Australia's criminal bankers above the law: Macquarie Bank manager Michael Roth escapes jail over fraud

Australia's 'legal' system (read joke) is geared up in such a manner that the criminal elite are actually above the law.

Bankers to be more specific.

None dare call it a 'conspiracy'.

Well, have you seen a 'banker' in jail for fraud ??? !!! ???

Macquarie Bank manager Michael Roth (from the Rothschild family?) does no time for fraud.

Conversely, if a person does not pay an [unlawful] fine they can end up in jail.

Do you STILL think you have 'rights' in this country?

See article from 18 Dec 2015 from smh.com.au of the headline:

Former high-flying Macquarie Bank manager Michael Roth escapes jail over fraud

Michael Roth has escaped jail after pleading guilty to 10 fraud offences. Photo: Michele Mossop

• Ex-leasing manager charged with fraud
• ​Roth committed frauds while feeling 'unbeatable'

​A high-flying, hard-partying Macquarie Bank manager who committed fraud worth hundreds of thousands of dollars has walked free from a Sydney courtroom.

Michael Roth, 45, spent years deceiving colleagues with a "well-planned, sophisticated and well-hidden" scheme that involved preparing leases for fictitious clients and having invoices paid out to his own bank account.

By the time he was caught, in 2013, Roth was a national manager for the bank's Macquarie Leasing business, and earning $160,000 a year plus commissions.

But he told the Sydney District Court he was "consumed by alcohol and gambling", and there was now nothing left to show for the hefty sums he siphoned away.

He pleaded guilty early on to 10 fraud offences committed between 2004 and 2012.

Roth was sentenced on Friday to two terms of imprisonment of two years and 18 months each, but Judge Julia Baly ordered that he serve those custodial terms in the community under the strict supervision of NSW Corrective Services.

This means Roth will not see the inside of a jail cell if he remains of good behaviour and complies with other conditions, including a community service order.

"He said he had bad days when he felt worthless, and good days when he felt invincible and untouchable," Judge Baly said.

"He said he got a rush from gambling and it was all that mattered to him during that period of life."

Judge Baly recounted how Roth's former partner believed his crimes stemmed from the "hedonistic Macquarie lifestyle".

It was "a constant frenzy of drinking and mixing with clients", the former partner said.

The judge described how Roth had got "caught up with" a senior manager who drank and gambled at lunchtimes, as others at Macquarie turned a blind eye.

"The behaviour was allowed to continue because they were making so much money for the company," Judge Baly said.

But the judge said there was another side to Roth's offending - his deep depression, his acute anxiety, and his hitherto undiagnosed bipolar disorder - and said she accepted Roth's mental illness helped explain his crimes.
"As his offending went on, it became clear that he could not fix what he had created, and his anxiety grew," she said.

Some nights, Roth would stay up all night gambling, and would not sleep at all.

Roth, who has separated from his long-term partner and is living with his parents in south-west Sydney, must report to police and will not be allowed to leave the state without permission.

Centrelink clients endure a nightmare before Christmas

Thousands of Centrelink clients around Australia remain nervous of the prospect of Christmas without their welfare payments as the agency's website remains in meltdown.

The welfare agency's parent department Human Services says the problems were fixed and that no clients had missed payments.

But the glitches and outages that have plagued the vital website for weeks persisted into Thursday and Fairfax Media has been inundated by Centrelink customers still panicked that their payments were either late or might not come through at all.

The department refuses to say what exactly has gone wrong with its web systems but an insider alleges that the entry point server is now too small to handle the volume of traffic and the complexity of transactions supposed to go through it.

© Provided by The Age Blue Mountains mother Rosa Pascoe said her daughter's birthday was ruined when her regular disability benefit payment failed to arrive. 

Fairfax Media reported on Tuesday that Human Services had apologised to clients over what it says are "intermittent issues" and encouraged users to log on to its mobile apps, which have been working normally.
Blue Mountains mother Rosa Pascoe told of how her daughter's birthday was ruined when her regular disability benefit payment failed to come though on Wednesday and she was unable to log onto Centrelink's website.

"It told me that my payment information, amongst other info, was currently unavailable and to try again later," she said.

