Thursday, June 13, 2019

ANZ was appointed banker to NSW when ABC implicated ANZ's CEO in rate rigging; ANZ's 1MDB role disregarded

by Ganesh Sahathevan


On or about 13 December 2018,the ABC's Elise Worthington reported that "ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott and other senior managers had been implicated for the first time in the interest rate rigging scandal that rocked Australia's financial system".


On 13 December 2018 the ANZ announced that it had been appointed banking provider for the `NSWGovernment.ANZ said:

Under the agreement, ANZ will deliver services across cash management, payments, merchant acquiring and cross-border banking requirements from 1 April, 2019. These services will be divided between ANZ and Westpac, the incumbent bank.

ANZ has also been named as an innovation partner to the NSW Government, a partnership which will leverage the bank’s market-leading capability and experience in data analytics, agile ways of working, human-centred design, digital and payments.

The contract is for three years with options to extend.


In November 2017 SBS reported that senior ANZ officials were aware of suspicious transactions going into the former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak's accounts at their Malaysian affiliated bank .

In May 2018 the AFR noted that the return to power of Mahatir Mohamad, ousting his rival Najib,was likely to be of concern to the ANZ's management.The AFR said:


Between 2011 and 2013, $US4 billion disappeared from the sovereign wealth fund 1MDB, and turned up in "investments" ranging from the movie that made Jordan Belfort the poster boy for trading floors everywhere to a $300 million, 90-metre superyacht. With the scandal still causing outrage, and probes having been quashed by the old government, the Pakatan Harapan coalition ran on a policy of enacting a royal commission into the scandal. Any investigation would most likely draw in ANZ, which has a 25 per cent stake in AmBank, which operated the personal bank accounts of deposed prime minister Najib Razak to which it is alleged $1.4 million was siphoned from 1MDB. Najib is now effectively, but not technically, under house arrest.

Unfortunately for ANZ, its involvement in the scandal, while indirect, does go to the top. Between June 2013 and October 2015, ANZ's now-CEO Shayne Elliot was a director of AmBank.

AmBank also employed many ANZ staff on secondment, though as Elliott has previously told an Australian parliamentary committee, while working at AmBank, ANZ employees did not report back to ANZ and were only responsible to the AmBank board.



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Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Berejiklian Government fails to disclose action/inaction against NSW Liberal Party donor Top Education Group, claims harrassment by journalist querying non-disclosure


Three politicians at a press conference, one pulling an awkward face

by Ganesh Sahathevan

It has been previously reported by this writer on a related blog,with regards the political party donor Minshen Zhu and his Top   Education Group:

NSW Libs received donations of $44,275 from TOP Education Group just before after TOP was granted the “first & only” license issued a private company to award law degrees: AG Speakman and his LPAB refuse to disclose all details in the LPAB Annual Reports 


Together with that license comes statutory powers  which allow Top Group and its management to issue adverse reports against any Law student who seeks admission to practice in NSW and Australia.That can include students who complain about course content and delivery,as this writer has discovered from a recent experience with the College Of Law Sydney.
It can now be reported that the Attorney General Mark Speakman has failed to disclose what action if any departments under his purview,and in particular the Legal Profession Admission Board had taken to review Top Group’s “first and only” license issued a private company to issue law degrees,  after that company and its CEO and principal Minshen Zhu were named in the political donation scandals of 2016 involving Sam Dastiyari and the Labor and Liberal Party. A review would have been expected given the statutory powers described above, and the nature of the LLB degree ,given the fact that LLB holders admitted to practice are in fact officers of the court. Consequently, even if it was determined that a review was not required, that fact would have had to be disclosed.
These matters would have had to have been disclosed in the annual report or reports of the governing body, the Legal Profession Admission Board. While the LPAB is an independent statutory body chaired by the Chief Justice of NSW its annual reports are presented the NSW Parliament by the Attorney General, in this case the Memberity  for Cronulla Mark Speakman SC.
Speakman, the LPAB its chairman were queried about the issue of the Top Group license by this writer, but was told by the LPAB that it will not be answering any questions.The LPAB described the queries as “numerous” and had previously determined that queries sent by this writer to another entity under its supervision, the College Of Law , as a form of harassment and intimidation, the basis of the volume and language.

