if director of NSW company lives in Queensland then he will not get workcover as a working director and will have to work as an employee of a bigger company in Queensland
Queensland is against self-employed people and wants them to work as an employee of a bigger company
'Have your say', Central Western Daily, 4 May 2006 - re new WorkCover agency structure being swamped due to lack of choice for small businesses with their insurer and a bulk swap to one new insurer - page gone
As of 30/6/06, the NSW State Government has forced small businesses with under $200,000 wages per year to change to a new agency for workers compensation insurance chosen by WorkCover NSW, not the company being insured. After 1 year they can change to one of their own choice.
This will introduce a degree of non-competitiveness with fulfilling insurance claims and managing clients instead of rewarding better performing insurers.
This will lead to higher overheads in keeping our workers safe and cared for due to bureaucratic choices rather than market driven choices for a company like ours in a very competitive industry.
The massive swapping of small businesses with wages under $200,000 per year to new players in the workers compensation field has caused huge backlogs. In May 2006, the company we deal through was getting 800 calls/day and had to move to bigger premises. Phones were ringing out and not being answered due to the overload.
Who knows how Cambridge Australia (now Xchanging now part of DXC Technology a merger of CSC and HPE Enterprise Services 4/17) won the tender when they were so under-resourced? It turns out they were moving premises in April/May and upgrading their computer systems, all with no information to their customers. Email is the best way to get through to them.
This is what happened due to a bulk movement of customers to a new player and no resources being available to cope with the demand. Small businesses are left waiting for hours or days to get through by phone. It would have been wiser to use the Internet to allow customers to update
their contact details or upload forms such as wage declarations or pay their workers compensation premium via secure payment over the Internet using BPay, direct transfer or credit card. American outsourcing companies that have entered the NSW workers compensation market are seizing on opportunities to make a quick buck but are not investing in the local economy.
The NSW Minister for Small Business does not have control over this. The NSW Minister for Commerce does but seems to be pushing small businesses through the hoops to recoup costs from workers compensation rorting by tricky workers. Small businesses are paying for bigger companies' inefficiences.
Luckily Campbell resigned from NSW Cabinet in 2010 to free the position up for a better person.
Write to your local paper if this affects you. This does more good than going through politicians or bureaucrats that have vested interests in maintaining the status quo.
On 19 April 2007, we swapped back to QBE after the year expired and how happy we are now! All the dead wood is behind us now and no more badgering by a difficult department like WorkCover NSW to wear us down any more to fit in and put up with a pathetic company like Cambridge because the law said so!! 'The Law is an ass.' Freedom is a great feeling in a business. Cambridge as usual made things difficult by sending requests for actual wages twice due to a computer stuff up. We are glad not to deal any more with Cambridge. In May 2016, QBE no longer offers Workers Compensation Insurance.
Many others have left Cambridge for a better resourced insurer due to the badly handled tender to Cambridge by WorkCover NSW. WorkCover NSW and Cambridge were very difficult to get any answer from - stoney silence. This is very poor management in my opinion, ignoring the problem and hoping it will go away rather than reacting and overcoming it.
The current ALP NSW Government was not kicked out in the latest election on 24/3/07 but was in March 2011 and this kind of bungling not removed or remedied yet (2011) so it is up to individual businesses to adjust the best they can by changing insurers after the first year of hell. Cambridge did not have the resources for a massive swap and WorkCover NSW did not want to acknowledge the problem so we the little companies suffered. We fight back by moving back to a better resourced company like QBE and stop this nightmare of bungled tenders.
This is the one of the biggest rorts I've seen and smacks of complete arrogance of the NSW State Government over its citizens, the attitude of 'we know better' and 'take your medicine'. No way, not this little brown duck! We believe in choice and a listening ear or we punish the supplier by taking our business elsewhere.
From 30.06.2008, Workcover NSW has a $7500 wages threshold for taking out a workers compensation policy. Policies taken out in error cannot get a refund. We are cancelling QBE from December 2009. Minimum premium is $175.
In March 2012, I met Yasmin King, the new NSW Small Business Commissioner, at Orange at DPI offices - very level-headed government official.
