Trade official in spy sex scandal

A HIGH-RANKING Australian embassy official had a secret affair with a Vietnamese spy colonel accused of receiving up to $20 million in suspected bribes from a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia.

Senior trade commissioner Elizabeth Masamune, who held a top-secret Australian security clearance, met Colonel Anh Ngoc Luong, a top official in Vietnam's state intelligence network, in the early 2000s when she was based in Hanoi.

At the time, Colonel Luong was working with RBA firm Securency to win a huge plastic banknote contract with Vietnam's central bank. Last year Colonel Luong was accused in court by Australian prosecutors and federal police of receiving up to $20 million in suspected bribes from Securency.

Diplomatic sources have confirmed that while Ms Masamune was encouraging Securency to make substantial payments to Colonel Luong in return for his help winning contracts, she was also intimately involved with him.

She did not declare the details of her relationship with the colonel to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade or Australia's intelligence agencies while she was posted to the communist country.
As Australia's most senior trade official in Vietnam, Ms Masamune would have regularly received classified Australian government briefings.

A senior diplomatic source said Colonel Luong is listed by Australian agencies as a colonel in Vietnam's spy agency, the Ministry of Public Security.

He is known to be part of the inner circle of Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and a "bagman" for top Vietnamese officials.

It is understood that when Securency executives complained about the large amount of money it was paying to him, Ms Masamune told them it was the price of doing business in Vietnam.

Revelation of the affair will reignite pressure on Prime Minister Julia Gillard to set up a broad inquiry into the extent to which senior Austrade and RBA officials supported or covered up bribery and engaged in other improper behaviour.

Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop yesterday said she would seek answers from Trade Minister Craig Emerson about when he became aware of matters involving Ms Masamune and whether he had made any referral to federal police or other security agencies. ''Given the seriousness of the allegations, it's vital the government disclose its full knowledge,'' she said.

Ms Masamune is one of several Australian officials who directly or indirectly facilitated Securency's allegedly improper dealings, which prosecutors have claimed involved payment of multimillion-dollar bribes in Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia. Austrade assisted Securency and Note Printing Australia, another RBA subsidiary, in 49 nations between 1996 and 2009.

NPA is alleged to have bribed officials in Malaysia, Indonesia and Nepal. Between 1999 and 2009 - and with Austrade's knowledge and sometimes direct support - Securency hired not only a Vietnamese spy colonel but also a Malaysian arms dealer and a convicted South African criminal. These men acted as the RBA firm's overseas agents as part of a scheme police now allege was a front for paying bribes.

The Age first reported last December on documents released under freedom-of-information laws detailing how Ms Masamune, now Austrade's Sydney-based general manager for east Asian growth markets, knew in 2001 of Securency's financial dealings with Colonel Luong.

Internal Austrade documents indicate senior trade officials knew of Colonel Luong's links to Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security as early as 1998. Despite Australia introducing laws in 1999 banning payments to foreign officials, no one in Austrade warned Securency it might be acting illegally by paying him.

In January 2001, Ms Masamune told Securency she would ''stay in touch with Anh [Colonel Luong] and follow up on the letters he needs to write to you regarding other financial issues''.

Two months later, Securency sent an email to Ms Masamune stating: ''In the case of Vietnam, we are doing more than we have for any other country, especially in terms of financial commitment, which we are regarding as an investment.''

She was also copied in on emails that outlined Colonel Luong's March 2001 plan to travel to Australia for ''discussion and signing amendment concerning" the payments he was receiving from Securency.

Ms Masamune also told Securency she would lobby the Immigration Department to issue Colonel Luong with a ''super-quick'' visa. She helped facilitate a trip to America by him and other Vietnamese officials and paid for by Securency.

Ms Gillard and Treasurer Wayne Swan have repeatedly resisted calls for a broad inquiry into the bribery scandal.

The federal police inquiry into the scandal was sparked by revelations in The Age in 2009, but it has been limited to investigating and charging with bribery offences former executives of Securency and Note Printing Australia.

