The Great Darling River Water Heist Part the Second

Waiting for Ronnie Salt to be de-listed by twitter – again.

Thread stored here for safekeeping.

**************************************************************

New conversation
💧Ronni Salt‏ @MsVeruca 20m20 minutes ago

Another day at the farm and another small tale to tell. And this time it’s about Angus Taylor, his other Cayman’s connections, his involvement in water buyback issues – and his extreme dislike of anybody discussing these. #watergate #auspol
1 reply 23 retweets 29 likes

Remember Eastern Australia Irrigation? The one in the Caymans where a large chunk of your $80 million went? On the same day that company was registered in the Caymans – another company was registered. In fact the 2 company’s registration numbers are 1 digit apart.

So who registered that company at the same time as Eastern Australia Irrigation? We do know the name of the company was Agricultural Managers Limited – and it would go on to attempt great things.

But before its ambitious tilt at Australia’s largest irrigation property, AML sat there quietly in the Caymans doing not much at all. Until one day in 2009, when the water buybacks market in Australia really started to fire up. (Remember the $300 million Twynham deal?)

In light of this, the offshore Cayman’s AML decided to act It set up 2 companies in Australia – 1 called Agricultural Managers Australia Ltd (AMA) & another called Australia Agricultural Securitisation Ltd (AASL)* (*At least they could never stand accused of creativity)

Both Agricultural Managers Australia Ltd (AMA) & Australia Agricultural Securitisation Ltd (AASL) were registered in Nov & Dec 2009 by the sole director & secretary – Angus Taylor.

So – AML was the parent company in the Caymans, which owned AMA, which then owned AASL. Got it? Both AMA & AASL were registered with 2 x $1 shareholdings. A good investment it seems.
Millions of $ were flying around, and it appears that was the purpose of establishing these companies – to trade in the commodification of water Because in 2010, the Cayman’s AML popped up in the media for the first time They were making a bold bid to buy Cubbie Station.

In 2010 media reports, a spokesperson for the company bidding to buy Cubbie for $240 million was a Mr Angus Taylor, who self-identified as a director of Agricultural Managers Ltd, the Caymans company. Note they also managed Kia Ora & Clyde, the future water buyback properties

Angus Taylor’s bid to buy Cubbie is also confirmed by a conversation Angus Taylor once had with Simon Holmes a Court. In it, Angus Taylor told Holmes a Court that he, Taylor, had tried three times to buy Cubbie Station. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

By the way, Angus Taylor & his fellow directors were helped along in the Cubbie Station deals by a consultancy & lobbying firm called Fifth Estate.

But before they had signed any contracts for title, the first thing the prospective bidders AML did was to attempt to sell 92,000 megalitres of water back to the federal government. Before they had even bought the property. #watergate #MurrayDarling

 

Now Cubbie Station in Queensland’s Lower Balonne has the capacity to extract, harvest & store over 500,000 megalitres of water. Even at the bargain basement price of $1000 per megalitre, that’s a lot of helpful finance from a federal gov’t with $ billions to spend on water.

In addition, there is no mention of Agricultural Managers Ltd or its subsidiaries in any of the annual reporting that EAA lodges with ASIC, even though the media said it was running the EAA properties. Why no disclosure in any of the annual reports to ASIC?

Now fast forward, to 2017 when Barnaby & the dept do the $80M deal with EAA – a very interesting thing happens. Information released shows that both EAA and AML engaged a lobbyist firm in 2017. And we know what you’re thinking. Yes, it’s our old friends the Fifth Estate.

From 2012 onward, AML has no apparent business interests in Australia. And yet it engages a professional lobbying firm for an undisclosed fee in the same time period as EAA.

In another remarkable coincidence – Tandou the other lucky $80M water Barnaby buyback deal recipients – also engage the Fifth Estate to act for them in 2017.

The entire issue does raise a lot of questions, questions that should be asked it not for one small but very significant detail – Mr Angus Taylor and his wife are very quick to threaten legal action.

We’ve already seen the Wikipedia discussions where Angus Taylor’s wife threatens legal action for minor infringements on his wiki page. What is less known are Mr & Mrs Taylor’s threats to anybody who mentions EAA and the Caymans.

In 2014 a small Goulburn based Facebook page was threatened with legal action by Mrs Taylor for the sin of posting a newspaper article referring to Angus Taylor’s Caymans connections. In turn, the newspaper the Goulburn Post were also threatened & had to issue an apology.

Aoife Champion, ALP candidate for Hume once mentioned the taboo subject of Angus Taylor, EAA & the Caymans back in 2016. The next day a staffer rang her & demanded amateur video of the event be edited to remove any mention of the taboo subjects. An amateur community video.

This may seem reductive stuff to those more focused on carrot picking & sheep shearing, but it goes toward a pattern of silencing members of the public by threats or intimidation. And that behavior continues.