Ms Pascoe, who can only undertake her teaching work intermittently because of a number of chronic conditions, took to Centrelink's notorious phone lines to see what had happened to her disability benefit. "I then tried to call and speak to someone and four hours and five minutes later I [was] still on hold," she said.
"This is not how I intended to spend my daughter's birthday."

As late as the small hours of Thursday morning, desperate clients trying to log-on to the website in the middle of the night when traffic should be low said they were shut out of their accounts.

"Have tried to log into Centrelink to report 3.27am Brisbane time & still down," one Queensland-based client said.

"Tried both the normal website & their mobile site and no luck.

"Not very good when people are expecting payments & need to purchase Christmas things."

© Provided by The Age A screenshot of the Centrelink website. 

On Wednesday afternoon, a member of DHS' media team insisted that the system was working again.
"Services have now been restored and customers are able to use Centrelink online services to complete a range of transactions, including reporting income," the spokeswoman said.

"We apologise for any inconvenience caused to our customers.

"The intermittent issues with Centrelink online services did not directly affect any customer payments.
"The department has many alternative channels, including mobile apps, and these were not affected.
"Customers who are concerned about their immediate payments can visit a service centre for face-to-face assistance, or call their usual payment line."

But an attempt by Fairfax to access the Centrelink site at 11.15 am on Thursday morning brought up a "not available" message.

A DHS spokesman said it was a temporary glitch and that customers were able to conduct business as usual.

msn.com 18 Dec 2015

More dodgy work from the corporation known as 'Centrelink'. 

Telling you that you're not a welfare (government) recipient, but rather a (corporate) customer.

BIG DIFFERENCE.

Australians to pay for 600 corporate tax cheats

CEO’s of nearly 600 companies are responsible for tax evasion.

Tax evasion in Australia is a criminal offence.

• Is any legal action going to occur?

• Are their assets going to be frozen?

• Will they still be allowed to trade?

and,

Who’s going to foot the bill?

Why the general populous of course.

The people in government already told their ‘serfs’ that the [unlawfully enacted tax called the] GST will rise from 10% to 15%.

Why is the GST unlawful?

Well you need to talk to an honest lawyer to find the answer to that question.

As if that’s not going to be hard enough, you would need to speak to a constitutional lawyer.

If a ‘normal’ person does not pay tax, the ATO seizes their assets, or freezes their bank account, or even liquidates their business.

The ATO in this instances takes no action against the CEO’s of those corporations, not only allowing them to commit more tax fraud the following years, but also to keep on trading without any consequences whatsoever.

So are the people of those ‘corporations’ and the people in governance part of the same ‘brotherhood’?

Note: Conspiracy Theory -  Still not convinced the people of Australia are ‘Corporate Slaves’?

Read the article from abc.net.au from 17 Dec 2015 of the headline:

Almost 600 major corporations did not pay tax in 2013-14 financial year, Australian Taxation Office says

 

Photo: Almost 600 of the largest companies operating in Australia did not pay income in 2013-14. (AAP)

 

Related Story: Australia's biggest companies bagging $100m in sales each year under tax microscope

 

Map: Australia  

 

Almost 600 of the largest companies operating in Australia did not pay income tax in the 2013-14 financial year, figures released by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) show.

 

More than 1,500 companies with annual incomes of more than $100 million are on the list.

Why companies might not pay tax

• The ATO data looks at income before business costs, not profit after costs
• 22 per cent of the companies in the total sample made a loss in 2013-14
• 8 per cent had prior year losses that they could offset against current profits
• 7 per cent had other offsets, such as franking credits
• Companies claim depreciation on asset values and some claim research and development tax concessions
• Some multinationals have already paid tax on income made overseas and do not have to pay tax on that income again here

Source: Grant Wardell-Johnson, KPMG tax expert

 

Of those companies, 960 did pay tax, while 579 companies did not pay tax.

The ATO said no tax paid did not necessarily mean companies had been engaged in tax avoidance.
Some of those companies incurred tax losses, while others used prior financial year losses or offsets to minimise their tax payment.

Companies with high yearly income paid little or no tax

The data highlights a number of companies that paid little to no tax, but does not outline how they minimised their tax bill.

