson who likely spoke out, against the wishes of the ruling governor. So this event will have consequences from Monday onward. The markets will react and after that we will see more events into escalations as the British people will get to see over the week how the Greek fallout will hit the markets and the European economies as a whole. The non-actions, or any act regarded too small by the people will shift political allegiances fast, yet that effect is less likely to be felt in the UK and more likely to impact France at present. And these Brexit revelations are not the first ones. That Greek tragedy called insolvency is riddled with ‘leaked’ documents all over the place. In February 2015 we had ‘Leaked documents reveal what Greece had to say at the Euro group negotiations‘, in this view, I agree with blogger Raúl Ilargi Meijer who wrote less than a week ago “Whenever secret or confidential information or documents are leaked to the press, the first question should always be who leaked it and why” (at http://www.theautomaticearth.com/2015/05/the-imf-leaks-greece/), but that is not what orchestration is about, is it? So are the events from the Bank of England orchestration too? If so fine (well not entirely, but that would not be my call), if not then please fire Jeremy Harrison and give me his job. I have no proper degree for the function, but at least I will not be leaking any documents. These events go a lot further then just Greece of course. The Herald Scotland gives us ‘Civil servant who issued RBS leak email links with Better Together leader‘ (at http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/revealed-civil-servant-who-issued-rbs-leak-email-links-with-better-together-leader.120666908) gives us “THE Treasury civil servant who issued an email leaking sensitive information about Royal Bank of Scotland’s plans to leave the country in the event of a yes vote had links to the head of Better Together campaign, it can be revealed“, so again the question regarded is, is this not corporate treason? Consider the quote “Now the civil servant who issued the communication can be identified as Robert Mackie, the son of Catherine MacLeod, who was a special adviser to Better Together leader Alistair Darling when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer“, was he preparing his own more comfortable future? Getting himself into the proper future setting with friends of Alistair Darling? These are questions to be asked, for sure. Of course, a valid question might be, why would the Royal Bank of Scotland, leave Scotland if it becomes independent? Is it about the lost power of image of its board members? I do not proclaim or imply to have the actual answers, but the truth is not likely to come out, which means we end up living an outspoken lie, does it not? My own little island Australia is not without its own negative merits here. The title ‘Leaked documents reveal problems within Air Warfare Destroyer program‘ should give cause for concern, because that is not a mere commercial/political issue, it is a military issue, where one might expect a little more bias into ‘disclosing’ classified information (me going out on a limb here). we see the information (at http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2015/s4232702.htm), where we get the quote “But documents obtained by Saturday AM reveal the alliance is now worried continued cost blowouts and delays are harming its shipbuilding reputation“, of course ‘cost blowout’ usually means that the leaders of those projects did not have a proper clue to begin with and the amount of 9 billion gives a lot more weight to my statement (the UK NHS IT program being a nice piece of 11 billion pounds in evidence), but that is not too unexpected. The quote “MARK THOMSON: With an alliance contract where you don’t have somebody clearly in charge, you can rapidly find yourself in a situation where things go wrong and people are looking at one another passing blame, not taking responsibility, and decisions aren’t made” is precisely to the point. Our own Marky Mark (not the one running the Bank of England) shows the major influence, a person that is clearly in charge. I would add that quality of communication tends to be a solid second one in these projects. You see, as these elements go back and forth the e-mail (read Memo) goes on and on. When someone is in charge we get that defining moment when they hear (or should hear). ‘Shut Up! This is what we have decided on!‘, yet military contractors (like Raytheon and Northrop Grumman) are very trained in encapsulating questions within answers, adding premises so that the water is murky, as this is all about their continues consultancy as those people are like lawyers, they bill by the hour per project (as I personally see it), so here again, we see the outspoken lie, now not by telling, but by omission through non-clarity. So as the article ended with “Last year problems with the AWD program prompted former defence minister David Johnston to warn he wouldn’t trust the government-owned Australian submarine corporation to build a canoe“, on one side it seems odd to bite the hand that feeds you, on the other hand the question becomes what evidence did he have access to? Was this a political move to shelter individuals or signal true issues? So now we get the news (less than 2 hours ago at http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/first-air-warfare-destroyer-launched-at-asc-osborne/story-fni6uo1m-1227366174513) ‘First Air Warfare Destroyer launched at ASC, Osborne‘, which should be a huge reason for parties as well as spoil a bottle of bubbly against the hull of that beauty. Yet, the article is not all good news. We see that in the quote “The occasion was overshadowed to a degree by Friday’s release of a Federal Government audit claiming the destroyers cost three times as much to build in South Australia as they would if they had been built overseas. It also found the total cost of the project had blown out to $9 billion“, so here are my questions in this:

  1. Could we ever rely on our defense by getting things build overseas?
  2. Who kept check on the expenses?
  3. If I go over the books and If I can cut more than 20% by invalidating time wasted on drawn out lines of ‘communications’ (I mean those long winded memos from these military contractors), will I get 10% of the 20% saved? (This should amount to 180 million) not bad for a few months’ work! You know, I had a dream where I ended up with 160 million and bought a nice house on Guernsey. I am willing to settle on 20 million less!

So here we see the outspoken lies! Political, commercial and even military, lines of miscommunication drained through ‘leaked’ documents. Is it all orchestration? Is orchestration not the same as treason when we consider the allegiance those people were supposed to have (in opposition where ‘leaked’ documents are a tactical move)? It would be for a court to decide, yet we will soon learn that these matters will not make it into any court, and as the cost blowout of 9 billion is shown, this leaky path will pay handsomely into the hands of businesses like Raytheon and Natixis, and what do you know, there are links between these two as well! So is this last statement my outspoken lie? Or can we agree at least to some degree that these companies all talk to one another? So in the end are governments getting played and who is actually in charge? That would be a very valid question as the bill got pumped by 9 billion, where 10% of that 9 billion could have solved the Australian legal aid issue (as well as a few other issues), so will any investigation into that issue result in a new outspoken lie (read: carefully phrased political conclusion without further accountability by anyone)? Time will tell!

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March 3, 2015 · 20:48

The dangers of freedom

I am all for freedom, I reckon that anyone growing up in Western Europe, USA or the Commonwealth has that same feeling. We love our freedom. There is however a dangerous downside. As I see it, freedom comes with the granted option to become an idiot, a moron or any other type of person that we usually find revolting to some extent. There is another group. There is nothing wrong with hem. They seem to be nice, they seem to be honest, and usually are portrayed as fair and they believe in fair dinkum. This is all good, no negative word on that part, they also exercise their right to free speech and they do just that. They believe in certain change, which is all good, but now these people are pushing us all into a dangerous area, where the consequences could be dire. This is not so good, yet they believe that they are doing the right thing. Some might state that the road to hell is paved on good intention. I think that this is too strong a statement, I believe that those people are getting on a bandwagon that goes into a foul direction, because they do not foresee the dangers that lie ahead. This is the issue!

We see this side in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/03/australian-republicans-we-can-no-longer-afford-to-wait-for-the-monarchs-passing). The title ‘Australian republicans: we can no longer afford to wait for the monarch’s passing‘ gives a hint of what some might regard as treason, but I am still willing to see it as people, devoted to Australia, but not seeing the dangerous currents of that journey. That excuse is not valid, when we consider the article with Bill Shorten (at http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jan/25/move-to-a-republic-would-show-australia-is-modern-and-inclusive-bill-shorten-says), ‘Bill Shorten: move to a republic would reflect a modern and inclusive Australia‘. Here we go on dangerous grounds.

