Victoria Police rewrite speed rules to show you how to get a warning

POLICE today admitted not having made public which speeding motorists are eligible to apply for warnings to get off fines. 

 
Speed camera commissioner Gordon Lewis today criticised the secrecy which has surrounded the police official warning policy surrounding which speeding motorists can get off with warnings instead of fines.

While welcoming the recent decision by police to finally reveal its full policy on which motorists are eligible to apply for warnings, Mr Lewis said it should have been made public years ago.

The Herald Sun today revealed Victoria Police has just rewritten its rules to alert thousands of motorists they are eligible to apply for official warnings.

Its rewritten rules now state motorists caught doing between 10 and 14km/h over the limit can be warned instead of fined if they haven't been nabbed in the previous three
years.

The published force policy previously said only those busted doing less than 10km/h over the limit, and who hadn't been fined in the previous two years, were eligible to apply for an official warning to escape being fined.

Victoria Police traffic Supt Dean McWhirter denied increasing the number of motorists who can apply for warnings to include those travelling up to 14km/h over the limit was a new policy.

But he agreed it had not previously been published.

"As part of a recent review process to update the information available to the community it was recognised that this aspect of the policy had not been included on the Victoria Police website and appropriately it has now been updated," Supt McWhirter said.

Mr Lewis today said it just wasn't good enough that up until October 24 this year the force had only published half of its official warning policy, the bit relating to warnings for people nabbed doing less than 10/kmh over the limit.

"When I first became aware of the additional basis for an official warning on the Victoria Police website, I thought it was a sensible extension to the policy that was already published there," Mr Lewis told the Herald Sun.

"However, I was surprised that Victoria Police had not issued some press statement in relation to the publication of this additional policy rather than rely on motorists reading its website.

"However, it seems that this recent addition to the Victoria Police website is the best argument yet for total transparency when dealing with the motoring public.

"The publication of this additional basis for granting a warning in lieu of a fine, while claimed to be longstanding police policy, has not been published since I was appointed Road Safety Camera Commissioner in February 2012.

"Its recent publication was the first time my office knew about it.

"Significantly, there is still no reference to it on the Department of Justice website,
www.camerassavelives.vic.gov.au

"While Victoria Police, in its discretion, can adopt any criteria it wishes in establishing internal policy for substituting a warning for a fine, it should publish its entire policy for motorists to seek a warning instead of being fined."

Mr Lewis criticised the force for not previously telling thousands of busted motorists they were eligible to apply to have their fines scrapped.

Mr Lewis said it was unsatisfactory that a major part of Victoria Police's official warning policy for speeding motorists had been kept secret for years.

He was commenting after the Herald Sun alerted him to the recent decision by the force to
publicly reveal its full policy for the first time on which motorists can get off with just a warning.

"To apply for an official warning if you are caught travelling between 10 and 14km/h over the limit you have to know such a policy exists," Mr Lewis said.

"I was not aware such motorists could apply for warnings so it is fair to assume most motorists didn't know either.

"If Victorians are to have faith in the traffic camera system then it must be transparent.

"Police not telling people for years they were eligible to apply for official warnings instead of fines is unsatisfactory."

The old public policy - which will continue to apply in addition to the new written rule - allowed 63,907 speeding motorists to avoid fines in the past year.

Making public the availability of warnings to those travelling up to 14km/h over the limit will allow thousands more to wriggle out of speeding fines.

More than 166,000 motorists were fined for exceeding the speed limit by 10 to 14km/h in 2012-13.

Police received 170,000 requests for internal reviews of speeding fines last year, resulting in 51,000 official warnings for offences below 10km/h over the limit and 8400 for motorists nabbed doing between 10 and 14km/h over the limit.

A 2006 Auditor-General's report recommended that Victoria Police should more widely communicate the availability of official warnings for speeding.

It said doing so would help build community confidence in the speed enforcement program.

Supt McWhirter told the Herald Sun Victoria Police had recently updated information on the
Victoria Police website relating to speed camera, traffic, crime and other infringements.

"The website has been updated to provide contemporary advice to the community on their rights and responsibilities when receiving an infringement," he said.

"One of the updates included publication of the Victoria Police policy position for an official warning for an offence of 10-14km/h over the speed limit.

"The general criteria where an official warning may be issued is:
• Hold a current driver's licence, including probationary or current learner driver's permit;
• Have not been issued with a speeding, other traffic infringement or official warning with the previous three (3) years;
• Have an alleged speed between 10 and 14 kilometres per hour over the speed limit; and,
• Do not deny that you committed the offence.

"This is not a new policy position. Victoria Police have applied the policy when considering requests for an internal review and have publicly acknowledged the existence of the policy. "However, the policy has not previously been published.

"The Traffic Camera Office receives in excess of 250,000 requests for internal reviews annually and issue approximately 40,000-50,000 official warnings."

news.com.au 6 Nov 2013

Corpau has been given specifice details of how 'unlawful' speed camera fines are, and how you can beat any alleged 'offence'.

 In this case Victoria Police is involved in fraud on a massive scale, information which is deliberately kept secret from the public in the court room.

Corpau is preparing information in a new section called 'How To:' that will detail the extent of this fraud.

Ian Narev rejects capital levy push

THE chief executive of the nation's biggest bank, Ian Narev, has urged the regulator not to impose a "significant" charge on banks deemed too big to fail, arguing Australia's lenders must remain globally competitive.

 

Amid uncertainty about the impact on dividends from the charge, Commonwealth Bank's Mr Narev told The Weekend Australian the capital levy was the biggest outstanding regulation the banks faced.

