Friday, July 31, 2020

Malaysia v China at PCA or ICJ seems inevitable: Malaysia has rejected China's Nine Dash Line claims

by Ganesh Sahathevan





Hishamuddin's claim that there have been no Chinese ships in Malaysian waters for 100 days shown to be false: China continues to assert control over Luconia Shoals



Matters have worsened since this article was published here  on 20 July 2020:

China's South China Sea challenge to Malaysia published in The Star leaves the Malaysian Government with no choice but to pursue its own claims against China before the Permanent Court Of Arbitration, or the ICJ


Since then Malaysia has responded, and in the words of the SCMP, in an"unusually strong statement" in which Malaysia has rejected China's claims "in its entirety".  

Taking the matter before the Permanent Court Of Arbitration or the International Court Of Justice appears to be the only available option.

TO BE READ WITH 

Malaysia rebukes Beijing as South China Sea ‘lawfare’ heats up

  • Unusually strong statement by Malaysia takes issue with Beijing for claiming it had no right to seek establishment of continental shelf in northern waters
  • Move reflects Malaysia’s rejection of China’s ‘nine-dash line’

Thursday, July 30, 2020

AG Speakman wants power to define "responsible journalism", reversing Solicitor General Michael Sexton's historic work in Carlovers , applied in Bond v Barry

by Ganesh Sahathevan


Scales
The #defamation reforms include: • Clarifying the cap on damages for non-economic loss • Protecting responsible journalism with a new public interest defence • Keeping more matters out of court by a serious harm threshold + requiring plaintiffs to issue a concerns notice.
1:16
91 views
4:50 PM · Jul 29, 2020·Twitter Web App
https://twitter.com/i/status/1288366259747266560


In his latest Tweet advertising his work reforming Australia's laws of defamation, NSW Attorney General Mark Speakman states: 
The #defamation reforms include:
Protecting responsible journalism with a new public interest defence

It is dangerous for any politician, including Attorneys General to be given the power to decide what  "responsible journalism" is or is not. As any journalist would know "not responsible journalism" is usually an euphemism for  stories that are less than complimentary of its subjects. 

That the AG has chosen to use that phrase is worrying for it suggests that the "reforms" will only lead to further silencing of journalists via the legal system.

It is troubling that Speakman has chosen to go down this path for it was the NSW Solicitor General Michael Sexton who, in Carlovers Carwash & Ors v Sahathevan made submissions that ensured that the phrase "journalist" and by extension "journalism" has come to be defined broadly, ensuring that journalists are free to go about their business without having politicians hinder their work.

Even more troubling is the fact that Speakman and his officers have chosen to rely on submissions for the plaintiffs in Carlovers to justify their approach to Carlovers, and now it seems, the reform of Australia's laws of defamation. 


TO BE READ WITH


Tuesday, June 11, 2019
Protection provided journalists,whistle blowers and sources by Carlovers v Sahathevan ,Bond v Barry undermined by NSW judicial body overseen by Chief Justice NSW, and AG Speakman

by Ganesh Sahathevan


In October 2001 the Supreme Court NSW handed down its decision in Carlovers Carwash Ltd v Sahathevan . The decision provided this writer and other journalists significant protection, and was later applied in Bond v Barry, where Paul Barry (better know now as host of MediaWatch) relied on the Carlover's decision to successfully defend himself against a charge of defamation by the late Alan Bond.

Quite apart from affirming the statutory safe harbor provisions protecting journalists found in for example the Fair Trading Act NSW, the cases were important for the defining the noun " journalist" in very broad terms.That broad definition is especially relevant today given the ability of researchers, investigators and writers to self-publish via their own blogs and social media such as Twitter and Facebook. Bond v Barry continues to be quoted to this day (and Sahathevan concedes he will never be as famous as Barry).

There has however been a recent decision of a quasi-legal body that seems to suggest that the protection provided by those cases and the decisions that follow them is being restricted, if not discarded by the legal establishment, especially in NSW.

