PAUL KEATING PREMIER OF NSW

PAUL KEATING PREMIER OF NSW former Prime Minister of Australia 1991-1996 is an observation and interpretation I make now after watching the must see 4 part series on the ABC with Kerrie O'Brien and Paul Keating himself, the ABC 4 Corners Program Titled Insiders and after reading an unrelated article in the Australian in relation to the design and siting of Sydney's next Casino.

I recommend all those interested in Australian politics to watch, study and discuss but not to forget the Liberal Party antics of branch stacking by merchant bankers in Victoria essentially delivered similar powers to a select few people through manipulations not too dissimilar in what happens in the boardrooms and takeovers in Australia's biggest corporations.  

The rise of Jeff Kennett should also be studied on how he took power to become Victoria's first elected dictator. The writer remembers well because he alleges Roger Prescott won his seat on one statement against John Harrowfield and the Independent of the following untrue statement by claiming that " a vote for an independent is a vote for labor" such was the dislike and distrust of political competition that he made a claim to put fear in the minds of voters using an untrue statement which could not be pursued under false advertising legislation and in any case it was too late the election was over. A clever use of words made at his appropriately useful time designed to put doubt in the voters minds.... a very clever tactic indeed.  

The Keating interviews reveal so much of what I did not know or understand about the Paul Keating the man I now call the best Treasurer and Prime Minister the LNP never had and how he took power and essentially used it to improve the Australian economy in the direction it had to travel. Paul Keating did it differently than my kitchen cabinet would have done it but after all he had the power and he used it but its a pity he could not have been in govt instead of the rabble we had under Rudd and Gillard.   

To explain to readers, the writer lived through the financial market turmoil's of the Whitlam years under Jim Cairns and the non eventful Malcolm Frazer years and the Bob Hawke Paul Keating years. The writer was working as an Investment Officer /Analyst and dealt in the money market for most of those years seeing interest rates hit a peak of 26% pa for 4 year Bank NCD's during the Whitlam years which really could not be compared to the Keating years where interest rates peaked at least 19%pa when the Pyramid Building Society went into liquidation in Victoria.

The Whitlam years were different for lots of reasons including a whole set of rigid monetary policy settings which could not deal with the budget fiscal positions and the high inflation of those years. Housing interest rates were fixed, this created a squeeze in other areas causing commercial rates to skyrocket beyond reason for a time until the dismissal and the resultant new elections gave us the Liberals headed by Malcolm Fraser.

Looking back at the Fraser years, the writer cannot really remember much in the way anything interesting happening during those years but maybe the voters had had enough of the ALP until Bob Hawke made his move........   to be continued 

PETER COSTELLO RATING AGENCY

Peter Costello popped up last week to state that the Queensland Government had to sell off its income earning utility companies if it wanted to keep its AAA Credit rating.  I'd like to question the credit rating groups who require state governments to sell down their best prime assets in order keep their AAA ratings. There has to be something fundamentally wrong with rating agencies methodology to in my honest opinion.

Many of the rating agencies made big mistakes in the USA so what gives them the right to adjudicate on Queensland to FORCE them to sell those very assets regarded as prime on the world scene?

Peter Costello appeared to do great things to manipulate the Federal Budget by selling its best assets to reduce liabilities selling QANTAS, COMMONWEALTH BANK, TELSTRA to name the a few strategic assets but look at them now. Why would holding those assets to cover their liabilities be such a bad thing I ask?

Whilst I fully agree that State and Federal governments should not be operating business enterprises using public service mentality staff, but sometimes for national security reasons Telstra should have been kept and should have Qantas no matter what their profitability status.

I have not heard anyone dare question Peter Costello's advice to Qld or even question the methodology used by the rating agencies which appear to hold a gun at the Qld State government head with Peter Costello ready to pull the trigger.

Will someone please stand up with more information.

WIKI LEAKS SAVES THE USA.

Not much has changed after 40 years considering the following statement was an assessment of the Australian political scene by the American diplomatic advisers during 1975 or thereabouts commenting about the Whitlan lead ALP at that time. The WIKI Leaked cables which I have not read directly does explain a great deal about local politics then and now as indeed many of the younger players then are now part of both the ALP and Liberal National Party now although some from both sides of politics have since become lobbyists for foreign owned government organisations.