From 2016, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority will impose a charge on "domestically systemically important banks" (D-SIB), requiring them to potentially hold up to $14 billion in additional capital.

While APRA did not reveal the quantum of the charge in a recent letter to the banks, the regulator has said it will soon implement a framework and publish the key elements of its methodology by the end of the year.

"We've obviously factored a variety of scenarios into that so we feel like we are prepared," Mr Narev said after CBA's annual meeting in Adelaide. "We do not believe there needs to be a significant D-SIB surcharge because we think the Australian banks are very well capitalised in a manner which actually reflects their systemic importance.

"We feel like it's very important to make sure capital levels of Australian banks keep Australian banks globally competitive, but beyond that we'll wait and see what APRA does."

At an event in Sydney, Westpac chairman Lindsay Maxsted indicated the nation's second-biggest bank was also well placed to comply with the D-SIB charge, given its leading capital level.

But he conceded that the banks' return on equity levels remained exposed to uncertainties around capital and liquidity rules, despite the sector's extensive relative progress in complying to new regulation.

Around the globe, countries are phasing in the D-SIB charge to adhere to the Basel III banking rules as insulation from another global financial crisis. In Canada, a similar economy to Australia, banks have three years to comply with the D-SIB charge.

The Australian banks have to achieve common equity tier-one capital ratios of at least 7 per cent by 2016, not including the D-SIB charge, which they will exceed with tier-one ratios already more than 8 per cent.

While confident the banks can comply with a D-SIB capital surcharge of as much as 150 basis points on top of 7 per cent, analysts are concerned about the impact on capital management plans in the near term.

At CBA's AGM, chairman David Turner echoed other senior bankers, including ANZ's Mike Smith, that the outlook "may be a little stronger" next year for the banks. He also acknowledged the "shocking" conduct by some of CBA's former financial planners, saying the bank had improved culture and processes. All CBA's resolutions were approved by shareholders, including the remuneration report.

Mr Narev said that, while the early signs from customers were better, there was still a "way to go" before it translated into higher overall lending growth.

His comments came as the Reserve Bank downgraded its economic growth forecast for calendar 2014 to 2-3 per cent, from 2.5-3.5 per cent. On Thursday, official data showed full-time jobs had dropped for six straight months as the jobless rate remained at 5.7 per cent.

Mr Maxsted said business wanted a "more consistent" climate in which to make investment decisions, which was "starting to happen" under the new government. Mr Turner agreed that the Coalition was "off to a good start".

That corresponds with talk of a lift in general sentiment and some more bullish comments this week from Wesfarmers chief Richard Goyder, who anticipates better trading conditions at Christmas, noting "there's been a few signs in recent weeks of a bit more life".

theaustralian.com.au 9 Nov 2013

Corpau has recently obtained information regading fraud, corruption in the magnitude of billions of dollars involving the head of the Commonwealth bank Ian M Narev.

The Austalian Federal Police, together with the taxation department with certain other key politicians with law makers and judges are involved in this large scale corporate fraud

Some people are allowed to get away with multi million/billion dollar fraud, the like of Telstra's ex chief Solomon Trujillo.

Politicians allow their crony colleagues to commit fraud at the expense of public pockets, only to flee the country.

If a 'ctizen' would commit a crime one hundredth of the magnitude, customs officers would have an arrest warrant.

Solomon Trujillo's fraud was detailed in a wikipedia article, but was removed due to Solomon's legal team's pressure.

The original article has been posted on:

http://solomontrujillo.blogspot.com.au/

 

Man charged after police raid counterfeit DVD business in Springvale

 

A LARGE-scale counterfeit DVD business earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year has been busted in suburban Melbourne. 

Phong Quoc Ly, 34, from Clayton, the owner of Quoc Phong DVD World, has been charged after a nine-month Australian Federal Police investigation into the Springvale business.

Officers raided the business premises yesterday, seizing more than 15,000 pirated DVDs and 53 DVD burners.

It is estimated the business was worth $300,000 a year.

"The man was subsequently charged and is scheduled to appear in Melbourne Magistrates' Court today," Det-Supt Ian Bate said.

"The AFP takes these large-scale cases of copyright theft very seriously, and this should be a warning to others who may be manufacturing and selling counterfeit goods that you are likely to get caught out."

Phong Quoc Ly has been charged with five counts under the Copyright Act 1968:

• One count of commercial-scale infringement prejudicing copyright owner.
• One count of making infringing copy commercially.
• One count of selling or hiring out infringing copy.
• One count of possessing infringing copy for commerce.
• One count of making or possessing device for making infringing copy.

He was also charged with dealing with money or property from proceeds of crime worth $100,000 or more contrary to section 400.9(1) of the Criminal Code 1995.

The maximum penalty for these offences is five years' imprisonment.

news.com.au 8 Nov 2013

The above mentioned alleged charges can easily dismissed in court.

If the corporation known as the police treat copyright infringement seriously, then some more cases will be brought forward so other 'criminals' can be arrested.

Police work for corporations and NOT keepers of the peace as their sworn oath states.

The corporate media make out as if it is a conspiracy 'theory', if the true machinations for police fraud and corruptions are brought to the surface.

The authorities do very little when it comes to real 'pirates' the ones who kill people, as the general populous is 'canon fodder'.

Hot-headed hubbie in trouble with wife after posting lewd comments

(Kelly Brooks' sizeable assets in a less-than-sizeable camisole. Picture: Instagram Source: Supplied?)

NOTE to husbands: think before you type. 


That's what one British man failed to do last week when he posted a comment on a Daily Mail article featuring model and TV presenter Kelly Brook.

