RuddBank

According to some of Australia's most widely published journalists and many opinion polls, the Liberal and National Parties were thrown out of office largely because of voter objections to their policies, notably their anti-union "Work Choices" laws.
Despite this, less than three years since Australians repudiated the ruling Federal Liberal and National Parties' policies and laws, the same polls and commentators say that they may soon become the government again. There are issues behind the issues which the mainstream doesn't cover.

According to some of Australia's most widely published journalists and many opinion polls, the Liberal and National Parties were thrown out of office largely because of voter objections to their policies, notably their anti-union "Work Choices" laws.

Despite this, less than three years since Australians repudiated the ruling Federal Liberal and National Parties' policies and laws, the same pollsters and commentators say that they may soon become the government again. There are issues behind the issues which the mainstream doesn't cover.

According to some of Australia's most widely published journalists and many opinion polls, the Liberal and National Parties were thrown out of office largely because of voter objections to their policies, notably their anti-union "Work Choices"laws.

Despite this, less than three years since Australians repudiated the ruling Federal Liberal and National Parties' policies and laws, the same pollsters and commentators say that they may soon become the government again.

If media 'prediction' comes true, Labor will have turned into a one-term government party and the Liberal and National Coalition will have effectively become the natural parties of Government.

The mainstream media are like obedient cattle-dogs barking at the heels of the public, herding us en masse one way, then sending us wheeling in the opposite direction, yet somehow we always end up back in the same dull paddock with lousy feed and the same old farmer Brown.

Animal Farm

Julia Gillard has incurred the farmer's wrath because she has publicly rejected former Prime Minster Kevin Rudd's "Big Australia" policy to hugely swell Australia's population, mostly through immigration. The press have called her 'populist' (oddly, their greatest insult) , insinuated that she is racist, and trotted out article after article saying how terrible it would be if our population stopped growing. They have also tried to condemn her on the pretext of her allegedly ruthless deposing of Rudd. The unfavourable treatment of Gillard over this and other issues may be the reason why opinion polls and some widely published journalists are predicting that Labor is now more likely to lose than to win the election.

Manufactured media dramas overshadow major democratic and environmental issues

This swaying of an election by emphasisizing in a negative way such aspects of the campaign is an illustration of just how the media can unfairly decide the outcome of elections. Those, who have been persuaded to vote against Labor through exposure to this repeated narrowly focused media-disapproval, may not have based their decision on far more critical policy issues, including the need to strengthen and preserve democracy and our long-term sustainability as a civilised and prosperous society, which are both issues at stake. Mainstream media focus virtually ignores democracy and ecological sustainability.

Julia Gillard's ousting of Kevin Rudd could provide a way for the Labor Government to much better govern in the interests of ordinary Australians than under Kevin Rudd's leadership. Under Kevin Rudd's leadership, a lot of policies which were harmful to the interests of ordinary Australians and which had never obtained their informed support, were being imposed dictatorially. The most resented, we are learning as the population debate explodes, was Kevin Rudd's decision to unhealthily bloat Australia's population to suit some vested commercial interests. Successive recent governments,
including John Howard's, had been ramping up population growth, but Rudd opened up the throttle to a rate where the harm to existing Australians and the environment was plain for all to see.

Ruddbank and Building the Education Revolution

In addition, the Rudd Government was criticised for crudely implementing major programs of Government expenditure.

The most widely criticised of these crude schemes was in relation to the squandering of money on school infrastructure, which has been blamed on Julia Gillard, because she oversaw the grandiosely named $16.2 billion "Building the Education Revolution" scheme. The main basis of this criticism was that projects which could have delivered to many schools, simply through through repairs of or the extension of existing buildings, using local firms and labour, were scrapped in favour of arbitrarily selected new buildings delivered by large, remote construction companies.

This program should really have been criticised within a larger policy, as a mutation of Rudd and Swann's
Ruddbank bill, which was thrown out of Parliament at the last moment. Ruddbank was Rudd's first reaction to the global financial crisis. He saw banks pulling out of financing more property development, and thus the pins being pulled from under the construction and development bubble which Australia has been dangerously reliant on now for years. Rudd and Swann rose to power from humble political beginnings in 1986 when they worked in Wayne Goss's office in Queensland. There they traded ALP investments until they had built a huge ALP self-financing tradition on land-speculation and finance largely in property, banking, and insurance. Rudd and Swann are wed to that kind of economy; so was the ALP under them. Those financial attachments have driven laws in parliament to privilege development and infrastructure finance with public money, and to exclude democratic rights to oppose unwanted development.

