UPDATE JULY 2007 PART TWO

COUNCILS PROFIT FROM VANDALISM

Councils could be to blame for a sharp rise in vandalism by exaggerating the problems so they can receive Governments grants.  Crime figures reveal malicious damage is on the rise state wide.

More than 100,000 incidents of vandalism are reported to police yearly.  Most of it occurs at night or on weekends and young males are to blame.  Regional towns such as Harden in the State's south west recorded jumps of almost 100 per cent property damage in the last 2 years.  But, while graffiti is behind the sudden surge there is also worries, councils are reporting vandalism to take advantage of Government grants.  Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research director Dr. Don Weatherburn said it was difficult to identify the sharp rise in certain areas.

"One of the reasons I am a bit suspicious of the growth (is that in) some areas you can get grants to deal with malicious damage to property, so there is an incentive report problems which may have not existed before," he said

One third of reported malicious damage is graffiti with the remainder including smashed windows and damages to houses, shops and cars. 

NSW LAWS ALLOWS GAMBLING STYLE SHOPPING CENTRES

New laws have been passed to give two Sydney clubs the go ahead to turn themselves into gambling style shopping centres.  The Balmain Leagues Club and the Revesby Workers' Club are to undergo multi-million dollar redevelopments including shops, a supermarket, gym and childcare.  The NSW State Labor Government passed legislation allowing the plans to proceed while still capping the amount of poker machines.

It is expected the redevelopments, which still need to be approved by council, will reduce reliance on poker machine revenue.  Is this tempting fate by the NSW Iemma Labor State Government?  Can the State Labor Government guarantee that the person doing the family shopping, will not be tempted to use their spending money to play the poker machines?  Could this lead to family break-ups?

CRIME ON THE RISE

Blue Mountain residents are taking security into their own hands by installing closed circuit television cameras in Katoomba.  The aim is to reduce rising street crime, including vandalism and assaults.  Katoomba Chamber of Commerce said it had to "act alone" rather t than wait for the council to implement measures.  The Chamber said residents were concerned for their safety, and offenders were causing more than $140,000 damage a year.

NSW PREMIER USERS HOUSING DEPARTMENT'S MONEY FOR A NEW SPORTING CENTRE IN HIS ELECTORATE

The Opposition has demanded more information about a $7.7 million Government grant for a new sports centre and other  facilities in the Riverwood Public Housing Estate.  Premier Morris Iemma said his support for the project, which is in his electorate of Lakemba, was based on merit.  "It will provide a great benefit of 2,400 residents in one of the state's largest public housing developments, one that is in need of an upgrade," he said.  He accused the Opposition of a smear campaign by waiting until two weeks before the election to ask the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) to investigate the grant, the biggest given by the Housing Department for such a purpose in at least three years.

Deputy Liberal Leader at the time, Barry O'Farrell said need was "not the first issue here"  "The first issue, for taxpayers of NSW, should be the process, and whether the appropriate processes were followed or whether, as has been alleged, it might have been the old mates act," he said.  "Taxpayers deserve to know - that's not a smear, that's accountability."  Mr. O'Farrell said more information was required about the grant, which was given following a request from Canterbury Mayor Robert Furolo, formerly a senior policy adviser to the Premier.  He claimed Mr.Iemma had  "form" in this area, because, during the last election campaign, while he (Mr. Iemma) was Minister for Sport, a grant of $300,000 was given to a Lebanese Muslim association for a project which also was in his electorate.  "On its own (the latest grant) looks smelly," he said.  "Combined with the grant that was given during the previous election campaign, it looks as though its form, and yes, at the end of the day it looks like old fashioned pork barrelling."

Mr. Iemma said the Riverwood project was very worthy and his support for it was based on Merit.  He said the application for funding was assessed and approved by both the Department of Housing and NSW Treasury.  A total of $3.3 million had been spent recently on similar community renewal projects at the Inverell and Cranebrook housing estates.  This admission must be very comforting for the multi-thousands of people who have been on the Housing Department's waiting list for as long as 12 years.  How can the Premier and his State Labor Government use taxpayers' money from the Housing Department for a new sports centre.