In a recent decision finding this writer not fit and proper for admission to practice law in NSW the Legal Profession Admission Board (LPAB), which is overseen by the Chief Justice of NSW Thomas Bathurst, the LPAB (which includes three sitting judges,) determined that the Carlovers decision did not concern the work of a journalist but rather a Carlovers employee who after being sacked by Carlovers, harassed, threatened and intimidated the company and its directors.

In doing so the LPAB is suggesting that the Carlovers decision was incorrectly decided, or that the NSW Supreme Court's views on the rights of journalists to report, and of press freedom generally, have become more restrictive.

The Carlovers decision attracted much media attention locally and in this region and it has relevance especially today given the recent raids by the Australian Federal Police In his story on that matter published in the SMH on 14 October 2000 the last Ben Hills reported:


Mr Sahathevan's counsel, Ms Judith Gibson (now Judge Judith Gibsion) , argued that it was an important press freedom case, because if injunctions could be used in this way it would ``place every whistle-blower and every source at risk''. She said her client had claimed that Carlovers had made false and misleading statements to the Stock Exchange.

The LPAB put its findings with regards Carlovers in the context of what it claimed was evidence of this writer's history of publishing material that was false or otherwise lacking any evidence and were in fact part of this writer's criminal enterprise (see story below published in The Australian on 17 January 2019).


So certain is the LPAB of its findings that it has included in its findings a determination that this writer has shown no remorse for his work as a journalist; it has made specific reference to the story this writer investigated and wrote for publication in The Sun newspaper in Malaysia in 1996, which earned him the sacking from that paper which in turn led to a number of related defamation matters in Malaysia and Australia, including the Carlovers matter.


In Carlovers submissions were made by Carlovers and its directors about this writer's sacking from The Sun,and the Malaysian matters which included an AUD 7 Million claim for damages.The directors included the Malaysian businessman Vincent Tan Chee Yioun, who owned The Sun,and still controls it via his Berjaya Group of companies. The LPAB has found that these submissions were "irrelevant".

Tan's role in a number of questionable high profile defamation and corporate matters in Malaysia were well known, and the subject of adverse media reports worldwide, even in 2000. In 2006 a Malaysian Royal Commission which investigated corruption of the judiciary found that there was prima facie evidence that Tan and two former chief justices of Malaysia had committed offences under Malaysia's Sedition Act, Official Secrets Act, Penal Code and the Legal Profession Act. Early this year the Malaysian Government announced that there will be a second RCI into judicial corruption; the events of the past continue to have an impact even today.


The LPAB's findings given the issues concerning Vincent Tan described above suggests that the current NSW Supreme Court will not tolerate investigation by journalists regardless of how serious the matter.It does suggest a degree of antagonism towards journalists that is so great that the Court would be happy to re-write its past decisions,no matter how well established those decisions might be. In doing so the Court 's seem prepared to re-interpret the not merely the opinion but even the facts of past decisions.




Meanwhile, this writer continues to investigate and write about the issues and facts he discovered in 1996 which got him sacked, as well as other more recent events such as the 1MDB affair, Australia's submarines, and the NSW legal establishment's College Of Law.


TO BE READ WITH








Bizarre blog claims used to deny man right to practise law


EXCLUSIVE

BEN BUTLER
BUSINESS REPORTER
12:00AM JANUARY 17, 2019
2 COMMENTS

The body overseen by Chief Justice Tom Bathurst responsible for deciding who can practise law in NSW relied on a wildly defamatory Malaysian blog depicting ABC journalists, former British prime minister Tony Blair, financier George Soros and others as part of a global conspiracy when deciding to deny a would-be solicitor a certificate to practise.

Chief Justice Bathurst and Legal Practitioner Admission Board executive officer Louise Pritchard declined to answer The Australian’s questions about how the article came into the board’s hands and why its members felt the conspiracy-laden material could be relied upon as part of a decision to deny Sydney man Ganesh Sahathevan admission as a lawyer. Nor would either say which of the 10 members of the LPAB, three of whom are serving NSW Supreme Court judges, was on the deciding panel.

Ms Pritchard has left her role at the LPAB since The Australian began making inquiries in September. The article, published in December 2017 on website The Third Force, accuses Mr Sahathevan of engaging in a conspiracy to attack then Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak.