If the mainstream media hates Gillard so much, can she be all that bad?

It is hard to believe that Gillard's government will not remain bound by those financial ties, however the fact that Gillard has piped up about not being a big population person makes her government unusual. Many of us wonder if she is sincere and if she is able to deliver democratically on this.

Perhaps the biggest indicator that she may be able to is that the mainstream media are so consistently opposed to her. Going by their disapproval of her population statements this is because they truly believe she may cut down on population growth and the huge immigration program they have been responsible for marketing on behalf of the corporate sector and their own corporate investments.

Indeed, her object may actually be less a democratic one than to avoid incurring more public debt through more taxpayer funding of shortfalls in infrastructure finance at a time when no private institution wants to invest in infrastructure expansion. She may be responding to ALP corporate advice that the so-called Global Financial Crisis is only just beginning.

So, should we trust our instincts which tell us that to vote for the people the mainstream media most objects to, and therefore vote Gillard back in?

Would the Libs carry on Rudd's infrastructure investment policies and exploit Labor's bad state laws?

On the other hand, What would happen if the Liberal National Coalition regained majority in Federal Parliament?

The question this article raises is, could we be better off with a Liberal government? Or would a Liberal government simply do the same thing as the Labor governments, relying on the suppression of democracy at law which has been accomplished at parliamentary level by Labor State Governments in their efforts to promote infrastructure expansion in tandem with international immigration?

To our knowledge, the only Liberal opposition which has actually criticised the way that Labor has gone about financing infrastructure expansion and population growth with tax-payer money and suppressing democratic objection by changing laws and abolishing local government power, has been the Queensland Liberal-National Party. See "John-Paul Langbroek and why the Liberal National Party won't survive unless Labor Governments reform." This article, whilst supporting Queensland Liberal-National Party leader, John-Paul Langbroek's condemnation of the structural corruption of government in Queensland, and proposing useful ways to combat this corruption, also acknowledges that it is perhaps only the Liberal-National Party's need to survive which drives these reform attempts. Despite these doubts, what else do we have to begin to deconstruct the diabolical machine that the Labor Party has constructed against democracy?

Langebroek's bills need to be repeated in every state and Federal parliament and supported by all parties. Yet we hear almost no discussion of them.

Role of Media and of Internet Censorship in Australian politics

The ability of the public to monitor what is going on and to act to make the government and opposition politicians represent them better lies in the quality of the mainstream media. Much hope in this regard lies in internet-based alternative media and our ability to harnass this for public benefit.

An important related issue is Gillard's decision to delay internet censorship and the Liberal Government's policy platform of cancelling it, with the support of the Greens.

Even though the Liberals opposition to mandatory internet filtering is a welcome development in Australian democracy, many voters will still have to weigh this against the likelihood that a re-elected liberal government will act similarly to the last Liberal government of which most current Liberal members of Parliament were members. That government behaved undemocratically and in many instances against the interests of most Australians, particularly poor Australians. The most striking example was its anti-union "Work Choices" legislation.

In fact the issue of mandatory internet filtering is bigger than just the question of censorship; it is really about government-monitoring and control over every Australian's behaviour on the internet and goes to the heart of intellectual and personal privacy. As James Sinnamon said, "If a government really wanted to outlaw child pornography over the internet, it would do much better to make it a criminal offense to consult certain sites, and publish the addresses of those sites and its reasons for outlawing them. In that way it could avoid the extraordinary financial, bureaucratic, hard and software outlay required to monitor every click made by 22 million plus Australians on the internet, whilst achieving the same objective."

This needs more discussion.

I have been putting off finishing a long and detailed article about why the Labor Party's business interests and the policies of Labor Governments in Australia are cause for disquiet. No, more than this, they give cause to question the right to govern of our governments. The area is so big and scary that one would rather read a novel or stare out the window. How to open up a description of the way I see our situation escaped me.

Tonight, however, I wrote this short article in reply to Peter Bright's comment, "Be fair; The Prime Minister has to overview the whole picture in the national interest, long term as well as short term. Although a Green, I believe that he and his government are being unfairly criticised and insultingly abused with insufficient cause."

Well, Peter was talking about whales, and so was Captain Ahab in Moby Dick, but he was really talking about politics and economics and that's what I am talking about here.