We have legal threats issued to journalists on twitter, Wikipedia, people on Facebook, The Australian newspaper, the Goulburn Post & even community members filming video. And every time it is the off-limits subject – Angus Taylor, the Cayman Islands & his association with EAA.

It is not defamatory to question a cabinet minister in relation to information properly the subject of public scrutiny. We are not alleging any wrong doing. Like many members of the media – we ordinary Australians have questions.

 

We would be happy for anybody to answer these questions: #watergate

And just to finish Mr Taylor, here are Michael West’s questions from April 21 which remain unanswered to this day: #auspol

Because twitter does not allow an addendum: Simon Holmes a Court’s conversation

💧Ronni Salt

@MsVeruca

This thread was compiled with research from the magnificent @jommy_tee – who I forgot to add at the beginning of the thread. He is the king.

Nobody Expects

 

Coalition Vandalism

There is no quick fix to six years of vandalism by this government.

Vandalism to the NDIS,
Vandalism to Social Security
Vandalism to the NBN
Vandalism to Asylum Seekers
Vandalism to Wages
Vandalism to the Environment
Vandalism to slowing Climate Change
Vandalism to the Tax System
Vandalism to the National debt
Vandalism to our Freedom
Vandalism to our rivers
Vandalism to the Democracy of Australia
Vandalism to the Unions
Vandalism to our Privacy
Vandalism to our Health System
Vandalism to our Public assets
Vandalism to Education
Vandalism to our Hospitals
Vandalism to our Power System
Vandalism to our ABC & SBS
Vandalism to our Homeless
Vandalism to our water supplies through Fracking

With the best will in the world, no alternative Government is going to be able to fix all of this vandalism in a single term of Government. It will take at least three terms.

By 2030, providing we have been able to remove the Murdoch influence, we may be, again, the nation of mateship and the fair go!

Touched By His Noodly Appendage

The Great Darling River Water Heist

The following article was not written by me. It has been collected and stored here so that the truth is held in more than one place.

It was posted on Twitter by Ronni Salt   aka @Verruca  (Or she was until Twitter not only pulled this thread but also cancelled her account.  This was all accessed on ‘The Wayback Machine’

*****************************************************

Thread:

Money For Nothing
(and your tricks for free)

#MurrayDarling #Menindee #MDBA #auspol #TheBarnabyfiles #fishkill

Story research – @jommy_tee

 

So we’re back on the farm this month & here’s another great yarn we found.

It’s about the unbelievable luck of one of the Liberal Party’s rising stars, his mysterious business connections in the Cayman Islands & the water we all paid for but never got.

Let’s call him Mr X.

But first let’s go back to 2007 & Howard’s announcement he’d spend $10 billion to buy back water/environmental flows for the #MurrayDarling basin

Now $10 billion is a lot of money, so when some large corporate farm types heard about this, naturally they rubbed their hands.

None more so than the Liberal’s rising star Mr X, who back then was just another mild-mannered white guy from a wealthy farm family.

Back in 2007 he had his fingers in a hell of a lot of pies.

He still does.

Before that though, Mr X worked with consulting firm McKinsey & Co doing multi-million $ projects with another man called Tony Reid.

In fact, our rising star Mr X & Tony Reid were such great mates they started their own company together in 1998.

(Remember this detail)

In 2007/8, our rising star Mr X knew a good business opportunity when he saw it.

He knew farming water & its buybacks were going to be very lucrative.

So when he saw 2 huge farms for sale in southern QLD with millions of $$ of water rights on them, Mr X looked into them.

They even sought input from a senator friend who was based in the region and who knew all about water rights and irrigation because his campaign had largely been financed by them – Barnaby Joyce.

So in late 2007, Mr X & his mates set up a company – we’ll call it Company E.

Company E bought those 2 huge irrigation farms – “Clyde” for $27 million, “Kia Ora” for $61 million.

That’s quite a splurge. You’d want your money back, right?

The problem for poor old Mr X & his Company E was, the farms weren’t as profitable as they thought.

But by now the govt had changed to Labor who decided to do small, strategic buybacks of water for the environment.

Our rising star Mr X offered his spare millions of litres of water to the Labor govt, but the govt said no.

So – they put the 2 farms back on the market.

But there were no takers and by 2010/11, both our massive cotton farms Kia Ora & Clyde were losing about $5-10 million a year.

Despite that, our rising star Mr X was still interested in water & money because he set up another company to buy the big one – Cubbie Station.

We might have forgotten to mention Mr X is very big on setting up companies.

Especially in the Cayman Islands.

Although his position today is a respectable politician who likes to rail against tax avoiders👇🏽- Mr X is strangely fond of the Caymans for himself & his friends.

But by 2012 Mr X’s mind was on other things and he’d decided that politics was his game.

