Stop the Asian Invasion: Chinese Takeover of Australia - Politicians 4 Sale

[Br.IanVonTurpie]

  http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2013/09/02/324413_ntnews.html

A CHINESE state-owned company has been fined $14,850 for paying workers as little as $1.90 an hour.
China Sanan Engineering Construction Corporation was investigated by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship when it used Chinese workers to assess and supervise the dismantling and removal of heavy equipment at the former Mitsubishi site in Adelaide from October 2009 to June 2010.

The Fair Work Ombudsman said it became involved as there were claims the company was paying workers as little as $1.90 per hour.
The matter went to the Federal Circuit Court which accepted evidence that after the workers returned home to China they were paid wages that met Australian minimum wage requirements.
Federal Circuit Court Judge Denys Simpson fined the company $14,850 for breaching workplace law relating to frequency of payments which requires employers to pay  employees wages at least monthly.

The company was fined because the wages were paid  only after the workers returned home  to China.




Damn those sneaky employers in Australia who get these slaves to take our work.. the cheek of it all!

[Br.IanVonTurpie]

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/companies/holden-factory-should-be-sold-to-the-chinese-expert/story-fni0d54v-1226717216719

HOLDEN'S car factory should be sold to - or create an alliance with - a Chinese company, says the industry expert who drafted the controversial plan that forced Holden, Toyota and Nissan to share their locally-made cars in the 1980s. 
 
Dr Nicholas Gruen, an economic policy adviser to two Federal Government ministers and a former head of a Productivity Commission Inquiry also said if Australian car manufacturing were shut down it's "not a catastrophe, it's unfortunate".

He suggested the Australian manufacturing facilities owned by Holden and Ford should be sold to or have an alliance formed with a Chinese company.

Dr Gruen said governments needed to attach more conditions to any future handouts.
"We've already committed to throwing a fair bit of money at this industry for good or for bad, how can we can think about doing it in the most constructive way possible?" said Dr Gruen.
Despite being pledged $5.4 billion in taxpayer funding over 10 years the Australian car manufacturing industry is on the brink since Ford announced it would close its factories in October 2016.

The parts supply base that typically manufactures components for all three local car makers will need to survive on the outputs of Holden and Toyota once Ford closes.
It means the industry will likely need more taxpayer assistance to make fewer parts and vehicles while employing fewer people.

The local car industry is being crippled because Australia has high labour costs and a strong currency compared to other car-making countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
Low import tariffs, meanwhile, have helped foreign cars crush the sales dominance of the locally-made Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore.

[Br.IanVonTurpie]

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/realestate/lleyton-hewitt8217s-west-lakes-mansion-back-on-market-at-3m/story-fni0c830-1226727234748?utm_source=The%20Advertiser&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&net_sub_uid=81520781

LLEYTON Hewitt’s family hopes fresh marketing, including promotion in China, and an improved market will help sell the tennis star’s long-vacant $3 million West Lakes house.                                       
The palatial home in Adelaide's west is now listed on realestate.com.au                and Harcourts Aqua agent Steve von der Borch, who is selling the home, said he expected increased interest in the property.
Hewitt's parents Glynn and Cherilyn Hewitt have granted Mr von der Borch permission to upload more photos of the 29 Martin Court property, giving homebuyers their first real look inside the tennis superstar's home.
"We're not selling a secret anymore and we can make a bit of noise about it, so we've put it up online and will put it up on an international website and very likely it will form part of what we'll take to China for a property exhibition in Shanghai in December," Mr von der Borch said.



Yes, China is the answer to our money problems.. who cares If our kids have Asian overlords owning everything? I'll light a cigar and retire and die.

[Br.IanVonTurpie]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-02/fullerton-high-stakes/4289756

The much anticipated release of Dr Ken Henry's White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century is sure to raise the stakes on foreign ownership. In part two of her investigation, ABC's Ticky Fullerton looks at the politics around Chinese agricultural investment.

As everyone obsesses about Cubbie Station and Tasmanian dairies, what's fallen off the radar is a tender for a huge chunk of land with its attached water rights in the Kimberley region of Western Australia: the $311 million Stage-2 expansion of the Ord development.

The announcement of the winner was expected from the Government in mid-July, but commercial terms for the tender are being altered. Politically the delay is very convenient.