However, the data does show significant differences between the total income of certain companies, and the income that was subject to tax in Australia.

Technology giant Apple had total income of about $6.1 billion, but only $247 million of that was taxable income.

The company's tax payment was the largest of the multinational tech giants at just over $74 million, but that only equates to around 1 per cent of its total income in the 2013-14 financial year.

How much tax major corporations pay

The ATO has identified the major firms that paid no income tax in the 2013-14 financial year. See who's paying what.

Apple's competitor Microsoft had taxable income close to $104 million, less than a fifth of its total revenue of $568 million. Its tax bill was about $31 million — just 5 per cent of its income.

Google's total income was about $358 million, but only a quarter of that was taxable. Google's tax bill was $9 million.

All three gave evidence to a Senate Inquiry about their tax affairs earlier this year.

Cleaning company Spotless Group, which has been accused of underpaying its staff working at department store Myer, made about $2.2 billion, but paid no tax.


Embattled car manufacturer Volkswagen made almost $2 billion in 2013-14. But, its taxable income was $35 million and it only paid $10 million.

Yokohama Tyres Australia paid about $220,000 tax on a taxable income of $747,000, despite earning $121 million.

Other large companies that did not pay tax in the 2013-14 financial year include Qantas, Virgin Australia, General Motors (owner of Holden), Vodafone, petrol company ExxonMobil, online betting shop William Hill, Warner Bros Entertainment, property developer Lend Lease and media company Ten Network Holdings.

Qantas reported a $2.84 billion loss in that financial year, while the Ten Network lost almost $80 million.

Immigration detention centre manager Transfield also paid no tax in 2013-14.

Mining and banking tax bills among the highest

At the other end of the spectrum, mining giant BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto faced two of the highest tax bills in the country.

BHP made more than $40 billion in 2013-14, but its taxable income was closer to $14 billion. Its tax bill was almost $4 billion.

Rio Tinto's taxable income was almost $11 billion after its total income reached $34 billion. The miner paid $3 billion to the ATO.

The big four banks are the next highest tax payers.

Commonwealth Bank's income hit more than $43 billion in 2013-14, and close to $10 billion of that was taxable. It handed over close to $3 billion.

Westpac's total income was $39 billion, of which $9 billion was subject to tax, and it paid tax of close to $2.5 billion.

ANZ's taxable income was $8 billion, after its total earnings hit $30 billion in 2013-14. The ATO took close to $2 billion.

NAB earned close to $43 billion in 2013-14, and more than $11 billion was taxable. Their tax bill hit more than $2 billion.

Commissioner of Taxation Chris Jordan said releasing the data helped build community trust in the taxation system.

"Community trust and confidence in the way these large companies operate matters," Mr Jordan said.

"And tax should matter to these companies. It is not something to be taken lightly.

"Collectively, these 1,500 large corporates paid almost $40 billion in company tax in the 2014 fiscal year."

Federal Assistant Treasurer Kelly O'Dwyer reaffirmed there were many reasons why a company may not pay tax in any given year.

Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh seized upon the data, saying it was the sort of information the Liberal party had worked hard for the public never to see.

On the Prison Isle of Australia: Interlock devices to become mandatory for Victorian motorists

The authorities are stepping up the campaign to limit and monitor the movements of the 'convicts' in the colony known as Australia.

It is done through various guises, something what some people may call 'false flags' or just even plain and outright 'slavery' laws that are passed through via whatever pretext necessary.

None dare call it conspiracy.

It's a legitimate law passed to protect the people, but that's what it seems.

We've had many people  speak to police regarding 'drink-driving' or even 'speeding' and the figures are falsified.

This holds true especially for 'speeding' statistics, where police are told to falsify reports that the contributing factor to any accident is speed, rather than driver error.

No police to date that we spoke to were prepared to put this in a public statement for fear of job loss and other reprisals.

So now under new laws, which incidentally are UNLAWFUL, drivers will have their movements restricted if convicted of drink driving?

What next ??? !!! ???

Will drivers be 'speed' limited if 'convicted' of 'speeding' ??? !!! ???

