Recent stories exclusive to (how to) subscribe/rs of the Australian National News of the Day:
One
Nation Birthday Party on Pauline Hanson's farm 10th-12th April
One
Nation state and federal candidates meet in Toowoomba 4th -5th
April
Hindmarsh
Island Bridge case thrown out by High Court 2nd April
The
Hindmarsh Island Bridge farce revealed 31st March
UN
agrees to make our fresh water a "global commodity".... beware farmers -
your fresh water dam WILL cost you! 28th March
Courier
Mail's national affairs reporter Peter Charlton attacks MAI concerns and
breaches ethics guidelines 28th March
The
US Government's global "Cablesplice" project, fact or fantasy? 26th
March
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[One Nation Federal Web
Site]
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[Economic
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Today's
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an Aussie's viewpoint on Australia's
first daily Internet newspaper.
Since
October 1995
Who is behind the NFF (National Farmers Federation) and Patrick Stevedores?
The average Australian sees the "war" on the Australian docks as a local issue. The average Australian is torn between their dislike for the militant face of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) and the heavy handed manner in which the Coalition Government have treated over 1,000 Australian families in resolving the waterfront issue.
Just like the average Aussie I have absolutely no time for the work practices of the MUA workers and especially their union boss, Coombs.
The information I am supplying below is not a message of support for the MUA it is simply an expose on what I believe is driving the Patrick Stevedores/NFF venture.... The average Australian has been fooled because the war on the docks, I believe, is not about union busting it is about foreign control of our docks.
In January this year I revealed that the dock war is being funded by Hong Kong based Franklins who are ready to "buy-out" Patrick Stevedores dockside operations once the MUA has been defeated. Whether the Coalition Government are party to this knowledge does not matter. Their involvement, together with the Australian Labor Party, in paving the way for Australia to be sold to foreigners has been hidden in government policy through international treaties over many, many years.
My research on the Franklins issue has revealed some fascinating results.
Firstly, Hong Kong based Franklins is a subsidiary of a major Australian company Dairy Farm International Holdings Limited who are listed as the forty eighth largest company in Australia.
Secondly, Dairy Farm International Holdings Limited is a subsidiary of Bermuda based Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited a multinational. Jardine Matheson was Hong Kong based pre-1997. Since its formation in Hong Kong in the 1800s it had grown to an incredible size reaching a turnover of over US$11 billion in 1996. In 1996 it spent US$244 million "re-positioning" its multinational farming businesses in Australia (resulting in a tax loss of US$77 million that year) - nice little tax dodge - despite massive assets and profits, and despite being the forty-eighth largest company in Australia Dairy Farm International paid just US$6 million in tax in 1996, after recording a tax loss of over US$12 million the year before... (ie between 1995/96 the Australian Tax Office effectively owed Dairy Farm International US$6 million in tax credits over this two year period.)
(All the above figures can be seen at the link above).
It was Alan Jones who said on Channel 9 a few days ago that multinational companies pay little or no tax, a view previously presented in newspapers and earlier by Austand. It was a comment by Pauline Hanson on the Austand document which saw her being ridiculed by Sixty Minutes... and I quote:
McMullins, "Another of Pauline Hanson's claims is that all Australia's manufacturing companies will soon be taken over by
foreigners. I work for a big Australian company why would the Packer family want to sell off a company like this one?"
McMullins continues his interview with Ms Hanson, "How much do you think we are losing in dividends (to foreigners)?"
Ms Hanson, "About Au$200 billion a year."
McMullins, "The trouble is the figures Ms Hanson is using to scare people is the Ausbuy (sic) guide."
Just about all the holding companies in Jardine Matheson Holdings group are domiciled in the tax-free haven of Bermuda - including:
Connaught Investors Limited, Dairy Farm International Holdings Limited, Hong Kong Land Holdings Limited, Jardine Fleming Group Limited, Jardine International Motor Holdings Limited, Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited, Jardine Matheson International Services Limited, Jardine Pacific Group Limited (formerly Jardine Pacific Limited), Jardine Pacific Limited (formerly Jardine Pacific Management Limited), Jardine Strategic Holdings Limited and Mandarin Oriental International Limited
The docks are a prime target for this multinational who sees trade in the farming and retail industries as a key development area in Asia. The Age in January this year touched on "who is behind the NFF"... well, what we do know is that the NFF does NOT represent the interests of "mum and dad" farmers, as Graham Strachan recently said in an article Globalising the Bush in his weekly column in the Australian National News of the Day:
Farmers looked to their traditional champion, the Country Party, for support, but it too showed signs of deserting them. It renamed itself the National Party and sought to broaden its electoral base by courting mining industry MNCs and others. In a bid to protect their interests, farmers formed what they hoped would be a representative body, the National Farmers' Federation (NFF) in 1979. But something happened. The NFF began reciting the slogans of economic rationalism and requested the dismantling of tariffs, subsidies and other mechanisms which enabled the family farmer to compete. If the truth be known, from the very beginning the NFF really represented agribusiness multinationals, not the Australian family farmer.