Unlike Cubbie, the Ord tender has a competitive bid from a local cattle company. The Australian Agricultural Company (AACo), which owns about 1.1 per cent of Australia's land mass, is competing to develop the 15,000 hectares of land. The other front runner is a Shanghai-based company, the Zhongfu Group, whose bid was reportedly assisted by Bob Hawke. The Australian reported (Paywall) that Zhongfu believes it actually needs 30,000-40,000 hectares of sugar crops in the region.

Barnaby Joyce has weighed in here too - this time after it was made public in May that Trade Minister Craig Emerson had been working for a year on a joint study with the Chinese government to examine policy changes needed for large scale investment by Chinese agricultural interests in undeveloped land in northern Australia. That was a red rag to a bull for Senator Joyce.

Senator Joyce went as far as to suggest that Craig Emerson, a former economic adviser to Mr Hawke in the '80s, was "following on the heels of his former boss... who does not hide, but he's involved in selling large parts of regional Australia to the Chinese."

An apoplectic Dr Emerson hit back. He denied any knowledge of Mr Hawke acting for Zhongfu in the tender process until he read about it in The Australian. He called (Paywall) Senator Joyce's comments a "disgraceful slur".

On The Business in June AACo's chief executive David Farley raised issues of possible government bias over the Ord, in the middle of the tender process.


The Australian's reported Bob Hawke's relationship with the - one of the proponents for the bid. We've read today that our Trade Minister Emerson has been promoting the product - the development itself in China. Obviously there's an influence there.

Emerson hit back again about his joint investment study.


...there is no proposal, despite what Senator Joyce and Senator Heffernan are saying, for foreign investors to come in here, buy up the Australian farm, dedicate the production to their home markets and not sell it on the market.

As the Trade Minister, and not Treasurer, Emerson is not formally part of the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) approvals process. Yet the political backdrop is interesting.

An astute China watcher I spoke with recently observed the unhappiness among Chinese officials at the recent building up of Australia's ties with America and that Craig Emerson's Joint Study to encourage Chinese investment is to some degree an appeasement.

Furthermore, there are an ever increasing number of former politicians turned lobbyists actively working for Chinese firms looking at buying into Australia; including Bob Hawke, Alexander Downer and John Brumby. And when John Howard told a conference (Paywall) in China that foreign investment should be welcomed "without any sense of conditionality" he was speaking as global co-chairman of the Asia Pacific CEO Association, one of the summit's sponsors. All of this means interactions between lobbyists and cabinet ministers, particularly the Treasurer, who has sole discretion over any foreign investment decision referred from FIRB, have to be squeaky clean. Interesting times indeed.

As it turns out Zhongfu is not a State Owned Entity - that is what they clearly told me via the ABC's Beijing office in July. But then neither is telecom services provider Huawei, banned from bidding for the NBN for national security reasons. So if a concern with State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) is that the state might use its leverage to intervene, then what of commercial companies like Huawei where there are questionable ties with the Chinese Communist Party? Could they be influenced to operate in the Chinese national interest if directed?

For David Farley the playing field is skewed on so many levels; foreign investment needs a complete rethink. SOEs have deep pockets, cheaper funding costs, and don't necessarily look to make commercial returns. In a recent conversation with me he pointed to private equity like TPG skipping off with its massive tax play on Myer. He said they can structure themselves smartly in a way that companies like his just can't. That goes for capital gains, depreciation, and even passive investment income.

"At the moment we are making it attractive for foreign capital to participate and harvest good reward from and take out of the country without it being to the benefit of the country", Mr Farley told (PDF) the Senate committee examining the FIRB's national interest test.

Not 15 years ago, when AMP had the massive Stanbroke Pastoral, I remember driving through the Namoi Valley past National Mutual-owned cotton farms. They are all gone. The capital growth plays of the '90s have been overtaken by an aging baby boom generation wanting dividends now.

After presenting Landline I gained great friends whose livelihoods depend on strong trade relations with our Asian neighbours and who are appalled with a 'paranoid' position on China. Yet earlier this year, they were the ones stressing just how serious the interruption of live export of cattle was to Indonesia, as the Indonesians saw this as a threat to their protein chain.

David Farley again, whose major business is live transport, explains:


...if you disrupt food chains into countries, you soon disrupt social stability and government stability... The disruption or the banning of the live trade 12 months ago, the consequences are still flowing on... We'll need dexterity with our ability to meet the demand on Australia, to meet the global calling of food... And we're talking of assets now that have got incredible life to them. These aren't like gas fields or coal mines.