Committal hearings for alleged bribery offences by up to eight former Securency and NPA executives begin today in Melbourne. The AFP has not investigated the role of government agencies in the scandal, despite extensive evidence Australian officials were aware of or involved in some of Securency and NPA's overseas dealings.

When contacted last night by The Age, Ms Masamune made no comment.

theage.com.au 13 Aug 2012

As mentioned in the article, since "Ms Gillard and Treasurer Wayne Swan have repeatedly resisted calls for a broad inquiry into the bribery scandal", shows how politicians support corruption.

Australia's Prime Minister was involved in criminal activities with her partner is a legal firm.

Corrupt governments dealing at the highest level of corruption in banking and finance.

Truly the 'untouchables', or are they?

Australia's terror laws 'surpass the US'

THE decade after the 9/11 strikes unleashed such a frantic response in Australia that 54 new anti-terror laws were passed federally, according to a study that suggests their reach surpassed measures even taken in the US.

Most activity occurred under the prime ministerial watch of John Howard - on average a new anti-terror statute passed nearly every seven weeks until he was defeated.

 Labor in opposition supported most of the statutes, commonly running to hundreds of pages, but on returning to government, the pace slowed. In the Rudd-Gillard era, from November 2007 to September 11, 2011, only six anti-terror laws were enacted.

University of New South Wales' Professor George Williams, who conducted the first count undertaken of national anti-terror laws, said the scope exceeded measures in countries facing more severe threats.

''It would be unthinkable, if not constitutionally impossible, in nations such as the US and Canada to restrict freedom of speech in the manner achieved by Australia's 2005 sedition laws,'' he writes.

He also cited power given to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation to be able to detain and question ''non-suspect citizens'' for up to a week as unique among comparable legal systems.
Australia has also copied many anti-terror measures from Britain without replicating equivalent safeguards such as a national human rights law.

The legacy was an ''extraordinary bout of lawmaking'' in the post-9/11 decade, with many measures challenging long understood assumptions of criminal and other law, he said.

The problem it presented was not just a legal one but had a social dimension.

''The disproportionality of the laws can also lead to grievance and alienation - so this is not just a problem of overbearing laws having an undue impact upon human rights.''

Key aspects of anti-terror laws had been ''almost exclusively'' applied to members of the Muslim community and their organisations, Professor Williams said.

''Despite terrorism being a phenomenon that applies across a large range of political ideologies and religions, 16 of the 17 organisations currently proscribed by the Australian government are in some ways associated with Islamic goals or ideology.''

Professor Williams said anti-terror laws, however, had a role to play in the prevention of terrorist attacks.
Since 2000, there have been four major plots disrupted in Australia and 38 people charged with terrorism offences. Of these, 23 have been convicted.

Meanwhile, in a federal government push for a renewed burst of activity on national security, Parliament's joint committee on intelligence and security is assessing more than 40 proposals expanding intelligence-gathering powers. It may be the most significant expansion of national security powers since the Howard reforms of 2005.

Attorney-General Nicola Roxon expressed doubt at the weekend about the most controversial of the proposals - a plan to force internet providers to store the web history of all Australians for up to two years.

heraldsun.com.au 23 Jul 2012

It is not an opinion, but rather the actions of government that indicate that the Australian populous is viewed as possible terrorist.

Whilst criminals are allowed to operate within their multimillion dollar drug empires, the general populous is considered a 'treat', with the appropriate laws passed in incarcerate anyone under any pretext.

These laws are deliberately passed through so that the uncomfortable people (to government) can be incarcerated, and later disposed of.

Department of Human Services cuts reporting as attacks on children and disabled in state care surge

A SURGE in assaults and sex attacks on children and disabled people in state care to record levels has seen the Department of Human Services respond by slashing its reporting. 

Critics say the move ignores calls for reform and transparency to protect our most vulnerable and will hide any future increases.

There were a record 512 assaults, sex attacks and rapes of kids in care last year - a 130 per cent jump in three years - data obtained by the Herald Sun after a six-month Freedom of Information battle for annual figures reveals. Attacks on disabled DHS clients was up 180 per cent to 236.