Read the article from abc.net.au from 27 May 2014 of the headline:

Interlock devices to become mandatory for Victorian motorists convicted of drink-driving

Photo: Low-range drink drivers will be targeted under the new laws. (ABC News)

 

Related Story: Mandatory ignition devices for drink drivers

Map: VIC  

The Victorian Government has announced it will introduce legislation to make it mandatory for all motorists convicted of drink-driving to have interlock devices fitted to their cars.

Currently, only disqualified drivers found to be over 0.15, repeat offenders or those under the age of 26 who record 0.07 are required to have the devices fitted.

The interlock requires the driver to blow into a breathalyser and prevents the car from starting if the person is over the legal limit.

Roads Minister Terry Mulder said under the new legislation, which will come into effect in October, first-time offenders and low range drink-drivers will be targeted.

"Anyone who is 0.07 and above [and have their] licence cancelled, when they come back they will have an alcohol interlock fitted to their vehicle," Mr Mulder told the ABC.

He also said those who are supposed have an alcohol level of zero such as professional drivers and p-platers will also have to have them installed.

Cameras will also be fitted into the car to stop others from blowing into the device and starting the vehicle.
VicRoads vehicle and road user safety director at James Holgate said drink-driving is reduced by about 60 per cent when people have them fitted.

"We know from the program we've got they have prevented people from attempting to drive more than a quarter of a million times," Mr Holgate said.

He said 30 per cent of people reoffend once the the interlock is removed.

"Repeat drink-driving is still a problem, and what we're trying to do is make sure everyone has an interlock until they can demonstrate that they've improved their habits," he said.

Mr Mulder said more than 5,000 of the devices are currently in use but that figure could climb once the program expands.

"There's a possibly it could be up to 10,700. I hope that as a result of this announcement we don't get that, but people get the message and don't get caught drink driving," he said.

"But nevertheless, if they do that's what they're going to face going forward."

Interlocks cost $150 a month and offenders will be required to pay for them.

On the Prison Isle of Australia: learning encryption will be illegal soon

We've stated before that Australia is an Alcatraz version 2.

None dare call it a conspiracy.

One would only have to look into the new 'laws' that are being introduced.

There is literally no such thing a 'privacy' (for the people) in Australia.

Information is shared about you without your knowledge or consent behind your back from corporation to corporation.

"Yeah, but that's ILLEGAL" exclaims the blue collar worker who heard something about a 'Privacy Act'.

"Well" the learned colleague may say "Have you seen a successful prosecution against the corporation involved?".

What many Australians do not comprehend is that Australia is still a penal colony, something which is reflected in the laws that are being passed.

You can read the article of the 12th of December 2015 from gizmodo.com.au of the headline:

In Australia, Even Learning About Encryption Will Be Illegal Soon

You might not think that an academic computer science course could be classified as an export of military technology. But under the Defence Trade Controls Act — which passed into law in April, and will come into force next year — there is a real possibility that even seemingly innocuous educational and research activities could fall foul of Australian defence export control laws.


Handcuffs picture from Shutterstock

Under these laws, such “supplies of technology” come under a censorship regime involving criminal penalties of up to ten years imprisonment. How could this be?

The story begins with the Australian government’s Defence and Strategic Goods List (DSGL). This list specifies goods considered important to national defence and security, and which are therefore tightly controlled.

Regulation of military weapons is not a particularly controversial idea. But the DSGL covers much more than munitions. It also includes many “dual-use” goods, which are goods with both military and civilian uses. This includes substantial sections on chemicals, electronics and telecommunications, among other things.

Disturbingly, the DSGL risks veering wildly in the direction of over-classification, covering activities that are completely unrelated to military or intelligence applications.

To illustrate, I will focus on the university sector and one area of interest to mathematicians like myself: encryption. But similar considerations apply to a wide range of subject material, and commerce, industry and government.

Encryption: an essential tool for privacy

Encryption is the process of encoding a message so that it can be sent privately. Decryption is the process of decoding it, so that it can be read. Encryption and decryption are two aspects of cryptography, the study of secure communication.

As with many technologies subject to dual-use regulation, the first question is whether encryption should be covered at all.