The man, who goes by the name of Tom, felt so hot under the collar after viewing racy pics of Brook's assets in a less-than-sizeable camisole, he decided to share his true feelings with the world.

"She is so sexy, I would leave my wife and kids for one night with her!"

Unfortunately he forgot his comments were linked to his Facebook account, meaning his wife saw everything.

"My idiot husband forgot his comments are linked to his Facebook account," she wrote.

"You don't deserve our beautiful kids and I hope your brother has room on his sofa because I'm having the locks changed."

Lesson learned. Maybe

 news.com.au 4 Nov 2013

This is news, right?

I don't hate Eddie: Carl Scully tells ICAC

FORMER NSW MP Carl Scully has described Eddie Obeid's behaviour in hiding his retail interests as "quasi-criminal", but insists he doesn't hate the man who thwarted his attempt to become premier. 
 
Mr Scully had his turn before the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) as investigations continued on Tuesday into whether Mr Obeid lobbied state ministers to have retail leases at Circular Quay renewed without going to tender.

Mr Scully told the commission that Mr Obeid was furious with him when he turned down his request for a five-year extension to a lease held by Tony Imad.

It's since emerged that Mr Imad's businesses were bought by an Obeid front company in 2002, with relative John Aboud acting as the public face.

Mr Scully denied a claim by Mr Obeid's lawyer, Stuart Littlemore, that much of his evidence was untrue and was borne of hate for the disgraced former minister.

Mr Scully and Mr Obeid both belonged to Labor's Terrigal faction, but their friendly relationship soured when the powerful cabal backed Morris Iemma's bid for the premiership.

"No. He was one of a number of people that secured the election of Morris Iemma but I think 'hate' is the wrong word," Mr Scully said.

Like all previous ministers appearing before the ICAC, Mr Scully said Mr Obeid never revealed his family's hidden interests in two restaurants and cafe at the quay, which earned the family about $2.5 million annually.
"I regard that as quasi-criminal," Mr Scully said.

Mr Scully was ultimately in charge of the leases as ports minister from April 1995 to December 1997 and again from April 1999 to April 2003.

Five-year leases were signed in 2000, with the understanding expressions of interest would be sought when they ran out in August 2005.

But the inquiry heard Mr Obeid asked Mr Scully for a five-year extension on a lease held by Mr Imad after documents were signed and a lengthy process, including ICAC approval, had been undertaken.
"He said ... 'he's spent a lot of money in doing the shop up and a five-year lease is not long enough'," Mr Scully said.

"(I said) 'It's not going to happen' and then I said, 'and besides Tony Imad's a crook'."

Mr Obeid then became "very angry" and upset and screamed "Tony Imad's not a crook ... He's a hard-working small business family man," Mr Scully said.

The inquiry continues before Assistant Commissioner Anthony Whealy.

It's expected to last another two weeks.

 news.com.au 5 Nov 2013

Watch the 'brotherhood' at work.

Another corrupt organisation the ICAC, but this is taboo to mention by the corporate media.

Watchdog warns business on power cheating

 

The ACC says electricity bills should drop quickly after the repeal of the carbon tax. Photo: Tamara Voninski

• Federal politics: full coverage

The head of Australia's consumer watchdog insists that electricity bills should drop quickly after the repeal of the carbon tax - warning businesses not to claim they are unable to pass on the full savings to consumers.

Electricity prices went up fairly quickly on the way up and they will go down fairly immediately on the way down. 

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Rod Sims told Fairfax Media that the ACCC was well prepared to ensure power companies did not profiteer from the repeal of the tax, scheduled for July next year if the Abbott government can get its legislation passed.

''It's not a massively complicated process,'' Mr Sims said. ''Electricity prices went up fairly quickly on the way up and they will go down fairly immediately on the way down.''

Armed with a team of analysts scrutinising the impact of the carbon tax repeal, the ACCC will levy fines of $1.1 million if companies are found to have pocketed the savings.

A number of business groups warned this week that prices might not fall as much as forecast, claiming they had absorbed some of the impact of the tax when it was introduced and should not be expected to pass on the entire decrease if it were removed.

Mr Sims responded: ''I think this is a bit exaggerated.''

The government has said the repeal of the tax should lead to a 9 per cent fall in power bills and a 7 per cent drop in gas prices.

However, Mr Sims said it was important to remember there were ongoing factors impacting on electricity and gas prices that were unrelated to the carbon tax.

He said this was especially true in the gas sector, where Australian prices were rising sharply as they moved into line with the higher global price resulting from changes in the industry.

Australians spend less than half on gas what they do on electricity, where the news on prices is much better.
In the five years to September 2012 - just after the carbon tax was introduced - power prices rose almost 70 per cent, with the carbon tax contributing only a small fraction of that increase.

Consumers have responded to the blunt price signal by reducing their consumption of electricity, leading to only the second year-on-year decline in demand since 1904.

Partly as a result, electricity prices rose just 6 per cent in the 12 months to September this year, less than half the average increase of the previous five years.

An indication of the pain that consumers have been feeling – and the availability of energy-saving household technologies – is that even the two world wars and the Great Depression had not led to similar decreases in electricity consumption, said Hugh Saddler, an energy consultant with Pitt & Sherry.

The only other period when consumption had fallen was in the 1980s, in response to sharply increasing prices during a period of centralised wage restraint.

Most of the recent rises in electricity bills resulted from regulators allowing power companies to hike up wholesale prices to pay for infrastructure spending.

The rises came during five-year deals done with the Australian Energy Regulator, and most major power companies will be subject to new agreements next year.

With enhanced powers, the regulator should be better able to resist power companies' insistence on high fixed rates of return on investment, Mr Saddler said.