In May 2013, NSW Government has legislated Small Business Commissioner Bill 2013 No 22. This forces government and big busineses not to crush small businesses.
For premiums 2013-14, NSW Government also gave incentives for paying Icare Workers Insurance (ex WorkCover) ontime (5% discount) and keeping injuries down and return to work under 13 weeks (10% discount) and reduced premiums by 7.5% in 2013, all good news!
In May 2017, NSW Small Business Commissioner did an SME policy framework survey to find out better ways to get SMEs to tender to state government. I gave information re fickleness of NSW state department dealing direct with me without giving any commitment of ongoing work which led to expense of incorporation to cover WorkCover to save department going through agency and loss of other business in Melbourne from being on call for no real benefit. Better time and budget management needed to be done by department. I had to adapt my Terms to handle these overheads to stop them making me go broke. Also expensive tender document fee from local council and expensive security certification requirement for local council tender blocked me tendering and were brought up with them.
Help SMEs rather than threaten them - An employment relations adviser has lambasted ALP's plans for a crackdown on wage theft, suggesting that reform rather than regulation is needed to address wage underpayment 5/19
Labour hire operator jailed for tax fraud 5/19 owed $660,000 in withholding tax for backpackers on farms in Riverina: Sunraysia Harvesting Contractors Pty Ltd (deregistered 6/18)
On 27/3/06, the Australian Government introduced legislation that will force incorporated entities (Pty Ltd) to:
pay a minimum hourly rate of $12.75
have a maximum working week of 38 hours averaged over a year
Following its 2012 Annual Wage Review, Fair Work Australia has increased minimum weekly wages by 2.9%. This increases the national minimum wage to $606.40 per week, or $15.96 per hour for employees not covered by an award or agreement.
In 1 July 2015, national minimum wage increased by 2.5%. The new national minimum wage will now be $656.90 per week or $17.29 per hour. see more
This will put pressure on small companies like ours to tighten controls through our project management system on bad customers trying to get lower prices, use smarter technology and outsource non-essential jobs. Managing labour costs will be essential to remain competitive.
If you run a company as working director, obviously you cannot make a claim against yourself as it would be self-defeating so this is a special case. The company must be profitable to survive.
Contractors, which is what we are, are special as they work for an amount for a specified result to be delivered at an agreed deadline using their own tools and being required to repair any problems instead of for wages so they can earn large amounts. The trade-off is there are gaps between jobs where the money has to last. As a result hourly rate and hours per week worked are averaged over a year to smooth out the peaks and troughs that come about from such unpredictable work.
So there are inherent risks as well as rewards in contracting.
To reduce overheads and risks, we never hired anyone but outsource nearly everything. Australia has such a bad reputation for industrial disputes that I avoided it altogether by not hiring anyone but myself in the company
making us very nimble and not bogged down by wage disputes. There are no layoffs in bad times. Being the owner, we never sack ourselves, so there is job security while profitable. We just relocate, change product or service and use technology to cope, making us very nimble, agile and able to survive better.
In May 2018, freelancer.com forced Australian Web developers like me to bid at Australian minimum wage levels ($19 USD/hr) which is double the Indian rates of about $11USD/hr so Indians get all the work. Unions have moved all Internet development offshore by enforcing minimum wage.