READ NEXT

EXCLUSIVE
Would-be lawyer denied by blog
BEN BUTLER

Mahathir Mohamad, who returned as prime minister after toppling Mr Najib in elections held last May, is also smeared as a participant in the globe-spanning conspiracy.

Mr Najib was under pressure at the time over the country’s sovereign wealth fund, 1MDB, which the US Department of Justice says has been looted of billions of dollars that was spent on property, art, jewels and the Leonardo DiCaprio film, The Wolf of Wall Street.

Malaysian authorities have charged Mr Najib with dozens of corruption offences that could attract decades in jail over his role in the 1MDB scandal, which allegedly included the flow of about $US1 billion through his personal bank account.

The article’s author, Malaysian political operative and Najib loyalist Raggie Jessy, also accused Rewcastle-Brown, Stein and Besser of receiving money, totalling millions of dollars, to participate in a Four Corners program exposing the 1MDB scandal that aired on the ABC in March 2016.

There is no suggestion any of Mr Jessy’s bizarre allegations are true. However, the LPAB cited the piece when denying Mr Sahathevan admission as a lawyer in an undated and unsigned set of reasons sent to him on August 3 last year.

It used the article as evidence in a passage dealing with legal conflicts between Mr Sahathevan, who has largely worked in the past as a journalist, his former employer, Malaysia’s Sun Media Group, and the company’s owner, tycoon Vincent Tan.

In that context, the board said the Third Force article reported “that Mr Sahathevan was investigated for blackmail, extortion, bribery and defamation”. While the article claims that blackmail, extortion, bribery and defamation “are but some of the transgressions many from around the world attribute” to Mr Sahathevan, The Australian was unable to find any reference in it to an investigation into him on these grounds.

It is unclear why the board felt the need to rely on the article, as it also made adverse findings about Mr Sahathevan’s character based on a series of other allegations including that he used “threatening and intimidating” language in emails to the College of Law and the NSW Attorney General and did not disclose his sacking from a previous job to the board.

Mr Sahathevan has denied the allegations in correspondence with the board.

The board also cited evidence that one of Mr Sahathevan’s blogs on Malaysian politics was banned by the Najib regime as indicating his poor character.

In an email to Chief Justice Bathurst, sent on August 30, Rewcastle-Brown said her site, Sarawak Report, which exposed much of the 1MDB scandal, was banned by the Malaysian government.

“I along with other critics of the 1MDB scandal (which includes Mr Sahathevan) became the target of immense state-backed vilification, intimidation and online defamation campaigns on behalf of the Malaysian government,” she said.

She said the board’s use of the Third Force article against Mr Sahathevan displayed “a troubling level of misjudgment and poor quality research, giving a strong impression that someone seeking to find reasons to disqualify this candidate simply went through the internet looking for ‘dirt’ against him”.

“The Third Force has consistently been by far the most outlandish, libellous, vicious and frankly ludicrous of all the publications that were commissioned as part of former prime minister Najib Razak’s self-proclaimed ‘cyber army’ which he paid (and continues to pay) to defame his perceived enemies and critics,” she said.

Besser, who now works in the ABC’s London bureau, told The Australian: “It’s clearly nonsense and comes from the darkest corners of some pretty wild Malaysian conspiracy theorists.”

Mr Sahathevan’s application is to be reconsidered at an LPAB meeting next month (Admission has since been denied, for the same reasons, but without explicit reference to the Thirdforce story).


BEN BUTLER

BUSINESS REPORTER
Business reporter Ben Butler has covered everything from tractors to fashion to corporate collapses. He has previously worked for the Herald Sun and as a senior business reporter with The Age and Sydney Morning... Read more

Posted by Ganesh Sahathevan at 9:57 PM

Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Najib convicted for abuse of power, corruption in connection with 1MDB: Implications for very senior Australian judicial officers who discredited Australian journalists who pursued Najib,and justified Najib blocking websites which informed public of his crimes

by Ganesh Sahathevan


Would-be lawyer denied by blog

The body overseen by Chief Justice Tom Bathurst responsible 
for deciding who can practise law in NSW relied on a wildly defamatory 
Malaysian blog depicting ABC journalists, former British prime minister Tony Blair,
financier George Soros and others as part of as part of a global conspiracy against Najib:
The Australian, 17 Jan 2018






It is now  news worldwide that former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has been found guilty and convicted for the corruption related crimes of abuse of power and money laundering.

