Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Note that Malcolm Kinnaird’s company Kinhill (which became Halliburton/KBR Australia) partnered the development of Mawson Lakes.  The Property group Kinsmen, which has as its board members two former partners of Kinhill, is building 150 new houses where the train line and road converge near the city (right beside Robert Gerard's Clipsal plant- apparently he still owns the land). 

Also note that the Osbourne Maritime Precinct is under the control of the Port Adelaide Maritime Corporation, which is chaired by the former Halliburton/KBR Global Vice-President Andrew Fletcher.  On the riverbank, between the precinct and Port Adelaide, lies Adelaide Brighton Cement, of whose board the aforementioned Mr Kinnaird is a board member.

Adjacent to the Osbourne Precinct is the Northhaven yacht squadron.  Can you guess who the Commodore is?  Right first time.

(map  from defence-sa.com) 

What a marvellous parody of left wing ravings!!

Richard, for about eight years I worked for the Australian company that became Halliburton's Australian asset in 1997. Your shift in view - from seeing this company as boogie-men to seeing them as middle-men - is wise from my perspective. It is a shift closer to the truth.

When I joined the company it had just turned thirty years old, and the story of the four young men who formed it was top of mind that year. Many of the people working there had been around for most of those thirty years and they were good people. In fact, some of them were great people who did many good things.

After the recession that we were told 'we had to have' many jobs were shed. It was a hard time and I know most of the executives were unhappy doing what had to be done to ensure survival for the firm.

As the company found its feet again and started once more to grow it also found that it was caught in what comes with globalisation. Its leaders felt that it had to be part of something bigger, to access deeper pockets and take on bigger projects. They faced a choice between a 'merger' (read takeover) with a British giant or an American giant. You know which way it went.

I left the company shortly after the takeover, though for reasons that had nothing to do with that change. It was simply a case of taking my own growth opportunities and a desire for experience in other industries.

Before I left the firm though the former Deputy Chairman introduced me to Halliburton's then President (you know who he is). He seemed like a decent man from what I'd observed in meetings earlier in the day, but face-to-face I sensed that he had no genuine interest in meeting some young kid from a far flung outpost of his empire. When I shook his hand he wasn't really looking at me. He was looking past me to the harbour view. To me that said it all and I was glad I wasn't going to be 'adding-value' for this man.

Haliburton and their military wings in Adelaide. Why am I not surprised?

Adelaide is an interesting place. How many state governments have the Catholic archbishop at each cabinet meeting? Obviously these values are important.

Haliburton had a great deal to do with the Adelaide to Darwin railway,which I have long thought was a military strategy. Really all heavy transport has military application. One should consider how we should defend Darwin should the US no longer be a threat to invasion by Indonesia or from Chinese navy bases apparently now permitted there.

And the link to Antarctica and resources rape there? Does this plan have anything to do with the 2003 decision to reclassify the Cabinet documents from 1973 about Antartica to top secret? Really curious about that one. Why oh why don't I trust the resource and military sectors of business and goverment?

Glenelg beach will be a disappointment to the US soldiers used to the East Coast and maybe more exciting if they go diving.

I wonder if there is not any legislation that forbids using companies shown to be corrupt for Government work?

Only if Haliburton's opposition gains enough push and there is something in it. The media will be permitted to target it and the investigation will occur with energy and the outrage will be loud.

Only if it is of value to the important. That is the skeptical view that I personally take now about any investigation of the corporate world. Look at Vidler. Worse than poor Rene and a wrist slap and warning for all to be good to their bosses.

As to military contracting, I wonder if CACI is also a Haliburton or Carlyle group company? I ask because of the South Australian givernment PR employee-but US ex-marine Stefanovic (many similar spellings), who was named as a significant player in the torture scandal at Abughraib. Yet so quiet here, no investigation of his activity here, no visa restriction now for him reported. Perhaps there is more Government co-operation than realised under labels one wouldn't question normally.

Perhaps they just needed and ex-marine for their South Australian PR department.

Cheers.

The Neocons make a mockery of global justice with their foreign policy, the Bush Doctrine has also enabled them to begin sweeping away the gains made in social justice during the 20th Century.

