Wednesday 5th September 2018

I had someone request I add a link to their site to an archived TLAT newsletter. I looked at it and the statistics on their site are worth passing on.

Newly sworn-in Prime Minister Scott Morrison blames bank victims for bank crimes, saying they are “complicit” for being too “passive”. “Too often we, the customers, have also become complicit in allowing the deck to be stacked against us”, then-Treasurer Morrison said to the Australian British Chamber of Commerce on 3 August. “You can guarantee it—the more passive a customer is, the worse deal they are going to get.” Never mind that the Financial Services Royal Commission has exposed bank criminality, and whistle-blowers charge that the bank regulator APRA has been complicit in such crimes. Would Morrison also blame abused children for tempting paedophiles? Such a question is not to be scoffed at. Morrison’s mentor is Hillsong pastor Brian Houston, son of serial paedophile Frank Houston, who faced this charge in testimony from the 2013-17 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Morrison’s long devotion to the strain of Pentecostalism that promotes “prosperity gospel” has clearly been an important influence in his defence of caveat emptor (Latin for “let the buyer beware”—if you are swindled it’s your own fault). In his maiden speech on 14 February 2008, Morrison spoke of how Brian Houston’s pastoral work had greatly assisted him. Houston, former National President of the Assemblies of God in Australia (renamed the Australian Christian Churches in April 2007), is the author of several books, including You Need More Money: Discovering God’s Amazing Financial Plan for Your Life.

The neoliberal economic model of Morrison and the prosperity gospel go hand in hand. Those embracing this perverse “faith” are blessed with financial success and physical well-being, but if you aren’t wealthy it must be your own fault, a lack of faith or some other shortcoming. Victim-blaming appears to be a disturbing theme at the Australian Christian Churches, as 2014 testimony from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse reveals. Brian Houston’s father Frank was General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God in New Zealand before he moved to Sydney and founded the predecessor organisation of Hillsong, which under his son has become Australia’s biggest and richest mega-church. Frank Houston was a confessed paedophile, with victims in New Zealand and Australia. A witness identified as [AHA] testified to the royal commission on 7 October 2014 that Frank Houston abused him as a 7-year-old boy and for several years until he reached puberty. The victim reported explicit details of the sex crimes and the psychological trauma he has endured for decades. Most shockingly, he testified that Morrison’s mentor Brian Houston told him: “You know, it’s your fault all of this happened. You tempted my father.”

Morrison’s political career reflects his perverse Christianity and caveat emptor/victim-blaming philosophy. Jesus said, “Suffer little children to come unto me”, but as immigration minister Morrison implemented brutal policies towards desperate refugees and asylum seekers, which included locking up children behind barbed wire in detention centres indefinitely. He warned these refugees, victims of war and oppression, that they would spend a “very, very long time” in detention should they not return to the war-torn countries they had fled. In other words, their detention was their own fault. At this time asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and other war-torn countries were detained on Manus and Nauru. But the Christian Morrison has never condemned the Anglo-American war party which invaded and bombed those countries, which forced people to flee in the first place.

While Jesus Christ took a whip and drove the money-changers out of the temple, Morrison defends banks and covers for the blatant crimes they have committed, and blames their victims under caveat emptor. Before getting into Parliament, he worked for the Property Council, a vested interest in the speculation that has created a massive property bubble in Australia. Morrison denies there is a bubble, however, which allows the banks and property speculators to keep making money. In August 2016 he said the call for a banking Royal Commission was nothing more than a “populist whinge”, and voted 23 times against one. Meanwhile he worked with APRA and its controllers in the Bank for International Settlements to sneak through “bail-in” legislation to confiscate savings to prop up failing banks, the Financial Sector Legislation Amendment (Crisis Resolution Powers and Other Measures) Act 2018 that became law on 5 March 2018. And it’s no surprise Morrison has done everything to oppose the Banking System Reform (Separation of Banks) Bill 2018, even to the point of making the farcical claim that “the Australian financial system already exhibits a high degree of structural separation”.

The story of how Scott Morrison first got into Parliament is one of dirty dealings and corruption. Former Labor MP Sam Dastyari describes it as the “biggest dirt campaign”. On FM radio KIIS 1065 on 28 August, Dastyari broke the story of his involvement: “I’ve seen a lot of dirty things in politics, but I’ve never had the Liberal party come to us [Labor] and ask for dirt to fight one of their own internal opponents”, he said. “I would never underestimate Scott Morrison … because I would never underestimate a guy who would turn to one of his political opponents to take out one of his own … a guy who will do that will do anything.” In 2007 Morrison contested the Liberal Party pre-selection for the seat of Cook against Michael Towke, who defeated him easily 82 votes to 8. Then, to reverse the result, Morrison’s Liberal Party allies and Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited collaborated with a vicious smear campaign against Towke, who was ousted and Morrison became the candidate. “These stories sent my mother to hospital”, Towke told Paul Sheehan in the 26 October 2009 Sydney Morning Herald. “They demonised me. I wanted to confront them in court.” Towke did go to court and two years later cleared his name. But his assassin is now prime minister.

