FORWARD THROUGH TRUTH
25/5/10
FREEDOM & EQUALITY FOR ALL AUSTRALIANS Vol.11 ISSUE 5Singleton Branch President Jim Cassidy 21Dominion Ave. Singleton NSW 2330 Ph/Fax.02 6573 4207
Singleton Branch Secretary/Treasurer Elizabeth Cassidy Email oscar.the.dog@bigpond.com
Singleton Branch 1st Vice President Reg Eveleigh 0265711935
2nd Vice President/Editor: Kevin G. Mitchell Tel. 0249846358 Email
kevsnews@dodo.com.au HEAR IT & BELIEVE IT!! "Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. He who moulds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or decisions possible or impossible to execute. " Abraham LincolnASYLUM SEEKERS! COME TO THE **** Star Virginia palms Motel courtesy of Rudd & the Aust. taxpayer! Rent Free, we’ll even give you a maid & room service!!Free TV & electricity!!Tax free welfare & medical!!
LET US NOT FORGET THAT THIS IS NO MORE THAN PEOPLE SMUGGLING FOR CASH & NOTHING ELSE!
Four-star flare up: asylum seekers put up in 'luxury' Brisbane motel
MARISSA CALLIGEROS
May 11, 2010The four-star Virginia Palms Motel in northern Brisbane boasts "luxurious accommodation" in brand new self-contained apartments surrounded by 10 acres of lush, tropical gardens. It also currently houses nearly 80 asylum seekers. The Boondall hotel has reportedly been awarded a $1.2 million government contract for at least six months to accommodate the group of asylum seekers!
A two-bedroom self-contained apartment at the motel would normally cost holidaymakers $240 per night.
The Federal Department of Immigration would not confirm details of the contract this morning, describing the matter as commercial in confidence. However, the government defended the decision to house asylum seekers in a four-star motel, saying it was the only appropriate means of housing vulnerable women and children outside a detention centre.
"We don't think they should ever be put behind razor wire," Small Business Minister Craig Emerson told Sky News today.
ONE NATION WOULD AGAIN LIKE TO REMIND THE MINISTER THAT THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT VULNERABLE NOR ARE THEY POOR BUT WEALTHY OPPORTUNISTS!! BREAKING THE LAW!!!First & foremost they are breaking many laws including our quarantine laws & as far as I am concerned behind razor or electric wire or whatever is where they belong until all are deported ASAP! They are all taking advantage of a berserk & incompetent Govt. & opposition who are culpable in their inaction to a problem that no other Asian country would tolerate especially the ones they come from!! For your information Mr. Rudd it is we as below who are paying for your folly & we have had enough!!!
Taxpayers working hard to pay the bills for asylum seekersTWENTY-TWO thousand Australians - equivalent to Goulburn's population - that's how many taxpayers are paying for the more than 3400 asylum seekers chasing a better life.
Based on estimates by the Federal Opposition, each asylum seeker to arrive at Christmas Island costs about $82,000. That means it takes the taxes of nearly seven average wage earners on $62,000 a year to cover the cost of one detainee. As of yesterday there were 3243 asylum seekers detained on Christmas Island or in mainland detention centres, with a further 180 passengers and people smuggling crew en route to the island.
Once the new arrivals reach the island, the equivalent of 22,300 tax bills of $13,000 will be required to pay for the processing costs of asylum seekers who arrive at Christmas Island. But the costs are expected to be much higher than that, with taxpayers forking out millions of dollars to transfer asylum seekers between Christmas Island and the mainland, and to house them.
The Opposition said taxpayers were forking out an extra $1 billion over four years to deal with the ballooning number of asylum seekers. The Daily Telegraph left messages with staff from Immigration Minister Chris Evans' office but no one returned calls."The measure did not happen all the time, but it had occurred under the previous Howard government. Let's just have a little bit of space."
Family First Senator Steve Fielding says the Rudd Government needs to take urgent action to address the asylum seeker issue. "First of all we had Hotel Christmas Island, now we have Hotel Queensland with asylum seekers," he said. "Most Australians would be shocked to know there's a budget blowout of $200 million for dealing with asylum seekers."
This next sent in by Coffs member Robyn Clark couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch!
