Malcolm Turnbull has called for more truth in parliament. I agree, so in this post we have a look at what a dirty rotten lying scoundrel Malcolm Turnbull is.
In a speech that Mr Turnbull gave in Perth last Wednesday it was reported “Malcolm Turnbull has decried the state of political discourse in Australia, saying it had deteriorated to such an extent that the nation suffered “a deficit of trust” and there was an urgent need for honesty in politics.” (Click here to read more)
Before Malcolm starts preaching he needs to have a good look at himself. His own party dumped him as leader in 2009 and from all reports trust and honesty were an issue. Mr Turnbull has also refused to answer a number of questions in relation to a grant he gave when he was Enviroment Minister in the Howard government to his friend Matt Handbury.
Mr Turnbull’s electorate fund-raising is done though an organisation he set up in 2007 called the Wentworth Forum. The SMH reported “Regarded as the country’s most sophisticated political fund-raising machine, the forum offers membership packages that give the most generous supporters more opportunities to gain access to Mr Turnbull.”
“It costs $5500 to be a “member”, $11,000 to be a “sponsor”, $16,500 to be a “patron”, $25,500 to be a “benefactor” and $55,000 to be a “governor”.”
“A governor can host boardroom events, and gets two tables at big functions featuring Mr Turnbull, and attendance at an exclusive dinner for supporters.”
“An analysis of forum donations, fund-raising events and memberships between 2007 and last December shows Mr Turnbull received more than $1.4 million. He personally contributed about $10,000 in catering for forum events. Most of the money was raised before the 2007 federal election.” (Click here to read more)
Matt Handbury was one of the donors to Mr Turnbull’s Wentworth Forum.
Before the 2007 election and two weeks after the election was called Malcolm Turnbull announced that the government would spend $11 million funding a trail of rainfall technology. The company in question was Australian Rain Corporation which was then part owned by Matt Handbury.
It says on Mr Turnbull’s Wikipedia profile “During the 2007 election campaign, Turnbull announced that the then Government would contribute $10 million to the investigation of an untried Russian technology that aims to trigger rainfall from the atmosphere, even when there are no clouds. Literature suggests that the technology is based on bogus science. The Australian Rain Corporation presented research documents written in Russian, explained by a Russian researcher who spoke to local experts in Russian.”
“Although Turnbull claimed that Australian Rain Corporation is Australian-based, investigations have shown that it is in fact 75 per cent Swiss-owned. It was also revealed that a prominent stakeholder in the Australian Rain Corporation, Matt Handbury, is a nephew of Rupert Murdoch. Turnbull has refused to answer questions regarding Matt Handbury’s contribution to the Wentworth Forum, the main fundraising organisation for Turnbull’s 2007 election campaign.” (Click here to read more)
It was even raised in parliament in 2009 during the infamous Godwin Grech / Utegate scandal. On the 22nd June 2009 the following statement by Tony Burke Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population shows up on Hansard:
There is an interesting organisation involved in what is described as ‘rainfall enhancement technology’—a company named the Australian Rain Corporation. Apparently they have decided to corporatise rain! The Australian Rain Corporation sought money and the National Water Commission commissioned an independent review of the technology that they were putting forward by a former senior CSIRO officer and professor of physical sciences and engineering from the ANU. The National Water Commission insisted that the Australian Rain Corporation give a presentation of this technology to a panel of physicists. They then provided it with the research papers and made the presentation in Russian. The independent review concluded: ‘There is no convincing evidence that the Atlant technology operates as believed by its proponents.’ But in the end the department recommended that the member for Wentworth provide them with $2 million for a trial, which was arguably a generous offering, given what had been said about the technology. What did the Leader of the Opposition, as a minister, do with a recommendation to give them $2 million? He wrote to the Prime Minister seeking a lazy $10 million for the Australian Rain Corporation. You have to ask: what would be the circumstances of taking a departmental recommendation for $2 million and turning it into $10 million? Why would the Leader of the Opposition have done that as a minister?
This is where we discover that an executive of the Australian Rain Corporation happened to be a next-door neighbour of the Leader of the Opposition. The same person, the same neighbour, was a member of his electorate fundraising committee, the Wentworth Forum, with membership costing a cool $5,000 to get yourself into the room. If you want to find deals for mates, there are stories of deals for mates and there are stories that rest very squarely with the Leader of the Opposition. This is the same person who was able to run around saying, ‘Well, we’ve got this email. You’d better publish it,’ and who went to members of staff, intimidated them and said that he had documentary evidence. All we ask of the Leader of the Opposition is: prove that you have been telling the truth. We know what will happen. We know we will be greeted with the same deathly silence that we get now. We know that he is pretending to write and focus on something else, but we know full well that the Leader of the Opposition has been caught out and caught out badly. (Click here to read more) And on the 23rd June 2009 it was raised again in parliament by Tony Burke. (Click here to read)
Another article says “Rainmaker Ian Searle, the father of cloud seeding in Australia for the Tasmanian Hydro scheme, has also expressed doubts, as has Israel’s internationally respected cloud physicist Professor Daniel Rosenfeld.
“There is no single scientific paper, only the patent, and one can patent anything claiming it’s to do anything that he likes, as long as no one else has made the same claims before,” Professor Rosenfeld said.
“Mr Searle says all the literature he has seen on the technology shows it to be a bogus science.” (Click here to read more)
At one point the government were talking about having an inquiry into the grant to Australian Rain Corporation but it never eventuated. As it turned out when the Rudd government came to power in November 2007 the new Enviroment Minister Penny Wong cancelled the grant but $2.97 million had already been paid and there were likely other costs in terminating the funding agreement. (Click here to read more)
There are a lot of unanswered questions that Malcolm Turnbull needs to answer about the Australian Rain Corporation grant. So far he refuses.
Other issues about his honesty have also been raised such as: “Mr Turnbull connection to the logging industry in Solomon Islands began in 1991 and 1992, when he owned shares and also chairman of the then Hong Kong listed Axiom Forest Resources that own logging operations and forest concessions in the country.”
He rejected accusations that he had once played a huge role in bad logging practices in Solomon Islands, claiming “he was trying to encourage local landowners to change logging practices and ways”.
Mr Turnbull then further claimed “…. the company (Silvania) brought in some of the best foresters in the world. There was a lot of work done on reforestation, on plantations”.
A report by the Australian International Development Aid Bureau – now Ausaid – in 1994 described the logging practices of Axiom subsidiary Silvania Forest Products as:…”more like a clear-felling operation and bearing little relation to an attempt at even retaining a token sample of future commercial crop on the site.”
A separate report also described Silvania’s forest practices as “amongst the worst in the world.” (Click here to read more)
If Malcolm Turnbull wants more honesty in government he needs to start with himself. At the next election if the polls are true and the Liberals/Nationals win power one of the first things that they need to do is get rid of Turnbull. He is a major liability, not an asset. Judgement day is coming for all corrupt politicians no matter what side of politics they are on.
This post is off topic to a degree for this site but a lack of honesty by politicians is a major reason why the courts are so corrupted. They fail to appoint judicial officers on merit as they are almost all jobs for the boys and girls and they fail to do anything about judicial corruption as to do so would lead back to the people who appointed them in the first place