Whether one believes that these achievements were reached with the cooperation of men like FDR and LBJ, or that these leaders simply acquiesced to the pressure of labor and civil rights movements, America made great strides toward equality and justice through social programs and reforms like Social Security, Minimum Wage laws, the Voting Rights Act, school desegregation, Medicare, Medicaid, the advancement of women's rights, environmental laws, and consumer protection laws.

By spending $600 billion per year on programs related to their precious military industrial complex (consider that $600 billion represents 60% of the world's total annual military expenditures of $1 trillion and that the US has only 5% of the population), deepening the federal deficit to an unconscionable $7.5 trillion, and utilizing shameless propaganda to convince many undereducated Americans to act in a self-defeating way by embracing an agenda of global conquest, the Neocons have ensured serious setbacks to social justice in the United States.

It is companies like Haliburton profiting from warn that support the Bush Government and we leave ourselves open to their corrupt methods by allowing them to grow within Australia.

Margo, it's great to hear you are out on your own now. I always disliked Fairfax and thought you were much bigger than having to rely on a 'coporation' for money to live on.

Like everyone else who has strong emotions about you, I think going independent is far better from a democratic perspective. This way you will be able to looks at all parts of the sky and see the truth in the stars if it is nightime.

I always felt that Fairfax was too right wing and worshipped in front of the gods of money which seemed to encroach on your style and may have forced to you emote a certain dependence on suit and tie people.

Please, Margo, stay independent and don't look to get into bed with Murdoch or that Horrible man who runs PBL- Packer. I know they would try and hire you in a blink if they could!

Stay independent and always try and report the truth without the prism of a coporate logo to worry about.

Good Luck.

Why do Australian governments still deal with Halliburton?

Halliburton has been accused of selling key nuclear reactor components to Iran.

Halliburton Sold Iranian Oil Company Key Nuclear Reactor Components, Sources Say
by Jason Leopold
August 10, 2005

”Scandal-plagued Halliburton -- the oil services company once headed by Vice President Cheney -- sold an Iranian oil development company key components for a nuclear reactor, say Halliburton sources with intimate knowledge into both companies' business dealings."

"Halliburton was secretly working at the time with one of Iran's top nuclear program officials on natural gas related projects and sold the components in April to the official's oil development company, the sources said."

"Just last week, a National Security Council report said Iran was a decade away from acquiring a nuclear bomb. That time frame could arguably have been significantly longer if Halliburton, whose military unit just reported a 284 percent increase in its second quarter profits due to its Iraq reconstruction contracts, was not actively providing the Iranian government with the means to build a nuclear weapon.”

What a fantastic business plan Halliburton must have, build then destroy and build again, all the time supplying both sides with the materials of war. Using the profits of war to keep the corrupt politicians in power.

Angela Ryan, you may have already caught up with this Counterpunch article by Dr. David Palmer of Flinders University. It may be useful in providing some of the answers you seek about CACI. The references provided in this fully sourced article may also be of some use if you wish to investigate further.

And people make fun of us coz we live in Adelaide.

Personally, I can't wait till the global Catastrophe happens and then us Adelaideans can start calling the shots! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

It occurred to me recently that all the talk about Howard and his two chums that make up the 21st century Axis Powers not being able to give an exit strategy from Iraq or a timetable to do so is because it’s Halliburton who sets the agenda; the Axis Powers just work for them. The media should ask Halliburton what the exit strategy form Iraq is.

It also occurred to me that the preface to US foreign policy might well be: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for Halliburton".

Isn't Hugh Morgan's comment and suggested plan interesting. To update every two years what public and private infrastructure needs and upgrades are required. But to whom should that information be made available and to whom should the contracts go and how?

Mr Morgan's suggestion is perhaps overkill and excessive, hard to accept he means a proper population/industry/resource/social parameter study done each time,which is exactly what is required as any company would know, the research done properly before spending is budgeted must be carefully done to prevent huge mistakes and waste. Perhaps that doesn't matter when we are talking the pyramid spending of publuc purse?

The trouble with the ideology driving the Government agenda - economic rationalism and privatisation, is that it is a fallacy. It is more about using the base of the pyramid to enrich corporations, spend the public purse.