Coupled with the story after this one below wonders just how long it will be before the penny drops to the Australian people and they realize that they have no other alternative than the support for our One Nation’s Tax & Finance, plus peoples’ Bank policies!! Those that will once & for all take away any or all possible avenues for the graft & corruption that permeates our monetary & financial system that has even infected our so called Reserve Bank which is wrongly perceived as being controlled by Treasury when in fact it is controlled by foreign multinational mining & other commercial interest where it holds the majority vote by 6 to 2!! Perhaps its time we had an inquiry into the Reserve Bank?
Fee gouging: banks face huge class action
ADELE FERGUSON, MICHAEL WEST
SMH May 12, 2010 - 1:19PM
Australia’s banks face the biggest class action in corporate history for overcharging their millions of customers about $5 billion in penalty and late fees over the past six years. Leading litigation funder IMF Australia will pay for more than 10 class actions against the banks, including the big four - Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, Westpac and National Australia Bank - in an effort to claw back at least $400 million in what its lawyers will claim is a systematic gouging of banking customers.
The men behind the biggest ever class action
The
action comes at a delicate time for the banks as politicians accuse them of
exploiting their heightened market dominance - in the aftermath of the global
financial crisis - to ratchet up fees and charges to unreasonable levels.
Besides the big four, another seven Australian banks are expected to be targeted for alleged wrongful and unfair overcharging. These include the Bank of Queensland, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, Suncorp, HSBC and Citibank.
For the first time, the Reserve Bank of Australia revealed last year that banks charged "exception fees" of almost $1.2 billion in the 2008 financial year. No figures are available before 2008 for exception fees prior to this but IMF estimates they could total more than $5 billion over six years. At $1.2 billion, the exception fees are but a fraction of the $10 billion plus that banks levy in fees and charges each year.
Exception fees typically include four types of penalties for which customers are stung by the banks. These are honour fees (generally a penalty fee of $40 incurred when a customer overdraws on a bank account or exceeds an agreed overdraft limit and the bank pays it out); dishonour fees for cheques that bounce; late payment fees for credit cards or loan accounts; and fees for overdrawing on a credit card. These fees typically range between $25 and $60 on each transaction.
IMF, which has set up a website to attract possible participants in the class action, will test the legal basis of these fees in its class action. ‘‘Banks have made billions from these unfair charges,’’ the website says, urging anyone with at least one exception fee over the past six years to sign up.
The central legal argument is that one party to a contract, when it seeks damages from the other party for breaking a contractual term such as a late payment, can only recover a reasonable pre-estimate of its actual costs. In the case of the fees being charged by the banks, which are many multiples of their actual cost, IMF is expected to contend that the fees were not legally enforceable and customers should therefore be entitled to a refund.
Banks generally charge penalty interest as well as an exception fee, yet the bank often has security over the family home to cover the amount overdrawn. They also have the technology to stop customers from going over an agreed limit. Claims against the banks can go back six years and will involve repayment of those fees plus interest from the date of the deduction. IMF subsidiary Financial Redress will organise each class action.
The case against the banks will begin this week with a dedicated website to register claims, after the government decided to carve shareholder class actions from managed investment schemes after a controversial Federal Court decision last October found they met the definition of MIS in the Corporations Act and needed to be registered.
The decision stopped at least 10 class actions in their tracks, but these actions will now proceed. Personal claims are expected to average $2000, while business claims are likely to average $5000. In recent months, some banks, including National Australia Bank, abolished these fees, while others have reduced them. From February 1, NAB launched an advertising campaign, "We're abolishing our most annoying business fees." In the advertisement it says: "It's just another way we give our business customers more."
The Australian Bankers' Association said it had not heard that IMF was to take this action. "Ultimately, it is for the courts to decide the merits of the claim," acting chief executive Tony Burke said. A spokesperson for ANZ said: "We decline to comment." A spokeswoman for Westpac pointed out the bank had already taken action to lower its exception fees. "We were the first bank to cut our exception fees down to $9,'' she said. As for the pending class action, she said: "It is hard to make specific comment until we see the case."
Inquiry urged into bank bribery deal over polymer banknotes
Stephen Johnson
From: AAP
May 24, 2010 9:16PM
Securency International, the Melbourne-based maker of polymer banknotes, is alleged to have supplied prostitutes and paid kickbacks to win contracts. It is alleged up to $45 million has been doled out in a bid to convince central banking officials from Asian and African nations to replace their paper notes.