Mr Caveat Emptor has replaced Mr Goldman Sachs, Malcolm Turnbull, as prime minister, and appointed Mr Deutsche Bank, Josh Frydenberg, as Treasurer. It is time the Australian people cleaned out this political cesspool, and accepted nothing less than genuine morality in government that serves the welfare of all people.

Join the fight to separate the banks!

Although Scott Morrison is firmly on the side of the banks, and actively covered for the criminality being exposed by the royal commission, it is still possible to force him to introduce real financial reform to protect Australians from their predatory practices and dangerous speculation. The Australian people must demand it, so all politicians know their political survival depends on addressing this issue. The best way to do that is to join the CEC’s fight to break up the banks. The legislation is already in Parliament to do it—contact your MP today and demand they insist that the Banking System Reform (Separation of Banks) Bill 2018, which Bob Katter introduced on 25 June, be debated.

Incompetent, inhuman, barbaric depravity.

Recently I read an article that show these “top of the food chain” feeders contribute to maintaining an ecological balance in our oceans from the smallest to themselves. I consider that balance worth preserving and considering the rate at which species are disappearing, better management of our resources needs to occur. Unfettered killing is NOT better management!

I received this:

In just less than two weeks at a critical meeting of the International Whaling Commission, Japan and its allies will push forward an aggressive and dangerous package of proposals that could ultimately allow the international ban on commercial whaling to be lifted. If passed, Japan and other countries would be allowed to openly hunt whales for profit.

Please help us show the member nations at the IWC that the world is watching and supports protecting whales, not hunting them.

Some populations of these majestic creatures are on the brink of extinction and have not recovered from the decades of large-scale commercial whaling that occurred until the IWC banned it in the 1980’s. Now is our chance to speak up for whales at one of the most important animal welfare meetings, responsible for managing and protecting whales, and we need your voice.

From the CEC:

APRA chairman misled Senate on mortgage fraud

There is a case to be made that Australia’s bank regulator has colluded with the banks to hide massive fraud in mortgage lending. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s (APRA) collusion includes suppressing its own research into lowered lending standards, and misleading Parliament about its knowledge of illegal misconduct by banks in mortgage lending.

In a 1 March 2018 hearing of the Senate Economics Committee, Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon questioned APRA chairman Wayne Byres on his knowledge of mortgage control fraud. The hearing was 11 days before the start of the first round of hearings of the Financial Services Royal Commission, which the issue of mortgage control fraud would dominate. Perhaps unaware of how much the royal commission knew, Byres responded to Rhiannon’s questions with APRA’s trademark obfuscation and deflection. Documents subsequently released by the royal commission, however, show that Byres lied.

Rhiannon asked Byres, “In relation to your investigation into mortgage fraud, which APRA has not made public, has APRA found any evidence of illegal misconduct in the mortgage market by the major lenders?”

Byres ignored the point of the question and instead denied that APRA was looking into mortgage fraud. “I wouldn’t say what we’ve done is specifically a review of mortgage fraud”, he said, adding that they have looked “generally” at lending practices and controls. He then claimed that APRA had not found evidence of illegal misconduct.

With this reply, Byres misled the Senate. APRA was investigating mortgage fraud. The proof is revealed in documents made public by the royal commission on 23 March, which included reports to the major banks by accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers, of targeted reviews PwC had conducted in 2017 into the banks’ mortgage lending controls. As PwC’s reports made clear, APRA had ordered the reviews.

Targeted reviews

In PwC’s May 2017 report to Westpac entitled “APRA Targeted Review of data used in residential mortgage serviceability assessments”, PwC states explicitly in the Executive Summary that APRA had ordered the reviews due to concerns about mortgage control fraud. “On 12 October 2016, APRA issued a letter to the Bank and 4 other large banks requesting that they undertake a Review into the risks of potential misrepresentation of mortgage borrower financial information used in loan serviceability assessments”, PwC noted. “In its letter, APRA referenced assertions made by commentators that ’fraud and manipulation of ADI residential mortgage origination practices are relatively commonplace’.” (Emphasis in original.)

This proves that APRA clearly ordered the banks to conduct targeted reviews of mortgage fraud. Yet the royal commission is unlikely to have had this evidence, had it been up to APRA. Later in her questioning, Lee Rhiannon asked Byres if APRA should be proactive in providing information to the royal commission, but Byres replied, “We’ll wait and see what the royal commission asks.” His extraordinary excuse was he didn’t want to “swamp them with things that are not relevant to them”. Byres’ idea of what’s “not relevant” appears to have included PwC’s reports.