Economic rationalism if properly applied is a valid philosophy, but the full implications of any action are not fully factored, the social and environmental costs, long term, are rarely properly assessed and these costs are the hidden huge financial costs.

Privatisation doesn't work with essential services unless you are willing to absorb the costs of the disadvantaged and vulnerable. Holden is about to cut 400 plus jobs and the Rand Government and Howard Government are already hammering out a way to give Holden money. Like Mitsubishi farce this will be the public purse funding a multinational keen to get out for a short policital cover.

The Telstra sell off is another example,as the money is about to be invested in the STOCKMARKET. So instead of having control of a company and board, recieve huge income and have secure money, we now will be dispursing that money to the middle people. How? Consultants to sell it off-milllions, merhant bankers to pass the paper as it is sold - 450million, then fund managers for the money held-millions, then investing it into the stockmarket - already considered over priced, fees and risk of losing it all, plus more fees each time a sale or movement occurs and a nice bucket of money to be streamed off to the Bahamas in the next corporate scam.

Who benefits? Who loses? Why is it being done? duh.

A further beef today, real red meat feast here. Insurance companies: Making such huge profits, good but... is the competition free and fair,well published and are they paying up properly and openly (or is there a clause of silence in each payout-yes)... and why have THEY BEEN ALLOWED TO HAVE TERRORISM AS AN EXCLUSION??

This last is my beef. We all will pay the price when the 'inevitable attack here' occurs, but the insurance companies will not. I just looked at my business and personal income insurance plans. Look at yours. Why should this be allowed? As a community it should be mandated that all help in such a disaster and no powerful group has protected financial interests in terrorism. This makes it in everyones' interest to prevent it.

Summary,

-aim for true economic rationalism;
-true privatisation with openly accepted risks and keep the public purse shut unless the people own it;
-open tender for all government funded projects with heavy leaning to Australian companies that will locally source people and resources as this is government money and this benefits - economic rationally - our community best in the long term even if initially more costly;
-remove from tender corporations embroiled in bribery and corruption and evironmental and social terrorism. I know this limits the pool dramatically, but there are plenty of excellent local entrepreneurs of high integrity. Surprising how little Haliburton/KBR/CARLYLE business would be done then, here and in the US,even if Cheney is still on the receiving end. That used to be called war profiteering;
-High standard accounting for all gov money-our money-and explain the military eight billion black hole now or don't hassle me about my tax and business BAS.

Guess what, most of this is already on the statute books for Government business. Maybe the problem is more the application of the guidelines and the holding to acccount of improper action. Duh again.

Cheers.

Holy smoking cane toads Batman!

You mean the Australian Government would jump into bed with a morally and ethically bankrupt company like Halliburton and not use any protection?
Well I never!
But I'd like to if I could get the same deals Halliburton and all of its subsidiaries get from the American Government. Of course the Australian Government wouldn’t sign up to any deals like this:
Total reimbursement for every dollar spent
A One Percent Fee of the above amount (to guarantee a profit)
Plus a performance bonus if the Government "approves" of the "performance"
But that’s what Halliburton had for the Balkans conflict and that resulted in them being responsible for almost one-sixth of the total operation's cost.
They billed the U.S Government 2.2 Billion dollars for the period from 1995 to 2000.

Then they got Iraq. Kaching!Kaching! And the money really started rolling in.

Of course the Defence Dept tendering contracts here will be totally open to public scrutiny and above board, won’t they? Thank God those damn Senate Estimates Committees have been rendered totally useless.
Can't have them disturbing the status quo now can we?
The koalas are more alarmingly contented and obliviously un-alert if you ask me and that’s just the way this Government likes them to be.

Whatever Richard is on, I'll take a kilo!

The Age reports yet another downturn in local car assembly centred on Adelaide to go along with Mitsubishi's fight to survive in a volatile and competitive marketplace. The downturn in auto manufacturing has long represented the reality for Adelaide's workforce and this has left it open to merchant adventurers like Halliburton to set up shop. Who in Adelaide is going to quibble with anyone who looks like they will offer jobs to the large number of people in that city needing them no matter how shadowy their motives or how devious their provenance?

For those unversed in the ins and outs of corporations the website offers some clues. But Halliburton is not just an energy and mining company like BHP Billiton. In fact one description could be profit powerhouse but even this does not tell the whole story.

