Humanitarian Intervention II

From yesterday's Crikey!

Organisational assets above the value of $400,000 are to be compulsorily acquired by Indigenous Business Australia (IBA) and transferred to a new entity, the Indigenous Economic Development Trust (IEDT), and then rented back at commercial rates to the same organisations from which the asset has been taken from.

In some cases this will make those organisations commercially unviable, leading to financial collapse and loss of Aboriginal jobs...

This is not about Aboriginal land in places like Arnhem Land: assets will be compulsorily stripped from Aboriginal organisations owning land and property up and down the Stuart Highway—Darwin, Katherine, Tennant Creek and Alice Springs—no matter how well run, no matter what the level of services provided, no matter what those assets are being used for.

The early targets appear to be urban-based Community Development Employment Programs (CDEP)...

The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR), in at least one instance, will be "resuming" an asset from an Aboriginal business which is being offered back for commercial rental to the very Aboriginal business from which it was compulsorily taken.

In many cases the assets have been built up over many years—in some cases decades. Some are jointly-owned assets. Some are leased to groups such as health services; some provide low cost housing. Some are funded through a combination of commercial income, commercial bank loans, soft government loans and government grants.

The latter factor seems to be the key. Any Aboriginal organisation that directly or indirectly received federal government assistance to acquire or pay off an asset—even in small part—now faces compulsory seizure of the entire asset...

If You Made This Up, They'd Call You A Hack

A gem from "The Great Iraq Swindle" in Rolling Stone.

The administration also greenlighted brash, modern-day forty-niners like Scott Custer and Mike Battles, a pair of ex-Army officers and bottom-rank Republican pols (Battles had run for Congress in Rhode Island and had been a Fox News commentator) who had decided to form a security company called Custer Battles and make it big in Iraq. "Battles knew some people from his congres­sional run, and that's how they got there," says Alan Grayson, an attorney who led a whistle-blower lawsuit against the pair for defrauding the government.

A US security company. In Iraq. Called Custer Battles. The fact that the company name was coined from the surnames of its dim-witted founders just makes it even funnier. I mean, if they'd chosen the name out of the blue they'd just be common-or-garden morons, but to put it together from their own names, and then totally miss the "Oh - wait a minute..." moment - that shows arrogant foolishness on an almost celestial level. Which is probably why they managed to bilk US taxpayers of millions of dollars and yet have their fraud convictions overturned on appeal.

Though uncredited, the Rolling Stone piece appears to have been penned by Matt Taibbi. Be sure to read the whole thing.