Ganesh Sahathevan

by Ganesh Sahathevan NAB chairman Ken Henry has been criticised for the way in which he gave evidence at the banking royal commission  In 2010 the highly regarded Dr Kenneth Henry, then Secretary Department Of Treasury, decided that miners were making too much money. He proposed taxing at penalty rates any return on capital that he decided was "excessive". He even suggested that his brilliant idea should apply to all industries . The AFR reported: Treasury secretary Ken Henry says future governments will need to consider taxing all companies, including powerful banks and retailers, only on their above-normal profits under a system similar to the resource super profits tax. In an address to tax professionals, Dr Henry said that, as the global economy further integrated, a shift to a corporate tax system based on an “allowance for corporate equity", whereby only above-normal profits would be taxed, was worthy of serious investigation. Under such a system, hi...

Comment  These two stories  suggest that the fixated persons units have taken a different trajectory from what was originally intended. How police pre-crime units targets citizens allegedly too obsessed with public officials Serious questions arise over potential misuse of power by police departments created to identify and neutralise "fixated" individuals, writes freelance journalist  Asher Wolf .   OCT 05, 2017    5 NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller Imagine, a knock at the door. Five police officers stand outside demanding you take a psychiatric assessment. Sounds like the sort of thing you’d expect from a police state. Certainly not something you’d find in a modern liberal democracy like Australia, right? Yet according to Queensland lawyer Chris Nyst that’s  allegedly what happened  to one new client who turned up at his office. Even more alarmingly, according to Nyst, his client “… had recently made a...

by Ganesh Sahathevan Money laundering | Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission  While donations to Australian political parties from foreign sources have been banned recently   there remains the issue of Australian political parties, politicians and their backers being funded by foreign governments and their agencies using the same methods and structures used to launder money. Such donations may still be received without penalty provided the structures are sufficiently layered so as to ensure that the identity of the ultimate donor is concealed. Expecting local politicians to be provide full and complete details of the ultimate donor is not realistic, and frankly quite naive. However   the recent enactment of foreign interference laws might have changed matters such that recipients of political donations may have no choice but to disclose the identity of the ultimate donor, and in fact make every effort  to determine the identity of the do...

by Ganesh Sahathevan As mentioned before, the Department Of Justice has no business in trying to burnish its Minister's image, or protect him from criticism.  As this writer has noted before, the Attorney General NSW , and premier-in-waiting, Mark Speakman, does not appear to have what it takes to keep us safe from terrorism; he  has had trouble enough trying to manage  far simpler issues like the administration of the Oaths Act 1900. Readers are reminded that Speakman allowed his department to unlawfully exclude ministers of religion as even witnesses of statutory declarations, and even when alerted to the fact refused to rectify the matter. While this writer was than concerned with operational counter-terrorism issues, it now appears that Speakman who is considered a future premier of NSW and has had many years experience as a barrister, is not even able to ensure that the relevant legislation is up-to-date. While previously pre-occupied with interfering in religi...