Pizza Hut franchisee slammed for sham contracting 6/18 Upper Coomera QLD - Chinese immigrant boss underpaid by making delivery independent contractor instead of staff, $210,000 fine by Fair Work Ombudsman, tried to deceive ombudsman to evade fine
he ended up in NZ much better off after operations in Melbourne hospital from all the infections and diseases (cellulitis, golden Staph, MSRA) he caught in Australia working in tough conditions on banana farm and from bed bugs in Melbourne backpacker hostel causing abscesses from low immunity from earlier cellulitis
OH&S is not enforced on farmers so they get away with poor treatment of backpackers doing their 3 months to get extension of their visa
cowboy farmers in North Queensland
3 month farm work requirement for an extra year visa is a rort that farmers exploit to their advantage
Loophole: DFAT did not inspect property to see it if had enough toilets before permitting workers to come
Mayor protested and PM moved them to better accommodation
this has happened twice in same property with same farmer: 40 workers and 70 workers
they needed 20 per house so 2 houses for 40 or 3 houses for 70 not 1 house with 8 per room on double decker bunks or 14 per room on double decker and triple decker bunks
very cheap farmer who maximised his profit with minimal expense on housing and labour - he should have had maximum 20 foreign workers (4 per room x 5 rooms) and hired 20 locals on normal wages not low wages like foreigners get
housing was provided by labour hire firm (probably Asian) who tried to maximise profit by saving on housing and squeezing all 40 into a 5 bedroom house
labour hire should use some of his commission to pay for another house to spread them over 2 houses not pack them into 1 house
Long Way from Home Part 2 - Transcript - Australian Story 7/17 - mother of Mia who was murdered at Home Hill Backpackers visits site and leaves memorial and tries to stop further abuse of backpackers
labour hire companies ripping off wages of migrant workers in Hinkler (Bundaberg) Qld and Robinvale and Longford, Victoria
companies using dodgy labour hire contractors who rip the wages of workers under them: Divine Ripe, Covino Farms, Baiada
Asians are most vulnerable as they don't fight back
no inspectors, no fines, no dobbing in, sexual and exploitative practices to get 2nd year extension of 417 Visa
Asian labour hire companies are very exploitative to their own race (Asian)
Asian bosses always push wages down to Indian levels (IT industry $10/hr) - worker has to fight back or quit
National Union of Workers is whistleblower on these rorts - being paid $13/hr instead of $21/hr, skimming $8/hr * 200 = $1600/hr * 35 = $56,000/wk * 52 = $2912000/yr tax free
government does not use surveillance to catch them (AFP or ASIO or local Police)
labour hire companies use white minivans to ferry workers to jobs and provide crowded substandard housing for which they charge transport and rent at a profit so worker makes $3.95/hr
if visiting Australia, check farm does not rip you off
do due diligence (check ABN, check company on ASIC, record events and pay in diary, talk to others, Google company)
Australian small business is full of fraud and cheating (see Finance)
Before 2011, Labour Hire Contractors in Riverland, South Australia were using a loophole on Harvest Trail to list unvetted dodgy jobs where the staff, usually backpackers, were not paid or paid very little plus the dodgy labour hire contractors received Australian Government subsidies for bringing workers into the area. This was shutdown by the Government by vetting all ads on Harvest Trail to make sure the labour hire contractors were legitimate and were paying their staff before allowing ads to be listed. These dodgy labour hire companies were preying on people from outside the area and backpackers and ripping their pay off and not providing group certificates to allow the workers to claim their tax back except through a statutory declaration. The labour hire contractors survived because farmers liked the low rates and did not vet them to see if they were paying their staff or not.
backpackers will pay 19% tax and have the tax lost recouped in departure tax 27/9/16 ABC Radio - this will increase unemployment in high unemployment areas like Caboolture (10% unemployment)
backpackers should pay 30% tax like Australians but not considerably lower tax or Australians will not be competitive and will remain long-term unemployed and demoralised or have to move to a city where they can get work
backpackers are now classified as non-residents and pay 32.5% income tax, which is higher than a resident 6/16
In Caboolture QLD, a high unemployment area, this will encourage farmers to hire locals rather than backpackers.
a request from the local communities affected by the proposed change
resolutions supporting the proposed change from the affected local government(s)
assessments demonstrating the future financial sustainability of both the proposed new local government areas, including an agreement on the transfer of assets, liabilities and the impacts on existing employees of the council(s) concerned if the proposal was to proceed
a successful referendum of all residents affected by the proposed change
Immigration audits reveal large scale visa fraud by Indians 7/13 50% rate of identity fraud due to low-tech Indian passport system - General Skilled Migration visa class, from 23,767 visa lodgements there was a 46.9 per cent fraud rate for 2008/2009 (51.6% in 3rd qtr), Indian student visas, the DIAC documents show a 37 per cent fraud rate from 41,636 lodgements 2008/09
Tech sector use of 457 visas up 75pc in 2 years AFR 9/7/13 1/20 IT firms are using 457 visas to cut costs and find experienced staff overseas instead of Australia depleting Australia of vital hands-on experience in IT
Govt's 457 visa crackdown becomes law 28/6/13 (Migration Amendment (Temporary Sponsored Visas) Bill) - amendments by Katter and Greens - block IT agencies from profting by hiring via 457 instead of local first
457 visa bill passed by House of Reps 27/6/13 - maybe delayed in Senate if Parliament closes for election due to PM Rudd getting back into power on 26/6/13 through coup
In AFR 10-11 March 2012, the Australian Government streamlined 457 Visa holders seeking permanent residency by not having them resit tests.
