When is an exclusive not an exclusive? When it runs in The Australian. Pearls and Irritations had the real Paul Keating exclusive over the weekend.
Michael West
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Gladys’ leadership rumours rise as rival Perrottet embroiled in scandal
Is it coincidence that Gladys Berejiklian’s rival Dominic Perrottet is suddenly embroiled in the “Wolf of Wall Street scandal”? Michael West investigates NSW leadership tensions and the New Generations Fund.
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Rise of independent media
‘Rise of independent media’ is a panel discussion between investigative journalist Michael West, Crikey editor-in-chief Peter Fray and author and media analyst Margaret Simons and is chaired by the editor for InDaily David Washington. The panel took place at the Adelaide Writer’s Week festival on 2 March 2021. (more…)
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Laughing Stock: Australia’s new media code rivals our climate policy for absurdity
Google good, Facebook bad. That sums up mainstream media coverage of the Coalition government’s bizarre new media code. That’s because Google paid up, Facebook decided it was extortion and called Josh Frydenberg’s bluff, banning Australian news. The mainstream media has been corrupted.
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Tamed Estate: News’ and Nine’s PR and the plight of the (Liberals’?) media
Old media caps off annus horribilis 2020 with its traditional horrible week. Michael West, standing in for Michael Tanner, looks at the fall of Fairfax, PR masquerading as journalism, who guards the Guardian, Seven News’ calls for war with China and how Scott Morrison’s media team has the game sown up.
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The Usual Suspects: oil and gas majors star in Australian tax heist (MWM Dec 17, 2020)
Angus Taylor’s rescue package for the oil industry is a testament to the ability of large corporations to game governments. The latest Tax Office transparency data shows that oil and gas juggernauts are, again, Australia’s biggest tax cheats, yet are demanding and getting more public subsidies to prop up their oil refineries. Michael West reports on the good and the bad in multinational tax dodging land.
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Is Rupert Murdoch going bust?
This video has been reposted from Michael West Media 25 November 2020
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Feeding the Chooks: Scott Morrison’s marketing triumph over mainstream media complete
Scott Morrison has perfected the art of media manipulation by briefing a select club of Canberra correspondents together, rather than leaking to individual media outlets. Callum Foote and Michael West report on the marketing genius of the Prime Minister and the increasingly meek mainstream media.
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Gas Gush: the toadies of mainstream media trot out government’s fossil fuel fracking campaign (MWM SEP 15, 2020)
Gas fracking and a new fossil fuel power plant got a big leg-up today as News Corp, Nine Entertainment, ABC News and Guardian Australia faithfully splashed with the latest government gas plan on their front pages today.
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Friendlyjordies’ interview with Michael West
Earlier this month John and Michael sat down with Friendlyjordies for a long-form interview. Please watch Michael and Jordan discuss Australia’s media landscape, lobbying and independent journalism.
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Silver Bullet: an elegant cure for Government spending excess (Michael West Media August 5, 2020)
If it’s good enough for tennis stars and entertainers, it’s good enough for multinational tax avoiders and consultants. Michael West addresses the Senate Inquiry into Finance and Public Administration today.
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AI Unveiled: another propaganda service for Defence, big business and the Coalition (Michael West 22.7.20)
Is AI Group just a front for big business and foreign weapons manufacturers? Michael West reports on the rise of government and business propaganda outfits who are suddenly mute when the subject turns to the delicate matter of who funds them.
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Do the grandchildren really pay the debt? The problem with Scott Morrison’s plan for recovery, and MMT
Michael West investigates Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and the false assumption that the national Budget is like the household budget, or a business. They are already creating new money while denying the proposition that creating new money will expand the economy; preferring to punish casual workers and Arts students, and pursue austerity instead. (more…)
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MICHAEL WEST. Virgin Australia: buy the business, don’t bail out the shareholders (MWM 02.04.20)
Virgin Australia is pleading for a bail-out twice what its shares a worth. Its wealthy foreign shareholders can afford to pay. They’ve scampered. What is the answer? (more…)
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MICHAEL WEST. Too Big To Fail: Qantas, the corporate elite and the coronavirus (michaelwest.com.au 17.03.2020)
Alan Joyce is a canny operator. As the ravages of the coronavirus began to hit the airline hard, the Qantas boss announced he would take no salary for the rest of the year; no salary for the rest of the financial year that is. Who will the Government bail out? Michael West investigates Australia’s institutions that are Too Big To Fail.
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MICHAEL WEST.-Ranking Australia’s billionaires as taxpayers (Michael West Media 28.2.2020)
Community attitudes have changed. But what has not changed, and what must change, is the secrecy around the corporate affairs of Australia’s wealthiest old family business empires. (more…)
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MICHAEL WEST.-Who Pays: should ordinary taxpayers foot the bill for bushfires or the fossil fuel giants who pay no tax?