People in care are most likely to be attacked by state-appointed carers or case workers, with more than one attack a day.

Despite the toll, the DHS has axed more than half its reporting categories.

Public Advocate Colleen Pearce said it was important that, as the Government sought to understand the type and extent of abuse, violence and assault in services for people with a disability or mental illness, that incident reporting was as clear as possible.

"Only that way will the service system properly understand abuse and develop effective strategies to prevent it and respond to it," Ms Pearce said.

Actual assaults, rapes and sex attacks are now recorded in the same categories as threats.

DHS also no longer separately reports overdoses or drug use nor the type of drug involved.

And children in care caught with illegal weapons or explosives are recorded under the same heading as those found with alcohol and cigarettes.

DHS said reporting was simplified to encourage staff to report incidents.

"The previous categories were unclear and overly complex, reducing compliance and reporting," spokeswoman Gen Farrell said.

Opposition child safety spokeswoman Danielle Green said the Government's "blatant attempt to hide this damning truth" was alarming.

"Public sector job cuts to watchdogs will further erode scrutiny of the Government's performance on protecting the most vulnerable," Ms Green said.

"Under (Community Services Minister) Mary Wooldridge's watch, more children are being abused in state care, not less. This is deeply disturbing."

Ms Farrell said all allegations of client physical or sexual assault were Category One incidents and were investigated internally, by police and referred to the relevant commissioner for monitoring and review.

heraldsun.com.au 7 Nov 2012

The government is the largest supporter of child abuse in the country.

It is through the institutions like the Department of Human Services (DHS) and Department of Child Services (DoCS), that most of the abuse occurs to underprivileged (either financial or mental) children.

What follows then is an elaborate government cover up.

The perpetrators will always go free, as this is standard government policy.
  

Cops the new debt collectors

The education system given to the children of the ruling elite is totally isolated from that of the one given to the masses. Those children are educated privately and in general do not associate with the children of the cannon fodder.

In this out of reach education system, the real purpose of the police force is taught. It is taught that the police, being a government tool, are there to install order amongst the masses, so that the masses are subservient to the ruling elite.

An example of its execution in today’s ‘modern’ society, is that of when the masses are against certain government policies, whether abroad or within Australia, the police ‘force’ is there to silence the protesters.

Laws have been put into action in the nanny (police) state of Australia, that it is illegal to protest, unless notification has been made to the authorities.

The very so called right to free speech is virtually nonexistent in Australia, as the authorities, are of the mindset that the general populous is an enemy of the state.

The population are being treated as ’terrorists’, who are guilty by default, who then have to prove their innocence.

Recent information has been obtained by corpau from an anonymous source, that the police have a new role, that of debt collecting. Police resources are now being used to collect financial out standings, rather than pursuing criminals.

You are now considered a criminal, if an invoice is not paid to a corporate entity.

Secret laws are being grafted, that now implicate the masses that they are literally criminals, subject to bail conditions if whatever financial claims are made against that individual, by a corporation or government institution. The anonymous source also mentions, that ‘it’s going to get a lot worse’.

The new age of tyranny and slavery (in Australia) is well and truly on its way, and there is literally no stopping it.

The blind masses are too involved with trash TV to notice their incarceration, a perfect distraction.

Extra powers to weed out corrupt police

Australia's law enforcement agencies will be given extra powers to weed out corrupt officers within their ranks once legislation passes the Senate.

Legislation for the increased powers passed the lower house unanimously on Monday.

Under the changes, suspect officers will be targeted in covert operations designed to test their honesty, and Customs will be authorised to run drug and alcohol tests on its staff.

Suspect officers from the Australian Federal Police, Australian Crime Commission and Australian Customs and Border Protection Service could be tested in simulated scenarios designed to identify corruption.

For example, valuables could be left at a fake crime scene to see if an officer steals them, or false information put into a database to catch a person suspected of leaking intelligence.

The legislation also doubles the number of agencies under the eye of the corruption watchdog, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity.