This will lead to more immigrants and more competition for jobs. Locals stand to lose unless they rise to the occasion and create their own jobs.
This supports big business who only want to hire but not train new staff. Big business want the ceiling for 457 visas raised to 190,000 per year which would put pressure on local businesses. We are small and have to invest in our training to remain viable.
USA has tougher laws blocking migrants becoming permanent residents to protect jobs. We need to follow USA on this and not bow to big business who want quick profits rather than long term education and building up Australian workers. Australia
for too long has cut corners on education and brought immigrant workers in rather than train locals which takes longer but is better for the country.
The alternative is a Banana Repubic where we use our resources to pay for immigrants to service our country. This is not healthy but with Australian Governments not willing to get the education system right, there will be a huge opportunity for skilled
immigrants to take well paying jobs from less-trained locals.
The Government has released for public consultation exposure draft legislation establishing the Ombudsman and outlining the role's functions and powers as a:
Commonwealth-wide advocate for small businesses and family enterprises;
concierge for dispute resolution (including providing its own, limited dispute resolution service); and
contributor to the development of small business friendly Commonwealth laws and regulations.
If you are a company, you can have your books inspected to see if you meet the pay/time data requirements. Paying PAYG creates data for pay. Time records are collected from timesheets. It is hard for contractors who work for a set amount and have to monitor their own hours. Often contractors are confused with self-employed people who are sole-traders. A company, even if it has 1 staff and 1 director (the same person), must comply. It is legal to have a company with 1 director. It is a microbusiness. That requires a lot of logging and data entry to collect all the pay/time data and keep it available at the fingertips for sudden government inspection. Bookkeeping is an increasing cost for small businesses and contractors like ourselves.
We just do it ourselves to save employing an accountant or bookkeeper but it is tedious and detailed work that pulls us away from doing our job. It must be done though.
"Generally, company directors are not considered employees for the purposes of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 and its Regulations 2006, therefore as an employer you have an obligation to ensure you are complying with the act in relation to those who would (under the Act) be regarded as employees (but not for yourself)." (19/1/07)
On 30 May 2011, the then Australian Assistant Treasurer the Hon Bill Shorten MP, Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation, released a Consultation Paper into Reporting of Taxable Payments for Contractors in the Building and Construction Industry (27/6/2011 Master Builders Association). This would create more paperwork for contractors which would require them to modernise and use Web-based accounting systems to remain viable and to comply with ATO tax law re paying tax due, like we did in 2010 due to a computer crash and allows us to do our ATO BAS and Company Tax anywhere there is internet access.
In July 2013, after Rudd coup in June, David Bradbury was Assistant Treasurer.
Since about 2005, ATO requires businesses to call up with registered office change of address as bp.ato.gov.au does not allow for registered office to be changed online although everything else is able to be changed online. I complained in August 2013 to Ross Vasta MP but ATO rang back asking for details over phone and did not fix problem with Website processes. ATO could update registered office via SBR Web service with ASIC using Auskey authentication but won't. ATO is prehistoric. I contacted ATO SILU and got an email. My local member contacted ATO SILU and I got a phone call saying SBR ELS Gateway would be implemented in 2015.
State and Federal Contracts require $10,000,000 public liability cover which costs $7500 to $10,000 per annum, despite if we got the tender or not. This is way out of the reach of a small business like ours.
To afford this, we would have to have $50,000 turnover or more per year, a long way to go. This allows multinationals to blossom and small Australian companies to waste away. Another solution is to form a consortium to group together risks and have one umbrella insurance policy. The amount of administration to achieve these kind of government contracts bogs down our business pushing us away.