He said the consistent double-digit growth in energy bills was likely to be a thing of the past, irrespective of whether the carbon tax was repealed.

smh.com.au 8 Nov 2013

Another 'spineless' ( read: working for the corporatocracy) organisation.

Electricity prices have soared over 80% in years, with no regulation whatsoever.

Money for mates scams and corrupt board room deals are the order of the day in the business world of the sold out electricity industry.

The electricity industry is mostly owned by foreign companies, with massive kickbacks to politicians, something the corporate media is reluctant to expose.

The government's revolution of Victorian justice has made a bad situation worse.

The government's justice reform is starting to look like a revolution without a purpose, a case where the cure might be worse than the disease.

Before the November 2010 election, the Liberal opposition said Victoria's justice system had all but collapsed. ''No civilised society should tolerate being eaten from within by the cancer of sickening violence,'' said the normally under-stated Ted Baillieu. Victorians were ''sick of living in fear''. It was time to ''clean up our streets''.

Three years on, it seems that Victoria's justice system has indeed all but collapsed. The police, hard to dismiss as bleeding heart lefties, say ''enough's enough'' - their union says about 1500 police shifts a week are being used to supervise prisoners in police cells because of overcrowded jails.

The courts are revolting. Supreme Court Chief Justice Marilyn Warren has estimated that criminal cases going through the courts have increased by 25 per cent. Our prisons are overcrowded, prisons ''incidents'' are rising, and the rate at which we jail people is soaring.

Then it gets somewhat farcical. Corrections Victoria is failing to deliver accused people to court for the embarrassingly prosaic reason that there's not enough room in the court cells to hold them. So defendants don't turn up, a waste of time and money. Magistrate Michelle Erlich thundered recently that the impact of the crisis was now ''beyond my level of tolerance'' as yet another defendant failed to show.

Meanwhile Victoria Legal Aid, which funds the majority of criminal cases, early this year implemented the biggest cuts in its history to cope with the ''unprecedented demand'' for legal aid when there is nowhere near enough funding to cope with it. (Disclosure: my partner works for Legal Aid.)

And the result of all this? Victoria Police reported a 1.6 per cent increase in the crime rate last financial year.
It's quite an achievement really. The government set out to revolutionise a system that, while far from perfect, was working well most of the time and was often cited as an example by other states.

It is starting to look like a revolution without a purpose, a case where the cure might be worse than the disease. There are many reasons for it. Some pressures have been building for years. Others are new and in combination have pushed our system to breaking point.

The Sentencing Advisory Council recently released a report on prisons that offers some clues. Crime rates jump around but, overall, declined significantly in Victoria through the past decade - the police say by 12 per cent since 2003-4. But look closer and ''crimes against the person'' (such as assaults), offences against ''good order'' (often breaches of family violence intervention orders) and drug offences increased during that period.

Police report that the rise in crime last year is mostly due to family violence offences that are unlikely to have risen but are being rightly pursued more vigorously. For instance, before 2004 when police began a concerted effort to improve the way they dealt with family violence cases, they accounted for just 15 per cent of assaults. Now, it's close to 45 per cent.

But domestic violence doesn't fully explain what's happened. Our prison rate is increasing quickly. It was still the second lowest in the nation after the ACT last year, but it jumped by 40 per cent in the decade until 2012, and half of that has been in the past four years.

As the sentencing report notes, the leap from 2010-11 to 2011-12 happened when states such as NSW and Tasmania experienced falls in the numbers jailed. Indeed, NSW is trying to reduce the numbers in prison and boost the use of community-based sentences. A recent NSW Law Reform Commission report noted ''imprisonment does not seem to be any more effective at preventing reoffending than other community options''.

Victoria is going the other way. The government is part way through abolishing suspended sentences, where a court imposes a prison sentence, and then suspends it. The reform has considerable support - the public lost confidence in them because they were seen as too lenient. Even so, when fully abolished next year, it will put more pressure on our prisons.

The government pledged an extra 1700 police officers when it came to office, which will inevitably mean more people going through the justice system. Not all have been recruited and trained yet, so its full impact is still to be felt.

All that was going on, and then two things happened. There's been a huge increase in the number of people on remand, that is, refused bail. Remand prisoners now make up 20 per cent of all people in jail (and they are the people Corrections are failing to bring to court). Anecdotally, there's also been a dramatic drop in prisoners being granted parole following the case of Adrian Bayley, who was on parole (wrongly) when he raped and murdered Jill Meagher last year. And average sentences are increasing. Again, that's likely to be exacerbated when the government's mandatory sentence of four years for ''gross violence'' offences causing serious injury begins next year.

The government's response that a new prison is due to open in 2017 seems laughably inadequate.

Magistrates courts sitting on the weekends won't solve the problem either. The pre-election populism persists. ''If it's a choice between having dangerous prisoners on the streets or more prisoners behind bars, we will support having more prisoners behind bars,'' Attorney-General Robert Clark said. Well, yes. And?
It is time for the government to explain what all this has been for. What was the purpose of the revolution? What problem was it designed to fix? How much will it cost, and what cuts will be made to other programs to dramatically increase our prison rate? And in the end, will we be safer?

theage.com.au 8 Nov 2013

The so called 'crumbling' is a deliberate action and not a bad decision.

Australia's 'justice system' is a farce, as it is NOT about law, but about contractual obligation.

The policy is to arrest as many as possible for literally anything, so that they can be on the 'system' as criminals, as you will have an arrest history and there fore limited options.

People are getting arrested for not paying a bill or overdue invoice.

The police work for corporations and NOT the public as officers of peace.

This is how the 'justice system' operates in Australia.