The powers of the Customs boss have been strengthened to allow drug and alcohol tests and orders sacking officers for serious misconduct.

The Law Enforcement Integrity Legislation Amendment Bill 2012 now passes to the Senate.

watoday.com.au 29 Oct 2012

Another farce in the face of the masses.

This is just an illusion to give to the masses to show that there is (allegedly) something done about corrupt police.

There reality is that nothing will come of it.

The Office of Police Integrity (OPI) is another corrupt authority.

No police officers go to jail for the criminal activities they commit, it is not in the politics for this to occur.

Corrupt police overseeing corrupt police.

 

water bill surcharge for Melbourne households

EVERY water bill for every Melbourne household next year should come with the $290 price increase circled in angry green ink.

And next to it should come this explanatory note: "This $290 surcharge is the price of useless green politics."

It is an opportunity for the Baillieu Government to snap Victorians out of their suffocating green madness.

After all, this increase sought by metropolitan water retailers didn't just fall out of the sky. It took a lot of stupid people, gripped by green faith, to bring you hugely bigger water bills for not a single extra drop of water.

That's right. As City West Water boss Anne Barker explained: "Those prices are based on the assumption that no desal water is ordered."

This surcharge is simply to pay for the new desalination plant, plus a few other works. Water is not included, since we won't actually need it for years now that two years of good rain have nearly filled our dams.
Here's another green farce that's cost a bomb while delivering a pffftt.

Yes, Melbourne did need another water supply. A city that's already added more than 1.5 million people since completing its last dam in 1984 was always going to run short come the inevitable drought.

Another dam was the cheap and obvious answer, and Melbourne Water costings suggest we could have built a new one at a quarter of the price for three times more water.

Trouble is, dams have become a green sin. As a Bracks Government committee on our water future proclaimed in 2006, dams were "no longer ... socially acceptable" and the real answer to running out of water was to, er, use less.

Astonishing to think of now, but this useless suggestion became government policy. Public fountains were emptied, sporting ovals left to die, prized gardens had water cut off.

And to counter my campaign for a dam, the Government ran ads throbbing with the neo-pagan vibe. No, we couldn't have a new dam because it would steal "water currently used by the rivers". As if inanimate rivers "used" water as humans did, with a sense of purpose.

Victoria became a green madhouse. We rationalists watched aghast as sinful dams were even drained to "save" the Snowy, Murray and half a dozen other rivers.

Even as dam levels dropped to dangerous lows, Labor kept flushing drinking water down the Yarra for its "environmental health". Fish before humans, green myths over brown gardens.

Most insane of all, the Government turned the reservation for a huge dam on Gippsland's Mitchell River into a national park to make sure no one could ever harvest the state's fastest-flowing river.

Only when Melbourne's dams looked close to draining in a long drought did Labor panic and order a new water supply pronto. Not a dam, though, but a desalination plant.

Sure, desal was grotesquely expensive, but Labor had found another green reason to ban dams. Global warming.

It fell for the claims of alarmists such as Chief Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery back in 2007 that "even the rain that falls isn't actually going to fill our dams and river systems", which made new dams useless. As Melbourne Water dutifully reported: "Unfortunately, we cannot rely on this kind of rainfall like we used to."

Two years of flooding rain later, look at the dams. Think how new dams would be filling nicely, too. And look at your damn water bills. Water, water everywhere, yet you'll now pay hundreds of dollars for a desal plant producing none.

Nor is that the only green madness for which we must pay.

We still subsidise wind farms that don't stop global warming, solar farms that fry dollars and green cars few want to buy. Then there's the pointless carbon tax ...


Time to put price stickers on them all, to teach how much unreason costs.

heraldsun.com.au 5 Nov 2012

Corporate fraud with government support at the highest level in politics.

The desalination plant is labelled as a failure, that will not produce water for years.

It is a deal that is full of claims of 'Money for Mates', racketeering, criminal activities including drug use, that the Australian tax payers are forced to pay for.

The people who are in charge of this should be sacked, never to work again.