AIIA is pushing for limited liability on smaller jobs rather than unlimited liabilitiy which costs so much to insure, to make going for such tenders viable. Our government badly needs overhauling in its dealing with small business contracts.
In July 2015, we increased public liability insurance with Allianz to $20,000,000 for same premium as $10,000,000 so we could setup a stall in Caboolture Square who required that level of public liability insurance.
In April 2018, person was injured by accident of tripping on Brisbane City Council Cavendish Rd Coorparoo footpath due to lack of warning on uneven surface. Council sent them to their insurance broker to lay claim. Council also put yellow stripe on uneven footpath to highlight it and were going to grind down uneven surface with contractor to make it safe.
This puts pressure on injured person to cover expenses and get reimbursed which is not good due to impact on their livelihood due to injury making it hard to work if standing for length of time or climb or descend stairs if lift was not working to get to and from public transport. Self employed person loses money if they take time off work to get well so this is a tricky situation financially. The injury loses them money as they work less to stop pain and it is a long procedure to get some medical treatment and reimbursement to get well. It favours heavily the defendant not the plaintiff.
Other cities like Orange NSW already mark all the tree roots and uneven areas on footpaths with yellow stripes to warn pedestrians of tripping hazards. Brisbane City Council waits for complaints before they fix their footpaths so the damage has been done to the person by the time it is fixed causing more poverty and extending the injury.
close down or severely restrict practices of payday lenders or bank credit cards or business lenders who have high interest rates and draconian repayment schedules causing loan to balloon to 5 times original or more which with low income causes mind boggling stress on debtor with constant calls from creditor to get their money back
easy credit and poor lending practice with high interest rates cause high debt repayment closing business
banks should do due diligence before making to loan to see if business can repay loan based on projections and if not decline loan to stop loan being too high and unable to be serviced closing business
Hansard 1/9/16
"the Senate calls on the Prime Minister to request His Excellency the Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia issue Letters Patent to establish a Royal Commission to inquire into misconduct in the banking and financial services industry, including their agents and managed investment schemes"
no unsolicited credit offers from banks from 1/7/12 on credit cards etc - CBA is trying to get people to agree to credit offers before then
paying off credit with the highest interest first, unlike now where payment goes to credit with lowest interest and is diabolical as it slows down repayment cycle!
Australian Banking Reforms - from 1 July 2012 - ALP Govt - credit card reforms: pay off higher interest rate part of loan first
Kevin Rudd on credit reform in Australia -
East Asia Forum - slacker bankruptcy laws will lead to more small businesses going under due to bad debts - 29.07.2009
Competitive and Sustainable Banking Reforms - 2011 - banks forced to let customer pay off high-interest portion of credit card debt before low interest portion to save customer money - 7/11
Payment times and practices - ASBFEO - survey on payment terms and late payments for small businesses struggling to get paid by large corporates or governments 11/18
If you put in a Statement of Liquidated Claim and the Defendant seeks to pay by instalments, they can pay any amount per week, fortnight or month so it can get down to $25/fortnight for up to 2 years. This will wear the plaintiff down till they give in and enter notice of discontinuance letting the defendant off and the plaintiff paying all the costs - a dead loss - instead of banking endless small cheques to get paid a small amount. Administration kills these kind of claims. Cutting losses stops the rorting and keeps the business still viable instead of being bogged down by administration for little value to the business.
We are giving up on country clients as they are generally slow payers and difficult to get to pay and try to do more than they can afford so tend to bring down the creditor who is subcontracting to them unless the creditor kicks the debtor off by writing off the loss.
We decided in January 2008 to not pursue claims against slow payers or bad debtors through the courts as most times the person owing money never pays or gets off on a loophole just holding up valuable resources. So I just ring them up and eventually get money that way. The law is an ass. It pays the government not to close its loopholes as the more debtors there are, the more fees the courts make chasing them down and they get the fees no matter if the money is retrieved or not. The system is a complete failure for small businesses in my opinion. Don't waste your time in the courts pursuing small businesses. It is 99% a waste of time and money.
The Rudd (now Gillard) Labor Government in 2009 is giving more power to the debtor than the creditor by allowing more leniency on repaying bad debts which leaves the creditor scrambling for other sources of income while they wait for the debtor to come good!