Australia's courts are NOT courts of law, but places of business / commerce / trading, which have ABN's and are owned by foreign companies.

The COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA  (ABN: 32 790 228 959) is a place of trade NOT law, which is owned by the LIBERTY GROUP, which has Rothschild's name  behind it.

There is a new brand of terrorism emerging (Legal Terrorism (c) corpau) , where the authorities are holding the general populous at ransom with falsely implemented 'laws', to which the corrupt lawyers / barrister and judges convict the masses.

Australia is STILL a prison isle.

Top shop: retail chief Lew buys $13.3m penthouse

Solomon Lew. Photo: Josh Robenstone

 Solomon Lew has bought a penthouse that occupies a full floor in the Royal Domain Tower.

Billionaire retailer Solomon Lew is the mystery buyer of a $13.3 million penthouse in the exclusive Royal Domain Tower, purchased from wealthy property developer Harry Stamoulis.

The full-floor apartment that overlooks the Shrine of Remembrance and Albert Park Lake includes four bedrooms, a formal entertaining area, a family room, two bars, a butler's pantry and six parking spaces. The Royal Domain building also offers a 24-hour concierge service, a pool, a gym, a library and a golf driving range.

Negotiations between the corporate heavyweights are believed to have started with a low-ball offer of $11 million from Mr Lew, while Mr Stamoulis refused to budge on a request for $13.5 million.

The Royal Domain building also offers a 24-hour concierge service, a pool, a gym, a library and a golf driving range. Photo: Supplied

A series of counter-offers and an agreement to include most of the furniture is believed to have clinched the deal, which makes the apartment one of Melbourne's most expensive.

The current record stands at $19.3 million for a penthouse in the East Melbourne development 150 Clarendon Street.

Mr Lew already owns a Toorak mansion on Albany Road, along with luxury homes in Los Angeles and New York.

In 2006, Mr Stamoulis purchased the shell for $5.54 million, before spending millions of dollars customising it into one of the largest and most luxurious apartments in the city.

A Melbourne Victory director and benefactor of Melbourne's Hellenic Museum, Mr Stamoulis will eventually relocate to Toorak, where he is building one of the nation's most expensive private residences, due to be completed next year.

In March 2010, Mr Stamoulis paid a record-setting $24 million for the former Baillieu estate on St Georges Road, and he is believed to have spent a further $25 million on the 3200-square-metre mansion.

Inspired by the the Vanderbilt family mansion Marble House in the US state of Rhode Island, the home will include five bedrooms, a ballroom, a theatre, a pool and a tennis court.

Mr Stamoulis and Mr Lew's lawyer did not respond to requests for comment from The Sunday Age.

theage.com.au 3 Nov 2013

The so called 'authorities' who are really crony business buddies allow tax evasion, the setup of 'shelf' companies for the sole purpose of tax evasion, and other various activities that if done by anyone from the 'pleb' poole, would see them doing jail time.

Assests are bought under a company structure which in turn results in negligible tax payments, only for the herd populous to mop up the bill.

Shoving opulance into the faces of poverty stricken Australians.

Recording of police NOT illegal

Many people have asked questions with regards to covert surveillance being it video or audio in various circumstances.

The law in Australia may allegedly vary from state to state but essentially you are 'lawfully' allowed to record any incident, on the proviso that you are present, of donecovertly. Contrary to popular belief, you DO NOT have to inform the other party.

This fact does NOt sit well with auhorities, especially police who will not only intimidate you but also assault you in oderto obtain any damning evidence.

A case explain this is as follows:

POLICE SURVEILLANCE OF PROTESTERS NOT AN INVASION OF PRIVACY

27 September 2012 

Caripis v Victoria Police (Health and Privacy) [2012] VCAT 1472 (27 September 2012)

 

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal has ruled that a protestor’s right to privacy was not violated by the Victoria Police’s retention of photographs and video footage taken during a protest. 

The Tribunal accepted that the records were still needed by Victoria Police for legitimate purposes including planning and briefing for further protests and therefore their retention did not violate Victorian privacy laws.
 
Background
 
Ms Caripis attended a climate change protest at Hazelwood power station in 2010, organised by the Switch Off Hazelwood Collective (of which Ms Caripis was a member). The Collective had advertised the protest to its members, and informed them that a professional photographer would attend to promote the protest internationally.
 
Victoria Police filmed and took photographs of the event and retained the images and video footage. Ms Caripis appears in four segments of video footage, with her image visible for less than 20 seconds. The footage and seven still photographs were retained in a locked cupboard. No record existed of the identities of the people in the footage or the photographs, not even their names.
 
The Claim
 
Ms Caripis complained to the Privacy Commissioner that the retention of the images and footage was an interference with her right to privacy and that they should be destroyed. The complaint was referred to the VCAT.
 
Ms Caripis’ complaint relied on the operation of the Information Privacy Act 2000 (Vic) and the section 32 requirement of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic) (to interpret legislation in a manner consistent with human rights) to claim that: the video and photographs interfered with her right to privacy, were no longer required by the Victorian Police and in accordance with the Information Privacy Act, should be destroyed or de-identified.
 
The Information Privacy Act provides that:

• an act or practice of an organisation is an interference with the privacy of the individual if it is contrary to the Information Privacy Act’s Information Privacy Principles (section 14);
• any act or practice contrary to an Information Privacy Principle (regarding personal information) is prohibited (section 16);
• an organisation must take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify personal information if “no longer needed for any purpose” (IPP 4.2); and
• any inconsistent Act or provision prevails over the Information Privacy Act.

