Ebay Australia Helps Snare Welfare Cheats

Data from online trading site eBay.com.au has helped Australia’s Government welfare agency, Centrelink, catch out social security recipients who are not declaring big profits from internet sales. Centrelink has cleverly compared its payment records with the activity of nearly 20,000 people who are running profitable eBay businesses.

The government agency identified 25 people who must repay close to $AU900,000 in welfare payments they weren’t entitled to. Centrelink general manager Hank Jongen said some matters had been referred to the director of public prosecutions, but no charges have yet been laid.

Welfare fraud costs Australia more than $AU600 million a year, the Australian Institute of Criminolgy – AIC – says welfare fraud is difficult to measure because it falls outside the two main crime measures of incidents reported to police and victim experience surveys. The AIC says the UK department responsible for social welfare estimated in 2009 that more than two percent of all benefit expenditures, or £3 billion a year, was fraudulently claimed :: Read the full article »»»»

REBLOG! Doping Australia’s Sporting Elite

BLOG! At the outset of this post, I must confess to being the LEAST interested in Australian Sport! The shinanigans ofthe preceeding week have been of amusement to me simply because of the irony, elite sports men and women taking performance enhancing drugs? your kidding right, not here, not in AUSTRALIA!

For those in a cave, this past week, the ACC – Australian Crime Commission – has released a landmark report that as the countries sporting fans and officials in a proper dither: Apparently, Australians are SHOCKED that it’s sporting elite uses drugs!?

Mainstream media in Australia is currently abuzz with chatter on the ramifications of the ACC report, organised crime, doping, betting are clearly the focus. The minister for sport – Kate Lundy – in a press release said: “The investigation identified widespread use of prohibited substances including peptides, hormones and illicit drugs in professional sport. It also found that this use has been facilitated by sports scientists, high-performance coaches and sports staff. In some cases, players are being administered with substances that have not yet been approved for human use.”

Like other notable international incidence of drug abuse in sport – Lance Armstrong – the Australian case is more about policing powers, not drug testing. The coercive powers of the ACC are set to beef up ASADA – Australian Sport Anti Doping Authority –  in the wake of the recent review into Cycling Australian. One of the plus-points here is that ASADA should now be able to move now from simply being a testing and education body to an agency with proper teeth

So as we’ve sat at front of our teles snickering at oversized Chinese swimmers, or cyclists who strove for greatness at the end of a needle while we swallowed his cancer pitch, we clearly missed just HOW good our own guys were getting (except of course for the 2012 Olympic Swim Team, Doubtless there are any drugs there) :: Read the full article »»»»

Australian Emergency SMS Service

All mobile phones within Australia will have access to a new text message emergency warning system by the early 2013. The system, which until recently supplied emergency alerts only to landlines, has been extended to include all mobile phones in Australia. The system is being rolled out from November this year – to Telstra customers – and should be completed within 3 months.

Emergency Alerts are sent by emergency services to landline telephones based on the location of the handset, and to mobile phones, based on the service address. In the case of an emergency, Australians receive a voice message on their landline or a text message on mobile phones. Along with the Emergency Alert a link is supplied for recipients to access more information, by following a set of basic instructions.

Emergency Alert is an Australian Government based alert system, within Australia 0444 444 444 is the designated number for Emergency Alerts.

This number will always be displayed in the message header or caller ID. Since it’s inception – December 2009, for landlines –  Emergency Alert has been used on 500 separate occasions nationally, with more than 7 million messages having been already sent :: Read the full article »»»»

UPDATED! Has Our Julian Fallen For His Own Celebrity?

It’s been a while since – July 6: Wikileaks Latest Round of Releases, Syrian Emails! – we bought into the Assange story, his antics up until July this year seemed to follow a fairly righteous route. Is he simply trying to avoid facing Swedish questioning on charges that he’s pretty much admitted to?

Has Mr Assange now fallen for his own celebrity? Asking this question might seem a little odd, but consider US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland’s statement yesterday and the question becomes more than a little relevant.