He began to donate a lot of money to the Liberal Party.

By a strange coincidence, there was also another donation to his campaign for the NSW Libs that year.

It came from a business in the QLD National Party seat of Maranoa.

Strange you say?

Yes because the $55,000 (1 x $20K + 1 x $35K) donation came from Company E, which in 2011 had welcomed a new Director – our old mate Tony Reid.

Lucky Mr X hey?

So Mr X gets himself elected to the House of Reps & as luck would have it, so does Mr X’s friend Barnaby Joyce.

Barnaby’s a rising star too.

In the meantime, Company E’s still struggling with Clyde & Kia Ora & they’ve again offered their massive water holdings for buybacks.

But the Environment Minister Greg Hunt says no.

You could forgive Hunt for being a bit confused because the Liberals are about to be riven by leadership disputes.

Come 2015 & Abbott is rolled for Turnbull. As part of the spoils, Barnaby is Minister for . . .

Water.

Now Barnaby Joyce has always roared his opposition to water buy-backs.
He claims they ruin rural communities and make small families destitute.

Here’s Barnaby on the record in 2008 railing against a federal govt $24 million buyback.

No. Water. Buybacks.

And again in Senate Estimates in 2011 verballing Penny Wong about her evil ways of buying back water for the environment.

So we’ve established well & truly Barnaby hates & detests water buybacks for the environment

Barnaby does not believe in them

It’s a well known fact

Meanwhile, Company E’s 2 farms Clyde & Kia Ora are bleeding money

Their debts to their Caymans parent company are almost $80 million. Gobsmacking right?

And in an astonishing about-face, Barnaby the Water Minister suddenly discovers he likes water buybacks after all

Suddenly, it’s Barnaby of the Overflow.

Barnaby’s people – without any tender – inexplicably start to deal with people working on behalf of Company E.

You remember Tony Reid?

Tony is now working as an advisor to Company E for the sale of the multi-million dollar water.

Yes, while Mr X’s mate Tony is negotiating with the federal government, Mr X’s mate Tony is also still happily running a company with Mr X – who is now a Minister in the federal government.

How very fortunate.

That’s not the only stench

Shonky consultants give shonky advice (they all worked in the same office) & the govt’s own department ABARE states the water is virtually worthless – as it doesnt really exist

The “water” Company E is selling, is flood water

Ghost water

It’s water that only gets trapped on farms in a flood every 10 years or so.

But Barnaby thinks it’s the greatest deal ever.

Despite the water being non-existent & despite it only being valued at $1200-1500 a megalitre (I million litres), Barnaby pays $2750 a meg.

So just to recap:

Back to poor old Company E

They’d fallen to an after-tax loss of $13.19m in 2017, a fall from its loss of $7.14m in 2016

The company was saddled with net current liabilities that included convertible notes of $69.484m & a promissory note of $11m due to its parent company.

So – Company E’s debt was over $80 million.

But by 2017, the Water Minister’s purchase of water-that-didn’t-exist luckily came through.

And the final amount Barnaby Joyce paid for that fake water purchase from Company E?

$80 million.

How lucky was Company E?

Its Cayman’s directors must have been delighted because not only did they get money for water that didn’t exist, they also didn’t fully demolish the farm dams that trapped the flood water.

So they can still trap water again

All $80 million of it

And the best part is, Company E – could now pay out its parent company (No tax on the earnings. Such luck)

That parent company by the way is called Eastern Australia Irrigation Ltd.

It has a complex set up & share holders & naturally, it’s registered in the Cayman Islands.

Who started Eastern Australia Irrigation Ltd though?

How did this company get to be so fortunate with million $ water sales?

Its founder is touted as a future Prime Minister, dislikes wind farms, loves coal mines & it would appear – money from strange places.

The co-founder & original director of Eastern Australia Irrigation Ltd is the very same man who also coincidentally started Company E.

Twitter – meet Mr X.

This thread was a team effort. It was compiled from research conducted predominantly by @jommy_tee and myself (to a lesser extent) and an anonymous insider whistleblower.

Media or general enquiries to @jommy_tee

It has been pointed out to us that some of the technical data on this thread was compiled by Maryanne Slattery of The Australia Institute. I was not aware of this report when we started, but as you will see on reading, there is some amazing work in it. >
tai.org.au/sites/defualt/…

Sorry – Maryanne can be contacted on twitter at @MaryanneSlatte1 for any media enquiries or research data.

******************************************************

Again, I am publishing this twitter thread because I feel it is important and has already been censored at least once and it has cost a respected young journalist her Twitter membership.

Hopefully this will remain here and I will not be a victim of censorship. Spreading this as widely as possible will help keep the information in the public domain.

