EXCLUSIVE: Greens political party shoots off mouth about campaign donations from gambling companies while taking $200K from gambling big gun

The Greens political party have been caught out trousering $200,000 donations from a gambling industry millionaire while publicly condemning political donations from the gambling industry.

Documents obtained [pdf] by the VEXNEWS Investigate Unit confirm that a Mr Greg Beirne and his wife donated [pdf] $200,000 to the Tasmanian Greens. The Tassie Greens party is not the mungbean eating hillbilly outfit you might think either, it raised and spent over a million dollars last financial year. That buys a lot of two-headed jumpers.

Our investigations also reveal that the Australian Securities and Investments Commission lists that same Greg Beirne as a former director and substantial shareholder of Australian Gaming and Wagering (International) Pty Ltd, Totalisators Communication & Technology Pty Ltd., Touchbet International Pty Ltd and Touchbet Pty Ltd. These companies made many millions of dollars from gambling.

His brother is well-known former bookmaker Dom Beirne, a very well-known figure in the horse-racing and gambling industries. Greg Beirne, who prefers to be described these days as an “investor” was a huge player in Sydney horse racing before taking it easy to count all the cash he made from the racket and donate to the extreme left-wing political operations like the Tasmanian Greens political party. Beirne continues to make millions from gambling, setting the odds for Luxbet, an online gambling provider, owned by gaming giant and casino owner Tabcorp.

Brother Dom was for a time the biggest bookie in Sydney while in his 20’s and then suddenly retired to sell betting systems and information. A number of VEXNEWS sources have speculated about why he would have retired so young from an occupation that was at the time considered extremely lucrative. We couldn’t possibly comment. And after all, he’s not the donor, it’s his brother Greg who cashed in from gambling for decades and now gives money to an avowedly anti-gambling party.

Despite taking the Beirne family’s loot, the Greens political party pretend to take a strong anti-gambling stance. They say that gambling is “socially damaging” blaming it for “serious social harm, including relationship breakdown, divorce, business failure, homelessness, crime and suicide.” The Greens party’s NSW branch says it is “concerned about the influence of donations on the political process.” It continues:

Political donations from major gambling stakeholders further calls into question the government’s ability to act in the public interest to regulate the gambling industry.

Enough to make you wonder why they took a $200,000 from a gambling industry mogul who made millions from the caper.

From the Greens NSW gambling policy document:

UPDATE MARCH 13: The Sydney Morning Herald picked up this story.

HARD CORE: Victorian Government media unit goes in very hard on bushfire finger-pointing

The media unit of the Victorian Government usually dead-bats everything, solidly boring yet worthy pronouncements on this and that.

Today, no doubt sniffing blood, in response to the bizarre attack on them from The Age/Opposition over the claim there wasn’t sufficient warning made in relation to the bushfires, they have fired back with probably the most aggressive release we’ve seen them ever put out:

Tuesday, 10 March, 2009

OPPOSITION LEADER MUST DISCIPLINE HIS SHADOW MINISTER ON BUSHFIRE POLITICS

The Opposition Leader must stand up for decency and discipline his shadow minister for false and offensive claims made about emergency warnings leading up to the terrible bushfires that claimed more than 200 lives, Police and Emergency Services Minister Bob Cameron said today.

Mr Cameron said the clock was ticking on the Opposition Leader to either endorse the false and offensive claims or to discipline his shadow minister for trying to manipulate the terrible bushfires for political point-scoring.

“The Liberal-National Opposition today sought to exploit the bushfires for base political reasons and the clock is ticking on the Leader of the Opposition to stand up for decency and discipline his shadow minister,” Mr Cameron said.

“The Liberal-National shadow minister today falsely claimed the Government and emergency service authorities had received warnings about the bushfire threat on Wednesday 4 February and failed to convey those warnings to people in bushfire prone areas.

“Such a base political attack is not only disgraceful, it is wrong. The Government was out in full force from Wednesday 4 February – as soon as emergency briefings were provided – to warn communities about the fire threat ahead of Black Saturday.

“Emergency agencies – the Country Fire Authority, Victoria Police, the Department of Sustainability and Environment and the Emergency Services Commissioner – issued repeated warnings about the fire threat for Saturday 7 February.

“The Opposition’s false and offensive claims are a slap in the face to our emergency services.”

Mr Cameron said the Victorian Government had issued warnings on:

Wednesday 4 February:

“We’re going to see a lot more fires later this week – that’s an inevitability . . . Saturday we’re probably headed for another ugly day, like, you know, ugly, ugly: 43 degrees again in the north of the state, potentially that high for Melbourne. So, again, it’s going to be a difficult week.”

