Jozef Imrich, name worthy of Kafka, has his finger on the pulse of any irony of interest and shares his findings to keep you in-the-know with the savviest trend setters and infomaniacs.
''I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.''
-Kurt Vonnegut
Lucinda Garbutt-Young
Ray Athwal
Eleanor Campbell
February 11 2026
Top defence officials faced questions about the Albanese government's $3 billion defence estate overhaul during Senate estimates hearings on Wednesday.
Treasury secretary Jenny Wilkinson appeared after the Reserve Bank of Australia's interest rate hike last week, with Coalition senators honing in on concerns about record-high government spending. Bureaucrats were probed on supermarket price gouging changes, capital gains tax discounts and forward estimates.
Purchasing a $100 million stake in the controversial Trump-linked company was done by an external fund manager, a Future Fund representative has told Senate estimates
Economist Thomas Piketty, writing for Le Monde (archive) on the success of Europe’s social democratic model and countering “the narrative of a ‘declining’ continent”:
If someone had told the European elites and liberal economists of 1914 that wealth redistribution would one day account for half of national income, they would have unanimously condemned the idea as collectivist madness and predicted the continent’s ruin. In reality, European countries have achieved unprecedented levels of prosperity and social well-being, largely due to collective investments in health, education and public infrastructure.
To win the cultural and intellectual battle, Europe must now assert its values and defend its model of development, fundamentally opposed to the nationalist-extractivist model championed by Donald Trump’s supporters in the United States and by Vladimir Putin’s allies in Russia. A crucial issue in this fight is the choice of indicators used to measure human progress.
For these indicators, Piketty mentions some of the same factors that economist Gabriel Zucman detailed in his Le Monde piece I posted in December:
More leisure time, better health outcomes, greater equality and lower carbon emissions, all with broadly comparable productivity: Europeans can be proud of their model, argues Gabriel Zucman, director of the EU Tax Observatory.
New Database Maps the Politics of America’s Workplaces
PHYS.org: “Researchers, including Professor of Management and Organization Reuben Hurstat the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, have produced VRscores, an unprecedented public database for understanding the partisan lean of different employers in the United States.
The results “strike us that the workplace could be distinct in terms of creating an environment where Democrats can interact with Republicans in ways that would make people less affectively polarized,” says Hurst, who adds that he has always been interested in the intersection between business and politics. “People spend more time at work than at any other part of life. I think it leads to the question, ‘How do experiences at work relate to the political behaviors and attitudes outside of work?’”
The dataset covers 2012 through 2024 and brings together data on 534,000 employers and 24.5 million workers by linking U.S. voter registrations to electronically available worker profiles. Hurst says one of the project’s main goals was to figure out to what extent people were exposed to people who were politically different from them at work. “There’s a lot of work in social psychology suggesting that for intergroup interactions to decrease animosity or prejudice, there must be certain conditions.
Those interactions are much more likely to decrease animosity when you are working together for a shared goal but under the same leadership,” he says, noting that the workplace is one of the only places where people who have different political beliefs consistently work together with a shared goal.
The data can be visualized and downloaded on the Politics at Workwebsite, where the researchers break down partisan data by geographic region, industry and occupation, as well as by organizations.
The data shows that some industries tend to lean more Republican, like the oil and gas industry. Hurst also notes that more pilots tend to be Republican while professors, museum curators and writers tend to have a more liberal lean. Referencing visualizations on the website, Hurst points out the field of finance leans more toward the Democratic party, “which I think is kind of surprising to people.”
Journalists can be infuriating. They simplify. They exaggerate. They sometimes get things wrong. They are disproportionally university-educated, middle-class and a bit left-wing, so their attitudes often jar with the rest of the population. When they act unethically—for example, when the bbc’s Panorama programme aired clips of President Donald Trump that had been spliced together in a misleading manner—people are rightly outraged. Trust in the news media has declined across the rich world, especially since the advent of social media allowed errors in reporting to be more widely reviled. So some people may not care much when they hear that journalism is in trouble. Yet it is in their interest to care.
The Epstein files unveiled a litany of wealthy, smart, powerful men apparently unbothered by the exploitation of women and girls. But as far as the Trump administration is concerned, the saga is now effectively over.