You see, the politicians are all about self-preservation! No matter who gets hurt in the process!

My reasoning? I had highlighted them on earlier events, the list is long. One link is found with the ABC (at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-10/shorten-says-car-manufacturing-shutdown-was-not-inevitable/5250834), Where Bill Shorten stated: ““All of a sudden, all the car component makers (in Australia) for Holden don’t have enough work,” he said. Mr Shorten says “government subsidies for car makers are essential for keeping manufacturing alive”“. Well, we have seen the use of subsidies, in that same article we see the statement: “”Australia subsidises its car manufacturing in the order of about $17 (per car), whereas the Germans do it at about somewhere between $65 and $90 and the Americans, $250″”, yet, when we see the Australian (at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/lies-damn-lies-and-car-subsidy-statistics/story-fnbkvnk7-1226824091831), we get: “Reworking the figures, it turns out that Australia has subsidised the manufacturing of vehicles to an extraordinary extent — $US1885 per vehicle, compared with Sweden ($US297), Germany ($US206) and the US ($US166). In other words, Australia has the highest rate of budgetary assistance of the seven first-world countries listed“. We could argue that this amounts to slave labour, as the subsidies is so large that the factories end up with prepaid labour. How is this not regarded as slave labour? Because people are allowed to go home and the money comes from somewhere else? Why should car be subsidised to SUCH extent? In addition, we get the quote “We now know that Toyota Australia has received nearly $500 million in the past four years. Given that there are some 2500 Toyota employees, this works out at $50,000 a worker a year“, so we have car manufacturing plants which seem to come with prepaid labour. How can a nation survive when these factories bend over backwards to avoid taxation and in addition, they received well over $100 million a year?

The next part comes from the Courier mail (at http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-the-nations-budget-is-broken-but-bill-shorten-and-labor-wants-to-stop-us-fixing-it/story-fnihsr9v-1227143768045), “The Budget deficit blew out to an astonishing $48 billion last financial year, largely because the previous Labour governments went on a massive spending binge and left nothing but IOUs in the kitty come the next global financial crisis“, by the way, the Labour party has NEVER given any clear explanation on how that money was spend, on what it was spend, and who signed for it. I reckon that is why the Labor party decided on the three party stooges approach (I wonder who plays Curly), namely Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, and now Bill Shorten. There was additional bad news, there is NO WAY that the drop in Iron was to be predicted. Neither Labor nor Liberals saw that coming. It cut export with an additional amount surpassing 30 billion, when the coffers are empty, that is not a good thing.

Now we get to the Bill Shorten Republican view. Here we see the following: ““Let us breathe new life into the dream of an Australian head of state,” he said. “114 years ago Australians found the courage and goodwill to transform this continent into a commonwealth. In the 21st century let us live up to their example. Let us declare that our head of state should be one of us.”“, you see, the article reads nicely unrealistic. There are parts that are not mentioned at all. I will get to them soon.

In the same light that Labour overspend us into massive debt, as Labour wrongly ‘illustrated’ the car industry, he also sees his option to get a little ahead as a possible first head of state (odd, do we not have a prime minister?), as he fantasises himself to become. You see, becoming a republic comes with a massive amounts of additional debts we cannot even fathom. As part of this Commonwealth, we are not alone, our army is a joke compared to Russia or China (65000 soldiers do not add up to much against the other large players), even against Indonesia, which might not have state of the art equipment, but they outnumber us 4 to 1, not the best odds to have. Together as one Commonwealth, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, we do wield a massive bat, we are part of a whole. So if China wants to play rough (or Russia for that matter), we have a few big brothers in our corner. Now, we could rely on New Zealand to give aid as soon as needed (they would never back down from helping a neighbour), but as Air Vice-Marshal Gavin Turnbull might confirm, the Sopwith Camel really does not have the range to make it to Australia, meaning we need to rely on our own planes alone.

This is only one element and not the most important one when we need to rely on our freedom. You see, I believe that Labor is squarely in the pocket of the US Democratic Party (the one who nearly bankrupted the US), the US is playing too many dangerous games, enabling big business, not holding big business accountable and overall not having the ability to manage its budget. Labor is on the same footing, and how long until the Labor party dances to the song of the White House, making us lose our choices, our freedoms and our value of fair dinkum. Is that what we desire?

What is so bad on being part of what we used to regard the British Empire? I believe that the core values that this Empire had, which were moved into this Commonwealth of ours is still good, it is still strong and it is every bit as Australian as it is British. When the lower classes here lose it all as business no longer deems these people to be of marketed value, who will they cry for? Labour? No, that lot just gave their rights away. In this the Liberal party is not without faults either, but they are not on the republican horse, giving us heaps more options.

This economy is in a bad state, no one denies that. I myself am hurting as much as many others, but like the harsh methods of Germany in 2009, their Austerity saved them and got them on top, I feel that the same will work here, Labor overspending by spending each annual budget twice is too dangerous for us. This is at the heart of the issue.

It is all directly linked to us remaining part of the Commonwealth, the one part that Labor SHOULD have been doing, they are not (or so it seems)! I voiced more than once that our future is on finding strong interactions with other Commonwealth members and offer what we have in surplus, whilst getting what they have in surplus. With Nurses here looking for jobs and the UK having such a massive shortage, why are we not seeking solutions together? Not just the medical industry, we need to put our commonwealth heads together, solving them together, not playing politics on who looks better in a pissing contest, which leaves us with a smelly floor and no actual solution. In this we should also look at what we could mean to Scotland and vice versa. Scotland will at some point be more independent, would it not be great if our message of fair dinkum and our workforce could help this stability, because a stable and prosperous Scotland helps all members of the Commonwealth, including the UK.

So as the Honourable BS talks about some republic, he should realise that unless the deficits and the bad economy are solved, we have no future ahead, other than one as someone’s vassal, a path we evolved from long ago, so whatever story he spins on how the republic gets a better business profile would soon be dead, as soon as people realise that it only opted for one goal, to give large corporations a place to get by on 1-3% taxation, how would that ever be fair dinkum?

 

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November 22, 2014 · 11:51

A beefy certification!

There was an unsettling report on the news at 06:30 this morning. It showed issues with Halal classification with references to terrorism. Oh, the man was very ‘precise’ in stating there were at present no indications, it was all about clarity. So before we take a look at this, let’s take a look at George Christensen, a Liberal who seems to represent the people from MacKay going north, his area stops before Townsville, which beckons the question how many Muslims are there in his constituency? Did he meet with them, or with a Muslim spokesperson to discuss this BEFORE this was given to the press for HIS visibility? (Ne thinks not, but I could be wrong).

This part was the part I had an issue with: “I have never said there is any evidence of links between halal certification and terrorism in Australia. Consumers should be able to know where proceeds derived from all forms of certification go, including kosher certification. There is a clear reason why many Australian’s are talking about halal certification and not kosher certification. There hasn’t been any terror plots found in Australia nor have there been any terror attacks killing Australian’s in Bali or New York City or elsewhere that were masterminded by Jews or even extreme sects within Judaism”

The first question in my mind is why? If I do not live for Halal foods, why have the interest on how certification is set and where proceeds go to? In my mind I am at times curious how Halal and Kosher certification is done, but that is for a mere academic curiosity. I would think that George Christensen should look into other meaty issues. Perhaps some will remember the scandal that had hit the UK a little over a year ago, on how 29% of beef had added horse to it. So George, how much Phar-Lap can we find in a Queensland hamburger? Have you looked into that part at present? You know, whilst having your Vegemite sandwich, as you come from the land down under!