– Premier John Brumby

Thursday 5 February:

“Unfortunately we are not out of the woods yet. The end of this week sees a range of weather factors coming together that could have very serious consequences. The bureau of meteorology is forecasting temperatures in the high 30s and low 40s for Friday and Saturday, with very strong winds of 50 kilometres per hour gusting up to 100 kilometres per hour as well as extremely low humidity. This is extreme fire weather.”

– Deputy Premier Rob Hulls

Friday 6 February

“I’ve been briefed on the latest weather forecast for tomorrow and it’s going to be, probably by a long way, the worst day ever in the history of the state in terms of the temperatures and the winds.”

– Premier John Brumby

Mr Cameron said the Teague Royal Commission had the broadest possible terms of reference to examine the bushfires and the Liberal-National Opposition should get out of the way of its important work.

“Making false, offensive and insensitive claims about the bushfires cannot possible help the conduct of a Royal Commission,” Mr Cameron said.

“For once in his life, the Opposition Leader must take a stand. He has the opportunity to stand up for decency and discipline his shadow minister.

“If the Opposition is determined to engage in misleading political attacks, then the community will make up its own mind about them.

“Our Government will continue to get on with the job of rebuilding bushfire-affected communities.”

MISMATCHED: Chris Richardson's fashion faux pas in Club Fed

Rent a quote macroeconomist Chris Richardson of Access Economics might be dressing for the recession. A Parliament House snout informs VEXNEWS that he is walking around the building of fun in Canberra wearing a suit but also wearing somewhat dilapidated runners.

Did he forget to pack his shoes? Is he suffering early onset Alzheimers? Is he attempting to outdo Bill Shorten, who proudly mixes and matches different shoe colours? Gout perhaps?

We report, you decide.

Naturally, we’ve sent an email to let him put his side of the story. We’ll update when he responds.

And sure enough, the patriot did get back to us in very quick time, explaining:

Thanks for noting that I was wearing dilapidated running shoes with my suit earlier today. I have to admit I’m an all too common sight in that combination, but it owes more to a bad back than it does to the ravages of the global financial crisis.

Sounds like a perfectly valid explanation.

TSK TSK: The Age's Paul Austin is the great pretender

Ted Baillieu’s unofficial press spokescomrade Paul “The Great Pretender” Austin’s work often irritates us and he and running dog Royce Millar  has produced two appalling front-page examples of it in two days.

Yesterday, came Roycey’s unsourced and highly dubious claim that the public-private partnership for Victoria’s desalination water plant had fallen over.

A good story if it was true – and many development projects are struggling due to banks being very unwilling to lend right now – but it appears almost certain that it is false.

Bass Water, the responsible authority, has denied it on the record and emphatically. The project will proceed, no doubt with considerable argument over the terms of the deal but we are told on good authority that the multi-billion dollar infrastructure companies have no trouble raising funds, for the right project. And we can measure whether the desal plant is the right project for them by their ongoing interest in pursuing it.

How the statists of France produced rapacious big private water companies is one of life’s many delightful mysteries. But one thing they’re not short of is loot. And a deeply held, croissant fuelled desire to make more.

Victoria needs a desal plant. We might wondered whether that was true in the past. It might give us harder water that tastes funny but it’s better than having none at all.

Because of that need and our relatively wealthy society’s ability to pay for what we need, the desal plant is almost certainly going to be a good deal for those who invest in it.

From The Age’s world view, private investment in infrastructure like that is unwelcome as are desal plants generally because we should all go back to the caves rather than use the money and natural resources we have to keep the water flowing.

So they run a highly dubious – and soon to be thoroughly disproved – story on their front page declaring it dead.

It’s almost as if they write about the world as they dream it to be, rather than reporting news in the way traditionalists might expect.

And today from “Curly” Austin, an even worse effort. A yarn that explained the Liberals were having a crack at the Victorian government over bushfire warnings.

It relied on a document that was given to fire chiefs that warned of the fires.

Trouble was the story had already been written by Gerard McManus of the Herald Sun and was published there on page 17 on February 25. Here it is.

Andrew McIntosh has probably made a political mistake in pursuing the government over warnings. Not that he shouldn’t be critical of some things but I doubt most voters will question Brumby’s very hardcore warning on the Friday before the fires and government agencies’ actions even prior to that.

The warnings were there. They weren’t fully comprehended, that’s certainly true.