Victoria Police claimed that:

• the photographs and video footage did not reveal personal information nor identify Ms Caripis;
• the photographs and video footage was still needed by Victoria Police for intelligence, planning and briefing purposes; and
• the Public Records Act 1973 (Vic) requires retention of the photographs and footages as records “documenting the planned Police response to events such as demonstrations” for seven years.

Decision
 
Senior Member Steele accepted that the records were still needed by Victoria Police for the purposes stated above, and therefore the retention of the records was consistent with Information Privacy Principle 4.2 and not in breach of the Information Privacy Act.
 
Senior Member Steele found that the ordinary meaning of “needed” for the purposes of the Information Privacy provision was “useful” or “required” rather than indispensible. Senior Member Steele then went on to consider whether this construction was compatible with the human rights of Ms Caripis, specifically, the right to privacy, the right to free expression and the right to peaceful assembly, with reference to international jurisprudence.
 
Senior Member Steele concluded that the threat to Ms Caripis’ privacy was not of sufficient seriousness and she could not have had a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding the taking, publication and retention of images and footage for the following reasons:

• the photographs do not focus on Ms Caripis and her face is only identifiable in the video footage in two very brief segments;
• Ms Caripis knew that the protest organisers intended to take and publish images from the event;
• many other protestors took photographs of the protest and uploaded them to social media; and
• Victoria Police had obtained no data about Ms Caripis other than her image, did not know her name and had not engaged in systematic information gathering.

In relation to the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, while the Tribunal accepted Mr Caripis’ evidence of increased self-consciousness at protests, it was not persuaded that the retention of the material was inconsistent with these rights, given the extent of the recording of the protest by other individuals and the lack of other personal data collected by the Police.
 
In addition, Senior Member Steele also found that the retention was required for seven years under the Public Records Act and this Act prevailed over Information Privacy Principle 4.2 but, even if it did not, IPP 4.2 did not require the destruction of the footage. The Tribunal did not give any broader consideration to the Charter compatibility of the provisions of the Public Records Act.
 
Notably, Senior Member Steele found that the Tribunal possessed jurisdiction to consider the question of Charter unlawfulness and that, consistent with her conclusions in relation to section 32, there was no Charter unlawfulness made out on the evidence
 
Commentary
 
This case provides an illustration of the types of factors relevant to courts in determining whether an individual’s right to privacy has been violated. In this case, engaging in public acts with the full knowledge that others may be present, the existence of additional or multiple recordings of the public act, and the degree and amount of personal information collected, were all relevant in deciding whether the intrusion was of sufficient seriousness and whether Caripis had a “reasonable expectation of privacy”. It is somewhat curious that the Tribunal did not differentiate between an individual’s expectations in relation the collection of information by the protesters themselves as opposed to the collection of information by the police for a very different purpose.  While recognising that the potential “chilling” of police action on protest movements, the Tribunal dismissed Caripis’ arguments on this point with very little discussion.
 
It is significant that the Tribunal found it had jurisdiction to consider the question of unlawfulness under the Charter. This appears to be the first time VCAT has considered this question following the decision of Director of Housing v Sudi [2011] VSCA 266. Senior Member Steele also conducted an interesting review of the current uncertainty regarding the interplay between section 7(2) and section 32 of the Charter arising from the High Court’s decision in Momcilovic v The Queen [2011] HCA 34 and subsequent consideration by Victorian courts but ultimately considered it unnecessary to form a view on these issues.
 
While this decision usefully provides consideration of the meaning of the provisions of the Information Privacy Act in light of the Charter, it does not discuss the impact of the Charter on the Public Records Act.  The case highlights the tension between the retention requirements of the Public Records Act and the protection of privacy under the Information Privacy Act and the Charter.
 
The decision is available at: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/vic/VCAT/2012/1472.html
 
Richard Griffin is a lawyer on secondment to the HRLC from Lander & Rogers

http://www.hrlc.org.au/police-surveillance-of-protesters-not-an-invasion-of-privacy

LEAKED EMAIL REVEALS POLICE ORDERED TO MEET ARREST QUOTA

 

The email sent to police officers by a senior officer at Holden Hill. SA Police deny officers were ordered to meet quotas and say the email was a mistake. Source: The Advertiser

POLICE were ordered to meet quotas for the number of arrests, drink driving reports, traffic and drug offences in a five-week period, an internal police email shows. 

 

The Advertiser has obtained the email, from Holden Hill Senior Sergeant Andrew McCracken to patrol officers on July 28, which listed five benchmark categories including the number of fines, reports and arrests each officer must obtain over five weeks.
  Officers who did not meet the benchmarks would be required to provide "an explanation" to Sen-Sgt McCracken and their immediate supervisor.
  Senior police now say the email's directions were "outside of SAPOL's guidelines and policies" and it had been rescinded.
  The five-week targets required each officer to:
 

• MAKE five arrests and reports.

• ARREST or report two drink-drivers.

• MAKE nine traffic contacts, including on-the-spot fines, using mobile breath tests.

• ISSUE one drug-related fine or diversion (for minor illegal drug possession).