The following statement was lifted from a News Ltd article by

paul.toohey@news.com.au who which I have not sought approval to publish as it refers to the actual statement below

''More broadly,'' it stated, ''there is in Australia an aura of selfishness and structural animosity, with the states against Canberra, the ALP caucus against Whitlam, the Opposition after narrow political advantage, individual unions elbowing for material gain, corporations passing the cost of excessive wage settlements on to the consumer, rural interests claiming discrimination and none of the players motivated by concern for national wellbeing.''

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/wikileaks-bob-hawke-dished-the-dirt-to-america/story-e6frfro0-1226619377992#ixzz2QQjrPVTe

However people may interpret Bob Hawke's behaviour in keeping a dialogue going with the USA it should not be seen as a bad thing imo. Bob Hawke was right...the ALP had dills in almost every Ministerial department during the Whitlam ALP years as I recall interest rates going to 26% for 4 year bank NCD's money during those silly years and the 10 year bond rate hit 8% if my recollections are correct as I was a Research & Investment Assistant of a large UK Insurance Group in their Melbourne Head Office and was dealing in money market securities at that time.

Although I never agreed with ALP policy during the Hawke years, which brought in the Assets test for all pensioners except politicians, the ALP would have been thankful they had Bob Hawke at the helm of the party as he was the only truly educated member which even his treasurer could not claim so well qualified. Many members of the ALP choose their portfolios because they belonged to the right faction of their supporter groups, not because they were highly academically qualified to become Ministers as normal employees working in corporate Australia would be required to be before being chosen. I believe even our current Treasurer could hardly have been the best qualified candidate to have deserved the role of Federal Treasurer imo. Anyone can spend other peoples money...and you dont have to be a Rhodes scholar to do that.

That is why I've decided to start up the VOTERS PARTY as an advocate for voters.
JOIN THE VOTERS PARTY FOR VOTER PROTECTION

Purpose of the VOTERS PARTY is to lift the quality of our politicians so instead of having poorly educated politicians choosing poorly educated rejects with degrees to work with them in government jobs, we might be able to force the employment of better skilled operatives and political representatives.

How many times do we hear that a law has lots of loopholes like the Crimes Commission in Qld not having the legal capacity to investigate the potential for some well known ex-politicians to be offering advice which may be tainted with a conflict of interest issue? How did such poorly framed legislation get through the parliament without a top QC having an examination of the proposed legislation to test it for loopholes such as described above. Why wont our politicians pay for the best advice at the start instead of waiting for these problems to unfold later on and still not attempt to amend and improve the legislation? I can only conclude that either we have a team of incompetent politicians or they conspire with other MP's to pass faulty or incomplete legislation so they can exploit these laws at a later date.
The recent Superannuation changes have already shown to have gaping holes in the legislation so that no money will be raised. Why do they even bother to upset retirees? Do they really believe that our education system has been so poor that young adults cant see through the nonsense? Are they really trying to insult the teachers in our excellent private and public school system?
I cant think of any other explanation as to why we get these poorly created laws especially as there already is a great level of suspicion in the community about the honesty of all politicians whose own members are questioning their Party honesty of purpose.

Why do we have politicians spending our tax money to help importers import more cheap manufactured goods into our Melbourne ports all the while telling local manufacturers that they need to become more productive while having to pay wages and increasing oncosts which are several hundred percent higher than our asian neighbours?

Both major political parties have agreed to increase employer super contributions by 33.33% from 9-12% on top of salaries they pay which while might seem terrific for employees with current jobs, does not help these same people keep their jobs.

Some of our politicians exhibit pathological illnesses or delusions of grandeur as they try to unseat their opponents even in their own parties, which by the way are unconstitutional and not recognised by our Australian Constitution.

The Voters Party is calling for all political candidates of the main unit groups to be required to undertake a complete medical & physcological health test so that we don't risk getting sick politicians getting the generous superannuation scheme entitlements for life for any existing issues and more importantantly so we don't get representatives on the world stage who have behavioural problems for all to view overseas.

As voters we all know there are big issues in political parties and with ex-politicians becoming lobbyists for large foreign firms whilst still receiving government pensions for life, but no one seems to be interested to ensure that these VERY IMPORTANT issues are dealt with or at least debated publically and not behind closed doors by other politicians or those relying on government funds for their advisory services.