The head of Jardine Morgan Holdings Limited, Henry Keswick, is recognised as one of the "Lords of the English Manner". In fact Conspiracy theorists would have you believe that Keswick is playing a major role in the media-management of the globalisation of the world by the multinationals. A world in which anything goes, for example Keswick, the Jardine taipan, told the Hong Kong parliament that opium was no more evil than beer or wine; although when pushed he admitted that he would not like his own son to smoke it. As late as 1918, the drug"that old prop and stay of the colony's finances"--represented 46.5 percent of all Hong Kong's government revenues. It was 1945 before opium became illegal in Hong Kong."
So while Australians suffer and the docks deteriorate into absolute chaos because of the hidden role and desires of "the Hong Kong taipan" the media and the government would have us believe that it is all about productivity on the workfront.
Multinationals do not play games. Greed is good. Just ask 40,000 ex-bank staff in Australia - who have lost their jobs since the Australian Labor Party signed the Financial Services Industry Agreement (FSIA) in 1995. An agreement of which Senator Bob McMullan said: "The financial services agreement will directly benefit Australian banks, insurance companies and securities traders."
So while I unreservedly denounce the games that the MUA have played in the past, the damage that their members have done to Australia's reputation overseas and export producers here, I have to ask the question, "Will Australia be the winner in the long term if the docks fall into the hands of multinationals?"
City of Toronto opposes the MAI
"Government of Canada be advised that the City of Toronto is opposed to Multilateral Agreement on Investment and requests that further negotiations cease and desist immediately"
TORONTO CITY COUNCIL Meeting of April 15, 16, 17, 1998 adopted the following
motion:
Moved by: Councillor Augimeri Seconded by: Councillor Miller
1) "WHEREAS the Federal Government is in the process of negotiating the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) with the 29 member countries of the OECD, with the intention of having a signed agreement by September 1998; WHEREAS the citizens of the City of Toronto have had little access to information and informed debate on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, and its implications at the federal, provincial and local levels; WHEREAS there are potential negative impacts of a Multilateral Agreement on Investment on the lives and livelyhoods of the residents of the City of Toronto, especially small businesses; WHEREAS the draft of the MAI treaty further extends the Free Trade Agreement and NAFTA in both the "National Treatment" and the "Performance Requirement" provisions, which will impact on the entire Municipal, University, School and Hospital sector, and specifically on the City of Toronto's ability to implement purchasing policies and practices that favour local Toronto based businesses and suppliers; WHEREAS the MAI treaty, as drafted, would stop municipalities from limiting the use of property by foreign companies, which could have the effect of restricting council's right to set planning by-laws; THEREFORE be it resolved that the City of Toronto urge the Government of Canada to consult widely and in depth with the people of Canada, especially and including, the soliciting of detailed responses from municipal councils, before taking any further action on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment";
2) that the Government of Canada be advised that the City of Toronto is opposed to Multilateral Agreement on Investment and requests that further negotiations cease and desist immediately; and
3) that the City of Toronto endorse the position taken by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities that the Prime Minister of Canada be petitioned to have the chief negotiator of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment file a permanent and explicit exemption in the Agreement limiting its application to areas of federal jurisdiction, and that City Council's action, together with supporting material from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities be circulated to:
(a) all municipalities in Canada with a population of over 50,000 and to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario for support;
(b) all MPs representing the City of Toronto with the request that they endorse the City's action and that their responses as to whether or not they endorse Council's action, and their respective names, be:
(i) forwarded to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities annual meeting; and
(ii) be made available to the public;
(c) the Consulates of the other member countries of the OECD.
Making the
news" -
Subject: One
Nation Birthday Pictures
Hi Scott.
Thanks for the pictures.
Every time I look at them I feel like I was at the camp.
If you only had a tape of the music and conversation and could simulate the
flashing of cameras and the smell of the grill. This is what being an Australian
is all about. Family, friends and a chance for a solid future. Please thank
Pauline for holding the party. You are both invited to my house for a B.B.Q..
Ron from Swansea
Another perfect day in paradise.
Have a good one.
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