10th December 1999:
An article by Matthew Horan in The Courier-Mail dd 24th August 1998 has been drawn to my attention.
Readers will know that this paper has very little credibility so I will be very selective in what I report from the article.
In 1989 Justice Murray Wilcox, of the Federal Court, detailed a tax avoidance scheme promoted by Ettridge in 1979. Ettridge convinced a business acquaintance to get together 20 people to invest $150,000 in three films to be produced by Andromeda Productions for one million dollars. The rest of the money, $850,000, was made up by way of a lon from a company called Media Finance.
Wilcox said, "Mr Ettridge... did not tell the applicant (his business acquaintance) that only 6% of the total budgeted cost was to be spent on the actual production."
94% of the "investment" went directly back to Ettridge by way of a "commission". Mr Ettridge told Horan that he was "only a salesman" for the company and worked on a commission basis.
Let me repeat that comment Ettridge convinced a BUSINESS ACQUAINTANCE.... this man is smooth.... have you been fooled?
At least one of the investors in Ettridge's approach was forced to repay thousands of dollars in tax after he claimed a $20,000 tax deduction after investing $3,000 in the scheme.
Ettridge, according to Horan, went bankrupt after being prosecuted by the Tax Office in 1992 for $25,135 in unpaid taxes.
Remember this is the same Mr Ettridge who is now One Nation's national director who has/had tax free accounts in Vanuatu! This is the same Mr Ettridge whose company Champions Magazine Pty Ltd was paid $50,000 in fees and commissions in four months in 1997 - the period starting less than a month after the party was launched.
How much have Champions and other Ettridge interests reaped in the last two years from the hard labour of One Nation and its loyal band of workers - an estimated $5 million has passed through his hands. Could it be a commission similar to that in earlier ventures?
Ettridge is the sole signatory on cheques drawn by Pauline Hanson's One Nation - that, to me, is the financial equivalent of letting a fox loose in the chook house.