END



TOP Education Institute’s Bachelor of Laws : Political donations,HK Stock Exchange IPO seem to have left regulators confounded, speechless 

by Ganesh Sahathevan
Prime Malcolm Turnbull pictured with Top Education’s Minshen Zhu.
In 2015 the  NSW Legal Profession Admission Board granted a private company the right to issue law degrees that would be recognized for admission to practice law in NSW, and the rest of Australia.
The then  private company has since been listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and is known as Top Education Group Ltd (HKG:1752) .It operates the  “Sydney City School of Law”, which has greater semblance to a tutorial college than to the public universities that one normally associates with Australian law degrees.
The NSW LAPB’s decision took even the  Australian Law Students Association by surprise,as Lawyers Weekly reported:
The NSW LPAB is headed by a chairman,who is usually the Chief Justice Of NSW.The current Chief Justice  is Tom Bathurst,who was one of Australia’s leading commercial QCs before his elevation.
TOP Institute is understandably proud of its achievement, which is advertised on its website:

Top Education Institute received accreditations from TEQSA and the NSW Legal Profession Admission Board (LPAB) to offer a course of studies leading to the award of the Bachelor of Laws Degree (LLB)

Top Education Institute received accreditations from TEQSA and the NSW Legal Profession Admission Board (LPAB) to offer a course of studies leading to the award of the Bachelor of Laws Degree (LLB).TOP will commence delivery of the LLB program from Semester 2, 2015 for domestic students.
In 2018 Top went for an IPO in Hong Kong.It is listed on the HK Stock Exchange and the LPAB and TEQSA accreditation was an important selling point.The listing was a success, for the promoters, as one can see from the volumes traded and share price at and since listing:
Top Education Group Ltd
HKG: 1752
TOP EDUCATION (01752) - Technical analysis WMA SMA EMA Bollinger SAR RSI
The promoters are led by Professor Dr Minsheng Zhu, better know for his philanthropy, especially towards members of the Liberal and Labor parties.The chairmen of the LPAB and TEQSA have been queried about all of the above; these are not issues students would have to confront from ordinary public universities that award law degrees. At the time of writing , neither has responded.
END
A Top Education? Dastyari’s Donations Troubles Expose The College With Impeccable ConnectionsBy Wendy Bacon & Ben Eltham on September 2, 2016Education
A top education?
Sam Dastyari’s donations trouble exposes the private college with impeccable connections.
Labor Senator Sam Dastyari has found himself under considerable scrutiny this week over a donation he received from Sydney’s Top Education Institute.
There is no doubt that Sam Dastyari is close to the Top Education Institute – otherwise he could scarcely have called on them to pay his parliamentary travel bill when he exceeded its cap. Close scrutiny has now also revealed that his disclosures on interstate travel have been sloppy, to say the least.
But Dastyari is not the only one to have links to Top Education. The private college is well-known in the corridors of power. Top Education’s director Minshen Zhu is one of the best-connected foreign donors in the country.
Labor Senator Sam Dastyari.
Labor Senator Sam Dastyari.
The Top Education Institute is headquartered in the Biotechnology Building of inner Sydney’s Australian Technology Park. It was the first Australian college to be on the Chinese government’s approved list of tertiary institutions. Top Education has achieved the prestigious TEQSA certification to offer Bachelors’ degrees. It is the only non-university institute to offer Australian-accredited law degrees at undergraduate level. This course was originally only approved with conditions in 2013, but was fully accredited without conditions in 2015.
Top Education’s chairperson Minshen Zhu is reported to have close links with the Chinese government, though exactly how close is difficult to ascertain. An ANU graduate, Dr Zhu was a board member of the Confucius Institute of the University of Sydney. He has been a delegate to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a consultative body that implies political influence. In 2012, former foreign minister Bob Carr also appointed him to a Chinese Ministerial Consultative Committee.
Criticism of Dastyari, particularly from Liberal Party senators such as Cory Bernardi and George Brandis, has focussed on Top Education’s links with the Chinese government. This is ironic. The public record shows that the Liberal Party also seems to enjoy close connections with Dr Zhu and the TopEducation Institute.
Dr Zhu has been remarkably adept at convincing Australian politicians to help promote and market his institution. Indeed his college has received extraordinary attention from the most senior members of the LNP government.
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, pictured with Minshen Zhu.
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, pictured with Minshen Zhu.
As prime ministers, both Malcolm Turnbull and before him Tony Abbott found time to attend TopEducation functions. Fairfax yesterday reported that he also met with Attorney-General George Brandis in April this year, and with Treasurer Scott Morrison in November 2015.
The payment of Senator Dastyari’s travel bill has caused him considerable embarrassment. But Dastyari’s $1,670 travel invoice is just a small indication of Top Education’s political largesse. TopEducation has donated handsomely to both major parties in recent years. While Top Education initially favoured the ALP in donations, since the Liberal Party came to power in 2013, Top Education’s donations have shifted to the federal and New South Wales branches of the Liberals.
Australian Electoral Commission registries indicate that the Australian Labor Party has received at least $186,000 from Top Education since 2010. Between 2014 and 2015, Top Education has donated $44,275 to the Liberal national and New South Wales branches. Unusually, the Top Education Institute itself did not disclose any of its donations to the ALP to the AEC. They were disclosed by the ALP.
Dr Zhu and Top Education have also built plenty of face-to-face connections with top Liberal politicians. He is well-known in the party rooms of Parliament. Simple internet searches can easily find photos ofTop Education’s supremo with Malcolm Turnbull, George Brandis and Julia Gillard.
There is also video footage and Facebook photos of Alex Hawke (now the Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Security) speaking at the Top Education Institute on July 27 2015. Hawke was there on behalf of Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne, then the education minister. He even read out a special message from the Prime Minister. Such favours have been frugally bestowed on Australian public universities, who were at that stage engaged in fractious negotiations with Pyne over the govenrment’s policy of university fee deregulation.
Abbott and Pyne were already well-acquainted with the Top Education Institute. They met with the Institute’s senior management in September 2013, just a fortnight after the Abbott government was elected. On Top Education’s website, you can see a photo with Abbott prominently featured. He is pictured holding a brochure for the Institute’s new law school. The close relationship with the government has endured after Abbott’s demise as prime minister. On November 7 2015, Turnbull was photographed holding a course brochure at a dinner with Dr Zhu.
Yesterday, Attorney General George Brandis was keen to distinguish the payment of personal debt from political donations. “Indeed, many of us have met Mr Minshen Zhu and had dealings with the TopEducation Institute but it appears only Senator Sam Dastyari has accepted money from him in settlement of a personal debt,” he told the Senate. Ordinary voters may question this distinction.