Follow the Changes: 9 Ways Web Archives are Used in Digital Investigations
Internet Archive Blogs: “Digital journalists increasingly turn to web archives like the Wayback Machine to follow how things on the Internet break, change or disappear – from deleted posts to quietly edited pages.
The web has become not only a source of informationbut also the subject of media investigations, prompting journalists, researchers and activists to use digital archives to reconstruct timelines, verify claims, uncover hidden connections and hold powerful actors to account. As online materials grow more fragile and prone to disappearance, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine has been critical in making “lost” web pages available – recently celebrating archiving over a trillion pages.
In this piece we draw on the Internet Archive’s News Stories collection to surface practices and use cultures of the Wayback Machine amongst journalists and media organisations. We analysed a dataset of about 8,600 news articles, assembled by the IA via daily Google News keyword searches since 2018. Drawing on a combination of digital methods, machine learning and lots of reading – we surfaced nine ways that journalists use the Wayback Machine in their reporting…”
The tax office is set to auction a Melbourne apartment to recover some of the $27m in unpaid tax after its owner fled overseas, as authorities continue a years-long pursuit.
to recover nearly $27m in unpaid tax after its owner fled overseas. Picture: realestate.com
The Australian Tax Office has spent years chasing nearly $27m in unpaid tax from a Chinese national who fled Australia and vanished overseas, leaving authorities scrambling to claw back the money.
A string of documents seen by News Corp reveal the ATO has been locked in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse with Shuming Zou, 72, who quietly left Australia for China in November 2019 and never returned.
The pursuit has now culminated in the seizure and forced sale of Mr Zou’s Docklands apartment in Melbourne, which is set to go under the hammer on Thursday.
Investigators allege Mr Zou secretly funnelled $24m into Australia from offshore and failed to declare the funds in his tax returns, prompting a major investigation.
Property records show Mr Zou and his wife once held at least five properties across Sydney, including a sprawling Burwood home that sold for $4.5m in 2017.
The sprawling Burwood home
was sold for $4.5m in 2017
Mr Zou’s spouse, ‘Xiao’, is listed as the current registered owner of a property on Murrell St in Ashfield, inner west Sydney.
He is also listed as a former director of companies Restwell Investment, Z & X Development, Jincheng Investment and HYT Investment, all of which have since been deregistered, according to ASIC records.
Mr Zou loaned more than USD$2m to then ASX-listed Kimberley Diamonds in September 2016, according to historical annual reports.
That same year, Restwell Investment agreed to acquire USD$6m worth of diamonds from the company.
The Burwood property was located
on Eurella St. Picture: realestate.com
Kimberley Diamonds was an Australian-based explorer and miner with assets in Australia, Botswana and Spain.
Its flagship Ellendale mine in Western Australia was the world’s leading source of rare yellow diamonds, with output sold to Laurelton Diamonds Inc, a Tiffany & Co subsidiary.
The company was delisted from the ASX in March 2017 following financial collapse, the closure of Ellendale, and problems at its Lerala mine in Botswana.
In December 2020, with Mr Zou already overseas, the ATO issued a formal demand requiring him to secure a future tax bill estimated at $24.7m by handing over a first-ranking mortgage on his Docklands apartment.
He ignored the demand.
Fearing Mr Zou would offload his assets and leave Australian taxpayers footing the bill, the ATO rushed to court.
The apartment is located on 888
Collins St, Docklands.
2 min readIn April 2021, the Federal Court froze the Docklands property, blocking any sale after finding there was a real risk the asset would disappear.
The apartment was unmortgaged and had already been listed for sale.
Justice Davies found Mr Zou had “grossly understated his income” over a number of years.
“Mr Zou appears to have business interests in China and the ability and motive to sell the property and move funds offshore,” she said when handing down her judgement in 2021.
“He has also … been uncooperative with the Commissioner … and demonstrated a lack of willingness to comply with his obligations.”
By August 2022, the debt had ballooned into a $26.97m judgment, covering unpaid tax, penalties and interest for the 2016-2018 financial years.
In April 2021, the Federal Court
froze the Docklands property. Picture: realestate.com
Mr Zou, who was born in Hangzhou, China, did not appear in court and filed no defence.
The original freezing orders meant the Sheriff couldn’t legally sell the apartment, forcing the ATO back to court yet again.
In March 2025, a judge finally cleared the way, ruling the property sale was the “intended outcome” of enforcing the debt.