Kellogg Brown and Root is the pointy end of the Hallibeast. It offers infrastructure which is a shorthand way of saying that it offers everything you may need to run a company or a project - or a community or a country. As long ago as 1912 Jack London in his dystopic novella The Scarlet Plague presciently described a world run by corporations.

If a need is there KBR will happily grow another tentacle. This potential was undreamt of by the sort of corporate regulators in the US who attempted to dismantle monopolies like Bell and Microsoft because the Bells and the Microsofts of this world basically deal in one product, and the actual marketplace composition and culture itself does not interest them as long as it provides an environment in which they can sell their product.

You only have to look at Iraq, the shadowy involvement of Dick Cheney, the jostling for Iraqi contracts with its attendant corruption and the heavy involvement of KBR with the US military. A company like KBR does best short-term in this type of environment when a regime and its infrastructure has collapsed but in the long-term the best and safest course is to pursue its objectives in a stable environment without the perils of an unpredictable security situation. Such as an Australian state with its small population mainly concentrated in one area and its legacy manufacturing industries disappearing.

Halliburton/KBR is a different kettle of fish to traditional big corporations because once you put a toe into the infrastructure lake you are dealing with communities and their people as well as with employees and the marketplace. This is the problem. Halliburton/KBR is not just a business.

Halliburton, Kellogg Brown and Root, the Carlysle group and other like-minded publicly funded corporations who bludge off the public purse were always bound to gather steam in Australia with the rise of Howard and his ilk.

These are the boards they will all sit on when are they are finally given the boot by the voters.

A funny coincidence happened the other day. John Howard was whistle-stopping Iraq, thanking the Iraqis for saving Douglas Wood and telling them how Australia would be their 'Aunty' of foreign aid, while simultaneously a certain company was advertising for a foreign aid manager to be preferably based in Adelaide. Guess which company?

If it turns out a corporation was using a wholly owned Australian subsidiary to conceal bookwork regarding aid budgets from the eyes of the Pentagon and Congress, the ramifications could be signifigant.

As for the Stefanowicz/Abu Graibh connection, I have read US blogs claiming the gentleman was on secondment from Halliburton to the Australian Rail Track Corporation. What really interests me here is the 'interrogation resistance' program that has run for decades at an Adelaide Hills army barracks. I wonder if Stefanowicz was a student or a teacher. Either way, the associations roused suspicion.

Hi guy's, I reckon this is all frightening. I for one am scared and I'm not afraid to stand up and say it! I mean all these bombs and guns they want to put in our country on the land of peacefull aboriginals... I'm scared about what Richard has said and I think that all Australians who care about peace and justice should be as well. I think they should be arrested if they are not. I think Gorge 'Stupid' Bush and John 'Coward' Howard want to secretly crush us just so they can win! I am glad he exposed it but I'm sure there must be something we can do to stop it.

I'd be scared if I were you people. Flee to New Zealand or Cuba while you still can! Get away from the Howardian Halliburton Neoconspiracy and the Illuminati before they find out who you are from this web site and have you killed!

Don't the Freemasons have high standing in the Catholic Church as well? Maybe it's the Jew cabal after all. Look people, take your medication, and put your hats back on.

Sorry if this has already been dealt with in one of the links in this discussion, but as I recall, KBR is a major stakeholder in the Adelaide-Darwin railway, which many experts had described as economic idiocy. But given that a large joint US/Australian military base is being built in Darwin, maybe it's not quite so idiotic.

No, Michael de Angelos, they wont sit on the boards after they have been given the boot by Australian voters.

They'll resign pre or post-election depending on their superannuation payout conditions and then sit on a board and deny that any insider knowledge and contacts they may have gained during their years as Ministers and/or Members of Parliament could in anyway be a conflict of interest or against the National Interest and that 'how dare you even say such a thing, it's un-Australian' etc to justify the whoring of their Liberal ideals in the name of Free Trade, Freedom of Speech, Personal Freedoms or any other glib bullshit term they think their critics and duped supporters will swallow.

