Once again another scintillating piece for our scribe from the near north west frontier, in which the people obligingly prevail to turn the prison turnstiles. And from down here it’s looking good for prisons generally as we are reliably informed that the Department of Justice in the Police State has now grown to bigger than manufacturing will ever be. Perhaps it may nudge gas and clean coal as our biggest industry? Yes folks the wages bill alone for Department of Justice peck-sniffs has grown to several billions, and that’s just to keep mates engaged, at between 175 to 400 k on warming arses, filling in forms, going on junkets and making sure that there’s no trouble-makers like that tiresome bloke Assange leaking. No leaks from Victoria, cos in Victoria they indulge in the ‘correct use’ of corruption to ensure that you are safe. There’s a rumour that Assange might be freed, but pursuant to a memorandum of understanding and commercial in confidence clauses for private prisons we are unable to print the negotiations at this stage. But if you go to the Port Phillip Prison, Main Corrections facility, Admin centre, Sir Henry Bolte Wing, turn left at the Laurie Connell Leadership and Institute of Excellence Resource Wing, take the lift at the Fifth Floor, turn as instructed to a portrait of Her Majesty the Queen Cell, sign on the visitors register, pass the facility reception annexe, and then descend the flight of steps adjacent the Obeid Family Resource Centre, block 12, room five, you can see it printed on the back of a white board. (Bring your invisible ink ultra violet reading glasses and morse set for transcription).
There’s hope, from Frank, this questioning of Sovereign Risk. We looked at our portrait of the Queen painted in her Wattle Dress and it still stands proudly over the telly and just to the right of the flying ducks. No chance of Sovereign risk at pcbycp…
Frank writes……
G’day,
My friend Quentin Cockburn devoted his last entry in the Passive Complicity by Cockburn and Poole blog to Sovereign Risk http://www.pcbycp.com/
Quentin’s style could be described as over the top, farcical fantasy, but don’t be fooled. If you scratch the surface, you will be rewarded with some perspicacious nuggets.
Not only has Quentin submerged some pearls of wisdom in the shallows of a non-sequitur sea but he is modest to boot and hides behind the anonymity and safety of a pseudonym.
Quentin Cockburn arrives at Yuendumu C. 2013
Quentin has visited Yuendumu and his perception and grasp of the assimilationist agenda that we are subjected to is awe inspiring.
The word ‘sovereign’ is used in a multitude of ways. My favourite is that sovereignty that Australia’s First People never ceded.
Quentin and Ces’s arrival at Yuendumu in 2013. They discuss accommodation options at the Police Complex
Then there is that tourist mecca, Sovereign Hill in Ballarat. My appetite for irony was satisfied some years ago when a gold exploration company was prevented from drilling in the Ballarat gold field. The company wanted to drill under a heritage site. The heritage site being century old gold mining workings.
As part of the worldwide energy crisis precipitated by the Ukraine war, in Australia, which with Qatar is the world’s equal largest exporter of LNG, much focus has fallen on the huge profits generated by multinational companies. Only 4% of gas production in Australia is locally owned.
Quentin’s arrival at Yuendumu is now a literary classic in Ukraine, but scarcely known in his native land.
Through price transference (overseas companies charging excessive interest to their Australian subsidiaries), these large multinationals don’t pay any tax to Australia.
One of the main arguments presented to desist from hitting the industry with super profit taxes is its negative effect on sovereign risk.
Heaven forbid that we discourage these multinationals from investing in Australia and further tightening their grip on our resources. We definitely should not increase the risk for these companies that Australia may claim a share of their loot back!
Meanwhile at the Organisation of American States summit in Los Angeles, Cuba was not invited.
They don’t know what they’re missing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wAoBVr-_pI
See ya’s
The humble Police Complex at Yuendumu at the time of Quentin’s arrival, before it was enhanced some 20 million later with ‘state of the art killing facilities, courtesy of highly trained officers inducted from our recent success in Afghanistan’, (NT Department of Justice recruitment brochure).
Frank