We invite Human Resource experts to submit their opinions as to Statement of Duties and Responsibilities which politicians still do not have as do other employees.

The VOTERS PARTY is not envisaged to become involved in general policy issues between the various groups of politicians, however there are a number of misconceptions in the community as to the role of the RBA and the consequential effects which government policy statements and fiscal policies by Federal, State and to a lesser degree by Local Governments do have on RBA setting monetary policy which needs to be debated in a public forum, so we don't get to accept political lies or deception by political MP's who either know what is really going on or who are totally ignorant of the complexity of what may really be going on in the economy.

Voters are consumers too who still have no protection against lying MP's who are seeking our support at election time.

Stand up & be counted and lets get the debate going..
 

RBA SHOULD DROP RATES TODAY

With respect to the RBA and economic experts in the daily financial newspapers and media about needing to keep interest rates on hold because the share market is showing signs of picking up then I say that basis is wrong and interest rates should drop again. Everyone seems to forget that most of the central banks the world over have had to try to repair or save the politicians who have been reckless in their promises and spending habits which has got us into this sorry mess in the first place.

In my opinion the RBA should be having a real look at all the real estate agents who are closing down to see the real picture of what is really happening in the housing market, have a look at declining job ads, have a look at the bankruptcy lists, have a look at the real unemployment figures which are not reflected in the clever Statistics played around by politicians and public circus statisticians and then tell me things are looking up and the RBA should leave interest rates on hold.

To repair the economic damage will imo require the RBA to be in a position to give some measure of guarantee that interest rates wont suddenly go up as soon as the property market starts to look healthy again, otherwise new home buyers wont want to take that high risk of getting trapped into bankruptcy.
Now to achieve any chance of offering any guarantee from the RBA that rates wont rise suddenly will require some planning and CO-OPERATION from our slippery politicians who obviously like playing loose with their promises and our tax money which in turn affects the way internal official interest rates are set. It will also require the banks to be more controlled in their own lending practices just like they been over the last couple of years. Then we might get a better overall result giving a true measure of confidence for small businesses to go forth and multiply.

For too long we have had a situation of politicians playing political and budgetry games in which the RBA is seen as a distance relative when in reality both should be working together in unison. We no longer have a true free enterprise democracy under Libs or ALP so lets just go for a controlled economy with RBA at table.

The State Governments should also be included because some of their policies designed to appease their supporters do indeed affect interest rate policies and tend to affect both inflation going up and interst rates going up and staying up longer than would normally have been the case had those First Home Buyers Grants not been offered in the first place.

One of the main problems are that most of our nations politicians are economically dumb, but politically wise does not help our nations economic health. Yes economically dumb was self evident when Christine Milne and other schose to grill Glen Stevens of RBA on issues upon which the Greens and Milne displayed very well that they were economically dumb beyound belief....but wait there is more...

4TH MORTGAGE BANKS AT RISK IN AUSTRALIA

4TH MORTGAGE BANKS AT RISK IN AUSTRALIA

Today and this year January 6th 2013, I want to remind our economic professionals and the various tiers of government politicians that our Australian owned banks security is increasingly being put at risk by all three tiers of government mortgaging our freehold land and buildings which rank ahead of our property lending banks who think they have a first mortgage, but in fact they really have is a FOURTH MORTGAGE. Yes a FOURTH MORTGAGE.  The mortgage ranks may go like this but not yet tested in a court...

Local government is first mortgage, the States 2nd Mortgage and the federal government the 3rd and largest mortgage before the lending banks who have a 4th Mortgage ranking..

Each tier of government is undermining each others security by borrowing more and more until the land owners can no longer support you all or their banks and they are sold up in a very messy economic revolution in courts and maybe much worse for the nation.

I urge you all to stop and think before you increase council rates or build that castle for council staff, or that $10 Billion to build an importers port or the Federal deficit to keep an extra few thousand in jobs by increasing our property owners mortgages by $350 Billion without the land owners direct permission. An election win which includes those without land or assets is not any permission to mortgage private land to the hilt to foreign banks or others. I call that mob rule.

There appears to be no co-ordination between the various local, state and federal government and no respect for private property before they decide to spend our private wealth and our property owners equally seem oblivious to what is really happening to their assets. There needs to be more public debate about these very serious issues. Gillys Daily News.blogspot.com

copyright Gilbert Boffa 2013