ALP (LABOR) HIDES $1.5 MILLION IN DONATIONS

State Labor politicians have been using a technical loophole to hide the sources of more than $1.5 million in donations.  Paul Gibson was the top money spinner for Labor, raising $174,301 from luncheons, raffles and other fundraising activities in the lost electoral term.

Joe Tripodi came second at ($98,480) was not far behind.  In both cases almost half the money came from property developers.  Mr. Tripodi was not a minister at the time the money was raised and Mr. Iemma was not yet Premier.  By comparison then Premier Bob Carr raised a relatively modest $11,267.

Among the most prolific lunchers were executives from Macquarie Bank dubbed " the bank that ate Sydney" who attended 21 functions and donated at least $22,290.  The figures, obtained from the NSW Electoral Commission, show that of 26 MPs who raised more than $20,000 in fundraising activities, all but two were from the ALP.  Despite such donations totalling more than $1.55 million they were not required to be publicly reported, allowing donors added discretion in handling over their money.

The amount and origin of donations were published for the first time on Tuesday February6, 2007 on the Greens website.  Even the details of the donors that are revealed to the commission are often sketchy or incomplete, with the full sum not accounted for.  Further muddying the waters is the fact only the net proceeds of a function or fundraiser need to be declared, not the total amount donated at the event.  There are also some highly mysterious figures.  Lake Macquarie MP Jeff Hunter recorded he raised just $1 between 1999 and 2003, what must have been the least successful political fundraising effort in history.

The practice has outraged the Greens who published the figures on their donations watchdog website, Democracy 4 sale.  Org - Greens Ms Lee Rianon, said the political fundraising arrangements needed to be exposed.  "These lunches are where business is done in NSW and the public has a right to know who goes and how much they pay to get the ear of Government," she said.  "Information about who attends fundraisers should be on the NSW Electoral Commission website."

JOBS SLASHED TO SAVE MPS' PERKS

The State Labor Government has secretly moved to protect MPs' perks while at the same time cutting the resourcing of every Government Department and slashing 5,000 jobs.  It has emerged that at the same time Premier Iemma was criticising the Opposition for its policy to shed public service jobs, his own Government was risking further jobs by protecting big spending MPs.  Documents reveal Treasurer Michael Costa has quarantined the state's 135 MPs from cuts to public spending in all 33 Government Departments.  This came at the same time as MPs were granted a boost in travel allowances up to $401 a day and accommodation allowances of up to $206 a day on top of a 7 per cent rise.  The pay rise will see the new 10 ministers who were sworn in will start their new career with a salary of up to $228,609 each.

Mean while, Mr. Costa and his razor gang have demanded a 1 per cent cut to all Departments, including the Parliament which pays MPs' expenses.  But the Government has dictated that the whole cut to the $110 million a year Parliament come from the $30 million staffing and operations component.  The bulk of the parliamentary budget, the $80 million a year that goes towards MPs' programs, has been left untouched.

Mr. Costa has also refused to cover ongoing shortfalls in the parliamentary budget resulting in a total cut of $1.44 million, none of which affects MPs.  An internal briefing note by the Public Service Association warns that the cuts will eventually render the Parliament's operations unsustainable.  A key par to the funding in a $607,000 shortfall which Mr. Costa will understood to have agreed to pay six months ago but appears to have dumped.  In a thinly veiled warning, the PSA has written to Mr. Costa warning of dire consequences, including a political breach of Premier Iemma's pledge not to impose any more public sector job cuts.

"Since November 2006, despite the written commitment of your office to respond to us by the middle of that month, we have been unable to contact either your office or Treasury and there appears to be no progress being made on the matter" the letter dated March 1, 2007 states, "If the $670,000 shortfall is not met it will lead to further job losses at Parliament."

The letter asked for the matter to be resolved in two weeks but the PSA has had no response.  Acting general secretary Steve Turner said it was a disgrace that the Government was feathering MPs' nests while slashing other budgets.  "It is outrageous that these jobs will be sacrificed to protect MP entitlements," he said.

