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PM eats shit sandwich over banks
Volume 32 #26
December 6, 2017
Normalised chaos It’s been a little over a year since the US White House – perhaps the most powerful office on the planet – was occupied by a trustfund man-baby reality TV star. In that time, man-baby has created havoc on the planet via his Twitter account – just last week he shared videos from farright group Britain First. It didn’t matter that it was mostly fake news; as long as it distracts, the job is done. Meanwhile, a hapless Australian PM buckles in for a long and painful public demise until the next election, while the NSW premier and her government prepare to also slide into obscurity after promoting a narrow agenda that suits a select wealthy few. Locally, we have a different chaos, which is fast becoming normalised. It’s actually been really hard to keep up with. Bangalow is revolting against its paid parking rollout with protests planned for December 9. Brunswick Heads took its paid parking revolt to Councl last week. Meanwhile, locals who use the Byron rec ground will also hold a fun day on December 9 from 10am to highlight their desire to be listened to when it comes to the future use of the field. As the weeks roll on, councillors and staff continue to steamroll policy to enable major changes to Byron Bay while at the same time say they could communicate better. The difficulty has been in defining ownership of some of the projects, ie whether they fall within the masterplan. The transit hub proposal and bypass are not part of the masterplan process for example, while the draft rec ground plan of management (PoM), now on public exhibition, is part of the masterplan, yet will be considered at a later date. As for Council leadership, the mayor has said in his most recent blog (www.mayorsimonrichardson.com) that he is a changed man after receiving some criticism and will now be recommitted to ‘trusting co-operation.’ Publicly workshopping your personal issues is very Byron, but at least he’s still listening. While co-operation has its place, so does being tough and smart. Machiavelli’s 16th-century political treatise The Prince tells us that. Unfortunately the mayor’s longwinded online comments paint a picture of a one-man show, regardless of the commendable self-reflection. He needs a personal assistant! (hint: other Councils employ them). And with so many balls in the air, it’s no wonder we are all perplexed. With the general manager leaving shortly, should this be an opportunity to slow down, take a breath and ask ourselves if this is all rolling out smoothly? Can this be done better? Hans Lovejoy, editor News tips are welcome: editor@echo.net.au
The Byron Shire Echo
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the stock exchange) meant that the terms of reference were sketchy, the timetable dubious and the commissioner, the estimable Kenneth Hayne, still to be located. The coalition parties’ room may yet demand more concessions than Turnbull, Morrison and the banks are willing to give. But by jumping when they did, the back-flippers have at least stopped the push for the far wider and more dangerous inquiry being proposed by the Senate and almost certain to be endorsed by the House of Representatives.
t Turnbull’s hurriedly convened press conference with treasurer Scott Morrison to announce a long-delayed and fiercely resisted royal commission into the banks the pair looked like a couple of miscreants being forced to share a particularly smelly shit sandwich, and what’s more to pretend that it was all their idea – they were not dragged to the repast kicking and screaming by the Labor Party, the Greens, One Nation, the Xenophon mob, the Nationals and finally a few exasperated Liberals, but taking control to restore confidence and stability. Of course, no-one believed a word of it, but at least Turnbull and Morrison had the grace to admit that while their capitulation was regrettable, it was necessary: the alternatives were far less predictable and potentially far more of a worry, not only for the government, but for the banks, which provided them with a kind of cover for their monumental backflip. A royal commission has it risks; even the best-managed commissions can sometimes go rogue and end up savaging their creators. Go no further than the royal commission set up by Malcolm Fraser and headed by Frank Costigan, designed to expose corruption in the waterfront unions but which ended up devouring many of the Liberal Party’s chief backers and even touched on one of his favourite sons, Kerry (The Goanna) Packer. But at least a royal commission devised by the government has some controls. Turnbull can pick his own commissioner, write his own terms of reference and set his own timetable. Of course, there are still pitfalls – the speed of the exercise (getting it out before the banks’ request for a commission hit
Even if you cannot count, the bankers informed Turnbull, we can, and the numbers are in: you’re stuffed. by Mungo MacCallum Turnbull would rather have stuck to his line of a couple of days earlier: no royal commission, full stop. But, as Bill Shorten has unkindly remarked more than once: our fearless leader is in office, but not really in government. He remained in denial even when Morrison, chatting with the banks as Liberal treasurers frequently do, was given the bad news. Even if you cannot count, the bankers informed him, we can, and the numbers are in: you’re stuffed. All that remains is to negotiate the terms of surrender. So they gave him a list of what they could live with, and he dutifully jotted it down. But even then he and Turnbull held off, until the bankers themselves wrote the letter that made the capitulation a joint enterprise. If there was mattapping to be done, it was to be at the behest of the cabal that had caused all the angst in the first place.
management with the employers of superannuation funds. As the superannuation industry pointed out, unlike the banks, none of them has been accused of anything worse than providing better dividends than those offered by the retail sector – predominantly the banks themselves. By widening the net, it meant that Turnbull’s pretence that the commission would be quick and clean would be highly improbable. But it was a matter of salvaging something – anything – from the wreckage of the policy, which had been propped up for more than two years before collapsing in a smoking ruin. For the hardline free-enterprisers in the Liberal Party, Turnbull’s surrender will be seen as economic and political treason: John Howard called the idea of a royal commission into the banks rank socialism – funnily enough he did not characterise Tony Abbott’s royal
commission into the trades unions rank fascism, although the parallels are compelling. In both instances there were, and are, compelling reasons for a forensic inquiry into the many iniquities uncovered by whistle-blowers and media, but in both instances the politics took over. The difference, of course, was simply a matter of numbers, or, as Turnbull delicately put it, government policy remains the same until it is changed. The big institutions usually enjoy powerful political protection – Labor for the unions, the Liberals for the banks. There are times that this gives them a sense of invulnerability – the banks, for instance, boast that they are too big to fail. And in the last few years in particular, they have seemed to believe that their clout means they can not only bypass normal ethical behaviour, but even the laws of the land. For that reason alone it is necessary for them to be dragged regularly into line with the standards of the community they are supposed to serve. The last royal commission into the banks was way back in 1930; the image then was Mr Moneybags, the bloated, cigarsmoking grinder of the poor. The image today is more sophisticated: still very wealthy but allegedly with at least a vestige of a social conscience – a bit like Turnbull himself. It is to be hoped that the new royal commission can urge them towards conduct more in accord with the wishes of the wider public and less with a single-minded determination to maximise their own advantages. Who knows – some of it might even rub off to Malcolm Turnbull. That in itself would make this tortured and tortuous exercise worthwhile.
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14 December 6, 2017 The Byron Shire Echo
The best that the government could cobble together was a humiliating retreat, but a one that represented the least worst outcome: a short (well, they hope it will be short) commission, and one limited to the idea of the banks and others, not a more forensic examination of the nuts and bolts of their business. As Turnbull said in a moment of quasi-triumphalism, this will not be an inquiry into capitalism. Indeed, with a bit of luck it could even embroil the unions through their successful joint
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