The White Whale

The PM is forcing population growth on Australians and thereby depriving them of secure and affordable futures through driving resource scarcity. We have not been consulted. Not unrelated is the fact that he and Wayne Swann were also involved in the initial creation of Labor Holdings P/L and Labor Resources P/L see "Expert discusses 'deliberately confusing' Labor donations" in Queensland (when they were working for Wayne Goss in the opposition). These ALP-owned companies helped build up massive property holdings and insurance and development investments for the ALP.

Governments or Commercial Corporations?

The ALP governments, state and Federal, now resemble huge commercial corporations, far richer than the other parties in Australia and richer than many others in the world, according to Steven Mayne. Labor Holdings and Labor Resources are used by the ALP to hold donations and other payments so that those moneys will not have to be declared as ALP donations from their original sources; they are declared as donations or 'other receipts' from Labor Holdings or Labor Resources. You can, however, look up income tax declarations for Labor Holdings and Labor Resources here and see where their income comes from. Then, in the same site, you can look for the ALP's income tax declarations and see where the money goes to.

State Laws made for private profit against democratic objection

State governments control land-use in Australia. One must suspect that the laws that the State Parliaments make to privilege property development (e.g. Major Transports Facilitation Bill; DACS) also privilege the ALP's investments or those of their friends. The ruthless pushing of laws to override democratic objections is an indication of where the state and Federal governments' loyalty really lies.

The growing presence of property lobby professionals in government and as the major options in elections should raise alarm bells. See, for instance, the participation of candidates from or backed by the Property Council of Australia in elections here and here.

Federal Government immigration and financial policy

The Federal Government's pushing of population growth through high immigration is a way of keeping property and infrastructure development going (at great cost to the rest of us) - and that seems to be a major business of Labor Party investments in Queensland where Labor Resources and Labor Holdings started, although they go way beyond that state now.

The Federal Government's nearly successful attempts to finance private development through taxpayer funding in RuddBank is another indicator of the sick state of our parliaments.

Labor: In government or in business?

The relationship between the Labor Party's friends in private Lobby Groups, their people in government, and the staff in State investment companies (such as Queensland Investment Company) has been the subject of damning journalistic investigations. See, for instance: "In the murky world of lobbying ..." and It is now so blurry that I think you would have to be naive or not to have been aware of these vested interests to believe that our governments were in government rather than in business for themselves. But maybe it is hard for most people to figure out what this all means unless they already know the picture in the jigsaw.

Governments or Commercial Corporations?

What I make of all this is that our governments have crossed over the line between being governments into the area of being commercial corporations. And my next question is: Have they abdicated their right to govern since they no longer represent the electorate?

I think they have. I don't think that we have representative government in Australia anywhere anymore. Even under the Westminster system our governments are supposed to be seen to represent the public. Such representation is easily fudged around the edges on issues where cost and benefits are hard to pin down, but that is not the case here. It has become obvious that governments at state and federal level routinely benefit private corporate interests over the objections and interests of constituents by making laws to remove virtually all democratic rights to control the size of population, the ownership of public assets, and the extent of infrastructure expansion - whilst financing these undemocratic investments with taxpayers' money.

See also: other articles about Labor Holdings

To achieve this bootstrap economy, this Australian sideshow of perpetual motion, or the revival of dead spirits, the PM has invented something called the Australian Business Investment Partnership (ABIP). It's a public-private partnership between the Federal government and the commercial property sector. The Developers and the big four banks think it's just great - so that's okay ... isn't it?

Reanimators Rudd & Swan

Treasurer Swan and Prime Minister Rudd are peddling a new brand of snake oil for our absurd, terminally ill, real-estate economy. It is a bit like keeping a semblance of life in the corpse of some poor overdosed addict by hooking it up to a lightening rod and waiting for a storm. They may be about to create a public-private monster, stitched together from the necrotic remains of Keynesian economics, economic irrationalism and shock-doctrine.

Sure it will create a market for heroin - I mean housing - but do we really want a zombie economy?

The Keynesian solution of public schemes to build infrastructure and cause the employment of masses of people who would otherwise be unemployed worked fine when energy, materials and vital resources were in abundance and populations were relatively small. But, even if the first world were still rich in materials and fuel - which it is not - this isn't about the government putting taxpayers to work for their country; it is about the government propping up corporate property development, banks and their shareholders. The shock-doctrine element refers to Naomi Klein's term for disaster-economics where big-business moves in with government accomplices and hostages and loots injured national economies.[1]

The Government budget 2009 prediction is that we are in for a couple of years of dwindling growth, including one (2010) at negative growth (-0.5%). After that the public are told to expect a return to more growth, leading to economic growth of somewhere round 4.5% in two or three years!