The Senate Committee report promises to be eye opening, if it doesn't change practices before its release. Already FIRB appears to be sharpening up its act. The new Chairman Brian Wilson is a former banker with a nose for tax issues.

In August, FIRB mused about requiring all sales to occur through open markets unless the investor brings in a commercial partner or third-party manager and calls for local listings, as Huawei has recently proposed.

Let me stress that these two reports are not anti-foreign investment. They call for more disclosure and more scrutiny. Chinese investment in Australian agriculture is likely to increase. Just look at Tasmanian Premier Lara Giddings' determined attempts to encourage Chinese investment in the state's dairy and forestry industries, post the Gunns collapse. If anywhere needs propping up with a bit of foreign investment, it's Tasmania.

Yet the debate around Chinese investment remains badly skewed. I for one was disappointed by the ANU's attempts earlier in the month to stimulate 'informed debate'. No doubt it was partly in response to this year's Lowy Institute Poll showing 81 per cent of respondents said they were against "the Australian Government allowing foreign companies to buy Australian farmland to grow crops or farm livestock", and 56 per cent felt "the Australian Government is allowing too much investment from China".

Dr Ken Henry, head of the Australia in the Asian Century task force, said the rules need to be better explained if the community is to support such investment, only to later quip at a conference, "I hear and hear quite often that people in the bush are outraged about foreigners buying their land. Well they're the people who are selling the land to the foreigners." Many folk have left the land with a heavy heart, not least because of a changing water policy.

The stakes are about to be raised on foreign ownership, with the release of Dr Henry's White Paper. So it's worth noting that as Heffernan warns the national interest test is purely political, the Senate committee is also political: it's Coalition driven. David Farley talks his own book, that's his job.

But let's not be bullied into an unquestioning belief that Chinese agricultural investment is right, almost righteous for Australia, at a time when so many questions hang over the FIRB process and the national interest test.

Investment should be welcomed, subject to an approval process that stands the test of time. If not, sooner or later, there'll be another small voice from somewhere saying "please explain?" And would anyone want that?

[Br.IanVonTurpie]

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/china-alleges-its-money-was-used-on-palmer-united-party-taxis/story-fnii5v6u-1226978331900


CLIVE Palmer used money from the Chinese Government to pay taxi cabs to ferry around Palmer United Party scrutineers at last year's Federal election, according to Federal Court testimony. 
 
Alleged expenditure of PUP scrutineers at last year's Federal poll could also come under scrutiny, as a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned company Citic Pacific seeks answers on the whereabouts of $12.167 million from a bank account controlled by Palmer's mining company.

Mr Palmer has denied there is any money missing from the account in question.

It is part of a massive legal dispute between Mr Palmer's Mineralogy and his estranged business partner, Citic Pacific's subsidiary Sino Iron, over the operation of a West Australian iron ore mine.

The Courier-Mail this week revealed Sino Iron had lobbed 15 applications in the Supreme Court of Queensland, including subpoenas for two cheque butts for $12 million and one for the Federal MP himself to put in an appearance at secret arbitration hearings.

Claims some of the funds paid for taxis demonstrate the level of detail being sought in the legal dispute, as Citic Pacific's subsidiaries attempt to trace the use of funds from an account intended to pay for the management of a WA port by Mineralogy.

Lawyer for Sino Iron Andrew Bell SC has questioned whether Mineralogy could have legitimately spent over $20 million when it was yet to take control of the port.
"There are really serious questions about the operation of this account," Dr Bell told a Federal Court hearing in Perth on May 7. "It (the account) has been used to fund Mineralogy over legal proceedings. It has been used to fund engineers in respect of other tenements controlled by Mr Palmer.

"Some of it has been used to pay for taxis for scrutineering in the federal election."

But Mr Palmer said the real issue was "hundreds of millions of dollars" in royalties he says is owed to him by Sino Iron relating to their operations in his Pilbara mining tenements.

Mr Palmer could not be reached for comment yesterday. The Gold Coast-based mining magnate, whose wealth has been estimated at almost $1 billion, is head of the self-named party that now holds the balance of power in the Senate.

Under examination is expenditure that includes $10 million said to be paid by cheque to little-known Palmer company Cosmo Developments as well as $2.167 million allegedly paid to Fortitude Valley-based advertising company Media Circus Network last September, the month of the federal election.


Just lovely how our Pollies are getting $ from China to boost their election spruiking and party status!

[Rev.Cambeul]

And from a hostile nation at that. We'll need an extra thick power pole to hang that fat traitor from, come the Day of the Rope!