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Citizens Electoral Council of Australia - Media Release 19th of May 2009
Great Southern fiasco should be included in Pecora
Commission
Managed Investment Schemes (MIS) such as Great Southern and Timbercorp should
be included in a Pecora
Commission into corruption and possible criminality in the financial system,
demanded Citizens Electoral Council leader Craig Isherwood today.
Great Southern has collapsed into administration with $700 million in debt,
and owing 43,000 investors as much as $4 billion; Timbercorp, with 18,000
investors, went into administration on 23rd of April with $903
million in debt.
Mr Isherwood compared the two MIS disasters to other financial scandals like
ABC Learning Centres, Allco Finance Group, Elderslie Finance, Lift Capital, MFS,
Opes Prime and Storm Financial.
"The bodies keep piling up-when is the Government going to start cleaning it
up?" he asked.
The real scandal about Great Southern and Timbercorp, the CEC National
Secretary identified, was the political decision to back such flimsy,
speculative businesses with enormous tax breaks to tie up enormous tracts of
prime agricultural land in tree plantations, instead of food production.
"Like free trade, environmentalism, water trading, and, soon, carbon credits,
these MIS scams have been a key part of the government assault on family farmers
and our national food security.
"They were afforded enormous tax breaks to lock away land from food
production, bid up water prices to levels family farmers could never compete
with, and, with what food production they did undertake, such as almonds, flood
the market.
"Family farmers have been reeling from the MIS onslaught for more than a
decade, and have basically been told to cop it sweet: ‘this is the free market,
capital is finding its most efficient use-capital says we need bluegums, not
food, so stop your complaining.'
"Now it's out in the open that these managed investment schemes were scams,
totally dependent upon government tax breaks, aggressive investment salesmen
chasing up to 10 per cent commissions, a Ponzi-style scheme needing to attract
more and more gullible investors, and generous banks willing to keep adding to
their enormous debts.
"And the Great Southern management, which is closely connected to the
grandmasters of making enormous profits from government concessions at Macquarie
Bank, have awarded themselves huge pay boosts, even while the writing has been
on the wall."
Mr Isherwood blasted the role of the government and the regulators:
"Once again, we have a scandal, where either the authorities were grossly
incompetent, or they were in on it.
"I say they were in on it, because globalisation-British free trade and
deregulated free markets-has driven the world into a more and more severe food
shortage, yet successive Australians governments have pursued policies that have
destroyed family farmers and domestic food production.
"However, I believe all sane Australians would agree we need family farmers,
and we need national food security," he insisted.
"For that reason, we need an Australian Pecora Commission, which like the
U.S. Pecora Commission in 1932-34, has the powers to lay bare the corrupt and
possibly criminal nexus between politicians and private financiers that created
the public policies that allowed these investment disasters to happen."
Craig Isherwood‚ National Secretary
PO Box 376‚ COBURG‚ VIC 3058
Phone:
03 9354 0544 Fax: 03 9354 0166
Email:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Website: http://www.cecaust.com.au
For more information on, and to join the campaign for an
Australian Pecora Commission, click here.
Click here to join the CEC as a member.
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