Once the preserve of spies and governments, encryption algorithms have now become an essential part of modern life. We use them almost every time we go online.

Encryption is used routinely by consumers to guard against identity theft, by businesses to ensure the security of transactions, by hospitals to ensure the privacy of medical records, and many other organisations. Given that email has about as much security as a postcard, encryption is the electronic equivalent of an envelope.

Encryption is perhaps dual-use in the narrow sense that it is useful to both military/intelligence agencies as well as civilians. But so are other relatively mundane technologies like cars.

Moreover, since the Edward Snowden revelations — and even much earlier for those who were paying attention — essentially everyone knows they are subject to mass surveillance by the US National Security Agency, along with its Five Eyes partners, including Australia.

While states have no right to privacy, an individual’s right to privacy is considered a fundamental human right. And in today’s world, encryption is essential for individual citizens to safeguard this human right. Strict control of encryption as dual-use technology, then, would not only be a misuse of state power, but would represent the curtailment of a fundamental right.

How the DSGL covers encryption

Nonetheless, let’s assume for the purposes of argument that there is a justification for regarding at least some aspects of cryptography as dual-use, and consider how the DSGL covers encryption.

The DSGL contains detailed technical specifications. Very roughly, it covers encryption above a certain “strength” level, as measured by technical parameters such as “key length” or “field size”.

The practical question is how high the bar is set: how powerful must encryption be in order to be classified as dual-use?

The bar is currently set low. For instance, software engineers debate whether they should use 2048 or 4096 bits for the RSA algorithm. But the DSGL classifies anything over 512 bits as dual-use. In reality, the only cryptography not covered by the DSGL is cryptography so weak that it would be imprudent to use.

Moreover, the DSGL doesn’t just cover encryption software: it also covers systems, electronics and equipment used to implement, develop, produce or test it.

In short, the DSGL casts an extremely wide net, potentially catching open source privacy software, information security research and education, and the entire computer security industry in its snare.

Most ridiculous, though, are some badly flawed technicalities. As I have argued before, the specifications are so imprecise that they potentially include a little algorithm you learned at primary school called division. If so, then division has become a potential weapon, and your calculator (or smartphone, computer, or any electronic device) is a potential delivery system for it.

These issues are not unique to Australia; the DSGL encryption provisions are copied almost verbatim from an international arms control agreement. What is unique to Australia is the strict level of regulation.

Criminal offences for research and teaching?

The Australian Defence Trade Controls Act (DTCA) regulates the DSGL and enacts a censorship regime with severe criminal penalties.

The DTCA prohibits the “supply” of DSGL technology to anyone outside Australia without a permit. The “supply” need not involve money, and can consist of merely providing access to technology. It also prohibits “publishing” DSGL technology, but after recent amendments, this offence only applies to half the DSGL: munitions, not dual-use technologies.

What is “supply” then? The law does not define the word precisely, but the Department of Defence suggests that merely explaining an algorithm could constitute “intangible supply”. If so, then surely teaching DSGL material, or collaborating on research about it, would be covered.

University education is a thoroughly international and online affair — not to mention research — so any such “supply”, on any DSGL topic, is likely to end up overseas on a regular basis.

Outside of academia, what about programmers working on international projects such as Tor, providing free software so citizens can enjoy their privacy rights online? Or network security professionals working with overseas counterparts?

Examples of innocuous, or even admirable, activities potentially criminalised by this law are easily multiplied. Such activities must seek government approval or face criminal charges -— an outrageous attack on academic freedom, to say the least.

There are exemptions, which have been expanded under recent amendments. But they are patchy, uncertain and dangerously limited.

For instance, public domain material and “basic scientific research” are exempted. However, researchers, by definition, create new material not in the public domain. And according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, “basic scientific research” is a narrow term, which excludes research with practical objectives. Lecturers, admirably, often include new research in teaching material. In such circumstances none of these exemptions will be of assistance.

Another exemption covers supplies of dual-use technology made “preparatory to publication”, apparently to protect researchers. But this exemption will provide little comfort to researchers aiming for applications or commercialisation, and none at all to educators or industry. A further exemption is made for oral supplies of DSGL technology, so if computer science lecturers can teach without writing (giving a whole new meaning to “off the books”) they might be safe.