You see, when we see news like ‘Campaign to boycott halal food gains momentum in Australia after yoghurt company ditches certification‘ (at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-20/campaign-to-boycott-halal-food-gains-momentum-in-australia/5907844), I wonder what is driving this. It is as I see it a deceitful approach to anti-Muslim sentiment. Australia is not and should never be anti-Muslim. Like the UK we are anti-Extremism and as such we keep our watchful eyes open, but to attack Muslims all over by becoming anti-Halal is like Idi Amin walking up to Mahatma Ghandi stating ‘Dude, you are too intense!‘.

Consider the quote regarding the anti-Halal movement “Its carefully anonymous leaders keep a low profile, directing their members to swarm target companies’ online profiles and boycott their products“, this reads like a page of the manifesto of white supreme-cysts letting the dumb masses do their dirty work. It is not unlike some early KKK approaches into changing commercial interests to fit personal needs.

When we consider the quote “I think it’s fair to say that people from all walks of life, should be able to ask are you halal certified? It’s not a hard question“, we need to ask another hard question. Why? You see, Halal is an issue for Muslims and Muslims alone. As far as I always have known it to be: ‘the animal must be slaughtered with a sharp knife by cutting the throat, windpipe and the blood vessels in the neck, causing the animal’s death without cutting the spinal cord. Lastly, the blood from the veins must be drained, it is done according to religious standards’ (I got this part from Wiki, because I was lazy formulating my view on this). In the back of your mind, these animals are slaughtered in a humane way (it sounds strange, I know), so this meat is prepared in a certain way, so that it is the finest beef, now consider the slaughterhouses Christians use (in mass quantities), one could consider that Kosher (Jewish), Halal (Muslim and Jhatka (Sikh) will always have the best meat. When we see in definitions ‘killing the animal whilst causing it minimal suffering‘, gives thought to a humane approach on preparing food, I can guaranty you that when you see modern slaughterhouses, ‘humane’ is a word we need to leave behind before we get within a mile of many slaughterhouses (isn’t there at least one in Christensen’s district?) I wonder if George Christensen ever took time to properly investigate matters before he started, you know, opening his mouth.

There is one additional part that should be looked at, which is that the killing of animals, in Islam is set in two categories: 1, for food and 2, to eliminate danger (like rabid animals). In response to this anti-Halal I would like to add the quote in the second article: “‘If they don’t change their ways and start acting as patriotic Australians, they deserve what they get. Its market forces,’ he said“. Is that so? In that case, I reckon their next change is to shut down EVERY Target and K-Mart, which should be closed until all the cheap $3 articles from Myanmar and Sri-Lanka have been removed and replaced by articles made in Australia. You see, when your members see the quality of life decrease as expenses go up from +50% to +150%, they will likely move away from sanctimonious statements regarding ‘patriotic‘. It seems to me that Certifications like Kosher, Halal and Jhatka do have a religious ground, yet behind that is a hidden quality because of these practices, making these certifications interesting to consumers all over the religious spectrum. In the end, we the people want good food, good quality items.

So when I see opportunists talk about ‘patriotic’, then I wonder if they are aware of ‘Value of ‘more sophisticated’ counterfeit goods increases by millions‘ (at http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/value-of-more-sophisticated-counterfeit-goods-increases-by-millions-20140426-zqzu8.html), where we see the two quotes “Among the 2012-13 seizures were 43,200 bottles of beer in Western Australia in March 2013” and “Up to 86 per cent of all goods are manufactured in China, he said“, so Mr Sanctimonious, when did you last buy your Australian beer on special? How Australian was it, or perhaps you could not tell the difference?

It seems to me that local certification is preventing counterfeit and forged processed foods just fine, by not letting this happen. A local market like that cannot cheat when there is a clear view of where things came from, from Cow and Lamb to final piece of red meat. Something the ‘mass-market’ seems to be completely unaware of, that part was shown a year ago when most European nations enjoyed Phar-Lap sprinkled burgers and sausages.

So back to George Christensen, why is he on this horse-meat to begin with? When I see the following in the ABC article referred to earlier “The trouble began for the Fleurieu Milk and Yoghurt Company last month when Mr Hutchinson received an email asking to confirm whether his company had halal certification. Six months earlier, the company had gained halal certification as a requirement to supply a $50,000 yoghurt contract with Emirates Airlines. ‘It was a $1,000 fee. It opened up a business market to continue to become viable. It was a necessary step,’ Mr Hutchinson said“, here we see a simple certification step, which brings a $1000 fee, but opens up a $50,000 market for an Australian company. I think that Fleurieu is doing a good thing here, they went to adhering to a market, which requires certain high standards, they met the challenge and they are in business, in this regard how UN-Australian are the people attacking this? Is this about where the $1000 went to, as George Christensen seems to question? If that is true, then I wonder what George Christensen is up to wasting our precious time on this issue (I do not care if he wastes his time on this, but his constituents might ask). What was this really about? If my ‘response’ would be a personal one, I might ask why this ‘entertainer’ (can we call George Christensen a politician when we read these facts?) is a Liberal member, he sounds like Labour party material at present. Yet when we see the mention “George Christensen wants halal certifiers to open up their books“, I wonder what he is really trying to get at, the people who paid for certification, or the list of certifying instances. When we see the $1000 fee, to make any serious contribution one would need many thousands of companies getting certified, I think that this is about something else entirely. That view became visible as I found a blog regarding Carol Vernon, running for the Greens in September 2014 (at http://mncgreens.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/george-christensens-statement-labelling.html), the quote is “Mr Christensen is referring to people who oppose the industrialisation of the Great Barrier Reef as terrorists and in the current climate that is utterly unacceptable, wrong and incredibly dangerous and irresponsible“, yet in August we see his statement that his approach was wrong (self-admitted by GC, at http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/great-barrier-reef-federal-mp-george-christensen-says-i-got-it-wrong/story-e6frflp0-1227040230696), so what is this about? When we consider the site ‘they vote for you’ we see that George Christensen is labelled as ‘George Christensen voted very strongly against increasing marine conservation‘, this makes sense when we see his view on the Great Barrier Reef and on other matters. It seems to me that he is firmly in the pocket of ‘big business’, you see, as I personally view it, Halal, Kosher and Jhatka is all about quality oversight, something big business abhors. they want freedom of unaccounted actions (like the Phar-Lap burger), so, when we see businesses making changes that could be regarded as morally correct activities like Halal certification, we see that it is not about the dollars, but about the quality, an approach the connections of Christensen might not like as it undermines their profitability as they are stopped from dredge dumping and so on, Dawson has abattoirs and mining items in their constituency, which beckons other questions too. As a population wants a better quality, we see a better community, seems to me that Halal certification might be a threat to these abattoirs, for who do (or did) they cater to?

An electorate with 92,000 votes (at 94% turnout), is not that sizeable a community. So why was George Christensen bothering with all this?