PREMIER IEMMA REDUCES PARLIAMENT SITTING DAYS

Morris Iemma's first official duty, as elected Premier has been to reduce an entire week from the Parliamentary sitting roster.  So much for a fresh start.  A copy of the 2007 parliamentary calendar has revealed that four days have been severed from this years schedule - a 7 per cent promise for greater ministerial accountability and transparency.  Parliament will now resume on May 3, 2007 the same day the Federal Government hands down its final pre-election budget.

It was 138 days, 20 weeks since the NSW State Parliament last sat.  The number of sitting days has been slowly white-anted over the years.  In 2004 there was a total of 65 sitting days.  That was reduced to 53 in 2005 and last year 2006 they only sat for 50 days, the same number of days scheduled for this year (2007) and yet in 2003 Parliament managed to sit for 11 more days.

NSW TAXPAYERS PAY FOR NOTHING BUT THE BEST!

Brett Walker, SC, Whose fees are between $8,000 and $10,000 per day, is being recycled at taxpayer's expense by the Iemma Labor Government to head an official inquiry, this time into the Sydney ferry collision that cost four lives.  Walker head of the NSW Bar Association when Labor pushed through its massacre of workers' compensation rights previously ran the inquiry into the management of Kosciusko National Park after the Thredbo landslide, the 2001 Glebe Morgue inquiry into illegal tests on bodies and the 2003 inquiry into the Campbeltown and Camden hospitals after 19 patients died.  Walker is the regular "mouthpiece" for radio host Alan Jones, his English master at the Kings School in the 1990s.  His latest assignment will be a massive test because Sydney Ferries isn't a public transport entity, it's an organised rort.

LETTERS

CUT OFF BY TELSTRA

Many thousands of rural people are being disadvantaged by the withdrawal of the CDMA mobile phone network in February 2008.  This will  particularly affect the aged, disabled and infirm as well as school children who need to keep in contact with parents or carers in isolated areas.

Business operators, not least trades people travelling and working in outlying areas, will also be affected.  We cannot understand Telstra's reasoning in abandoning the CDMA system and replacing it with another system, next (36), that has no signal in many areas where on customers by increasing the rate of the basic pre-paid service from $50 a year in 2006 to $180 - $240 a year in 2007, depending on method of purchase.  According to Telstra customer service, a downgrading of the service will also occur during 2007 before the CDMA service is shut off in February 2008.  My wife and I are aged pensioners, and my wife has a heart condition that sometime needs urgent medical treatment.  In these circumstances, a working mobile phone is a necessity.  Why abandon a system that works well for one that does not seem up to even the current standard of CDMA, let alone an improvement?

Barry Taylor, Beechwood

WHO'S CALLING

Does the Do Not Call Register also apply to calls from Call Centres in India and elsewhere?  If not, then the small local fellows who can't afford the luxury of foreign call centres are being discriminated against again.

Henk Verhoeven, Beacon Hill

COST OF LIVING SHOULD BE MORE LIFELIKE

The Reserve Bank says inflation will be down this year.  I wish it were true, but when I go to the supermarket, groceries seem to be continually dearer and the fruit and vegetables are going through the roof not to mention the continuing hike in petrol.  What is the use of a cost of living index that gives false results?

Brian Mc Gee, Balgowlah

ALL THAT MONEY AND YET THE ADS SAY SO LITTLE

A government advertisement promoting the changes to WorkChoices states: Employers are already prevented from forcing employees to accept an individual or collective workplace agreement.  "Tell that to all those workers who have accepted take it or leave it agreements to keep or get their jobs.  And where do job applicants those who are not yet employees, stand?  How will the legislation guarantee that "most often, the fair compensation will be a higher rate of pay?"  And on what basis will the Workplace Authority determine the compensatory value off "all relevant working arrangements and entitlements?"

The Government defends its use of our money for this advertising blitz, citing its duty to inform.  If it were fair dinkum it would get rid of the spin doctors and give us the details.

Agnes Mack, Chatswood

ELECTION BAIT FOR AUSTRALIAN VOTERS

It is outrageous that critics of the Howard-Vaile Coalition Government are predicting the budget will contain bribes to buy votes.  The Government is only interested in renting votes on a short term lease that will expire after the election.

George Antonakas, Byron Bay