The apartment, on Collins St, is now scheduled for auction on Thursday, despite Mr Zou still owing more than $1300 in council rates, documents lodged with Sheriff’s Office Victoria show.
Mr Zou’s accountant was listed as Electronic Taxation & Accounting, which lists its principal place of business on Sussex St in Sydney’s CBD, formerly on Hercules St in Ashfield, and its director as Tak Bo Cheng.
An ATO spokesman told News Corp they were unable to comment on the tax affairs of any individual or entity due to their obligations of confidentiality under the
Australian Office of Financial Management staff blew the whistle to Treasury on their concerns about the $1 trillion debt agency’s restructuring, loss of workers, and the performance under chief executive Anna Hughes, Treasury boss Jenny Wilkinson has confirmed.
The outreach from AOFM officials to Treasury deputy secretary Damien White, combined with poor staff census results and a high turnover of employees, prompted Wilkinson to commission an independent review of the debt agency by former Reserve Bank of Australia deputy governor Guy Debelle, she told a Senate committee on Wednesday.
The Australian Financial Review revealed the Debelle review this week and published an investigation into concerns among AOFM employees about Hughes’ leadership style and a staff exodus, which led to a loss of experience from the debt management agency.
The AOFM has 48 employees, according to its annual report. But over the past year, at least 22 have left, and theFinancial Review has obtained a list of their names.
More than a quarter of AOFM staff surveyed as part of the Australian Public Service census last year said they wanted to leave within 12 months, and more than a third of those said the primary reason was the poor quality of senior leadership. In employee engagement, the AOFM ranked 86th out of 107 government agencies.
Asked by Liberal senator Dave Sharma if AOFM staff had approached Treasury to voice their concerns, Wilkinson confirmed that this had occurred late last year.
“We continued to be kind of actively engaging with the AOFM and have had discussions with a range of different people about the restructure and about the performance,” Wilkinson told a Senate committee on Wednesday. “As I recall, towards the end of last year, and when there were some ongoing issues which were raised with us from a few different quarters.
“I had a discussion with the head of the AOFM, who is the accountable authority, and discussed with her the fact that I thought it would be a good idea to do an independent review to make sure that I could be assured that they had the right skills and capabilities in place to be managing the important role that they do.”
Vital financial role
The AOFM plays a vital financial role for Australia, raising money from international and domestic investors to fund the federal government’s widening budget deficits.
It manages about $993 billion of debt securities and the government’s cash, and provides advice on a range of financial risks. This financial year alone, it will sell about $125 billion worth of Treasury bonds, including to banks, pension funds and sovereign wealth funds.
The AOFM has undergone a big restructuring. Last year, it appointed a new deputy CEO – former Lendlease executive Katina Kikitis – and a new chief operating officer – former Westpac executive Julia Hendrikson.
Seven roles were made redundant in October, and there were at least three other redundancies before that.
Debelle’s snap review of the AOFM’s structure, governance and capabilities will primarily focus on checking that it is effectively managing the $993 billion of debt securities, is issuing debt at value for taxpayers’ money, is managing financial risks and has people with the right skills.
His review, due by March 31, will not extend to unproven claims of so-called corruption and other workplace culture matters, which will be matters to be considered by the AOFM, Treasury and other government institutions.
Treasury boss Jenny Wilkinson says the report will be made public, but some sections might have to remain confidential. Alex Ellinghausen
But Wilkinson said the review could include workplace culture if it were relevant to the effectiveness of the AOFM to perform its role.
“It’s critical that I and the government are assured that the AOFM has the right skills and organisational leadership to do their job properly,” Wilkinson said.
“We have been clear in the terms of reference, particularly given some of the issues that have been raised, that if over the course of this review, Dr Debelle was to decide that he thought that there was some other matters which go beyond just organisational capability, that of course we would expect that he would raise that with us.”
Need to protect identities
The report would be made public, she said. However, sections that were legally sensitive or needed to protect people’s identities and confidentiality might not be released by Treasury, she added.
“I think it’s important for the parliament and for the Australian community to be aware of what the outcome of this review is,” Wilkinson said.
“There could be matters raised which are not appropriate to be made public.
“And I think we need to be clear with individuals that we would protect their confidentiality so that we can have a thorough review.”
The Financial Review reported on Wednesday that Treasury deputy secretary for fiscal group, Damien White, met AOFM staff to discuss their concerns about the welfare of people at the agency and the significant loss of expertise.