Consider the quote “there has been some evidence in other countries that there has been dubious activities on halal certification“, so where is that evidence? George Christensen is outraged that his grocery spending could be propagating a religion, in regards to Vegemite (as stated by ABC news), we should consider the following: There are 22 million jars produced every year. Halal certification is $1000, according to one source stated earlier, which means $0.00454 per jar, which is less than half a cent, so when we consider this in regards to George Christensen, should he be regarded anything less than a joke? There was never a security issue, as I see it, there was never any issue on religious certification, it was as I see it a waste of time from beginning to end, perhaps to avert talk from his disastrous approach to the Great Barrier Reef. Which is of course a second joke (a story lacking humour in this case) when we see Julie Bishop state that there was no threat in response to the quote by President Obama “Mr Obama told the audience the ‘incredible natural glory of the Great Barrier Reef is threatened’ because of global warming and said he wanted to be able to return to Australia with his daughters when he had more time“, that statement that there is no threat, is of course debatable as George Christensen was extremely willing to use it as a dumping ground for dredging activities, which we see at “In January 2014, a proposal for Abbot Point was approved to dispose of 1.3 million cubic metres of dredge spoil“, so how will that ensure a long lasting reef? If we are to accept the report (at http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/17164/ShenNengGroundingImpactAssessmentReport.pdf), we see “contamination by TBT such as from anti-fouling paints is likely to have a significant and persistent ecological impact on biota at a ship grounding site and potentially the surrounding physically non-impacted areas“, which is just one quote from the 160 page document. As we saw that the captain was given a $25,000 fine, how large was the total fine for this one event, and how much will it take to fix the reef? In light of the fragility of the coral reef, how could any positive light ‘be given’ towards dumping sludge on ecology this fragile?

It seems to me that in regards to the reef, both sides have been playing it fast and loose towards the health of the Great Barrier Reef, when we see that 85% of Australia is all for a healthy GBR, we can only wonder why George Christensen is all about certification of red meat and not that much for a great reef.

Did I oversimplify matters again? Silly me!

 

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February 19, 2014 · 20:45

The bad and the worse

I have had several views in many directions, but two issues are rising that require us to take a critical look at us. Some will agree, some will disagree and many will not know where they stand in these two issues. The first is again about labour, both work and politics.

Of course, it does not help when Bill shorten starts to ‘rant’ on the issues that hit many. The first issue is Alcoa. It is an Aluminum smelter. The first quote is “Aluminium manufacturer Alcoa has contradicted federal government claims that the carbon tax led to the decision to shut the company’s Point Henry smelter and two rolling mills in Geelong and western Sydney” (at http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/alcoa-contradicts-joe-hockey-on-reasons-for-smelter-shutdown-20140218-32yir.html)

In addition we see the quote from Bill Shorten where is said “It’s clear that a global oversupply of aluminium, dramatically falling aluminum prices and a high Australian dollar made the continuation of these operations impossible” he said.

Shall we take a small step back to the 12th of February 2013 where we see the following quote (at http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2013/2/12/resources-and-energy/alcoa-vic-pass-carbon-tax-liability-federal-govt)

“The plan addresses a long-standing issue whereby decades-old agreements between Alcoa and the state government included guarantees of cheap power that left Victoria holding the responsibility for the carbon tax due to an inability to pass on those costs to the aluminum giant.” as well as “Under the deals, the state will pay an increased power price and pass most of that through to Alcoa.”

So, taxation is up, power costs are up and prices are down. Mr Shorten needs to take a hard look at his own party and the shortages of his own Labor government where we see that these issues were known for over a year. The fact that Labor decides to park the issue until after the election means he now needs to remain quiet. Yes, it will be an issue, but for him to nag like a little girl is what happens when his predecessors decided to ignore the issue. The liberals warned about the dangers of the carbon tax, the people were hit massively hard by the carbon tax and now hell is to pay and in my view, the Labor party better foot that bill real quick. This is however not the first instance. In Feb 2012 a similar newscast was made by the Australian. The quote “ALCOA says a carbon tax will make life harder for the company as it reviews the future of its Victorian smelter and the jobs of up to 600 workers.” (at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/national-affairs/tony-abbott-seeks-to-blame-threat-to-alcoa-smelter-jobs-on-carbon-tax/story-fn99tjf2-1226265695323), So Labor was aware for almost 2 years in their reign that the Carbon tax would have a definite influence.

The last line of that article by the Business spectator states “If we got all that right, it is no skin off Alcoa’s nose, is it? But it does take a significant burden off the Victorian taxpayer.” Well, see the result! It was apparently more than just skin of the nose of Alcoa and as such it becomes a different kind of burden on the taxpayers.

The final quote from the Business Spectator article was the one the article started with “Aluminium giant Alcoa and the Victorian state government have designed a complicated set of deals intended to place the liability for rising power costs onto the federal government, according to The Australian Financial Review.” So an American Company is deciding that the rising risk of higher power costs should be carried by our government? Alcoa reported (at http://www.alcoa.com/australia/en/news/releases/2014_01_09_4Q_Earnings.asp) on January 2014 the following:

Revenue of $23.0 billion whilst reporting a Net loss of $2.3 billion, or $2.14 per share

Let us not forget that this was a better result than 2012, so Labor KNEW that there were several issues here. When you ‘service’ an American corporation who loses well over 2 billion whilst reporting revenue at 23 billion, there are issues plain and simple. I can agree with some that there claim made by Joe Hockey is not completely accurate (in regards to the carbon tax being the reason), but there is no doubt that at a 2.3 billion dollar loss, the carbon tax might have been the proverbial straw that broke the American Smelter Camel’s back!

We should however not just blame Bill Shorten (even if some feel that this is a more comfortable choice). The Honourable Kim Carr (seen in newscasts bearing a slightly less waxed chin then Bill Shorten) has been in both the foreground and background in more than one occasion. So it is only fair we take his actions in account as well. If we consider my blog article ‘The last Australian car‘ from February 12th we see a few more angles that gives worries to the Labor side of it all, especially in light of the quote “writer Judith Sloan brings a case that Australia has subsidised almost $1900 per vehicle produced.” I mentioned. Is it a good deal when we see these costs and support numbers go out? If we take $2,000 subsidy per car and if we consider that Toyota made 100,000 cars last year, we see the costing of $200 million a year in subsidies, which is a lot more than what the workers would cost every year. So, no matter how good it looks, $200 million is way too large a bill to just handover to a car giant. Is there an alternative? Perhaps the Dutch alternative where VDL Nedcar, who was initially in the news in 2012 with the headline “Mitsubishi Motors to sell NedCar plant for 1 euro to VDL” was the beginning of a new plant, completely refitted for 24 hours a day automated manufacturing. They are now starting to build the new MINI Hatch as per this summer. Is there an opportunity for Australia? Yes!
With an upcoming customer base of 22 million (deserted by Ford, Holden and Toyota), VDL Nedcar might see Australia as the opportunity of a lifetime.

It is however not just the car industry. Sky News is just now showing another iteration of job losses in Victoria (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/19/victoria-promised-federal-funds-as-alcoa-shutdown-adds-to-job-losses), so as Sky News and the Guardian shows us, what I would see as the hollow words of Bill shorten were he states “Spend the money this year, then you can save hundreds of jobs, you can keep excellent world-class naval construction skills in this country.”

Yes, Labor is all about SPENDING money! Let us not forget that the treasurer has been presenting the massive bill that Labor left Australia. The National debt went from 58 billion in 2007 to 257 billion in 2013, all under Labor. So perhaps the irritating quote by Labor leader Bill Shorten on “Tony Abbott and photo opportunities” should change. He should ask how his own party had been spending money they never had in the first place. When we see the $200 million in slave labour bonus (oops, I meant subsidy) for Toyota we have to wonder how long until we are all at the mercy of whoever owns these debt markers (most likely the banks). Labor does not get to nag on the cost of living whilst overspending a little over $11,000 per Australian resident. So when we hear another whinge by Bill Shorten on the deficit, consider that his party had been spending it, making it all a lot harder for many Australians in the upcoming time-span 2014-2016.