Pull the other one, sir, and the whole thing will fall to bits.

To achieve this bootstrap economy, this Australian sideshow of perpetual motion, or the revival of dead spirits, the PM has invented something called the Australian Business Investment Partnership (ABIP). It's a public-private partnership between the Federal government and the commercial property sector.

A ghastly alliance

Now most of our readers knew that the government was in bed with the property development sector and some of us realise that the property development sector is clandestinely running the country and the newspapers and even the ABC. But we are just a bit shocked, even now, to see that they are going to try to make this travesty official.

Looks like the private-public partnership government so long hidden away like Dr Frankenstein's monster is going to come out of the closet and the rest of us will have to run for cover. But there is nowhere left to run!

The Financial Review describes the "ABIP, known as the RuddBank," as "designed to provide liquidity support to the commercial property sector". That is, an institution is going to be created through parliament to funnel tax-payer money into the pockets of property developers. The legislation has not yet been passed and a number of senators have already objected. Nonetheless, according to the Financial Review, the government is relying on the passage of this law for the success of this budget.[2] And, we would add, on some miraculous intervention to avoid severe energy and materials shortages world-wide. We think that the idea of a 'recovery', let alone 4.5% growth in two or three years is just whistling in the dark.

Australian taxes will fund shortfalls if foreign banks pull plug on developers

The APIB legislation is to cover Australian property developers if foreign banks stop financing them. Then you and I are supposed to finance these private property developers. Perhaps not surprisingly, in the parliamentary enquiry about the government's Australian Business Investment Partnership (ABIP), opposition, and cross-bench senators, were not terribly impressed. Actually, you would think that this kind of legislation is the kind of thing an investment banker like Turnbull would dream of, but perhaps only if his party and his favorite property developers were in control of it.

One still unofficial political sector is totally in favour. That is the property industry and the four big banks.

What the Senators have to say so far about the 'RuddBank bill'

In a debate in the Senate on 12 May 2009, Senator Xenophon asked for an Australian competition and consumer commission assessment of the partnership's exemption from the Trade Practices Act.[4] [Note contains speech in parliament]

The Greens, who have the uncomfortable role of remaining in a hot kitchen in order to be able to use the stove, have asked for a cap of one million dollars per annum to executive salaries in organisations which would receive ABIP bail-outs. They have also asked that the proposed ABIP board of directors be expanded from five to eight, with half composed of government representatives.

We ask, in a public-private government run by property developers, what difference would that make?

Senator Steve Fielding, from Family First, suggested sensibly that the terms of ABIP loans be no more liberal than those of ordinary competitive banks and that they be limited to only three years.

Senator Coonan, speaking for the opposition, said the opposition didn't think the bill was necessary.

What do the public have to say?

The public have not been asked. But they will be told (not asked) to pay for this $26 billion commercial property guarantee!

Our money will be guaranteeing the security of the very property developers and their financiers (often the same thing) that most of us hate for destroying our democracy and creating an ecological and financial deficit. Already we are paying more for power, more for water, more for land, more for housing, more for food, because of the inflation caused in Australia by the population growth demanded by the property development sector. There are bizarre, extreme and cruel impacts, like the massacre of thousands of kangaroos to make way for housing estates.

Now the property development growth lobby has managed to so corrupt our economic and political system that they expect the government to create a new public (and private) institution, which will shelter them, unelected, at public expense.

An alternative strategy: a democratic public developer

There is another way:

1. Disconnect the private property development sector from the public purse. Remember, the private property sector is addicted to growth. Let it try to rehabilitate itself independently, through modest and honest behaviour. If it fails to thrive then at least it won't take the whole country down with it.

2. Reconnect the government with the electorate. Remember, the government only has authority because it is supposed to represent the electorate. Without the electorate it would not exist. Establish a public works sector to develop land cheaply for the social and commercial activities of the current population and to reclaim land for generous wildlife corridors and for forests to promote rain, reduce carbon gas output, and make us happy through their beauty. Fund this body with taxes, but without increasing the taxes. Put the unemployed to work for it. Don't go for growth though, of development or population. We already know that the fast returns of a housing based economy cannot last and cost even more than money. They lead to economic addiction and an Absurdistan economy with monsters in parliament.