The scandal surrounding the use of global commission agents is potentially Australia's most serious case of corruption since the Australian Wheat Board paid kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. A federal police witness has told an investigation by ABC TV's Four Corners that a middleman hired by Securency to win contracts from foreign governments told him he had planned to bribe a central bank governor from an Asian country.
The witness, who was a senior Securency employee, revealed that a senior manager told him to arrange an Asian prostitute for a deputy governor of a foreign central bank, who was visiting Melbourne. Australian Greens leader Bob Brown has called on the federal government and the opposition to reverse their previous aversion to holding an inquiry into Securency.
I'm saying to the prime minister and the leader of the opposition, `You have an obligation to Australians to establish a parliamentary inquiry and get to the bottom of the chain of command," Senator Brown told reporters. "These are extraordinarily serious allegations."
Senator Brown said he had repeatedly tried to get parliamentary scrutiny of the allegations, only to have Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott stymie his move to have Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens appear before a committee.
The Reserve Bank half owns and supervises Securency, with London-based manufacturer Innovia Films the other shareholder. Malaysian Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim also wants answers. "The Australian government and the central bank has to offer an explanation why it chose to pay such commissions," he told ABC Television. The Australian Federal Police are investigating Securency for allegedly bribing government officials in Malaysia, Vietnam and Nigeria.
The firm, established in 1996, has issued polymer banknotes in 29 countries.
ONE NATION (NSW DIVISION) MEDIA RELEASE
ONE NATION IS THE ONLY PARTY PREPARED TO TAKE ON THE BANKS
ONE NATION SUPPORTS ALL OUR LOCAL FARMERS.
In times of corporate takeovers and market domination not to mention unfair predatory pricing, it is important that we support our struggling local small farmers all over the Nation not next month or week, but NOW!M & C Mc NAMARA
"THE VEGIE MAN"
Call out and see Mick, Carol and Chris just over the Singleton railway bridge on the Putty Road. Open every Friday & Saturday there you will find the freshest and cheapest, straight from the farm to you, fruit and vegetables in town. You will have the great feeling in knowing that you are helping to support these very important local industries.This next story has the potential to be the biggest story in history! But it is brushed aside to talk of other mundane things of no importance!!
Bubbling away beneath the waters of Mexico is a looming catastrophe that could have more dire consequences to the world environment unlike any other in history! It will see a real threat to our environment, unlike the false Global Warming ideology This is real & those consequences are not being told to the world!!
GLOBAL OIL APOCALYPSE
May 4th, 2010by Michael Hoffman |
May 3, 2010 |According to the Associated Press, to solve the British Petroleum (BP) undersea oil disaster "depends on a low-tech strategy that has never been attempted before in deep water. The scheme: lower 74-ton, concrete-and-metal boxes into the gulf to capture the oil and siphon it to a barge waiting at the surface. Whether that will work for a leak 5,000 feet below the surface is anyone’s guess; the method has previously worked only in shallower waters. If it doesn’t, and efforts to activate a shutoff mechanism called a blowout preventer continue to prove fruitless, the oil probably will keep gushing for months until a second well can be dug to cut off the first."
The media and the US government are being very low key about this. Even
Greenpeace and the Sierra Club are merely talking about political action of the
"E-mail President Obama" type. It is almost as if a very high
level directive has been issued ordering the media not to panic the population
of the western hemisphere. However, if the oil continues to flow undersea, the
ocean will begin to die.
This catastrophe is far beyond the capability of BP Corporation.
It is astonishing that international resources are not being brought into
mobilization immediately. President Obama assures us that "BP will pay."
That’s not the point, Mr. President. BP is likely to be bankrupt if and when
this catastrophe concludes. The point is not even the economic livelihood of
America’s southern Gulf Coast, as much as we pity all of
the folks who will suffer economic deprivation because of man playing God. The
point is the health of the oceans of planet earth, upon which all life is
dependent.
The following is from an anonymous engineer at peoplenomics.com:
First fact, the original estimate was about 5,000 gallons of oil a day spilling into the ocean. Now they’re saying 200,000 gallons a day. That’s over a million gallons of crude oil a week!