But McIntosh is just doing his job and having a go. The worst risk – we suppose – is not taking any. We think he’s better off waiting for the Royal Commission which will no doubt reveal many things the government would rather not be revealed.

It’s the Opposition’s job to oppose. It’s Paul Austin’s job to report news. Not to recycle his opposition’s story from more than a fortnight ago, badge it as an exclusive and pretend they obtained a secret briefing for the first time.

It’s journalism of the most deceitful and misleading kind.

PARTY IN LIMBO: Victorian Libs go lower than ever under Red Ted

Victorian Liberal leader “Red” Ted Baillieu’s most recent poll numbers – from The Australian’s Newspoll – should be the final nail in his coffin.

The fact that those woeful numbers barely pass without comment in 157 Spring Street, that we hear barely a murmur from obvious leadership alternative Terry Mulder, that Baillieu and crew seem perfectly content being in Opposition is a damning indictment on the Liberal party in Victoria.

If they’re not hungry, the Victorian voters won’t even seriously consider giving them a feed.

For too many Liberals, they are like the ALP when it’s at its worst. Those in Baillieu/David Davis’s faction won’t agree to knife him mostly because he’s their guy. His performance isn’t even seriously evaluated. The only possible alternative, the Baillieu folk think, could be David Davis and he’s in the wrong house.

And when a reshuffle is politely suggested, that can’t happen either. Again for mainly factional reasons.

As the graphic suggests, the Victorian Liberals are a party in limbo.

On Friday night, they preselected a person who – while very worthy in many respects – is not going to be a minister or a serious prospect of being one. They rejected a person – while just as flawed as every other political hack and CV builder – who could have been a minister one day.

Progressing in politics is about making the right choices. You go backwards when you get things wrong.

Once the jewel in the crown for the Liberal party, the Victorian division has clearly lost its way.

Its president is a useless old grouch who was put up by the Kroger crew to smite the Baillieu brigade. He hasn’t even done that particularly well. He just does what he wants, complain many insiders to VEXNEWS on condition of anonymity for fear of being turned into stone by his old man winter Medusa style death-stare.

The internal maneuverings are fun. What isn’t fun for state Liberals consider is who among them could lose their seats if the swing suggested by Newspoll was reflected in an actual election.

Ten seats at risk. At least notionally. Maybe the country ones would be out of reach, even on those numbers.

Nick Wakeling in Ferntree Gully, he likes both factions to think he’s with them. But sometimes, Mr Nick, a non-decision is a decision.  If you snooze, you lose. He’d be first to go, with any adverse swing.

David Hodgett, in Kilsyth, not so committed to Red Ted we hear. He’d be next to lose.

Then there’s beefy Neale Burgess in Hastings. He doesn’t support Ted at all because he’d be a goner if an election was held today under Ted’s leadership.

Morwell and Narracan, probably safe unless Ted springs the Churchill arsonist from jail and makes him his man-servant. And one of them is held by the Nats anyway, who seem to be travelling OK, for now, under the leadership of lawyer Peter Ryan.

Christine Fyffe in Evelyn, sensibly opposes the Red Ted way. For good reason, with a 60:40 Brumby landslide, she’d be out on her bum.

Heidi Victoria in Bayswater. Loves Red Ted big-time. At least will until she loses her seat on its 2.9% margin. Ciao for now, comrade.

Dr Dennis Napthine, in South West Coast, probably safe. The locals know he isn’t anything like Red Ted. He is believed to still be a vote in his column though.

Robert Clark, in Box Hill. Said to be retiring. Not a fan of the Red Ted. Could be replaced by Chairman Gladys Liu, a devoted supporter of the Red Ted cause. She might not ever know the sweet smell of the green leather of legislature.

Ken Smith in Bass. Has just as much of a spring in his step as George Seitz. Meant to be retiring too. Is believed to be a Ted supporter in any ballot. His Wonthaggi based seat should be safe as houses but could Red Ted cost them that too? Probably not but Liberals might well ponder why they are having to contemplate these issues.

They should be ready to roll in 2010. An alternative government. An effective core of half-dozen who are regularly on the news, punching the government on the nose over something.

Instead we get a Ted focused Opposition that has lost its way.

Ted might want to blame the bushfires but someone really needs to put a fire under the Liberal party room. Act now or those named above will burn, baby burn.

Their best effort – from loyal Ted supporter Andrew McIntosh – was recycling a story from Gerard McManus in the Herald Sun a couple of weeks ago about bushfire warnings. We doubt anyone in Victoria – even the most fanatical anti-Brumby person – would think his pre-bushfire warning was anything other than very direct and sadly prescient.