Ms Nuland said that the US had nothing to do with the UK’s attempt to extradite Mr Assange to Sweden, that our Julian was simply avoiding facing possible charges for having sex without a condom, a crime in Sweden where two female WikiLeaks volunteers in Sweden have accused Assange of sexual misconduct.

“He is making all kinds of wild assertions about the US when in fact his issue with the government of the United Kingdom has to do with whether he’s going to face justice in Sweden for something that has nothing to do with WikiLeaks, it has to do with charges of sexual misconduct,” Ms Nuland said in a press conference. ”He is clearly trying to deflect attention away from the real issue, which is whether he’s going to face justice in Sweden. That case has nothing to do with us. It’s a matter between the United Kingdom, Sweden and now Ecuador has inserted itself.”

We realise that WikiLeaks – as an organisation – has an obligation to protect it’s protagonists, but is Julian Assange WikLeaks? or is the organisation larger than just one man? For a man who is prepared to spend – perhaps – the rest of his life in asylum, it’s odd that he simply doesn’t front the Swedish charges, surely there is someone within WikiLeaks that might keep the fight going in his absence?

In fairness to Mr Assange, Ms Nuland, as with previous US statements, declined to comment on the intentions of the US to prosecute WikiLeaks members :: Read the full article »»»»

Fords $AU100 Million Dollar Government Gift Equates to 400 LOST JOBS

In January this year we wrote – The Cost of Keeping Auto Makers Local – as sales of Australian made large cars – GM Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon – dramatically dropped the auto makers stood in line for serious government financial assistance. GM’s Commodore 15-year run as Australia’s best-selling vehicle was ended abruptly in 2011 by the Japanese manufactured Mazda3, while Ford Falcon sales plummeted to fewer than 19,000 units in 2011.

In May we questioned the validety of Australian Government subsidies granted to the nations 2 big auto makers – General Motors & Ford – The Cost of Keeping General Motors ‘Holden’ Local, And asking the question: So Exactly How Much Does it Cost to Keep Auto Makers in Australia? At the time, the Australian Government answered the question by handing General Motors Holden more than $AU275 Million to help keep auto manufacturing in Australia.

Ford Australia in the last few days has shockingly announced the loss of 440 jobs in it’s Victorian plants.

In the case of Ford, the Australian Government granted the company $AU103 million in subsidies with the promise of  plant – Geelong – upgrades and the longevity of Fords large sedan the Ford Falcon. Right about now the Federal Government, and Prime Minister Julia Gillard must be wondering if they’d simply thrown good money after bad, with Ford announcing that it will shed 440 jobs?  :: Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATED: Our Julian Applies For Political Asylum to South American Republic

UPDATED! 30 June 2012: A spokesperson for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says he has defied a British police order to turn himself in for extradition to Sweden and will remain holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London.

Julian Assange is seeking asylum in Ecuador in a last-ditch bid to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations of sexual assault. The Australian born founder of Wikileaks visited Ecuador’s embassy in London this morning to seek political asylum.

A statement on the embassy’s website said Ecuador was a signatory to the United Nations Universal Declaration for Human Rights and had an obligation to review all applications for asylum.

The decision to consider Mr Assange’s application for protective asylum should in no way be interpreted as the Government of Ecuador interfering in the judicial processes of either the United Kingdom or Sweden.

The statement from the Embassy of Ecuador in London said,  ”While the department assesses Mr Assange’s application, Mr Assange will remain at the embassy, under the protection of the Ecuadorian Government,” the statement said. ”The decision to consider Mr Assange’s application for protective asylum should in no way be interpreted as the Government of Ecuador interfering in the judicial processes of either the United Kingdom or Sweden.”

On June 15, 2012 Britain’s Supreme Court has dismissed a bid by Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to reopen his appeal against extradition to Sweden over alleged sex crimes :: Read the full article »»»»