Rudd Government 2007-2010 - NSW Business Chamber - Nov 2008 - useful statistics and policy benchmarks to manage one's small business operation - small business can charge companies interest after 30 days if they don't pay on time
This ridiculous notion that a company's liabilities are a director's assets made Centrelink deem my company's liabilities as an asset to me earning a few dollars a fortnight in March 2013. This runs in the face of the fact that the money used for the liability was in fact a liability to the director so the so-called money being earned was in fact a loss due to incoming bank interest on the director's loans that fed the company's loans. This is akin to Lehman Brothers bank debacle in USA in 2008 where toxic loans (subprime mortgage crisis) created so-called wealth but when the loans were called in the company collapsed as no-one would bail them out and the loans were not being repaid just going round in circles on minimum monthly repayments with inadequate repayments to get principal down and making borrowers pay off highest interest last causing more to be paid as interest instead of principal perpetuating impossible odds of ever paying off the loans and making the creditors huge profits over many years and impoverishing the debtor who can never catch up and buy assets just service debt.
In 2013, this made it difficult to get a bond loan because the Qld Dept of Communities thought I had cash when it was a liability to the company which was not realised as an asset to me due to cashflow difficulties.
In 2012, the Australian Government forced banks to publish the period of time a credit card loan would take to pay off with minimum monthly repayments and the amount of extra interest paid compared with paying off the loan in 2 years with much higher monthly repayments. It also stopped banks being able to solicit customers to increase their credit card limits.
In 2010, it cost $80/3 years to have a Working with Children Check via the NSW Police as a one-person business is classified as self-employed, making teaching violin to children on my own unviable. A company of 2 or more staff has a free check. This is way too expensive. Working through a local school requires being hired as a casual teacher.
In February 2012, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, John Cobb, gives feedback as to why antidumping laws will protect agricultural jobs and the Australian economy from predatory companies offshore who drop prices to get market share then raise them when local companies have gone bust.
The same holds true for cheap IT developers offshore, e.g. in India, who undercut local developers sending them broke or crippling them. Internet development is very competitive and other countries undercut each other to win business using exchange rate, local wages and opensource software and operating systems to reduce costs and be more agile like we do.
ALP Government is doing strides to help the underdog. Liberal Party blocks anything where money is redistributed to the rest of the economy from a select few very wealthy individuals and companies. As Obama said, the trickle down effect of rich people passing on wealth is a myth. They just hoard the money so government intervention in the form of a resources tax was necessary to make Australia more equitable.
In March 2012, Exetel Pty Ltd announced it would unilaterally reduce agents' commission from 7.5% to 3% from 1 May 2012. ISP Agents Talk Forum was setup by agents to fight back against the injustice of Exetel underpricing its products so taking an axe to commission to pay for it.
Mention was made of a 1987 High Court decision with NSW Coal Association that showed management could not cut basic rights of a worker:
No doubt our traditional system of industrial conciliation and arbitration has itself contributed to a growing recognition that management and labour have a mutual interest in many aspects of the operation of a business enterprise.
Many management decisions, once viewed as the sole prerogative of management, are now correctly seen as directly affecting the relationship of employer and employee and constituting an "industrial matter".
In April 2012, Exetel Pty Ltd made agents get bigger orders and also improved commission for 1 short-term service.
After much debate in 2011, the National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Program is being extended by the ALP Government in 2012. This is a breakthrough for commonsense and will help the mental and social health of teenagers when they are most vulnerable and prevent suicides.
In November 2014, Commonwealth reached agreement with states and territories whereby scheme will be funded by Commonwealth and delivered by states and territories. This was due to High Court challenge in June 2014 in which it was found that previous program was unconstitutional for Commonwealth to deliver so now it is delivered by states and territories.
Multi-level companies that pay commission to agents then feed back money into a common pool to grow company bigger. These companies do not pay their bills on time.
Fairfax spearheads digital future AFR 18 June 2012, AdNews 23/8/12 - mini newspapers, digital only, sacking 1900 staff, closing large printing plants in Sydney and Melbourne, Gina Rinehart 18% stake, only 51% stake in TradeMe
In June 2012, newspaper owners like Fairfax are closing paper publication units and going totally online with paywalls to generate revenue to counter falling paper sales. Australian Government is heralding tightening up laws for cross media ownership including digital media making publishers panic that the Government is restricting freedom of speech.