These matters are not new and are part of the 1MDB theft which has been in the news worldwide since 2015 after the US Department Of Justice acted to seize billions in assets that were purchased with funds from 1MDB.


This writer's role in the investigation that led to the seizure is a matter of public record, not least because of the finding by senior judicial officers including the Chief Justice Of NSW Tom Bathurst, that this writer's articles about Najib were defamatory. Their honours went further to justify Najib's blocking of this writer's blog in Malaysia by the Najib regime.

Their honours went so far as to add that this writer had defamed many "imminent persons" on his blogs, and re-wrote the facts of  well known decisions of their own NSW Supreme Court to justify their findings.


Much of this was reported nationally in The Australian in 2018, but their honours have maintained their silence. That silence is no longer an option.

TI BE READ WITH




Wednesday, December 18, 2019

When senior Australian judges decide that Najib Razak's blocking of websites reporting the1MDB theft was due to "defamatory" publications ,Australia has a problem: Will Australia do like Malaysia did 20 years ago to address the problem?

by Ganesh Sahathevan


The 1MDB scandal has been described as the worse case of kleptocracy the world has ever seen by none other than the former US Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

The theft would probably never have come to light had it not been for the work of journalists, and in particular Clare Rewcastle-Brown of the UK. It is just as well that Rewcastle-Brown was publishing out of the UK and not Australia for had she been based in Australia  her work would have been readily halted by an Australian judge, had the perpetrators chosen to sue for defamation in Australia. 

There seems to have developed over the past two decades since the landmark decision in Carlovers & Ors v Sahathevan (in which this writer was the defendant) a desire among members of the Australian judiciary to punish journalists, or worse silence them.

Deborah Snow of the SMH reports that Richard Ackland, editor of the Gazette of Law and Journalism, goes so far as to suggest that Australian courts have developed a “tribal hostility to journalists”.

Ackland's observation was witnessed recently by this writer when very senior members of the NSW judicial system, including the Chief Justice Of NSW Tom Bathurst  determined that writer's work on the 1MDB affair had generally defamed many unnamed "eminent persons". 

The judges involved went as far as to approve of the Najib regime's blocking one of this writer's blogs; they claimed the blog had been blocked as a result of this writer's defamatory publications. 

The judges concerned did not provide any reasons for their judgement.In fact they justified their findings by accepting as true an account published on the Internet about this writer being an agent of the present Mahathir government who had been paid USD 1 Million to spread falsehoods about Najib Razak; and that part of that scheme involved bribing reporters from ABC 4 Corners to put to air a false story about Najib's involvement in the 1MDB affair. 

The judges findings were reported by Ben Butler in The Australian early this year, but no one from the judiciary or the Government has provided any explanation for those false findings.

Worse, the judges concerned went so far as to rewrite the facts of the landmark decision in Carlovers & Ors v Sahathevan, which was later applied in Bond v Barry, to further discredit this writer's work, which has spanned some 25 years.

The rewriting and re-interpretation of the Calovers decision is intriguing for one of the plaintiffs was Malaysian businessman Vincent Tan Chee Yioun. Tan has a history of interfering in the affairs of the judiciary in Malaysia . In the Carlovers matter in  2001  the Supreme Court NSW found against him, and ordered him to pay costs. Now it seems the Chief Justice and others have determined that Tan was wronged.


All of the above is distressing to this writer and others who have in the past looked to Australia as a safe haven from which to investigate and write about high level corruption and misdeeds. As the Chinese journalist and academic Louisa Lim puts it:

Then I moved to Australia. To my surprise, writing about China from Melbourne proved no simpler. But there, I was hobbled by different forces, namely Australia’s oppressive and notoriously complex defamation laws.


The problem it seems is not in the laws but in the judges whose job it is to interpret and apply those laws. Malaysia faced a similar problem with its judges more than 20 years ago, caused by among others Vincent Tan Chee Yioun. Fortunately pressure from the people, led by journalists including this writer, led to the removal of a number of rogue judges and lawyers. Australians must not pretend that the same is not needed here.