Adelaide? Howard is sh*ting himself after his encounter with a masked teenager in the City of Churches. Where were the usual suspects? Are they now sacrificing their children?

ed Kerri: Hi, Yasoboy. Could you please read the discussion guidelines on your way in next time. Proper names, including surnames are required. If for some reason you need to use a pseudonym let us know. Thanks.

If Australia is doing so well economically and the free trade one way only agreement is so good for us, why are Holden Shedding 1400 jobs at their Elizabeth Plant, my daughter-in-law's brother for one?

Surely Howard and co, the economic rationalists are not puuting this down to world economy problems.

Richard, you will have to put that question to others if you want an engineer's perspective. I am not and never will be an engineer. My field is behavioural sciences, organisational psychology, change management and that kind of thing. I worked on their administrative, quality and training systems. Think of my role as something like an internal auditor/management consultant. My job was helping them manage risk, ensure that they made it onto and stayed on certain supplier lists, and recruited and retained the best crop of new graduates each year.

Craig Rowley I have an engineering question to which I'd appreciate your insight.

If something was constructed on land that had received very little rain for a long time, and then found itself on terra firma that was suddenly more water-soaked than it had been in decades, what troubles could ensue?

I'm referring to the Adelaide-Darwin rail line, which (apparently) has levees along the way to compensate for excessive groundwater spill. I'm also referring to whispers of an impending N.T. "Wet" season of intensity not seen for some time.

I'm wondering if putting two and two together might create a vulnerability in a military transport system that would make its reliability and raison d'etre questionable.

Hi Damian, thanks so much for that excellent link about the torture scandal in Iraq and our Government's knowledge and Steven Stefanowicz's connections in Adelaide. Where is he now? Did he get residency? Yuk, what a torture creep to have here. Is he vulnerable to a charge under our obligations to the ICJ as he has not been charged anywhere else and we are signatories? How can he not be a military when he signed up a new contract in intelligence according to that article, and most are for 5 years. He has brought such shame upon the US military in getting the low rank/brains military to do the dirty deeds and cop the blame. Scum.

Hi Stephen, it would be interesting to note where they have all gone, and which boards and consultancies they now have..

It is so hard to enjoy the dinner party when all have read about one's trotters swilling in the trough for collusion and favours.

Here's an odd one in today's Advertiser... this has occurred within walking distance of my home:

[extract]

"The Defence Department will try to find out how files outlining information about the State's defence bases were found in a public bin in Brompton."

Brompton is a very small suburb, and it's annoying to think that I've been mostly walking past such an information source all weekend!

I always wonder about little old Brompton, primarily as it's the main base of what was formerly major Liberal Party contributor Robert Gerard's Clipsal. Clipsal, as you know, sponsored the car races that KBR build the track for.

Why were Defence files dumped around here? If whoever is responsible is reading this post, I'm fairly easily found if you ask around. I'm in the phone book- your friendly neighbourhood defence blogger.

From the NYT

A top Army contracting official who criticized a large, noncompetitive contract with the Halliburton Company for work in Iraq was demoted Saturday for what the Army called poor job performance.

The official, Bunnatine H. Greenhouse, has worked in military procurement for 20 years and for the past several years had been the chief overseer of contracts at the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that has managed much of the reconstruction work in Iraq.

....

Known as a stickler for the rules on competition, Ms. Greenhouse initially received stellar performance ratings, Mr. Kohn said. But her reviews became negative at roughly the time she began objecting to decisions she saw as improperly favoring Kellogg Brown & Root, he said.

The moral to this story is never get between war profiteers and a pile of money. I can't wait for the first of many refusals to release contract information between Halliburton and the Federal Government in Australia due to 'commercial in confidence'.

I have just finished reading all contributions on this page and I am flabbergasted. Most of you think that if you get rid of Howard and put Labor into power everything will be alright.

Didn't any of you read the papers this morning, Beazley's rating is dropping like a brick and they have nobody to take his place.

For gods sake why can't you accept the majority decision, this is what the people want and they showed it at the ballot boxes.

Unless of course you think Haliburton fixed everything.

John Herring, why don't you ask the unions.

I'll bet Holden is fed up with their meddling and time wasting.

We're being told today how the defence boom is creating a shortage of industraial landspace. It's lucky that the car (and other) factories are going so that the space can be put to new purposes.