A few days before Byres’ testimony, Lindsay David of LF Economics had tipped off the royal commission about the targeted reviews. This was around two weeks before the royal commission’s first round of hearings, which were on mortgage lending. LF Economics specialises in forensic analysis of misconduct within the mortgage market, and has probed into the details of many of the numerous cases of mortgage fraud that the Banking and Finance Consumer Support Association’s (BFCSA) Denise Brailey, the leading expert on mortgage fraud in Australia, has exposed through her tireless advocacy for bank victims. (CEC Research Director Robert Barwick interviewed Denise Brailey for the 22 and 28 March 2018 episodes of the CEC Report, available on YouTube channel CEC Australia.)

According to David, LF Economics first became aware of the targeted reviews in mid-2017, but had been informed that they were “so unfavourable they would never see the light of day”, he recalled. At the time he was consulted by the royal commission staff, they were unaware of the existence of the targeted reviews—indicating that APRA had not revealed them. It was David’s tip-off that led the royal commission to request copies from the banks, and make them public on its website.

So why would Byres go out of his way to deflect the attention of the Senate committee away from the fact that APRA was looking into mortgage fraud? And why would APRA not share this with the royal commission? It goes to the collusive relationship APRA has with the big banks, which former ANZ director John Dahlsen denounced in the 21 August Australian Financial Review as “incestuous”. APRA is notoriously secretive, with the power to suppress information through strict secrecy restrictions. It has a track record of using its secrecy to cover up risks and fraud in the banking system. Due to its excessive secrecy, APRA is effectively unaccountable, which breeds the arrogance on display in committee hearings.

APRA is complicit in the banks’ reckless lending, which has created a dangerous housing and debt bubble that threatens the Australian economy. It allowed the banks to lower their lending standards in the early 2000s, to be able to massively expand their lending to homebuyers and investors who, like the US “sub-prime” borrowers whose defaults sparked the 2008 global financial crisis, couldn’t afford normal loans. In March 2007, APRA suppressed an explosive internal report which warned that the lowering of lending standards had led to the banks lending 3.5 times more credit for mortgages than would have been the case under the previous, higher standards. And APRA repeatedly lowered the so-called “risk-weighting” of mortgage loans to make them far more profitable than any other lending, and to fake the appearance that banks were raising their capital to the “unquestionably strong” levels of 14.5 per cent, whereas real bank capital stayed at less than six per cent.

In short, APRA incentivised the excessive mortgage lending that motivated the banks to resort to fraud. It’s a fair bet that Byres hoped to keep APRA’s awareness of the problem under wraps, to protect the illusion that it is a “sound” prudential regulator. He wasn’t banking on the royal commission process, however, which has destroyed this illusion and opened the possibility of fundamental reform of the banks and regulators.

Join the fight to break up the banks and reform APRA!

The mortgage fraud by the banks that APRA has covered up massively expanded Australia’s housing and debt bubble. Now the borrowers who couldn’t afford their mortgage in the first place are threatened by rising interest rates, which will trigger increasing defaults and ultimately crash the bubble—and the banks. The CEC’s Banking System Reform (Separation of Banks) Bill 2018, which Bob Katter MP introduced in Parliament on 25 June, will break up the banks, by separating the commercial banks with deposits from all other financial activities, and bring APRA under strict Parliamentary control. This will enable the government to implement measures that clean up retail banks used by the public in a way that stops them from crashing, and stops APRA from using its “bail-in” powers to steal our savings to prop them up.

Contact your MP today to demand they debate Bob Katter’s bill! The government wants to shelve it, so we must force them to debate it, which will force all MPs to either support it, or justify why they won’t—and in light of the revelations from the royal commission, which have led to many calls to break up the banks, that will be very hard.

There’s truth in this.

Just HAD to share this crack up!

Some interesting data if you run a business - 150 seconds.

Click the Read More button to view the video:

Adani’s plundering of our scarce resource for coal mining in the name of corporate profits must not be allowed to proceed.

For the sake of our farmers and our children.

The governments of Australia, United States, United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand have made the strongest statement yet that they intend to force technology providers to provide lawful access to users' encrypted communications.

The banking and finance system must serve the interests of the people and the country. Currently this is not the case in Australia .... and much of the world. Please sign the petition to change this.

Does this not explain so many things?

Until next time,
dream big dreams,
plan out how to achieve them,
be continually executing your plans,
enlist people to your causes,
travel and/or read widely, preferably both,
all the while observing what you observe
rather than thinking what you are told to think,
think well of your fellow man,
take time to help your fellow man,
he sorely needs it and it will help you too,
eat food that is good for your body,
exercise your body,
take time to destress,
and do the important things
that make a difference -
they are rarely the urgent ones!

Most of the content herein has been copied from someone else. Especially the images. My goodness some people are talented at creating aesthetics! The small bits that are of my creation are Copyright 2014-2018 © by Tom Grimshaw - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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