END




Bizarre blog claims used to deny man right to practise law




The body overseen by Chief Justice Tom Bathurst responsible for deciding who can practise law in NSW relied on a wildly defamatory Malaysian blog depicting ABC journalists, former British prime minister Tony Blair, financier George Soros and others as part of a global conspiracy when deciding to deny a would-be solicitor a certificate to practise.

Chief Justice Bathurst and Legal Practitioner Admission Board executive officer Louise Pritchard declined to answer The Australian’s questions about how the article came into the board’s hands and why its members felt the conspiracy-laden material could be relied upon as part of a decision to deny Sydney man Ganesh Sahathevan admission as a lawyer. Nor would either say which of the 10 members of the LPAB, three of whom are serving NSW Supreme Court judges, was on the deciding panel.

Ms Pritchard has left her role at the LPAB since The Australian began making inquiries in September. The article, published in December 2017 on website The Third Force, accuses Mr Sahathevan of engaging in a conspiracy to attack then Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak.

READ NEXT



Mahathir Mohamad, who returned as prime minister after toppling Mr Najib in elections held last May, is also smeared as a participant in the globe-spanning conspiracy.

Mr Najib was under pressure at the time over the country’s sovereign wealth fund, 1MDB, which the US Department of Justice says has been looted of billions of dollars that was spent on property, art, jewels and the Leonardo DiCaprio film, The Wolf of Wall Street.

Malaysian authorities have charged Mr Najib with dozens of corruption offences that could attract decades in jail over his role in the 1MDB scandal, which allegedly included the flow of about $US1 billion through his personal bank account.

The article’s author, Malaysian political operative and Najib loyalist Raggie Jessy, also accused Rewcastle-Brown, Stein and Besser of receiving money, totalling millions of dollars, to participate in a Four Corners program exposing the 1MDB scandal that aired on the ABC in March 2016.

There is no suggestion any of Mr Jessy’s bizarre allegations are true. However, the LPAB cited the piece when denying Mr Sahathevan admission as a lawyer in an undated and unsigned set of reasons sent to him on August 3 last year.

It used the article as evidence in a passage dealing with legal conflicts between Mr Sahathevan, who has largely worked in the past as a journalist, his former employer, Malaysia’s Sun Media Group, and the company’s owner, tycoon Vincent Tan.

In that context, the board said the Third Force article reported “that Mr Sahathevan was investigated for blackmail, extortion, bribery and defamation”. While the article claims that blackmail, extortion, bribery and defamation “are but some of the transgressions many from around the world attribute” to Mr Sahathevan, The Australian was unable to find any reference in it to an investigation into him on these grounds.

It is unclear why the board felt the need to rely on the article, as it also made adverse findings about Mr Sahathevan’s character based on a series of other allegations including that he used “threatening and intimidating” language in emails to the College of Law and the NSW Attorney General and did not disclose his sacking from a previous job to the board.

Mr Sahathevan has denied the allegations in correspondence with the board.

The board also cited evidence that one of Mr Sahathevan’s blogs on Malaysian politics was banned by the Najib regime as indicating his poor character.

In an email to Chief Justice Bathurst, sent on August 30, Rewcastle-Brown said her site, Sarawak Report, which exposed much of the 1MDB scandal, was banned by the Malaysian government.

“I along with other critics of the 1MDB scandal (which includes Mr Sahathevan) became the target of immense state-backed vilification, intimidation and online defamation campaigns on behalf of the Malaysian government,” she said.

She said the board’s use of the Third Force article against Mr Sahathevan displayed “a troubling level of misjudgment and poor quality research, giving a strong impression that someone seeking to find reasons to disqualify this candidate simply went through the internet looking for ‘dirt’ against him”.

“The Third Force has consistently been by far the most outlandish, libellous, vicious and frankly ludicrous of all the publications that were commissioned as part of former prime minister Najib Razak’s self-proclaimed ‘cyber army’ which he paid (and continues to pay) to defame his perceived enemies and critics,” she said.

