royal commission

13 July 2023

The media are a lot more interested in scandals like robo-debt under a Coalition government than in Lawyer X under a Labor government in Victoria. The last few weeks have been the tale of two royal commissions. Last week in Canberra the report of the robo-debt scheme inquiry was released. It continues to dominate the political news as its “sealed chapter” recommends

12 October 2022

Letters Patent are a legal instrument issued by the King granting an office, title, or status to a person. The Institute of Public Affairs has drafted this Letters Patent that should be used to appoint a person to conduct a Royal Commission into the causes and consequences of the Australian governmental Covid-19 response. The Letters Patent include the terms of

11 November 2020

Kevin Rudd’s claim that the Murdoch media is a “cancer on democracy” is gaslighting the Australian people. Last week a Rudd-initiated petition was submitted to the House of Representatives calling for a Royal Commission into “the strength and diversity of Australian news media”. In case anyone was in any doubt over what that meant, Rudd called the Murdoch media a “cancer on democracy” when announcing the petition

20 December 2019

In September 2017, the Bureau declared the hottest ever September on record for the state of Victoria based on temperature data from Mildura. I’ve since shown that this was helped along by the Bureau replacing a mercury thermometer with an electronic probe that can record a good 0.4 degrees hotter for the same weather. There is not only the issue of the Bureau

2 December 2019

Yet another scandal among Australia’s banks suggests the industry is in dire need of a clean-out. Westpac has committed one of the most startling failures of corporate governance in Australian history. After a year-long investigation, the bank stands accused of failing to report, as required by law, 23 million transactions that it had facilitated, and, in particular, failing to notice a

22 November 2019

The phrase “Go Woke, Go Broke” doesn’t quite apply to Westpac. But it nearly does. Allegations that it breached anti-money-laundering laws 23 million times probably won’t send Westpac broke. But the bank’s share price has been smashed and Prime Minister Scott Morrison has as good as called for the Westpac board to sack its chief executive. If you’re a company

13 September 2019

If you were to ask the average CEO of the average ASX 100 company to talk for 10 minutes about climate change or Indigenous recognition they would easily be able to do so. If you asked them to talk about ‘diversity’ those 10 minutes would likely stretch to 20 minutes or even half an hour. That is of course unless

8 February 2019

The funniest thing to come out of the Hayne royal commission is a story that appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald on Monday. Titled “I’m amazed they approved me: CBA lashed for lending to the naive”, the article began as follows. “One victim of irresponsible lending, 24-year-old Georgia Clark, believes the banking royal commission’s recommendations are a missed opportunity to protect the

11 October 2018

The Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation, and Finances Services Industry has uncovered some inexcusable behaviour. Charging client’s fees without providing services, pressured selling of insurance to a man with down syndrome, and thousands of breaches for providing unsolicited advice and insurance are just a few examples highlighted in the Royal Commission’s interim report released last Sunday. Almost

10 August 2018

Here’s an idea. In order to improve the confidence of the public in democracy, the federal government should embed ‘Taxpayer Compliance Officers’ in cabinet and the Expenditure Review Committee. The role of such officers would be three-fold. They would have a general responsibility for ensuring taxpayers’ money was spent efficiently and not wasted, they would ensure compliance with all the