The issue of the car makers as well as Alcoa were already known issues in the Labor era and shouting now, whilst not securing these markets (which was in all honesty not a realistic option) is just plain wrong.

In addition there is one strong factor, which has been a known weakness was not dealt with in the Labor era either. It is the energy shortage, which is at the heart of several factors (especially Alcoa). If we accept the ABC transcript (at http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1796094.htm), then it is only fair that we point part of this blame at the Liberals as well. The issue was known since 2006 (even though Labor got to power in 2007). From several texts, I myself come to the conclusion that something had to be started in 2005, which was not done. Labor ignored it for 2 whole terms making the issue just a lot harder and now the Liberals MUST address this issue. If you are wondering how correct or how wrong I am than just take a look at your Australian energy bill. My bills have grown, whilst remaining a stable user, by over 100% in less than 6 years. This makes it a hike of over 16% a year. In addition, the carbon tax really pushed up the prices. Focusing on cheaper energy would have made a real difference for all parties concerned. In addition, this is not a local issue, it is not a national issue, but it is almost a global issue. The same issue can be seen in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom (very clearly), as well as America. So, it is nice to keep making cars and Aluminum, but if it is not financially viable, the tax payer ends up footing the bill no matter which road we take. So, the dollar, our work conditions and other factors will always remain an issue, but if energy prices are not solved, the one part that will drain any options we might have had. Consider the Business Spectator quote “Point Henry alone represents almost 7 per cent of Victoria’s annual electricity consumption“, so one plant needs THAT much? How could this issue have been ignored for almost 3 administrations? I see that there is a manufacturing issue in Australia, but if the energy prices are not dealt with, we will see a national shift from bad to worse.

Perhaps this will be the moment of innovation; perhaps we should focus on other areas. It only takes one innovator to come with that golden idea that brings income (not costs) to our states. I just hope that politicians on both sides of the aisle will listen to that person.

 

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February 12, 2014 · 19:13

The last Australian car

Australian news has been all over the place. The one thing that is so expected is now on the fritz. Car makers are moving away from Australia. The events have not been out of the air, but what has been a revelation, is the amount of ‘subsidies’ the government had thrown into that direction to begin with. What can we (me, myself and my sources) tell you? First, the four big car makers in Australia were Ford, Holden, Mitsubishi and Toyota.

1. Ford
Last year, Ford announced plans to shut its two Australian plants in October 2016, blaming strong currency as well as high production costs that are hitting the manufacturer. These are all decent reasons, but I personally do not think that this was the whole picture. In addition Ford is cutting 300 jobs this June, which has some worried that Ford will leave before the 2016 announced point of departure.

2. Holden
Holden will be leaving Australia in 2017. Holden’s 2017 exit from its automotive assembly operations in Elizabeth put 13,000 jobs at risk in South Australia. (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jan/21/holden-exit-2017-sa-needs-330m).

3. Mitsubishi
Mitsubishi shuttered its assembly plant in 2008.

4. Toyota
The world’s largest car maker announced it would stop building cars in Australia by the end of 2017 and would operate in this country only as a sales and distribution company. One additional factor needs to be told, which will have bearing down the road. Namely “Toyota is Australia’s biggest vehicle exporter with around 70,000 of the 100,000-plus cars it builds here being sold in foreign markets” (at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/toyota-to-make-major-announcement/story-fn3dxiwe-1226822810074).

So, by 2017 all carmakers will have bailed out of Australia. Why is this all a big deal?
Many will go directly for the job losses. ABC stated “The Australian Council of Trade Unions has warned the decision could cost as many as 50,000 jobs and wipe $21 billion from the economy as the impact rolls through the associated components sector” (at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-10/toyota-to-pull-out-of-australia-sources/5250114).

Is that all the truth? No! Listening to Labour leader Bill shorten is to hear a lot of misinformation and tweaked wordings. Labour had messed up a lot of issues. In my personal view, I personally think that Bill Shorten is not telling the whole truth because his lips are moving! Let’s not forget that the Liberals are not blameless either, the entire situation has covered both sides of the political aisle. Part of the disgrace can be read in the Business insider (at http://www.businessinsider.com.au/australias-car-industry-out-of-gas-after-billions-in-subsidies-that-were-always-going-to-lead-to-a-dead-end-2013-12) the quote “The car industry is estimated to have received a total of $12 billion in direct subsidies and protections over the past 20 years, including $1.8 billion to Holden in the 11 years to 2012.” is at the heart of this. So basically, 4 car makers have enjoyed an annual $600 million in subsidies a year. This is so off the wall it is not even funny! So our taxation goes to an industry who advertises a dozen times a day that they are so great? How can we take either the car industry, or the government in this regard serious? Let us not forget that Labour was part of this all as well. This also links back to the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership). An interesting link we find is a Japanese site that had the following to say (at http://www.jama-english.jp/publications/tpp_pr_mar2013.pdf) “Japan’s auto market is completely open to other countries’ products. No restrictive customs or other regulations apply to imported vehicles.”

What about the exported vehicle side of all this? If we see it in that light, we see that the TPP is opening up borders as it should, so, that from now on Japan (Toyota and Mitsubishi) as well as USA (Ford and Holden) have a dire reason to return to their home flock. The TPP is giving options to get these brands all home build. Whatever assurances we see now on support and spare parts will soon be removed too (like in the month as they leave). Yes, there will be a few ‘exclusive’ distributors, but as the TPP comes to full power, the entire online experience will not just hold books, movies and video games. they will likely include car parts soon enough. If you doubt this all (which would be fair), then consider the following article (at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/lies-damn-lies-and-car-subsidy-statistics/story-fnbkvnk7-1226824091831#), where writer Judith Sloan brings a case that Australia has subsidised almost $1900 per vehicle produced. If we take that and we add the initial quote I mentioned “Toyota is Australia’s biggest vehicle exporter with around 70,000 of the 100,000-plus cars it builds here being sold in foreign markets” leaves me with the question whether we have been sponsoring that part too.

Is this just the story? No! I think that there is more at play. Even though several sources are not making any mention of it, Ford and General Motors (Holden) are American companies and i think it is not just about removing plants, I personally think that members of the US government have had talks with all the big boys of industry. The American situation cannot continue. If America is to survive (which is slowly becoming less and less likely), they need taxable incomes. To get this done they will have to get the industry back. This will soon become an era of in-sourcing. This is not a new or a novel thought. It had been on the mind of many in 2012 and several articles had been written in 2013 that in-sourcing would grow big in USA. One of the people outspoken in that area had been Charles Fishman. Even though no one took him that seriously, the man appeared to have been right on the money. I personally think that it was the dumb spending sprees by both Japanese and American governments that forced the in-sourcing hand. This is also part of the pressure we saw in December as President Barack Obama spoke out for a quick closure of the TPP (it still think that the pharmaceutical patents are the largest part, but that I will cover at a later date).

Is it all a bad idea? No!

It is for us, but can you blame these two nations for thinking of themselves? It will however be important for us to find another solution. I already mentioned this on December 11th when I wrote about ‘The Holden circus’. If Toyota is leaving Australia too, then my thoughts on this are not just validated to some extent, they become a lot more important to follow up on. A nation of 23 million needs its own car industry. I do believe that it should not be subsidised, the designers just need to become really clever and we the people of Australia will need to support our own industry. If the Japanese and the Americans are all about nationalism (as we have seen on many occasion), then why not the Australians? If Japan and America walk away from a 23 million customer base, why should we keep any level of loyalty towards them?