Five of Australia’s top coal companies – Peabody, Yancoal Sumitomo, Citic and Whitehaven – racked up $54 billion in total income over the past five years and paid zero income tax in Australia, according to Tax Office corporate tax data. Fossil fuel companies should foot the bill for the fires, not ordinary taxpayers.
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The Ultimate Gouge: why Australia, the world’s #1 exporter, now imports gas (Michael West)
What an outrage it is that the Northern Territory doesn’t lift its grape production, instead of importing wine from South Australia! And what about those lazy Tasmanians; rather than growing their own mangoes and pineapples they import them from Queensland! Michael West reports on the bizarre claims of the gas lobby. (more…)
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MICHAEL WEST. Big Four audit firm bust-up (Michael West, 18 May 2018)
“Is it possible to amend the rules to stop giving (government) work to tax haven connections?” MP Julian Hill posing a question to public service chiefs at a parliamentary hearing into the cost of government.
This post by Michael West over twelve months ago is still very relevant.(John Menadue) (more…)
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Zali Steggall takes on Tony Abbott over hospitals-to-tax-haven deal (Michael West)
Tony Abbott has come under pressure from Warringah independent, Zali Steggall, over the Government’s decision to approve the sale of the new Northern Beaches Hospital, and 42 other Australian hospitals, to an obscure company in the Cayman Islands. (more…)
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MICHAEL WEST, JEFFREY KNAPP. Conflicts of Interest”R”Us: KPMG pursues PwC back into insolvency (Michael West).
The Big Four, the relentless architects of global tax avoidance, have returned to the insolvency business, despite selling out of it 15 years ago because of overweening conflicts of interest. When it became known last year that the bosses of PwC, EY, Deloitte and KPMG had been getting together for cosy dinners, and given the billions they make from government consulting, Labor asked the competition regulator to investigate cartel behaviour. Nothing much happening there. The Big Four may have begun as auditors, but they are expanding into everything from advisory and consulting to mopping up lawyers and now liquidators too. Michael West reports, with advice from retired UNSW accounting academic, Jeffrey Knapp. (more…)
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MICHAEL WEST Big Four: government’s binge on consultants goes ballistic.
The Big Four global accounting firms have banked $3.1 billion in taxpayer income in the past six years for government consulting. That’s three thousand one hundred million dollars in government revenue to just four firms – PwC, EY, KPMG and Deloitte – for providing advice. (more…)
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MICHAEL WEST-Dee Why RSL: pokies, prodigious profits and personal tragedy.
Gary van Duinen took his own life after a thirteen-hour binge on the pokies two months ago. His body was found by a walking trail near Narrabeen lagoon. The tragic death of the 45-year old husband and father has cranked up the spotlight once again on Australia’s predatory poker machine industry and the shameful connivance of governments, pubs and clubs in sharing the billions in loot. (more…)
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MICHAEL WEST. Exempt: how Defence dodges the taxman (Michael West blog 15.08.18)
Foreign military contractors have been awarded a staggering $73 billion in contracts, apparently tax-free, because successive governments have struck contracts directly with offshore companies, even as far afield as the Atlantic tax haven of Bermuda. (more…)
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MICHAEL WEST. Good timing: Australia Post in talks to become a bank
The banks will fight it tooth and nail. Australia Post is considering becoming a bank, a move which could deliver significant competition to the country’s banking oligopoly through lower fees and lower-cost mortgages. (more…)
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MICHAEL WEST. Treasury hides corporate welfare data.
There it was right on cue, at the cusp of the New Year weekend, a government press release about the cost of welfare bludgers trumpeted loudly across the press and the TV news bulletins. (more…)
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MICHAEL WEST. ATO data dump: naming and shaming the nation’s biggest tax cheats
The usual culprits are at play. Zero tax on $2.9 billion in revenue from Rupert Murdoch’s News Australia Holdings, not a zack from Wall Street’s cuff-linked freebooters Goldman Sachs for the third year on the trot, same deal for brewing giant SAB Miller and a slew of other foreign multinationals.They are the really powerful foreign agents of influence. (more…)
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MICHAEL WEST. The Minerals Council, coal and the half a billion spent by the resources lobby
There is no peak body or rent seeker in the country which conducts its business as belligerently, and its proponents would say as successfully, as the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA). In 2010 it ousted a Prime Minister. (more…)
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MICHAEL WEST. BCA investigation: power of the business lobby in Australia
This is part in a series of investigations by Michael West into Australia’s most powerful business lobby groups and rent seekers. To begin, we have selected the Business Council of Australia, the most elite and influential peak body of them all. Among the findings, the nation’s premier corporate lobby group has broken the law at least 11 times in 20 years. (more…)