Dr Zhu’s big donations at ALP functions

The ALP has been Top Education’s most favoured donation recipient, with at least $186,000 donated to state and federal branches of the Labor Party since 2010. New Matilda attempted to contact ALP Federal Secretary George Wright about the ALP donations but ALP head office said that he was away and not available for comment. New Matilda understands that multiple donations from Top Education Institute are classified as ‘other receipts’ because they were paid at functions and events, rather than as financial gifts without any benefit in return.
The practice throws a spotlight on the increasing popularity of these ‘other receipts” as a category for donations disclosures. As Crikey’s Bernard Keane argued yesterday, “‘Other receipt’ is especially useful because any payment of any kind other than a donation — such as a tax refund, bank interest or a legitimate asset sale — gets lumped into that category, further reducing the clarity of disclosure.”

A donations spree in a time of higher education deregulation

The policy context for Top Education’s donations spree is instructive. Under a policy begun by the Gillard government and continued under the Coalition governments of Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull, tertiary education in Australia has been opened up to the private sector in unprecedented ways.
As a result of these reforms, private education providers such as vocational colleges and institutes are now able to access federal government funding via the FEE-HELP system. This system plays a crucial role in Australian higher education, enabling students to study for expensive tertiary qualifications without paying anything upfront, by taking a loan out through the federal government. Without access to FEE-HELP, private colleges would find it much more difficult to sign up large numbers of domestic students.
Students at the Top Education Institute can access FEE-HELP.
As New Matilda has chronicled, the expansion of FEE-HELP to private colleges in the vocational sector has been a billion-dollar disaster for Australian education. Notorious swindlers like the Phoenix Instituteand former stock market high-flyers Vocation moved into the sector, vacuumed up hundreds of millions of dollars in government education loans, and then collapsed.
The Top Education Institute is not without its own scandals. In May this year it was reported that TEI was offering internships at prestigious accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. For a cool $2,800, prospective interns could “work closely with PwC partners”, according to an advertisement on social network WeChat. In response, PwC and Top Education then scrambled to explain the advertisement as a misunderstanding; apparently the positions were in fact only a two week ‘development’ course fee.
The arrangement between Top Education and PwC got murkier. In June this year PwC Australia acquired a 15 per cent stake in TOP Education. PwC and Top openly spruiked its investment inTop Education as an opportunity to get involved in the lucrative export education trade.
According to this article on Top Education’s website:
TOP Education’s Chair of Council and former Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe University, Emeritus Professor Brian Stoddart, said that TOP was delighted to align with PwC.
“PwC recognises the value of investment in education export services and of the services already provided by TOP as a leading private innovator in the sector,” he said.
New Matilda is not suggesting Dr Zhu or Top Education have done anything improper. However the generous donations on the public record highlight the assiduous efforts Dr Zhu has made to court major party politicians.
Examining Top Education’s lobbying efforts suggests that the real play here is probably not Chinese soft power or political influence. In fact, the real value of Top Education’s generosity may be about securing a foothold position in Australia’s increasingly-privatised higher education market. The advantages for a private college looking to cash in on a boom in overseas students looking to study at private universities are manifest.
END
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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  not merely the reasons 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.

END





END 
Reference

Bizarre blog claims used to deny man right to practise law

Former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak.Former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak.


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.

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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).

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