We must all realise that we need to adjust our focus, we must change our way of working and thinking. We need to walk away from subsidies and sponsoring. We must move to an age where we design in a more clever way, we must bring to market in a brighter way and we must adhere to a different customer collective. The 4 brand approach to 12 models a year is just not sustainable. If these makers claim so, ten let them refund the subsidies!

When the last car is built in Australia, the eager beaver that launches their brand in Australia will start with the audience of a lifetime!

 

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December 11, 2013 · 18:26

The Holden circus!

Today there is an abundance of false emotions, stomping of tables and floors by theatrical agents. Yes, today the upcoming closure of Holden got announced. They are not the only one. Ford had already decided to stop in 2016 and Mitsubishi closed in 2008. Now, Holden will stop by the end of 2017. On an Island of 21.000.000, the three large makers get out. Is it a wonder? The economy is down by a lot! Buying cars is not on the mind of many. I get that there is enough space for one to exist, but do we really all need a new car?

This is not just about the economy; this is about need and offer. How viable is it to make cars? The initial idea that we need a car almost every year should have been abandoned year ago. The fact that we were hit by 0% finance deals should have been an indication. This is not just a view that is new. This has been going on for at least 2 administrations. It is so nice to see the amount of emotional lashing we are currently see on Sky News. It goes further. One mentioned that part of this had been known since 2007.

The one part I found most amusing was the speech by Paul Bastian. He is the National Secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU). Sky News reported “Paul Bastian blamed the government’s refusal to offer more assistance to Holden and called on the government to ‘come clean on its vision for manufacturing.’”

This is in part the fault if the TPP. The TPP would allow for the American brand to be again an American brand, now through imports without severe import taxation, which is exactly what the TPP was meant to do. To be honest, this is the part I do not object to. In the end, if an American brand works from America, then that is how it is. If this is the way that American corporations need to operate, then that is just how it is. My issue with the TPP is and remains the unjust hijacking of innovation. This is not it. This is a business decision. I do not like it. Many Australians do not like it, but that is just how it is.

Getting back to Mr Bastian, I get that he is emotional, I get that he wants it to remain here and that the government should have ‘done more’. Are we to give Big Business a free ride? No! If one thing is a fact then perhaps that this is a signal for these Australians to sit down and create a new Australian brand. Get a national car, get the ideas together and create a new brand that could become the proud spearhead of an industry. Let us not forget that Holden (and Mitsubishi and Ford) have decided to walk away from 21 million potential customers. Germany had 10% of that when someone sat down, created the boxer engine and then made ‘Volkswagen’ a reality (by the way, the boxer engine would be the proud trademark of Porsche for decades). This literally translated into ‘car of the people’. With that they followed Citroen, who started 2 decades before that. These two would impact the automotive industry within 2 decades. So why look at General Motors holding your hand up like Oliver Twist asking for more?

Short and sweet? “Fuck ’em!”

There is nothing stopping us from creating a generic engine with the Kiwi’s and create a car that has a decent level of appeal to almost 25 million people. (Aussies and Kiwi’s).

 

In addition, there should be great laughter rolling from the interview that Sky News showed in regards to the reasoning. Questions like ‘If Mr Hockey had…‘ is just preposterous initially. Yes, there might have been issues, but when you hear about a 1 billion commitment towards that big business, we need to start asking questions.

The short and sweet of it is that America is BANKRUPT! With 17 Trillion in debt they are talking about 80 billion in less spending. When you are down 17,000 billion, 80 billion is less than 0.5%. So finally America starts cleaning up its act by calling back business and making then tax accountable. Is that such a far stretch? I think not and I do not blame them for that step in any way. So is it such a stretch for an Australian to create a new local brand that will support OUR industry, OUR people and OUR economy? This is what innovation is all about. Yes, our car, if released in 2016 might lack all the comforts, but so did the French 2CV. That became the future of a billion euro company. Nothing stops us from redoing this. In the end, the economy forced big business back to their local ground. Yes, they might lose 25 million customers, but we could create a new economy, a new future and new innovation. I say we look forward!

All what we see now on TV is name and blame by people making a lot of money, whilst the facts had been around for a few years. Ask how those high paid analysts did not see this happening! I am not stating that politics are free of blame, but in the end, this is the choice of an American car giant (General Motors), a step that others, including Japan (Mitsubishi) had already made.

So when some make some theatrical show of 500 million getting pulled out, we need to ask ‘why on earth do they need 500 million?‘ How about we create a new brand? Will Toyota pull out? Perhaps not! If Toyota is all that remains, we have reason to JUST support Toyota.

Now, in all this, let me be clear that I am not an automotive expert, but to hear all these people claiming that ‘big business’ is waiting on more support by government is just ludicrous. Yes, perhaps it is a tragic day, but in the end, Mike Devereux has to represent General Motors. The opposition is all about slinging mud, but this had been going on for a long time, whilst THEY were in charge. So this, as it is decided in just a few months that the Liberals were in charge, they move away.

What a croc!

This had been planned for some time. Detroit, being a bankrupt city is on the verge of being removed from the map. The opposition knew that more was going on. To see

When ABC had this (at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-05/holden-to-pull-out-of-australia-from-2016-17/5138942) the following quote was given “Holden says discussions with the Government on its future are continuing, and it says it does not respond to speculation.” this means that there was more and more was in play, and to see the blame by the opposition is just a joke. If we in addition consider the Herald Sun showing us thin almost a week ago (http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/govt-opposition-deny-holden-pull-out-plan/story-fni0xqi4-1226776625199), we see that there are several sour apples in the barrel and there are some indications that it could be perceived that labour knew about much of this, but perhaps the game was played for future tax break endeavours.

 

In the end, I think that these acts are all about America needing now to desperately protect American futures (which I totally get), which is WHY the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) was so important to them; especially in light of export terms (not just the issues that the WTO discussed over the last month). We should also regard that this is only the beginning. Consider that Japan has equal financial pressures. What happens when Takeda Pharmaceuticals Australia Pty Ltd does the same? Will we get another emotional outbreak by Kim Carr? Will we get more number fidgeting (that is how I see it)? They all forget that such a step needs several months of considerations. This means that the start of this had already at a time when it was the Australian Labour government who was in charge and this should have been dealt with THEN!

Instead, Labour show them as playing the child tantrum, they should unite with the Liberals and open the doors for a new brand. Consider the consequences when General Motors needs to consider losing 25 million customers, almost 8% of the American population. Be clever, be innovative!

We, both Australians (and Brits too) have proven to be innovative. Now, the Americans have given us reason to be so quickly and clearly. Let us show them that we can get it done, preferably without needing 500 million more after a business had been established.

I am throwing down the gauntlet. Who is the innovative engineer ready to commit to his possible future Fortune 500 position?

 

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July 25, 2013 · 19:14

The Telco is on the wall

The Dutch giant KPN is in the market to stay alive. As the message is now that they are selling E-plus to Telefonica. Consider that the sale of this company is sold for 8 billion, which might seem good. It was however bought a decade ago for 20 billion. So that means a loss of 1.2 billion a year.

So this seems not that good an investment, when you look at it. Is this turning into a moment of selling the family silver cutlery, or is it about more? KPN is not the only one in this regard. Nuon (a Dutch energy provider) is also surfing the red waves of tremendous debt. So much so that its mother company Vattenfal is now putting the Dutch energy giant up for sale. Experts have stated that some of these problems are due to the company holding on to old methods for too long. Considering that they require gas, and the price of gas is up, means that their energy is more expansive then most others.