NOTES

[1] Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine,See Review of Naomi Klein’s "The Shock Doctrine"
[2] John Kehoe, "Projects lead way to fast recovery", Investment, Australian Financial Review, 13 May, 2009, p.89.
[3]Tracy Sutherland, "Senators seek checks, balances on RuddBank loans", Australian Financial Review, 13 May, 2009, p.5.

[4] Appendix:

Senator Xenophon comments from Federal Hansard Reports, (Senate) Wed. 13 May, 2009

Source pp20-21 Hansard: http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/latesthansard/shansard.pdf (Note that this is not the complete debate)

Senator XENOPHON (South Australia) (11.45 am)—The Australian Business Investment Partnership Bill 2009 is one of those bills that presents a dilemma for this parliament. That is because in legislation as in life wanting to help is not the same as actually helping.

My main concern, one that I believe is broadly shared with my coalition colleagues, was that I did not want any new legislation to create unintended consequences.

I did not want ABIP to create a cartel or another bank. I did not want ABIP to prop up ventures that should by any commercial standards not be propped up. I was concerned that the creation of ABIP might serve as an incentive for foreign and smaller domestic banks to withdraw from the market and, ultimately, I was concerned about what this means for taxpayers.

Taxpayer funds are not like shareholder funds.

Shareholders choose to get into business. They assess the risks and decide whether to put the money on the table and take a risk. Taxpayers do not do that. They pay their taxes because they have to, which is why I believe there must be a higher standard for the way we use taxpayer money, particularly where there is a contingent liability and especially when the government enters into a business arrangement with businesses.

Throughout this debate I have raised a number of concerns about this bill with the government and I am pleased that the government agreed to a Senate inquiry process by the Senate Committee on Economics, of which I was a part, because that was a very valuable exercise in getting more facts, in getting the information that I believe was necessary in order to make an informed decision on this piece of legislation.

I want to outline my concerns and put them on the record in the context of my discussions with government, but before I do that I want to outline the concerns expressed by Senator Bob Brown on behalf of the Greens and Senator Fielding on behalf of Family First. Senator Brown has maintained a long-term campaign on the issue of executive remuneration. I commend him for that campaign and, as I understand it, his position is quite straightforward. If you are going to have a situation where taxpayer funds will be used to assist the private sector, there must be a quid pro quo on the whole issue of funding of executive remuneration.

Whilst I do not see that going directly to the core of this bill, I respect and appreciate the concerns of Senator Brown and I will be supporting the Greens amendments to curtail executive remuneration packages for those entities that are assisted in what ABIP is proposing to achieve. I think that is important and I think the government should take the concerns of the Greens seriously with respect to executive remuneration.

Senator Fielding has raised a number of concerns in relation to the issue of ensuring that there are safeguards in lending criteria. In his contribution yesterday, Senator Fielding said:

"... ABIP must satisfy lending criteria which, at a minimum, are just as strict as the lending criteria applied by any other commercially competitive bank."

I commend Senator Fielding for raising that. These are my concerns also, and I look forward to seeing an amendment to the legislation that the government, I understand, is preparing or that Senator Fielding will be introducing on this, because I believe that is a legitimate concern in safeguarding shareholder funds.

I have also raised concerns with respect to the issue of the role of the Auditor-General. If I could put on notice to get a response about the role of the Auditor-General from the government either in their summary of the second reading stage or during the committee, the bill provides for the Auditor-General to have a role to audit the books, to have that supervisory role, if you like, in relation to the accounts of ABIP. I simply seek confirmation that the Auditor-General is unfettered in his role with respect to that and that if at any time there is a concern about the operation of ABIP the Auditor-General has the right and the role to, if not intervene, investigate any concerns—which is I think highly unlikely given the governance structure of ABIP. Similarly, as I understand it, ASIC will have a supervisory role here in the operation of ABIP, and confirmation of that from the government would be helpful.

There is the issue of trade practices law that Senator Hurley referred to. The issue of exemptions from the act is one that concerns me. There has been an increasing trend to exempt, to have arrangements where an exemption is granted under the act. This is something that Associate Professor Frank Zumbo from the University of New South Wales Australian School of Business has raised, and I am grateful for his input into this.

Some may not be as grateful as I am for the contribution that Professor Zumbo makes. I note that Senator Arbib is having a chuckle at that.

Senator Arbib—He’s back.

Senator XENOPHON—Senator Arbib, I am grateful for the contributions that Associate Professor Zumbo makes in the field of trade practices law. The suggestion from Associate Professor Zumbo is that there ought to be monitoring and reporting by the ACCC on the exemption that has been provided to ABIP and that there should be a report, preparation of a competition impact statement and ongoing monitoring by the ACCC of this.