Perhaps the displaced Holden workers could start work at their sister company on tank turrets?

I'm sure some of the billionares currently behind the locked doors of the Sydney Opera House would know more about Australia's long range plans than we do.

Gerry Blatt, it ain't any doing of the unions, it is all about the economic crisis this country is in under Howard's leadership.

People cannot find full time work, it is all part time or casual, people are afraid to spend due to the chance of turning up for work to be sacked, high petrol prices that impact on every person/family.

I'll bet a bob that the Holden Executives are not taking a salary cut, only those on the floor are under stress through bad management and profit fever.

Let all four manufacturers in Australia commit to building Australian Designed three and four cylinder cars, cars the average Joe can afford to run.

Don't blame the unions or left wing socialists for problems caused by profit driven right wing capitalist idealogues. They have caused this mess and ordinary Australians are suffering.

Actually, Gerry and John from the S.A. end corporatisation activities began under the last State Liberal Government and have continued to be cultivated under the auspices of Labor.

I was in the audience of former Labour Premier Don Dunstan's last public speech, in which he emphasised the wrongness of a public selling its public utilites. The current Premier, formerly Dunstan's press secretary, seems to be happy assisting corporations to manipulate land, resources and amenities for maximum profit in return for whatever side effects are generated pro bono. Resource "monetisation" is the buzzword.

If I didn't feel like an American Indian receiving bead necklaces in exchange for Long Island Sound, it wouldn't feel so bad.

What Dunstan was trying to say was that parting with our resources will come at a cost. I'm beginning to think that we should be considering creating minor dents in the global players' profit margins and charging more for what we own. In that way we might gain a better standard of living and an enhanced society as our own "profit margin".

John Herring, how come when people mention the government needing to own essential services they never mention the supply of food - let's get Coles and Woolies and all those farmers out of that area now - or housing - no private ownership allowed here, shelter is essential after all.

Where do you want the line drawn? What is essential? Too often it's what was notionally under government control when people were younger.

The article Dee refers to brings us back to the global nature of these companies, and how many activities can be conducted from various locations.

If Halliuburton's Brown And Root, as is often claimed, is acting as a "post office box" for Houston Headquarters, you could be excused for thinking that information might be flowing in the opposite direction through this Rogue State trading loophole.

If infrastructure planning for Iran was being conducted at Greenhill Road, would the Australian Governments be complicit in providing a shelter for a corporation from the laws of its "mother country" ?

Legal? Yes, probably. Ethical ? Not at all.

If all the other Halliburton activities were not enough Online Opinion has Jason Leopold on Playing with fire: Halliburton’s ties with terrorism".

Richard: I whole heartedly agree with every word you say. Under the previous Liberal Government of Richard Court in W.A., the selling of off assets started with first, Alinta Gas and the Dampier to Perth gas pipeline, then came the government car fleet, then public transport and public hospital management, and under the Gallop Labor Government they are moving down the path of Electricity.

Australian politicians seem to think no further than the latest poll or the next election, they do not think further, probably for fear of hurting the grey matter, when in fact, they should be looking twenty or more years down the track.

Take Costello's future fund at the last budget, whilst he is tightening up eligibility for all types of Centrelink payments, the future fund in my view, was nothing more than guaranteeing his own parliamentary pension and that of his fellow politicians.

The future fund should be used to put rail back into country towns, rail which various governments have all run down to the extent that it is made unviable.

As a south australian living in Whyalla, we have a perfectly good rail line which connects with the Indian Pacific, the Adelaide Darwin Rail and the Overlander from Port Augusta to Melbourne which connects with all the eastern seaboard lines, yet it is only used for iron ore and steel.

I hold a firm belief that the Government should own and operate all essential services, i.e. Public Transport, Power, Gas, Police, etc, none of these should in any way be allowed to be operated by private companies or contractors as when they are, services fall and prices rise to maximise profits.

Maybe it is time we turned the clock back as before this privatisation agenda, we had two airlines which served us well and no bank fees and charges to eat away our meager savings.