Back to the Telecoms! In Australia, Vodafone has a multitude of problems. Due to less reliable connection issues they had, over 550 thousand customers left Vodafone Australia for other providers. That is a shift of customers that started only 6 months ago. That means that Vodafone is facing a loss of revenue approaching 20 million a month. So we are talking about a decent amount of revenue. It amounts to a loss of almost 8% of their customer base. That is not even close to the end for Vodafone Australia. They currently have a class action running against them, so that is likely to be a none too small bill, and linked to the loss of customers (at http://www.zdnet.com/au/vodafone-australia-reports-customer-losses-of-551k-7000018290/) we also see that there are currently some legal threats coming from Telstra. That can be read at http://www.zdnet.com/au/telstra-ramps-up-4g-rollout-as-3g-scales-down-7000018225/.

The quote that matters is “Riley also took aim at recent claims from Vodafone that it has better spectrum holdings than Telstra in the capital cities, allowing the company to offer faster 4G services.”

Perhaps Telstra needs to consider a few things!

First there is the article that ABC published in 2011 (at: http://www.abc.net.au/technology/articles/2011/09/28/3327530.htm).

Yes, I got to hear all about it in Uni when I was doing my mobile technologies subject (party of my IT degree), so if this is about ‘marketing’ claims, then Telstra might revoice the words stated in the claim. They could read the following: “Riley also took aim at recent claims from Vodafone that it has better spectrum holdings than Telstra in the capital cities, allowing the company to offer faster 4G services” in the air of “Riley is also aiming at the mention that Vodafone is more colourful then Telstra when offering a mobile service labelled as 4G in the capital cities“. Have you seen those BORING 4G posters all over Sydney? Yup, making legal threats against opinions, that makes perfect sense to me…..NOT!

OK, it is 2013 now and there are true 4G providers now, but what is important?

4G is the fourth generation of mobile phone mobile communication technology standards. (Quick Wiki grab). When we consider the 4th generations, we see WiMAX and we see LTE (Long Term Evolution).  The ITU (International Telecommunication Union) stated the requirements on what makes a 4G standard. So when the International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced (IMT-Advanced) specification was set for the 4th generation in 2008, there was an actual next generation target to achieve. You wonder why it took so long? Well, the ITU looks forward on what the next step would be. So they set peak speed requirements for 4G service at 100 megabits per second (Mbit/s) for high mobility communication (such as from trains and cars) and 1 gigabit per second (Gbit/s) for low mobility communication (such as pedestrians and stationary users). This would indeed be a massive step forward in a time when those speeds were not even close to an option. It makes perfect sense. You have seen this before. When we went from VHS to DVD, similar steps forward were made. This step was even larger as people moved from DVD to Blu-Ray.
It is technical evolution baby!

Yet, Telco’s are all about marketing, and Telstra was really clever. From the information that WAS then, they basically offered 3G+ and named it 4G, but that does not make it true 4G. That is how I personally see it! When I think of a power Telco offering 4G, I think of NTT DoCoMo and TATA (India). DoCoMo has close to 60 million customers in Japan, which is well over 45% of the mobile user population. How many Telco’s can actually make the claim that 1 in 2 connects to them in the Mobile community? In India there is the Tata Teleservices group with over 75 million customers, and NTT DoCoMo owns 25% of this.

So when we think Telco, Telstra and Vodafone Australia do not really measure up. Yet the interesting link here is that NTT DoCoMo had Billions invested all over the world, including in KPN in the Netherlands. Is it not interesting to see how these Telco’s seem to cross pollinate? This raises an issue that many people forget. If we consider the Vodafone class action, and if we consider the reasons of bad connections, then what is going on? Our little Island has 20 million people, which is less than a third of the active Japanese mobile phone users. So why are our connections failing (I am only considering the large cities)? It is clearly not about technology, but about infrastructure and implementation (in my humble view). Yes, we should not forget costing here either, as it all costs money, but consider the income in India and Japan, consider the amount of users. NTT ended up with a net income (after expenses and licenses) of roughly 5 billion dollar last year, which is almost 12% of the total revenue. So we see three things.

1. A ROI of 12% is not that bad.
2. Several nations are competing against giants with means we cannot fathom.
3. All of them seem to be writing off ‘losses’ on massive levels.

Is this about losses, about write offs or about something that is not here?

I reckon it is mostly about the not being there bit. When we look at incomes then we see that the Vodafone Europe CEO (Vittorio Colao) made 2.2 million Euro, whilst David Thodey, CEO of Telstra makes a mere 7 million dollars. So, yes they make decent coin, yet nothing more a mere mid-level banker is likely to get as an annual bonus, so the money is not draining away in that direction either.

No, I personally see the issues as a side effect of devaluation of technology. This is a side that has been ignored by most members of the public from 1997 onwards. You see, technology providers saw the benefit of the armistice race and went the same way. Every year we see a PC, laptop or tablet that is better, faster and newer, but how much faster? The impact with computers is not that big as it hits the individual. They deal with slightly larger programs, and that is pretty much it. Your text file is not that much larger. If you consider a 3000 word document, then that file remained relatively the same over the last 10 years. For electronic devices like TV’s it is also the same. We get the same signal and beyond that it only looks nicer, all this did not impact the provider.

With telecom it’s a different cattle of fish (pun intended). When we upgrade our phones we also attach to that an almost exponential growth of data needs, as such as Apple sold around 25 million mobile phones per quarter, we see that the need for an almost exponential growth of infrastructure is needed (a lesson Vodafone is learning the hard way). Even as the large Telco’s are installing the need for hardware on a continuing base, and as we see the replacement of equipment, we see that the life time of current facilitating hardware is likely less than 40% of its actual life cycle. It is either that of build more places with facilitating equipment, with a connected drain of ‘revenue left’ as well. The last level is one that is not that apparent at present, but will hit Telco company values on a massive scale soon enough. This side can be read at http://www.globallegalpost.com/blogs/global-view/registered-patents-devalued-by-outdated-ip-laws-6786253. Considering the issues at play, then the assets of Telco companies are about (read 2-4 years) to hit a certain basement value. I reckon that there will be consequences down the road. In my view it will be that the truly big boys will continue, the smaller packs will no longer be able to compete in a field where they will get charged for services needed and then some.

What is the solution? Not sure, it is in the end a business answer. Yet, voicing a 1.2 billion loss a year cannot be that good for the ego, and as the amount of players increase, these levels of ‘bad’ news will continue. It will not hit your taxes, but consider that services falter, where will you run to when your mobile phone leaves you with the message ‘searching…’ from your provider?

 

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March 13, 2013 · 15:54

Conroy’s freedom of Speech

Conroy’s freedom of Speech

There have always been reasons to check out the front page banner of any newspaper. Some make us curious, some make us angry and some make us realise that the budgie cage needs cleaning. Whatever we think, we do tend to react to a banner.
So, like most people I also reacted. Now, personally I have a slightly less positive view on the Telegraph. So when a politician gets compared to Stalin, Jong-un, Mao Zedong and Castro, it tends to wake me up. My first thought being, now what is the media trying to get away with?

So I first took a little jump into what other media’s are stating and quoting. ABC quoted the following “He also announced plans to establish a new watchdog to ensure that media companies comply with independent journalism standards.”
In addition another newscast from ABC stated “The Federal Government has unveiled the long-awaited details of its proposal which enshrines media standards and tightens ownership regulation through an arms-length advocate to assess media mergers.”

This does not sound too bad, does it?

