Discussion on the RC into ALP...err...union corruption.

[Tannin]

615 stores in Australia. With an estimated 69% of them participating in this huge scam at the expense of the lowest-paid workers in the country, that is organised crime, with a head office in Mt Waverley and 400+ branch offices spread all over the country.

Did I link this one already?

http://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace-relations/7eleven-wage-fraud-coverup-from-head-office-20150828-gjahrc.html

7-Eleven: wage fraud cover-up from head office "A massive cover-up of employee exploitation is being run out of 7-Eleven corporate headquarters, a joint investigation by Fairfax Media and Four Corners can reveal."

[Mugwump]

^oh, and for the record, yep, if true, strip 7-eleven of their licence to operate, make them pay back-pay and exemplary damages, then close them down. Their apparent conduct has been unconscionable.

[Mugwump]

[David]

The fact that there's equivalent (or much worse) corruption in the business world doesn't mean that there shouldn't be an inquiry into unions, though. Yes, it's a political exercise, but that doesn't necessarily make it wrong.

The principle of a Royal Commission is that pretty much anything is a valid target. The only decent reason to oppose one is on the grounds that it's completely irrelevant and thus wasting taxpayer money. Given the history of union corruption, I don't think you can argue that there's nothing to see here.

[Tannin]

^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

[Tannin]

It is an elementary matter to address the worst problems first and hardest. Union corruption is a trivially minor matter in the context of the fraud and corruption in the Liberal-supporting, Liberal-funding business community. And yet this government has pissed $60,000,000 up against the wall to catch - wait for it - four small fry. Four. Yep, four. After months of work and astronomical expense, that's how many union officials have actually been charged with anything as a result of this commission. Four. Oh, they'll find a few more, and there is a handful of others who probably will be charged one day, but whichever way you try to spin it, it's pitifully meagre result for a vast amount of money, time and energy.

Business corruption, in contrast, is massive. The corrupt dealing of the disgraced former Assistant Treasurer - who hasn't even been booted out of the party or the parliament FFS - was aiming at twenty million dollars out of the public purse. That is one example. One. And that one alone was bigger than all the piddly little union scams put together.

Sure, address union corruption. Do it on a wet weekend someday when you have at least made a start on addressing the far, far, far larger and more expensive and more dangerous problems of corruption in the business community and haven't got anything better to do.

Having this union RC is like treating your sister's acne when she's bleeding to death from multiple stab wounds. And I do mean "bleeding to death" - this country is being bled white by greedy "businessmen" gaming the system in a host of different ways, ranging from scamming the tax system right through to deliberate outright frauds like the 7-Eleven wages scam.

[watt price tully]

[watt price tully]

[Tannin]

[Gerry Cooper]

I have been told by an AFP source that back in the nineties when certain colourful Melbourne and Sydney identities strongly linked to the drug trade were asked by Federal Police to name where they were getting funding and material support for their heroin and cocaine importations, they completely refused to answer any questions. And it seemed to be that as one conduit was closed down, others would open up. The AFP believed then that certain very well known, very wealthy and outwardly respectable business figures had their hands in the drug trade and made a lucrative cut from the resulting drug profits. At the time it was considered by the AFP to be political dynamite to investigate these beliefs. So the players got (and may still be) getting away with it....

Just sayin'...

[Mugwump]

[Tannin]

If there is a choice between playing at Docklands or the Hyperbole, I'll take the Hyperbole every time.

[Mugwump]

[HAL]

I will try my best.

[Tannin]

Mugwamp, first we need to be careful with this rather artificial distinction you make between tax avoidance, sharp practice, and outright fraud. Very often, the distinction hinges on nothing more than legal technicalities, and this is especially so in the case of big businesses - the very organisations who are most able to game the system with their phalanxes of high-paid lawyers and slimy accountants.

Second, we can and should recognise that different forms of organisation lend themselves to different modes of theft. I'm using the term here in a broad sense, to include the full range of illegitimate ways of taking money from those to whom it properly belongs, from BHP and Apple avoiding billions in tax responsibilities through to Arfur Slimydinos fleecing the NSW taxpayer out of 20 million, through to 7-Eleven stealing millions from their lowest-paid workers who can least afford it. It's all theft and we need not distinguish between different modus operandi - to do so only confuses the issue.

As a general rule, big corporations tend to prefer the technically-legal-but-dodgy-as-hell methods, while the nakedly illegal scams tend to be more the domain of the smaller operator. This is probably as much a matter of organisational structure as it is of sheer size. For obvious reasons, it's often easier for individual proprietors to conduct downright illegal scams than it is for a public company. So, if you are looking for a $1 billion organisation doing straight-out illegal things, start by looking at the ones which are controlled by a single entrepreneur, or a small, tight group of backers - the likes of Bond and Tinkler are obvious examples. But if you are looking for the just-barely-legal-because-of-a-technicality form of theft, start anywhere you like. (But focus on the big ones first because they are the ones able to do most of it.)

I don't think a royal commission is the way to go, by the way. An expanded and strengthened form of the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption would be ideal - and perfectly able to go after the few small-fry in the union movement as well as the vastly more numerous and much, much bigger fish in the business world.