I’m an engineer with 25 years of experience. I’ve worked on some big projects with big machines…First, the BP platform was drilling for what they call deep oil. They go out where the ocean is about 5,000 feet deep and drill another 30,000 feet into the crust of the earth. This it right on the edge of what human technology can do. They hit a pocket of oil at such high pressure that it burst all of their safety valves all the way up to the drilling rig and then caused the rig to explode and sink. The pressure behind this oil is so high that it destroyed the maximum effort of human science to contain it. When the rig sank it flipped over and landed on top of the drill hole. Now they’ve got a hole in the ocean floor.
They have to get the oil rig off the hole to get at it, in order to try to cap it. Do you know the level of effort it will take to move that wrecked oil rig, sitting under 5,000 feet of water? Then, how do you cap the hole in the ocean floor? If we can’t cap that hole, then oil is going to destroy the oceans of the world. It only takes one quart of motor oil to make 250,000 gallons of ocean water toxic to wildlife. Are you starting to get the magnitude of this? We’re so accustomed to our politicians creating false crises to forward their criminal agendas that we aren’t recognizing that we’re staring straight into possibly the greatest disaster mankind will ever see. Imagine what happens if that oil keeps flowing until it destroys all life in the oceans of this planet.
Who knows how big a reservoir of oil is down there? Oceans are critical to
maintaining oxygen in the
atmosphere. (End quote. Thanks to Arthur Topham for forwarding the preceding
information).
It makes you wonder why this crisis is not front page, three inch headline
news in every newspaper every day, and on television around the clock, and why
President Obama and other heads of state have not gone beyond the ridiculously
parochial "BP’s gotta fix this" mindset and organize an emergency effort
involving the the planet’s best minds, together with the naval resources of the
world. We do not seem to be up to the challenge our own egos have imposed on us.
We assume we are gods who can drill the ocean and split the atom
without apocalyptic consequences. When it all goes haywire, we spout boilerplate
economic jargon and play chicken with a multi-national corporation. We have
failed the mandate God has given us to be stewards
of His garden.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE THIS TONGUE IN CHEEK FORWARDED TO ME BY MARSHA! BRILLIANT!!
Absolutely loved this. I suggest the
AUTHOR should nominate for Parliament .Mike’s
Open Mon-Fri 8 to 5.30/Sat 8.00am To 1.00pmAUTO PARTS Ph: 6571 1337 Fax 6572 3036
SINGLETON NSW Proudly a local & Australian owned businessCorner of Campbell & Bourke St. Singleton, opposite Singleton Tyres Mike & his friendly staff have continued for many years to offer a friendly service to the Singleton & surrounding motoring communities where he and his staff have gained a trust from their customers. Mike has an extensive range of most motor parts & accessories for all makes & models at unbeatable prices mostly in stock, but if needed a fast overnight service is also available.
*Brakes* Shocks* Clutch Kits* Front End Parts* 4WD equipment* Accessories * Water & fuel Pumps* Exchange steering Parts* Hard Parts & Accessories* Exchange rack & Pinions* Exchange CV’s * Stocks of Penrite & Penzoll* If you are not yet a customer why not give Mike a try & you too, as I have, will become a valued customer. Thomas Jefferson said in 1802:
President’s Report.
Dear Members and Supporters,
Shortly you will be receiving a mail-out containing your ballot papers for the election of office bearers at our State Conference in Maitland. Please be aware that all positions are open for re-election at the State Conference of our party and all members are entitled to stand for any of these positions. Please complete and mail a nomination form (previously supplied) if you wish to nominate or contact our Secretary, Judith Newson on (02) 9533 1557 before the June 7th if you wish to have your name on the ballot paper for any position/s. You will also need to supply a short résumé to be included in the mail-out in order to introduce yourself to the members.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Ann-Marie and Chris McNamara on the arrival of their second son, Carson James, all are doing well. I also wish to thank Chris and his parents, Mick & Carol, for their continued support and the supply of a veggie tray for all our Branch Meeting Raffles.
Our Branch Meeting on 13th June will once again be held at 1pm with tea and coffee and afternoon snacks provided.
Kind Regards,
Jim Cassidy.