The email also said "a minority" of officers at the station had failed to reach the targets during the previous 12 months because they had "coasted" in executing their duty.
  "It is clear some of you are really great workers and there are some (the minority) that have coasted," the email said.
  "Those who cannot or choose not to reach these benchmarks will need to provide an explanation to their sergeant and me.
  "As stated, though, this is not hard and easily able to be reached and maintained - 99 per cent of you will have no difficulty reaching the standard and blitzing it."
  The email was rescinded on August 2 when local police management were advised.
  Police initially told The Advertiser  it was rescinded within 24 hours of being sent.
  Opposition police spokesman David Ridgway said the email showed contradictions in the messages coming from SA Police.
  "It flies in the face of what we've been told - that there aren't quotas for a whole range of activities. If police are putting these things in emails, then clearly there is a view within SA Police at certain levels that they do have quotas and that's why this person has published that," he said.
  "It's certainly mixed messages coming out of SA Police."
  Mr Ridgway said setting benchmarks or quotas could compromise police duties.
  "I would've thought it would distract them from making sure they are providing a whole community policing approach when they are having to focus on particular benchmarks," he said.
  "If they need a drug bust and they haven't had one, do they forget about every other offence and just go and look for a drug issue?
  "We have record numbers of police - they should just be out in the community doing the work and there shouldn't be any expectation on the number of pinches they do."
  Holden Hill local service area officer-in-charge Superintendent James Blandford said the email was a mistake.
  "It is important to note the email was sent to operational staff within the Holden Hill LSA only," he said.
  "The original email was sent by an officer who was relieving in a higher position. The directions given were outside of SAPOL's guidelines and policies.
  "As soon as local management became aware of the email, it was rescinded." He said SA Police made no secret of the fact benchmarks were set for traffic contacts but this was in no way linked to revenue.
  He said almost 30 per cent of traffic contacts ended in a caution. Police would not elaborate on exactly what other areas had set quotas.
  "Benchmarks exist across SAPOL for a number policing duties, including responses to emergency calls and requests for police assistance," Supt Blandford said.
  Police Association of South Australia president Mark Carroll said any confusion on quotas had to be addressed immediately.
  "SAPOL management has expressed publicly that it does not have, nor does government expect, booking quotas," he said.

original article:

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/leaked-email-reveals-police-ordered-to-meet-arrest-quota/story-e6frea6u-1226199485326  

Another corrupt dealing with the Australian police 'force'.

These 'quotas' are NOT limited the South Australia. They are across the board.

Australia's police is a corporation, operating for profit.

The sooner the general populous wake up to this reality the better.

Coles' secret dollar deal for Woolies store

Coles has paid $1 to officially become the owner of a $40 million Sydney supermarket leased to rival Woolworths after it was caught using an elaborate tax haven structure to conceal its identity as the owner.

Coles has defended its actions as a ''common'' industry practice, dismissing questions about the use of an offshore company to act secretly on its behalf as a ''conspiracy theory''.

Land title records show Coles paid $1 at the start of the present financial year to formally take ownership of the property instead of holding it at arm's length via an agent and trustee, Sino Ace Investment Pty Ltd, a company ultimately controlled by an entity registered in the British Virgin Islands.

Fairfax Media has previously revealed that Coles used a labyrinthine corporate structure to conceal its involvement, blindsiding Woolworths to become landlord of the 4282-square-metre supermarket site in Neutral Bay.

The Grosvenor Street outlet is one of Woolworths' top-performing supermarkets in the country.
In the fiercely competitive supermarket industry, buying a high-performing store from beneath a competitor's nose is known as the ''black truffle'' - the Holy Grail of retailing.

It is believed Woolworths was ''livid'' when it found out Coles was the new landlord, which grants it automatic access to Woolworths' sales data as part of the lease terms.

Coles claims the convoluted method used in the deal is commonly employed by property developers and retailers to ''manage the risk of big buyers attracting a bigger than necessary acquisition premium''.

''This is a sensible commercial strategy to get the best possible commercial outcome,'' a Coles spokesman said.

But Woolworths has struck back, claiming it is ''not common practice'' and Coles ultimately made a poor investment in a bid to one-up its rival.

''Coles have paid $40 million for the property - we estimate they paid 30 per cent over market value for it. We estimate they would have about a 4 per cent yield, which is at the lowish end of returns,'' a Woolworths spokeswoman said.

Coles also said it had been ''fully transparent'' with NSW revenue authorities about the transaction and paid all requisite taxes and charges. Bank cheques were given to Sino Ace Investment to pay the $2.18 million owed in stamp duty and to make settlement on the deal.

The NSW Chief Commissioner of State Revenue has confirmed that documentation relating to the sale had been reviewed and the correct amount of duty had been paid.

But in an admission that could raise concerns about Coles' due diligence processes, a spokesman now claims Coles was unaware it was dealing with a company ultimately based in the tax haven.

''Coles appointed a company incorporated in Australia to act as agent and trustee for Coles. Based on a company search it appears the BVI (British Virgin Islands) incorporated company owns all the shares in the Australian incorporated company,'' he said.

Documents held by the corporate watchdog show Sino Ace Investment was registered by Sydney lawyer Bernard Hang Man Chiu on December 20, 2011, one day before the Neutral Bay site was bought. The local company is wholly owned by Sino Ace Investment Ltd, an entity created the month before in the British Virgin Islands.

In March, Fairfax Media uncovered Coles' involvement in the deal through leaked board papers that also showed the group had spent $40 million on the purchase, setting a record price for a free-standing supermarket in Sydney. Woolworths was unaware Coles had become its landlord until informed by Fairfax Media.

Five days before the purchase, Coles executives staged an extensive review of its own property portfolio to see which properties might be vulnerable to a tit-for-tat response from Woolworths if it ever became aware of the deal. The analysis revealed Coles had 120 stores with a combined turnover of $3 billion that could be open to attack.

The lease for the busy Neutral Bay supermarket ends in 2014 but Woolworths confirmed it would take up an option to extend for a further 10 years. Under the terms of the lease, Coles has the right to inspect Woolworths' sales records for the outlet.
Mr Chiu did not respond to a request for comment.

theage.com.au 4 Nov 2013

Another corrupt deal by the supermarket 'duopoly'.