My impression is that the ACCC has not had enough input into this. I understand, given the urgency of the scheme and the intent of the legislation, why there is an exemption but I also think it is important to have a monitoring mechanism. That is why I will be moving amendments with respect to monitoring this. I am pleased that in my discussions with the government they broadly supported that principle. It does not stopABIP doing what it is intended to do but it does have that level of scrutiny and transparency, which I think is important.

I have also raised with the government the broader issue, which is not directly relevant to this particular bill, of there being broader, systemic scrutiny by theACCC of exemptions, and I look forward to the government’s response in relation to that, because I think it is overdue. We need to have a good look at theexemptions to the act that are granted. After all, the Trade Practices Act is intended to protect consumers, to enhance competition and to do so in the publicinterest.

My concern is that there have been a whole range of exemptions without appropriate scrutiny by the ACCC.

I look forward to what I hope will be the government’s comprehensive response in relation to that.

In the committee inquiry the issue was raised of the unintended consequences of this bill. There was an interchange between me and Mr Peter Verwer, the CEOof the Property Council of Australia, who raised a concern about moral hazard. He asked: could the legislation have the unintended consequence ofencouraging foreign banks to get out of the market by virtue of the asset value being maintained? I understand that Mr Verwer has resiled from the positionthat he put to the committee. He has further reflected on that and he has made that very clear to me and publicly.

I have also had discussions both with Treasury and with Mr Ahmed Fahour, the interim CEO of ABIP. I am satisfied that the intent of ABIP is to be there as alast resort, as a contingency measure. Mr Fahour said in his evidence that he would hope this contingency facility is not used but that it is there to give a levelof confidence to the marketplace so that we do not see a fire sale of assets. Mr Fahour made the point that liquidity is a key factor in decisions that are made byforeign banks or any other member of a syndicate in determining whether they stay in or out. I believe that, based on the evidence and on the structure that isproposed, there will be that level of confidence, which will provide a level of comfort so that we will not see fire sales and so that liquidity will be propped up.I think that that, on balance, is the right approach. The right thing to do is to ensure that we have, with appropriate safeguards, a mechanism to allow for lendingof last resort on commercial terms if foreign banks pull out of the property market.

I want to comment briefly on Mr Fahour as interim CEO. Whilst the primary concern of this legislation ought to be the government’s structural mechanisms, itis interesting to note that Mr Fahour is involved. Even the critics of the ABIP proposal would have to acknowledge the contribution and the reputation of MrFahour as a former CEO of NAB Australia and his reputation in the banking sector. The government has been lucky to secure his services, given his track record in thebanking system. I have had extensive conversations with Mr Fahour about the issues of governance, structure and the commercial viability of loans forcommercial property. I have been reassured by the fact that Mr Fahour is interim CEO, and he has been helpful in providing information to me.

One of the issues raised by Mr Fahour was of administration, of making ABIP work. He expressed the concern to me that, if you outsource the administrativefunctions of ABIP, there could be issues. My concern is one of a potential conflict of interest in the decisions that ABIP makes. That is why I willbe moving an amendment, following my discussion with Mr Fahour, that the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation be involved in assisting ABIPLtd—as agreed to between the EFIC and ABIP—in financing arrangements, with respect to borrowing money and doing such things as are incidental to making ABIPwork. Given the role of the EFIC and the fact that it has commercial expertise similar to that which ABIP will have, the EFIC would be the appropriateentity for ABIP to go to. You would not have the conflict of interest issues that you might if it were outsourced to the private sector, and EFIC is upand running and already in place. I would urge senators to support an amendment along those lines. To me that seems a very pragmatic and sensible way todeal with these particular concerns in terms of having ABIP up and running.

I indicate that—subject to seeing the amendments regarding the commercial viability of loans, the lending criteria being commercial and the safeguards fortaxpayers, as well as indicating my support for the executive remuneration amendments of the Australian Greens—I support this legislation. I want to make itclear that I believe the government has, as a result of the Senate committee inquiry process, acknowledged the issues of competition policy and exemptionsfrom the Trade Practices Act and the need to monitor that.

With the government clarifying the issue of ASIC’s involvement, the Auditor-General’s involvement and governance issues with respect to ABIP, I believe thatthis is a prudent way forward. I hope that, as a contingency measure, ABIP is not used. It is a short-term measure whilst we go through these quiteturbulent economic times. I support the second reading of this bill.