Sid and Sod 857

Stand For Something or Fall For Everything

In a Jan 1945 article published in a journal called “Mental Hygiene” by the medical doctor Gordon A. Eadie titled “The Over-All Mental-Health Needs of the Industrial Plant, with Special Reference to War Veterans”, the following words appeared.

‘We are trying to show him not only what we are fighting against, but what we are fighting for. So many of these boys have only a very hazy idea of the real issues of the war. About all they see is “going back to the good old days.” This is a dangerous state.

If they don’t stand for something, they will fall for anything.’

Seventy years later the danger of “going back to the good old days” became apparent in the politics of the West as Trump and Brexit exploded on the scene. Similar events occurred in the little known Southern Continent which was the birthplace of the spokesman for those wanting all the disruption these events have caused.

Rupert Murdoch and other arch Conservatives used the Good Old Days as a rallying cry for all those terrified of an unknown future. The fact that the future always has been and always will be ‘unknown’ is the carefully ignored truth.

Murdoch has popularised the fiction that we CAN go back. The damaged and the fearful have believed him. He continues to try to find ways of increasing the number of damaged and fearful within our society.

His son, and heir-apparent, Lachlan, looks set to take the greatest disruptive organisation in the world down even more disruptive paths!

I see a day when all good moderates will long for a return to the good old days of Rupert’s ideas.

 

 

 

Wasting $185,000,000

Approximately 50 days ago, the Government announced it would be spending over a billion dollars reopening the Christmas Island detention camp.

It has since been revealed that it only spent $185 million on it and then announced in the budget that it was closing. The detention camp, not the Government.

The outrage at the wasted expenditure is understandable. Yet no one has asked the obvious question.

What was this money actually spent on?

How DOES something cost $3,700,000 per day? Especially as no refugees actually ended up in the camp.

Will we ever see the receipts?

Or is this yet another of the cash for mates scheme so beloved of this corrupt and greedy Government?

 

 

The Watercooler of Minimum Importance

We’ve all had those conversations.

Where we stand around the water-cooler or sit down for a cup of coffee. The Eagles supporter begins by talking about how bad, nasty and horrible the Magpies are and how we really hope they will lose their next match. We all agree because Collingwood are so vile. Then the kids get a mention because of a school report or a cute comment and suddenly the subject changes, seamlessly and without planning, into a discussion of Donald Trump’s childish performances during his ongoing difficulties with Robert Mueller.

That is when we leave the water-cooler, the coffee shop or the twitter conversation. And it is the Donald Trump bit that sticks in our mind even though it was the unintended part of our discussion. Certainly not a contextual part of the original subject. Yet we all know that what happens in the USA will have profound consequences for us here in Australia.

Still the Eagles fan continues to talk only about the “Maggies”. Every attempt to explain to him just how important the USA political thing is simply dismissed. He is only interested in pushing the hate Collingwood agenda. Everything else about our discussion has to be belittled so that his favourite topic is the important part of the morning.

I even get accused of supporting the Black and Whites because I want to talk about something else!

I’m sure you can all see where this is going.

Yes. I’m predictable.

I have a mind of my own and really do not need to be told that Jacinda Adern is only seen as special because she has a halo when during the week I saw that Jacinda Ardern really is a special human being.

I have a mind of my own and do not need to be told that Bill Shorten is only out for himself when I have seen him working for others on so many occasions.

I have a mind of my own and do not need to be told that Scott Morrison is a competent Prime Minister when he so blatantly is not.

More to the point, I do not need to be told these things by affluent and privileged middle-aged white males who have no idea of what feminism is, no idea what honesty is and no idea what competence is and as for the Liberal Groupie Opinionettas who provide a supposedly feminine view of what is happening by totally ignoring the obvious vision of very public videos and instead echoing the official middle-aged white male complaints about this uppity woman, and this uppity workers’ hero and this posturing incompetent – – enough said. (Certainly for that excessive sentence)

There is one problem for the modern world and the dinosaurs who infest our media like giant fleas.

We hear what is going on first hand.

We see what is going on first hand.

We have our own mind to process what we see and hear

And that is apparently unforgivable.

Perhaps that is why there is such a big effort being put into destroying today’s modern water cooler. The internet.

All Fools Day 2019

Today is All Fools Day, to give it its full name.

On this day in the Year of Our Lord 2019, Mr the Honorable Josh Frydenberg MP pro tem, is putting the finishing touches to a work of fiction which forever will be known as the 2019 Federal Budget. It will FORECAST a surplus, not deliver one. It is worth noting that the final calculations and prognostications will be made on this All Fools Day.

How appropriate.

Yet we, the voting electorate, will be expected to take this year’s budget seriously.

In other news, The disHonorably Baked Peter Dutton is working behind the scenes today to raise support for a last ditch attempt on the Liberal Leadership and Daddy’s boy Lachlan Murdick is preparing a series of editorials explaining that Bill Shorten still eats babies.