There is no explicit exemption for education. None for public interest material. And indeed, the government clearly envisions universities seeking permits to teach students DSGL material — and, by implication, criminal charges if they do not.

On a rather different note, the DTCA specifically enables the Australian and US militaries to share technology.

Thus, an Australian professor emailing an American collaborator or postgraduate student about a new applied cryptography idea, or explaining a new variant on a cryptographic algorithm on a blackboard in a recorded lecture broadcast over the internet — despite having nothing explicitly to do with military or intelligence applications — may expose herself to criminal liability. At the same time, munitions flow freely across the Pacific. Such is Australia’s military export regime.

Brief reprieve

There is nothing wrong in principle with government regulation of military technology. But the net is cast too broadly in the DSGL, especially in the case of encryption. The regulatory approach of the DTCA’s permit regime is effectively one of censorship with criminal penalties for breaches.

The result is vast overreach. Even if the Department of Defence did not exercise its censorship powers, the mere possibility is enough for a chilling effect stifling the free flow of ideas and progress.

The DTCA was passed in 2012, with the criminal offences scheduled to come into effect in May 2015. Thankfully, emergency amendments that passed into law in April this year have provided one year’s reprieve.
Despite those amendments, the laws remain paranoid. The DSGL vastly over-classifies technologies as dual-use, including essentially all sensible uses of encryption. The DTCA potentially criminalises an enormous range of legitimate research and development activity as a supply of dual-use technology, dangerously attacking academic freedom — and freedom in general — in the process.


Daniel Mathews is Lecturer in Mathematics at Monash University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

 

 

 

While paedophone judges judge you they are above the law

Australia is touted as "the lucky country", but have people stopped to really think what that quote is about?

Let's look a few examples in law:

• You can be a tax cheat and get away with it if you have the support from the 'brotherhood'. If you're hounded by the corporate media, like Paul Hogan you obviously do not have the support.

• If you're part of the police force, you can beat people up (read assault - criminal offence) without any repercussions.

• As a police prosecutor you can shred evidence AND get away with it (Eugene Mathews - Sunshine Magistrates' Court, Victoria).

• You can create an elaborate fraud scheme and defraud the general populous and not have to pay it back if you're caught.

• White collar criminals are generally favoured by the legal system where they get away with their crimes.

• You can be the occasional 'thug' criminal and get away with the crimes like murder.

But the best is yet to come...

• You can be a paedophile AND abuse many victims AND suffer NO consequences, as a result of Australia's corrupt legal system.

• If you're part of the church like George Pell, you don't even have to come back to face your crimes, you just ring in sick. 

It's gets better.

• If you're a judge you're ABOVE ANY LAWS of Australia.

• You're part of the 'brotherhood' where all the members will stick up for you.

But if you travel faster than a number in a round circle on a sign on the side of the road, you get caught and don't pay for it, you may end up in prison.

Read the article about high profile judges, lawyers etc involved in a paedophile ring from the news.com.au article of 7 Dec 2015 of the headline:

Former Kings Cross sex worker opens little black book on high profile clients

A FORMER Kings Cross sex worker has opened his little black book containing the names and details of high profile clients he claims were a part of a “sick” and elaborate paedophile ring.

Megan Palin

A FORMER Kings Cross sex worker has opened his little black book containing the names and details of high profile clients he claims were a part of a “sick” and elaborate paedophile ring.

Dave*, 47, told news.com.au that high profile judges, lawyers, navy captains, a prominent lord mayor and business executives were among hundreds of clients who prowled the Sydney red light district and the “Darlinghurst Wall” pick-up spot to lure underage boys into their hotels and penthouses for sex in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Dave, aged 18 at the time, said a pimp forced him into prostitution and a “seedy” underworld where he was abused, sodomised, threatened and taken advantage of by “hundreds” of men in Sydney over four years.
“The main thing I was concerned about was the people I was meeting, their jobs and positions and things like that and what bothers me was they had underage people,” he said.

He said former Wollongong mayor Tony Bevan — whose other victims previously signed statutory declarations to allege was a paedophile — was the “sick” ringleader with a network of men reaching into all facets of the community.