White confirmed to a Senate estimates hearing that he talked to AOFM staff in confidence about their concerns. “I think I want to protect the ability of people to do that without having anything suggested about who they are,” he said.
White said it was unsurprising that some AOFM staff opposed the agency’s change program, including redundancies.
“So as best I can tell, and I’m not a debt management expert, in what we’ve seen over the last several months, or maybe six months, or even longer, the AOFM’s ability to raise the debt that they require to fund our budget seems to have been going well.”
A spokesperson for the AOFM said it was focused on its core responsibilities – “issuing debt securities on behalf of the Australian government, managing its cash and debt portfolios, and implementing initiatives related to the Australian securitisation market”.
“Recent internal changes at the AOFM are enabling a more agile, contemporary organisation capable of operating in an increasingly complex global financial market,” the spokesperson said. “The agency’s diverse, experienced and highly skilled workforce continues to deliver on its key purposes and meet or exceed the performance measures set out in the corporate plan,”
One in five respondents to the staff census said they had observed a public official engaging in conduct they would consider to be “corrupt”.
Participants appear to have used a wider-than-usual definition of corruption, and the Financial Review is not suggesting that Hughes, or any official at the AOFM, is accused of corruption.
“The AOFM takes allegations of corruption, fraud or misconduct seriously and is committed to high standards of integrity, professionalism and accountability, including maintaining a safe and respectful workplace,” the AOFM spokesperson said.
managing the federal government’s almost $1 trillion
debt will face an independent review by former Reserve
Bank of Australia deputy governor Guy Debelle, following
the exit of an unusually high number of employees over the
past year.
Debelle has been tapped by Treasury Secretary Jenny Wilkinson to conduct a review of the Australian Office of Financial Management’s structure, governance and capabilities, The Australian Financial Review can reveal.
The AOFM has 48 employees, but at least 22 staff have departed in just over the past year, including at least 10 redundancies as part of a major restructure overseen by its chief executive, Anna Hughes.
Australian Office of Financial Management CEO Anna Hughes outside the Treasury building in Canberra in 2023. AFR
More than a quarter of AOFM staff surveyed as part of the Australian Public Service census last year said they wanted to leave within 12 months, and over a third of those said the primary reason was the poor quality of senior leadership.
Separately, some 18 per cent of staff – almost one in five – told the anonymous census held in May and June that in the previous 12 months they had observed a public official engaging in conduct they would consider to be “corrupt”.
The so-called corruption concerns at the AOFM in 2025 were 16 percentage points higher than for the overall public service, and up 9 percentage points for the agency compared with 2024. Participants appear to have used a wider-than-usual definition of corruption, and theFinancial Review is not suggesting any official at the AOFM is accused of corruption.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said he understood concerns had been raised about the AOFM and they were being taken seriously.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers confirmed that the independent review will take place. Dominic Lorrimer
“That’s why the treasury secretary commissioned an independent review of the AOFM to ensure it has the right structure, governance and capabilities,” Chalmers said. “I’m not going to pre-empt that review.”
“The AOFM plays an important role in government financing and in our financial markets, and we want to ensure it’s as effective as it can be.”
The AOFM is an agency in the Treasury portfolio responsible for raising money from global debt investors to fund the federal government’s widening budget deficit. It sells Australian government bonds and now pays an interest rate of almost 5 per cent on new 10-year debt securities.
Debelle’s appointment will be formally announced this week.
His review will primarily focus on checking that the AOFM is effectively managing the $993 billion of debt securities, is issuing debt at value-for-money for taxpayers, is managing financial risks and that it has staff with the right skills.
Former RBA deputy Guy Debelle will conduct the review. Bloomberg
As a central banker, he led the global effort in 2017 to fix the $US6.5 trillion foreign exchange market, after it was allegedly manipulated by bank traders. He chaired an international committee of central banks, investment banks and institutional investors, which enshrined principles into a code of conduct.
Debelle’s review of the AOFM will not extend to the unproven claims of so-called corruption and other workplace culture matters, which are considerations for other government institutions.
His review is expected to take up to a couple of months. The final report is expected be made public under draft terms of reference being prepared by Treasury and due to be released this week.
Hughes, a former South Australian government official, was appointed chief executive in November 2022 by then Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy, in a move announced by Chalmers.