Since about 2005, traditional newspapers have lost heavily in classifieds to Google, other search engines and Facebook social media online advertising.
Amazon Web Services and other cloud providers are heralding a major move to the Web for online publications and ebooks so that small bloggers can compete head on with large newspaper empires for journalistic content.
Since the advent of the Apple iPad in 2010, online newspapers have taken off over paper editions.
NSW scraps Tcard project Australian 24/1/2008 collapse of $370M project, delayed to 2010 5 years late, CrossCity Motorway failed due to not funnelling traffic into tunnel, ERG lost $106 on progress payments, failed to pay creditor $49.7M
NSW ticketing fiasco a winner for lawyers - 24/2/2010 - SMH - ERG was sued $90M by NSW Government in 2010 for breach of contract to NSW Government as poor documentation, not performing as designed, high staff turnover at ERG leading to inconsistencies and unmaintability
Long running Tcard legal dispute settled 17/2/2012 mediation and out of court settlement with Videlli (ex ERG), NSW Government retains $27M recovered and defendant made $5M payment - supplier had to grovel, $200M cross-claim againt PTTC was dropped by Videlli - Tcard debacle started in 2000 at Olympics under ALP Government (press release)
Because of these problems, NSW Government is not keen to invest in mobile technology. ERG has created the usual fear and loathing about hitech projects.
In 2011, Australian Government banned live export of cattle from Australia to Indonesia due to cruelty to animals which grossly affected cattle farms' sales forcing them to leave cattle ready for slaughter in Australia losing money as stock died. Greens influenced ALP to block live exports till Indonesia caught up with stunning pre-slaughter.
This should lead to Canberra directly funding Local Governments on infrastructure projects but not block state-local government relations. This would be a huge breakthrough as state governments usually favour capital cities and ignore country areas but with Canberra funding local government country and city councils would be supported equally by Canberra not lopsided like currently via state governments who favour where the most votes are and not the obvious need of country areas over city areas.
The 7 September 2013 federal election was held 1 week too early to allow the local government referendum to be held with it so it will be held in 2014 at higher expense with another referendum.
Check old bank accounts urges MP 3/12/12 inactive bank accounts over 3 years will be taken by Australian Government after May 2013, not super as far I can see
AAPT confirms hackers stole customer data 27/7/12 - Anonymous steals customer data off ISP AAPT to prove that the government will access private information for its own interests
government gave early access to super during COVID-19 ending on 31/12/20 leading to massive withdrawals from super funds reducing amount for retirement and causing long call centre queues leaving only email, post or website self-service as option to contact super fund
IT price inquiry costs Microsoft $100M - Australia was 66% overpriced compared to USA - Australian Government reduced its Microsoft licenses by discounts from $142M/yr to $42M/yr
Scott Morrison MP: 14 boats detained Oct-Dec 2013 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: Asylum Seekers Hansard 9/12/13 p 50 - ABC Question Time 10/12/13 - 14 down from 97 boats a year earlier under ALP - secrecy of Operation Sovereign Borders via Defence to cut information for people smugglers
List of Australian immigration detention facilities - 21 (ex 22) centres - 8 (ex 17) open, 13 (ex 5) closed, capacity 6518 - Immigration 5 (ex 9), Australian Correctional Management 4, Serco Australia Ltd 9 (ex 8), Global Solutions Ltd 1, Transfield Services 2 - SA 4 (ex 5), Qld 1 (ex 2), Christmas Island 1, Cocos Islands 1, WA 4 (ex 5), Victoria 1 (ex 2), Tas 1, Nauru 1, NT 3, NSW 2, PNG 1 - Maximum 15 (ex 16), Medium 6
Australian puts asylum seekers in Nauru for offshore processing instead of letting them land on Australia where they have more rights. This is supposedly to stop people smugglers.
In Canberra in 2012 I heard an Immigration Dept officer speak at Dickson Baptist Church before moving to Perth WA.