“Tony Bevan, he’s the filthiest person I’ve ever met,” Dave said.

“I never forgot his name because of what they made us do.

“There would be five or six of them (in the one room) and me and this other guy Brian* would say we were going for a walk and they’d say ‘no you can’t’, then they’d get physical and push us down and all of them would get on both of us and sodomise.

“It’s the high profile ones who were the worst: filthy and dirty and threatening.

“There were judges, lawyers and two navy captains and some officers, and a respected business man who now owns a major clothing company.”

Former Wollongong mayor Tony Bevan faced multiple allegations of paedophilia.Source:News Limited

Dave said he was groomed by Mr Bevan to approach younger boys from the streets and lure them back to hotels and apartments for the men in the network to have sex with.

“I feel guilty because I was asked to befriend these people for them,” he said.

“The going price was $50 then you go with them and they pay you or give you clothes.

“The boys would be around the Cross, they have seen them then get me to befriend them and see if they were willing to come back and introduce them and stuff like that.

“That’s part of the reason I haven’t gone to the police, because I’m scared I’ll get in trouble for it.

“I’ve got to live with the guilt and shame. I battled with mental health. I faced it. I’ve accepted it. It’s taken a lot of years.

“I think about those boys all the time and wonder how they are.”

The Wood Royal Commission into police corruption and paedophilia — which started three years after Mr Bevan’s death — was told the former mayor, known in paedophile rings as Commander Hook, lured young boys with gifts and aeroplane rides and then used them in a sex ring he ran in Wollongong and Sydney.

Evidence given by the young victims was damning, horrific and explicit.

Dave said some of the perpetrators who victimised him had since died, including Mr Bevan in 1991, while others not named in the Royal Commission still held top positions in the community.

Dave said he believes “at least some” of the alleged offenders affiliated with Bevan’s Sydney network were still preying on vulnerable and troubled youths, based on information from his connections.

“I think it’s because of their position, they can manipulate with money, ‘we’ll buy you this if you do this’,” Dave said.

“There are kids on the streets who tell me they experience the exact same things I did — I know what they’re going through.”

He said it was easy for youths to fall under the spell of seasoned criminals.

“It happened to me when I was young and homeless and approached by a man while resting at Central Station,” he said.

“I was a very young-minded 18-year-old. He came and said ‘stay with me’.

“I went with him and later found out he was a heroin addict when we were living in Paddington.

“He introduced me to the Cross and I started meeting people and going to bars that were gay, like the Fish Bowl and the Rex Hotel.

“Then one day he took

“I said ‘what do I have to do?”

“He said ‘you have to have sex’.

“I said ‘I don’t want to do it’ but he said ‘you’re going to have to if you’re going to pay for your living’ so I done it.

“If I didn’t I’d get bashed and beaten.”

Running away crossed his mind but wasn’t a feasible option at the time, according to Dave.

“I was afraid to say no to the offers,” he said.

“I didn’t want to do certain things, like being sodomised.

“I would try to get away by just teasing them or just touching them but that never really worked.”

Dave said he required medical attention after one of his encounters with “a respected businessman”.

“He tried to penetrate me … I had it forced,” he said.

“It was behind a wall, he took me in a dark alley and he was very strong.

“I went to the reverend across the road and fell on the floor crying and told him why … he referred me across the road for medical treatment but I didn’t want them to call police because I was scared I would be in trouble too.

“I had torn tissue and I can’t remember how long it took to recover physically.”

He said forced prostitution was an industry that thrived in Australia during the 1980s and ’90s.

“A lot of times I woke up naked, and I didn’t know how I’d got there,” he said.

“I reckon I was drugged with a sleeping tablet or something.”

Dave said he wanted to share his experiences to educate vulnerable people on the dangers of sexual predators and to increase awareness of the sly tactics they adopt to rope their targets into prostitution.

“These scumbags need to be dealt with,” he said.

“The public need to be aware they’re out there.”

Dave said after four years as a sex worker, he met the “love of (his) life” in a bar who helped change his life.

He is now happily married and works part time as a cleaner.

Apple stiffs consumers by deleting 3.5mm audio jack from iPhone 7?