The authorities supporting corporte fraud at its best.
 
The Australian public still has not woken up to the fact of collusion between the two heavyweights.

Watch as apparently everythingis 'legal'.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is preparing to testify in the Angela Merkel wiretapping case after meeting with a German MP in Moscow. 
 
Mr Snowden is set to give explosive testimony and according to the MP Hans-Christian Stroebele, it's "clear that he knows a lot" about the scandal involving the NSA and Ms Merkel, the German Chancellor.

As Mr Snowden threatens to blow the case wide open, we take a closer look at the NSA. and explain the controversy over America's spying operations in five simple points.

WHAT IS THE NSA?

The National Security Agency is one of America's largest intelligence organisations. Think of it as a less famous cousin of the FBI and CIA. It specialises in codemaking and codebreaking, and providing secret information to US political and military leaders.

The NSA outlines two broad "missions" on its website. Its "Information Assurance" mission is aimed at keeping stickybeaks out of America's business, while its "Signals Intelligence" mission gathers and processes information for "intelligence and counterintelligence" purposes.

The agency describes its vision as "Global Cryptologic Dominance through Responsive Presence and Network Advantage". Ironically, you would need to be a codebreaker yourself to make any sense of that.

Orwellian language aside, the NSA basically spies on people. But it can't conduct "human-source" intelligence gathering - everything's electronic. There are no James Bonds in the NSA.

WHO IS THE NSA SPYING ON?

Practically everyone, apparently. Particularly America's allies. The NSA reportedly monitored the phone conversations of 35 world leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was royally irritated when she found out. She called up US President Barack Obama for what was presumably the most awkward conversation ever.

"Spying between friends, that's just not done," Merkel said later. "The trust will have to be rebuilt."
They weren't just bugging the bigshots either. News reports in France and Spain have suggested tens of millions of phone calls were monitored in those countries. The NSA disputes the details.

Back in the US, the agency successfully requested access to the "call-detail records" of millions of residents through their telecommunications companies. That information reportedly included personal details, such as customers' names and addresses, along with records of calls they made or received. The goal was to create "a database of every call ever made".

The NSA also gained access to millions of emails, both foreign and domestic, through the so-called PRISM program.

HOW DID WE FIND OUT?

Much of this information comes to us courtesy of Edward Snowden, a former NSA worker turned whistleblower who fled the US in May after exposing the agency's phone and internet surveillance programs.

The US has charged Snowden with theft of government property, wilful communication of classified communications intelligence and unauthorised communication of national defence information. Basically, that means he can't return to the US if he wants to stay out of prison.

Snowden is currently living in Russia, which granted him temporary asylum, and his leaked documents are still breaking new stories. This week we learned the NSA has secretly plundered data centres run by Yahoo and Google, gaining further access to online data.

DID PRESIDENT OBAMA KNOW?

That's a surprisingly complicated question. Intelligence officials insist the White House broadly knew about the NSA's operations, but that doesn't necessarily mean the president himself was aware of them.

Sources in the White House say Obama didn't know the NSA was monitoring the phones of world leaders until this year. If that's true, he was kept out of the loop as president for about five years. The NSA reportedly ended the program after he discovered it.

However, Obama did know about the confiscation of Americans' telephone records, and he has publicly defended the move.

"My assessment was that they help us prevent terrorist attacks," Obama said.

A senior government official said the president is generally informed of "broad intelligence-collection priorities", but the details are worked out elsewhere.

"These decisions are made at NSA," the official said. "The president doesn't sign off on this stuff."

IS AUSTRALIA INVOLVED?

Maybe. Intelligence expert Professor Des Ball told Lateline the Australian Signals Directorate is sharing information with the NSA, using local listening posts in the Asia Pacific region

"The fact that the United States has special collection elements that are doing this today is no different from what many other countries are doing today. It's not unusual," Professor Ball said.

He doesn't think Australians should be worried about their own privacy being threatened. We have an agreement with the US, UK, New Zealand and Canada precluding spying between the five countries, and Professor Ball believes it hasn't been breached.

"The fact that it hasn't now for over five decades, I think, signifies the integrity of at least that part of the arrangement," he said.


news.com.au 4 Nov 2013

At the end of the day it's all about monitoring and control of every person. 

It's a new form of terrorism, Data Terrorism.

Microsoft and Nokia employ interesting bullying technique to get apps for Windows Phone

In an interview with BusinessWeek outspoken Nokia VP Bryan Biniak revealed an interesting technique Microsoft users to convince companies to make apps for Windows Phone.

“If our employees bank with you, if the company banks with you, if we travel with you, if we stay in your hotels, if we do all these things, you should have an application in our store,” he says. “We have some muscle here. Let’s start flexing our muscle.”

Microsoft has about 100,000 employees worldwide, and 32,000 Nokia employees will join the company when the acquisition is official, which likely explains why we have seen apps like the British Airways app arrive on Windows Phone so soon.

In addition Microsoft spends hundreds of millions of dollars into marketing each year and  Biniak also wants to predicate some of that spending on companies building versions of their apps for Windows smartphones.

Of course besides all these shoulder twisting Microsoft also pays hundreds of thousands for speicifc  apps or even builds them directly, such as the Facebook app for Windows Phone.

Ultimately Biniak wants Windows Phone to have its own exclusives, such as the new DreamWorks Dragons game,  or at the very least offer the best possible version of an app.

“Ultimately we’re trying to get to the point where we have a halo around our devices,” he says. “Yes, Instagram is on iOS; yes, it’s on Android; yes, it’s on Lumia. But it’s better on Lumia.”

wmpoweruser.com 2 Nov 2013