Besser, who now works in the ABC’s London bureau, told The Australian: “It’s clearly nonsense and comes from the darkest corners of some pretty wild Malaysian conspiracy theorists.”

Mr Sahathevan’s application is to be reconsidered at an LPAB meeting next month (Admission has since been denied, for the same reasons, but without explicit reference to the Thirdforce story).
BUSINESS REPORTER
Business reporter Ben Butler has covered everything from tractors to fashion to corporate collapses. He has previously worked for the Herald Sun and as a senior business reporter with The Age and Sydney Morning... 

Angus Taylor & Australian Government grant billionaires Twiggy & Canon-Brookes solar power to Singapore project Major Project Status: Still no word from Singapore if the supply will be accepted,so why is the Australian Govt throwing money at these billionaires at their sun light white elephant?

by Ganesh Sahathevan


Renew Economy and others have reported: 

Minister for industry, science and technology Karen Andrews said on Wednesday that the Australian-ASEAN Power Link (AAPL) for the massive project, planned for the Northern Territory’s Barkly region near Tennant Creek, had been granted Major Project Status.


Federal minister for energy and emissions reduction, Angus Taylor, said the Sun Cable project would maintain Australia’s position as an energy exporting powerhouse.

“Australia has long been a world leader in energy exports,” Minister Taylor said. “As technologies change, we can capitalise on our strengths in renewables to continue to lead the world in energy exports.”


Meanwhile Singapore has had nothing to say about buying this power, and neither have Indonesia or any other ASEAN Country.
TO BE READ WITH

Wednesday, November 20, 2019


Australian billionaires propose to do a Bakun where Olivia Lum failed: Twiggy & Canon-Brookes looking decidedly old school, taking after Ting Pek Khiing,and is PwC going to be answerable to investors in this remake of the mid-90s Bakun Undersea Cable disaster

by Ganesh Sahathevan


Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes' family investment firm, Grok Ventures, will help fund development of a solar-power link between the Northern Territory and Singapore.








First the Sydney Morning Herald  headline, which seems not to have  made any impact in Singapore:

Billionaires invest in 'massive' solar farm to supply power to Singapore






Australian billionaires Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest have joined a capital raising of "tens of millions of dollars" to build a huge solar farm in Australia to supply electricity to Singapore.

David Griffin, chief executive of Sun Cable, did not disclose the total investment other than to say it was less than $50 million. Mr Cannon-Brookes and his wife, Annie, were "lead investors" with their family firm Grok Ventures, while Mr Forrest tipped in funds from his Squadron Energy company.


The over-subscribed raising marks the start of what could become a $22 billion plan to build the world's largest solar farm with a 10-gigawatt capacity covering 15,000 hectares near Tennant Creek in the NT, and a 22GW-hour storage plant.

The project would aim to supply competitively priced electricity to the Darwin region and to Singapore via a 4500-kilometre high-voltage cable.



All this brings to mind a slightly less ambitious plan from the mid 90s, which was even easier to fund, and finally died ten years ago despite valiant attempts by less than clean politicians to keep it alive


RM10b bonds to fund cable project



See Also 

Damned Corruption Began With Bakun



AND, Singapore's energy market is a tough one, even for local heroes like Olivia Lum, who has got  badly burnt by an attempt to diversify into energy generation:

In 2017, Hyflux embarked on a divestment exercise of Tuaspring Integrated Water and Power Project - the company's largest asset - "in line with its asset light strategy", but was unable to finalise any binding bids.
It said that "despite strong initial interest in this project", losses from electricity generation, lack of understanding of Singapore power market by potential buyers and delayed regulatory approval led to "a protracted sale process"
PwC  have led the fund raising for the Australian project, and one does wonder about their liability for promoting the project:

The Australia Singapore Power Link (ASPL) aims to supply renewable electricity from a 10GW solar farm to both Darwin and Singapore via a high voltage direct current transmission line – a plan first outlined by Beyond Zero Emissions in August, and which quickly attracted the attention of the likes of Cannon-Brookes.
According to a release from pWc, who guided the fund-raising process, the project will also include a massive 22GWh of battery storage located near Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory,  with electricity supply transported by a high voltage direct current transmission network, extending 4,500 km from the project site.
END