Tax office corruption 1000’s tax cheats go free

The Australia tax office (ATO) is an institution that gets various emotions from various people.  To the masses a sense of fear could prevail over the authoritative figure, anger could also be thrown in a Australia is one of the highest taxed country. 

Businesses can pay a minimum of 0% tax, where the rest of the masses are used to mop up the bill by paying from 30-50% tax on their earnings.

In the United States of America the taxation department (the Internal Revenue Service), has a higher authority than the police.

In Australia, the government allows certain people to get away with fraud, tax evasion and other criminal activities, through corrupt police, policy and law makers all the way through to the top of the judicial system.

Tax cheats from various sections of the business community have the support of their Masonic brethren,  within the police force, taxation department, and judicial system, allowing them to get away with tens of millions of dollars in fraud at any time.

The taxation department does not touch thousands of tax cheats from sports stars, entertainers musicians to doctors, politicians lawyers, bankers and financiers who deliberately practice tax evasion techniques. These techniques will not be discussed in this article.

The corporate media being part of the establishment, give very plausible ‘excuses’ or scenarios to the uneducated masses, that the businesses operate solely with regards to tax evasion.

The government recently allowed a ‘financier’ flee overseas who defrauded the Australian populous of $10 million dollars, and ordered no investigation or chasing to occur. The total amount of financial cheats is misreported or rather not focused on by the corporate media.

A very public matter that involved the theft of hundreds of millions of dollars by a property spruik that went by the alias of Henry Kaye (known also as Eugene Kukuy), was taken to court and the matter was dismissed. He was given a passport and allowed to flee the country.

The real concern is the corruption of the authorities and not just the ‘tax evading’ businesses, as made out by the corporate media.

Victorians lose $15 million a day having a bet

The Herald Sun article (from 12 Oct 2012):

Victorians lose $15 million a day having a bet

contains the following information:


VICTORIANS are gambling away $15 million a day - or $625,000 every hour - and suffering record losses.

More than $5.4 billion was lost last financial year - $1.5 billion at Crown casino alone.

reference : http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/victorians-lose-15-million-a-day-having-a-bet/story-e6frf7kx-1226495695406,

Another article from yahoo.com (from 19 Oct 2012):

Gambling costs state $2.7b a year: report

contains the following information:

An inquiry has estimated that problem gambling has cost Victoria's economy up to $2.7 billion a year.

The finding is contained in the Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission's draft report on the social and economic costs of problem gambling.

The commission says most of the cost is being borne by a relatively small proportion of the Victorian population, around 30,000 problem gamblers and their families.

It says a lack of detailed information has made it difficult to estimate the considerable costs associated with increased demands on the health and human services sectors.

The commissioner who led the inquiry, Bill Mountford, says the draft report is open for public comment before the final report is handed to the Government in December.

"Basically looking for suggestions as to ways that we could improve the estimates that we've made," he said.

"Then we'll be also actively consulting with them around what they see as being the research priorities in the area going forward."

http://au.news.yahoo.com/latest/a/-/latest/15161552/gambling-costs-state-2-7b-a-year-report/

Since Victorians lose $15m per day, that equates to $5.475 billion annually, therefore costing the Victorian economy $5.475 billion annually, and not $2.7 billion.

The current trend in television programming, is to advertise heavily for the masses to take up gambling.

Gambling venues are involved in criminal activities ranging from money laundering to the rigged machines that are set to hold on to the monies put by in gamblers, in accordance with the guidelines set up by each venue.

Authorities are fully aware of these criminal activities, but since the revenue raised is collected by the government, this fraud and criminal activity will only keep on flourishing and not diminish in size.

There is no policy for the government to cuts its revenue by helping people to stop gambling.

Although no current figures have been given for NSW gamblers, allegedly New South Wales politicians will be spending $48 million to 'combat' gambling, or approximately 0.87% of monies lost to gambling in Victoria.

If there was a genuine serious attempt at reducing gambling (which there is not), then the amount spent would be a higher percentage from the total revenue gained.

Politicians and lies going hand in hand in plain sight.