She has overseen a major restructure of the AOFM since taking over the agency in 2023.
The overhaul includes the installation of former Westpac executive Julia Hendrikson as the chief operating officer in May 2025, and former Lendlease executive Katina Kikitis as deputy CEO in June last year.
A spokesperson for the AOFM said it was focused on its core responsibilities: “issuing debt securities on behalf of the Australian government, managing its cash and debt portfolios, and implementing initiatives related to the Australian securitisation market.
“Recent internal changes at the AOFM are enabling a more agile, contemporary organisation capable of operating in an increasingly complex global financial market. The agency’s diverse, experienced and highly skilled workforce continues to deliver on its key purposes and meet or exceed the performance measures set out in the corporate plan,” the spokesperson said.
“The AOFM takes allegations of corruption, fraud or misconduct seriously and is committed to high standards of integrity, professionalism and accountability, including maintaining a safe and respectful workplace.”
A point of tension between Hughes and current and former officials has been the bond issuance strategy for funding the government’s escalating debt.
Traditionally, the AOFM has devised innovative strategies to reduce interest costs for taxpayers, such as shifting the mix of money borrowed at the short or long end of the yield curve, depending on expected costs for different tenure bonds.
In recent years, former insiders say there has been barely any questioning or change of strategies to borrow when interest rates change.
The AOFM is borrowing much more long-term debt than is needed to fund the government’s operations, even when shorter-term debt becomes relatively cheaper.
Under the current precautionary strategy, the AOFM had an average $65 billion cash balance on deposit at the RBA in 2024-25 – tens of billions more than in the past before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Now, the AOFM just has to make sure the money’s there when the government needs it, and cost is not even a consideration,” a former insider said.
The AOFM is borrowing long at higher interest rates and parking the excess money to earn a lower interest rate on deposits at the RBA.
The difference in the interest rate for what the government pays for the 10-year debt and then expects to earn on deposit at the RBA over time is known as the term premium, which is about 0.8 of a percentage point, according to the AOFM website.
Taking into account that about half of what the AOFM has deposited at the RBA – around $32 billion last financial year – is funded from short-term Treasury notes, the government is currently paying more than an estimated $200 million extra each year in expected net interest costs under this new strategy.
Hughes told a Senate hearing on December 4 that the AOFM operates a liquidity buffer of about $30 billion, which could help navigate a disruption in funding markets, such as during Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs in April 2025.
“We did have a reasonable amount of cash on hand at that particular point in time because we had a number of maturities coming up this financial year that we need to prepare for,” Hughes said in December.
“We will never go below that $30 billion.”
An audit of the AOFM by the Australian National Audit Office found in February 2024 that the AOFM was “largely effective” at managing costs and financial risks associated with government debt management, but called for stronger scrutiny of the cost of borrowing.
“The AOFM has policies and processes in place to support cost-effective borrowing, but it does not assess whether the government debt portfolio was structured at [the] least cost subject to acceptable risk,” the ANAO said.
The AOFM hired ANZ to oversee a $14 billion government bond sale in April 2023, but became alarmed by market moves when the deal terms were set.
That compelled AOFM officials to seek answers from ANZ, which escalated into a high-stakes investigation by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
The probe also uncovered that ANZ had misreported bond trading volumes to the agency.
ANZ, in September, agreed to pay $135 million in penalties relating to the incident, but denied its actions had increased costs to the taxpayer.
Hughes told a parliamentary hearing in December that the agency’s leaders had been working hard on wellbeing, communication and ensuring staff were enjoying their work.
”We actually, for the first time, have a wellbeing policy, and so we have been working really hard over the last 12 months to help improve some of those goals,” she told the Senate committee.
Hughes said she was trying to find out the reasons for the responses in relation to concerns about alleged corruption.
“So we’ve introduced things like anonymous surveys so people who don’t feel comfortable talking to their managers can report things anonymously,” she told the hearing.
“We’ve had a number of additional officers do their public interest disclosure training so that we know what to do if those sorts of things come through. So we’re still trying to work out why that score looked the way it did.”
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John Kehoe is economics editor at Parliament House, Canberra. He writes on economics, politics and business. John was Washington correspondent covering Donald Trump’s first election. He joined the Financial Review in 2008 from Treasury. Connect with John on Twitter. Email John at jkehoe@afr.com