There is however opposition. ABC also mentioned the following “But independent MPs Andrew Wilkie and Rob Oakeshott have raised concerns about the laws. Mr Wilkie flagged the proposed public interest test for media ownership, saying the area is open to political interference.”

Both sides make clear arguments, yet, what is really at stake?

You see, from my point of view we need to do whatever we can so that we do not have to live and listen to the world according to Fairfax/Murdoch only. When there is a chance to keep the little ones in the field so that multiple views can be heard, the views we hear remain to be from a fair collection of voices.

For me there is another side that is not mentioned at present anywhere (or so at least it seems). Stronger self-regulations and stronger watchdogs were also clearly stated by Lord Justice Leveson. This issue is out far beyond the borders of Australia. The Leveson report is attacked by so many, yet this report shows how out of control the media is. Even though the report is focussed on the UK, there is a clear indication that the issue is playing FAR beyond those borders, and it is even an issue in nations NOT part of the Commonwealth where ‘Freedom of the press’ is nothing less than freedom to harass, freedom to stalk and freedom to display at the expense of everything and everyone for the need of profit and circulation. They however, refer to it as ‘the people have a right to know’.

The media seemed to be upset when the trials started, however I personally think that they seem to be more upset about the fact that they got found out mainly due to a trivial newscast in my humble opinion, than a ground breaking case of journalism.

Professor Ivor Gaber, professor of political journalism at City University London stated the following in his book ‘After Leveson’: “Many people have had much to say about the Leveson report, most of it pretty negative, but in his broad sweep of the relationship between the press and politicians, the good judge gets more right than wrong“.

As stated, the UK is in the middle of reforms halting and talks are breaking down at present. This was reported by the Guardian yesterday March 12th. So what is Senator Stephen Conroy about?
Well, first of all he is a politician and he is trying to get certain reforms in place. I would think that there is an Ego factor in place as well (let us not forget that he is a politician). If he pulls of certain reforms then not only will he look good to many many people. He will also be known as the man who was able to get reforms done, unlike his English counterparts, who are locked in a stalemate at present. So, I would say ‘Well done Stephen!’ at that point.

So is he a media dictator, or is he just in the way of a small group of upper level directors who need to fuel their altars devoted to money? That fair question is not really asked by the press is it?

He is quoted stating that the Australian people want the press to be held accountable. Is that so wrong? One side of the plans is to cut licensing fees in some instances so that the small players get a fair chance in this game. That part is supported by Independent senator Nick Xenophon. Xenophon mentioned in the same ABC story I quoted earlier that this part of the plan has merit. I reckon we can all agree that if the fees are too high, then the voice of Murdoch and Fairfax are all that remain at that point. This is NOT a good idea! Australians might agree that the small new players could bring us fresh artistic views in both news and media in general.

Consider the history of Oporto restaurant which was founded in 1986 by António Cerqueira. By media standards without the changes Conroy proposes, people like him might not exist in the future. We would be limited to Mac Donald and Hungry Jack. By giving smaller players a fair chance we get options, we will get to read and watch other opinions.

The plan of Conroy allows small media groups to reach a much larger audience in open honesty. That is one of his sides. So let us take a look at that. On the Department of broadband, Communication and Digital Economy the following issues were stated:

1. A press standards model which ensures strong self-regulation of the print and on-line news media.

2. The introduction of a Public Interest Test to ensure diversity considerations are taken into account for nationally significant media mergers and acquisitions.

3. Modernising the ABC and SBS charters to reflect their on-line and digital activities.

4. Supporting community television services following digital switchover by providing them a permanent allocation of a portion of Channel A.

5. Making permanent the 50% reduction in the licence fees paid by commercial television broadcasters, conditional on the broadcast of an additional 1460 hours of Australian content by 2015.

The first one is a good one. Giving the press some minimum standards cannot be a bad thing. He is NOT impeaching freedom of the press; he is basically stating that a minimum standard is required. In addition there is the part that the press would be held accountable. So when those ‘implied’ newsbytes, which call for rage and later are stated that they were ‘mis-communications’ might come to an end. I see this in the light of reading a newspaper and getting a much higher quality than a Facebook gossip byte. Is that a bad thing? In addition, do not forge that this is about self-regulation, not about government interference. Labor wants a real watchdog with teeth in place that monitors, not one that is government controlled. They want something better than a Chihuahua lapdog that yaps at time.

The second one is likely the one that keeps the big bosses of media awake for some time to come. This is about more than just the fear of big boys buying out the small ones and drown out smaller voices with the voice of the agenda of the big media owner. Make no mistake, that big media owner has an agenda. If you doubt that take a look at the front page of web search giant Yahoo. It is filled and almost drowning us with the Channel 7 views. Their branding, their ruling kitchen, their sunrise. Compare it to the American Yahoo page and see how small THAT American page is. Channel 7 is not the only one, make no mistake, they all do it in one form or another. When I personally interpret the second rule, I see a voice that states that diversity is always considered. This is to ensure that the smaller interest is never forgotten or ignored. Also, do not forget that no laws are broken here, the steps that Senator Conroy tries to implement is to make sure that the small voices are never lost.

The third one is the only one without a voice from me. I watch SBS, I seldom watch ABC, so I have no idea how out of touch their charter is. C’est la vie!

The fourth one is one I believe in. I never watch them, so why do I care? Because community is about just that, communities! There should be space for all, and to guarantee a space for them is just fair dinkum. Is that not the Australian way?

The fifth should be for us all, making it economically interesting for Australian content to be added to their channels. This is about more than just our voice. It will also grow the view of Australian arts. Australian made shows that might even grow our broadcasting interests on an international level.
If this drives us to get us new original drama that could equal shows like New Zealand’s achievement Top of the Lake, which by the way includes our own David Wenham and Thomas M. wright, as well as a respectable groups of high quality playing kiwi’s, then this is not a bad thing.
The fact that ABC pulled out of the funding here is a nice example (for whatever that reason was) and whether it was valid or not.

Now, I will be the first to admit that these issues should be looked at by more than just the mere blogger (like me). And in this regard I have very good company (as does Senator Conroy). We seem to be voicing the Clarion call of Lord Justice Leveson, who said pretty much the same thing and more (he did it in a document sized over 1900 pages). So that is where item’s one and two come from. Three is a local thing, so I will step over that one. Items 4 and 5 seem to be double edged. Not only do they imply to give strength and fair dinkum to the small fish. In addition it will give additional limit to the bigger boys. If they push diversity from within (whether it is for a discounted license fee or not), it will give a diversified voice and one that is not placed on the pedestal of other US/UK sitcoms. So people a lot wiser then me agree with me (OK, in honesty, I agree with them, but my ego requires a little nourishment at times), and the only ones out for the blood of Conroy seem to be those who dislike accountability.

Yet, is there validity from the other side? In all the articles that paint Senator Conroy in a not to favourable light, I actually found one voice that brought a decent point across. It was by Tom Morton at the Australian. (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/the-onus-of-the-media-is-to-adopt-decent-standards/story-e6frgd0x-1226297524636)

He has concerns and opposes certain views, but he does address a fear we hold. A journalist SHOULD be held accountable. That is perhaps the biggest fear we have. From what we have seen in the past, most journalists seem to be too shielded with the slogan ‘the people have a right to know’. The fact that most Journo’s seem to get away with murder (figuratively speaking) is why the people would be empowering the acts of Senator Stephen Conroy.

The funny part is that if the press (especially in the UK) had dealt with these issues themselves much stronger, then the current changes might never have had a chance and the British taxpayer could have saved themselves many millions on an extremely chunky sized report.

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