It's hardly suprising that KBR is in New Orleans when Geoge Bush's former campaign manager is the company's lobbyist. Joe Albaugh is also ex-director of the U.S.' Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Excerpt:

The appropriation of hurricane recovery funds also highlights Halliburton’s special interest connections to the White House. On February 1, 2005, The Allbaugh Company, under the name of M. Diane Allbaugh, registered to lobby for Kellogg, Brown & Root. The lobbying registration form lists Joe M. Allbaugh, former 2000 Bush campaign manager and former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), as KBR’s official lobbyist.

Such close public/private ties couldn't exist in Australia, could they?

Frank Ashe: thank you for pointing out that food was left of the essential sevices I mentioned. I agree wholeheartedly with your view that food should be included.

Woolies, Coles, Foodland, Iga, Bilo etc, one way or the other are all owned by the top two, Woolies and Colesmyer. It would be hard to restrict how they operate. However, having said that, governments can regulate to cap prices, just as the big two have regulated, unnoficially, the price they pay to primary producers.

Housing, well what can be done? Public housing must always be owned, operated and staffed by Government, even the maintenance must be handled in-house by employed tradesmen. Remember when we had apprentices; that was due to the public sector employing and training them.

Under the current capitalist system being shoved down our throats, the three bedroom house we purchased in a South Australian country town for $29,500 in 2003, was recently valued at $83,000; that is a $53,500 or 150% increase in two years. How can first homebuyers ever afford to own their own homes?

Richard Tonkin should be getting the 2005 Walkley Award for investigative journalism in 2005, if that Walkley award meant anything any more.

We all owe Richard a great debt of gratitude for his work in 2004-2005 uncovering the major and rapidly expanding resource and infrastructure connections that Cheney’s company Halliburton and its subsidiary Kellogg Brown Root (KBR) are building in our gullible little land of Australia. No wonder the Feds and US security agents were keeping such a close eye on Richard – he’s a dangerous man, because his knowledge and ideas are dangerous - during the recent AUSMIN [Australia-United States Ministerial] talks, held significantly this year in Adelaide. Robert Hill’s and Alexander Downer’s home state – and watch what Australia’s ADF is getting ready to do in the Philippines, by the way – another sleeper national security story getting ready to break.

Reading back over Richard’s two Webdiary pieces on Halliburton and Adelaide which both ran earlier this year, Halliburton down under: taking over South Australia by stealth 22 March 2005 and Halliburton's Adelaide, 25 August 2005, and reading the transcript of the SBS Dateline 5 October 2004 feature he advised on “Halliburton Down Under”, (see SBS transcript; it’s fairly hard to get off their website for some reason, so I have copied it below) one sees the source of inspiration and research for Alan Ramsay’s recent very significant opinion piece in SMH piece excerpted below.

I must admit that when I first read Richard’s two pieces on Webdiary, I did not take them in properly – it took Alan Ramsay’s piece to send me back to re-read them closely and also to read the correspondence arising from them. Re-reading this material now I recognise its importance – including some very good comments and links therein that came from Webdiary readers.

I think this is a good example – like the SIEV X archive – of the crucial role of the independent investigative journalism of Webdiary. This Webdiary Halliburton/KBH archive will be re-read in years to come, as we wake up and start wondering why our political elites (Liberal and Labor) let our country be set up as the dumping ground for the US’s global nuclear waste fills.

It all fits, and it is only due to Tonkin and Ramsay joining the dots that we now know this. And who says we don’t have political corruption in Australia?” This story shows like no other how our whole system reeks of it, all the way to the top.

And did anyone in the mainstream media pick up on Ramsay’s seminal warning piece two weeks ago – "Nah, of course not, it’s just old Alan off on another frolic, right – so who cares?"

It's still unfolding ... at the bottom of an announcement by Minister Hill and Premier Rann that US Shipbuilders Gibbs and Cox are to set up a headquarters here (as was nostradamusly predicted by Mr Rann months ago), was Hill's disclosure that the Adelaide-located JORN (Jindalee Over-horizon Radar Network) was used in missile detection trials last year.

Mr Hill says that this new ability might allow JORN to serve as a radar system for the US Missile Shield.

Like Tony and Margo (thanks for the wonderful kudos, both of you), you might begin to consider believing me when I say that big plans are moving (too) quickly.

It will be interesting to see who gets to announce our participation in the Global Hawk project, also tipped by Rann a few months back.

This is getting depressing...