Tuesday, February 16, 2016

ICAC RICCO: Botany Council

Allegations of multimillion-dollar fraud and  kickbacks for contracts at Botany Bay City Council will be examined at a public inquiry headed by NSW anti-corruption chief Megan Latham.
As the Independent Commission Against Corruption comes under sustained fire over its controversial inquiry into Crown Prosecutor Margaret Cunneen, SC, it has announced a new probe into allegations former Botany Bay Council chief financial officer Gary Goodman and other employees defrauded $4.2 million from the council using false invoices... The inquiry, codenamed Operation Ricco, is also probing allegations that Mr Goodman "solicited and received payments as an inducement or reward for showing favourable treatment to contractors". Councillors are not involved in the investigation ICAC to investigate alleged fraud and kickbacks at botany bay city council

"How can it possibly be acceptable for the state's chief law officer to refer a witness in a corruption inquiry to the target the inquiry?" 
Minister Brad Hazzard put Margaret Cunneen accident witness in touch with icac nsw parliament hears

Andrew Clennell: Almost two years into Mike Baird's premiership, there are four people who have eyes on his job Those who are working behind Baird's back


Nearly all of the government agencies which last year snooped on citizens' phone and internet records without warrants have reapplied to access the data following the introduction of legislation which was meant to reduce the scope of access. Sixty-one non-law enforcement federal and state agencies, including organisations such as Australia Post and Sydney's Bankstown City Council, have applied to access citizens' metadata for pursuing criminal activity or protecting public revenue Meta metadata without warrants the best unkept secret 


One resident accused Randwick Council of turning their backs on the community by favouring the proposed amalgamation with Woollahra and Waverley Councils. The Randwick resident, who would only identify as Dr Jayasuriya, took aim at his local councillors.
“Randwick councillors turned their backs on their colleagues on the unanimous resolution of council, on the affirmations that they made to their residents,” Dr Jayasuriya said.
“Ignored the plight of the community and succumbed to the pressure from the local government minister to join forces with Waverley to consume Woollahra.”
Dr Jayasuriya claimed that he could produce an “illuminating” example of these allegations.
“I submit that the fundamentally flawed process of how it conducted and analysed this community survey is an illuminating example,” Dr Jayasuriya said.
“Only 30 per cent of the survey respondents supported amalgamation, the remaining 70 per cent either don’t support or are not sure,” he said.
Labor Randwick Mayor, Noel D’Souza, did not directly reference that statistic in particular during his address to the forum and delegates earlier that day.
Cr D’Souza instead opted to assert that around half of the residents who responded to the survey were in favour of an amalgamation, with the other half against Sparks fly as residents react to mergers

UK Local councils, public bodies and even some university student unions are to be banned by law from boycotting “unethical” companies Unethical Companies

A meeting of the Mitchell Shire Council, north of Melbourne, was interrupted by a large banana entering the council chamber towards the end of the meeting via Big Banana junket The Herald Sun