So you bought your new iPhone and once you saved up all your hard earned cash (or simply maxed out your credit card) you invested your time in research into a plethora of audio accessories, and once you’ve emotionally committed you  complemented your smartphone (which was incidentally made from cheap slave labour) with all the overpriced docking stations and audio ‘docks’, again made from cheap slave labour.

Enjoying your newly acquired audio accessories, for barely a year, your ‘brand faithful’ mind alerts you to desire the newest smartphone from Apple, but this one comes with the newest (and apparently greatest) ‘lightning’ connector.

Well now you just can’t sit your new iPhone on your previous  audio ‘investments’, you are ‘forced’ to buy new ones, which have not really come out yet, only just a sprinkle from a few suppliers.

That’s the Apple way, you excuse them.

There can and should be no doubt that the purpose of Apple or any other company for that matter is to make ‘profit’, and rightly so.

Apple doesn’t want to make any friends, if it did it would be at the pub waiting for you, therefore any decision Apple makes is to boost profits.

The above ‘connector issue’ scenario illustrates how a company ‘forces’ you to buy new products which you realistically did not have to, in order to use its new generation product.

In the ‘audio’ world it is accepted that the standard ‘consumer’ connector is the 3.5mm audio jack. There are other smartphone manufacturers that used the 2.5mm jack, but that went down like a lead balloon. Some other manufacturers like Motorola had the audio going out through the phone’s USB port.

Apple’s next generation iPhone 7 may not be entirely for YOUR benefit. Maybe a minor upgrade that companies ‘feed’ the people as the next exciting feature, which was realistically was disabled in the software/firmware.

Will you be one of the many millions justifying your purchase being a brand loyal muppet?

How can you really trust a company that was involved in stock market fraud, a company that is dodgy with YOUR personal information?

We do not support or recommend Apple products whatsoever.

Read the smh.com.au article from 1 December 2015 of the headline:

Rumour: Apple's iPhone 7 to ditch 3.5mm headphone jack

Apple is considering dropping the circular 3.5 millimetre jack from its next iPhone, opting instead to integrate headphone functionality into the same port used for power and data transfer, according to Japanese blog Macotakara, which reports Apple rumours.

Without the jack, users would need to buy headphones with a Lightning cable (assuming Lightning is the all-in-one port Apple goes for, not USB-C). Users could also presumably buy a Lightning cable with a digital-to-analog converter and a female 3.5mm plug on the end, so they could use their standard headphones.

As this information comes from a blog of no particular repute, offering no specific sources (though they are "reliable sources", apparently), the rumour shouldn't have you tearing up your standard earbuds in rage just yet, but there are several indications that Apple really could be looking to abolish the 3.5 millimetre jack eventually.

This iPhone mock-up from Federico Ciccarese shows a phone with no 3.5 millimetre headphone jack. Photo: ciccaresedesign.com
 

For starters, Apple loves to be able to say each new iPhone is its "thinnest ever", and as Macotakara points out, the headphone jack is pretty much the full thickness of the iPhone 6s. Of course the current iPod Touch is thinner than the 6s and packs a regular 3.5 millimetre jack, but it will have to disappear if the iPhone is to get more than one millimetre thinner than it is now.

Secondly, Apple has already given headphone manufacturers the ability to connect via the Lightning port instead of the jack. This comes in handy for headphone sets that do noise cancellation, as these would usually require a built-in battery. Plugged into Lightning, they can draw power directly from the phone.

Finally, it would be in line with moves Apple has made elsewhere. The company's latest MacBook, for example, has only a single port (USB-C, in that case) for power, data and video output, although it does feature a 3.5 millimetre jack. The approach allows for a simple, very thin design that can be expanded upon when not on the go with adapters and hubs.

There are already headsets that connect to iPhone via the Lightning port, like these Philips Fidelios. The port allows headphones to get power from and be controlled by the phone. Photo: Philips
 

Stripping the jack from the iPhone would also further cement people into Apple's ecosystem and move customers towards the included earbuds, Beats-branded cans, or official Made-for-iPhone gear if they didn't want to use an extra adaptor, giving Apple greater control over its devices' audio experience.