Albanese setting up Integrity but can he?

Postscript

The October 2022 Budget was a disaster in all terms, with this being a six-month reflection of the wreckage Kennedy/Chambers dumped on Australia:

Resumes

UPDATE 8 July then 12 July

The Treasurer still refuses to engage in any way on issues of national importance including his imperilling the whole Integrity agenda in many dimensions. This discussion will be reflected in the new page, “Albanese’s Unfinished Business 2020 onwards”

Weeks of trying to reverse embedded bias and corruption, to start to restore my life and health, help my family (Jim has not replied to my question: you have a happy family so why do you do everything you can to hurt mine?), and fund my beloved causes – listed in short form here, documented on other pages, and showing the serious consequences of distorted democracy:

Efforts on 10 and 11 July, as with earlier efforts, to reverse the Treasurer’s blind prejudice against paying me MY MONEY in return for a high-quality VALUE PROPOSITION again foundered on the cruel rocks of extended Morrisonic Kennedy. No answer to this reminder:

Date: 20 May 2022 at 1:39:11 pm AEST
Subject: I sincerely hope that Albo wins tomorrow but it had better be a new start because the old way didn’t work

I am sick of being right, courageous, bashed, homeless, diminished and rushed to hospital in a near fatal state.

If Albo doesn’t recognise fairness as an essential part of integrity, we have a battle on our hands which I sincerely hope is not the case.

I have the answers and now I will be to him what nugget Coombes was or I will proceed on my wrecking pathway until I get Aussie fairness

I have kept senior ministers in the loop in hope of building a consensus, including

1. Richard – Keating & my correspondence with Biden etc
2. Chris – avoid “climate crimes” ditto, Newcastle being fastest and best in the world
3. Jim – nation-building exercise via iA, Kennedy re corruption, fairness / rebuilding my life
4. Mark B- community resilience + my websites and books
5. Mark D – Integrity, my websites and books
6. Catherine – Betts, iA and post-carbon reconstruction of Newcastle, fastest and best in the world

Integrity does not have an  on/off switch:  the crisis in ignoring plagiarism

The PM and Treasurer have had the facts of life explained to them many times but the latter has tried to polish turds under the influence of his department head who was the major hitman and corrupting apparatchik of the Turnbull-to-Frydenberg screw-up generation of Coalition failures.  That he has waged a vendetta against me since 2015 is a very dumb millstone.

In particular Chalmers is trying to pretend there is a basis remaining on which to build his October Budget but ~

• The “needs analyses” reside in my websites and three (to date) books and are unavailable to him without fairness, hobbling his ability to match problems with my and even his “solutions”
• His methodology is the Coalition’s “gifting” approach which has no options and scenario-testing legitimacy in such key areas as Defence, urban and regional infrastructure and employment generation (ditto they cannot use my Newcastle world-class post-carbon achievements), Health and Education – in total violation of “Treasury Regs”, OECD and World Bank guidelines, and Eddington/Greiner published and accepted then rejected methodologies
• I will gazump him at every turn as I did to Frydenberg/Kennedy to their complete bewilderment and subsequent Budget manoeuvrings through failed economic, bushfire, corona and climate challenges – because they have stolen from me and my family, hurt society and economy unnecessarily, and stopped me from supporting Save the Children, Police Legacy, cancer sufferers and their families, and my life-long ambition to honour our “forgotten heroes”
• The “Unholy Succession” © from Morrison to Albanese has tainted the integrity and competence of the reforming government.  Two key portfolios have lacked merit-based assessments of incumbents against alternative appointees, in violation of corporate and public administration values, so far crippling outcomes.

I have to add that the PM’s promise to “end the shameful toleration for corruption” which dominated the backroom exclusion of society and experts has been compromised to the point that only my solution to the deep blood stains can expiate the foule pestilence of plagiarism.

Update 4 July 2022

Several pages were set up separate from this and a new one on “criminal suppression” is going up now, the images here summarise today’s latest rejection of Integrity after some 12 intermediate ones, the Treasurer is clearly bound to the Turnbull/Morrison/Frydenberg apparatchik Stephen Kennedy

6 July no response at all to polite and less polite emails and there are now 2 pages here and growing anger to fail to address the pernicious effects of malevolent plagiarism which Labor ignored. Both pages question the legitimacy of the 2022 Budget Process in the context of the failure to follow-through on the Anti-Corruption Policy’s values statement and the revealed extinguishment of rule of law. In effect, the Budget has no basis in due diligence , iA and iNSW being corrupted by petticoat politicians. The rule of “fruit of the poisoned vine” is taken seriously in law but fed with manure in politics, since the creation of iA as shown:

That gives the context to the following quotes, see page labelled “Corruption
& the 30-Minute Club of Cruel Fascists”.

• Morrison’s ever-growing list of scandals and cover-ups
• “national integrity body with teeth”
• investigate “port-barrelling” as well as “serious and systemic” past corruption
• restore the Australian people’s trust in their government
• end to the shameful tolerance for corruption

Integrity was used co-terminously with anti-corruption: NSW ICAC defines “corruption” as deliberate or intentional wrongdoing, and “the conditions that may allow corruption to occur” … more likely … where some of the following exist:

• policies and procedures are absent, unclear or not adequately enforced
• employee training is inadequate
• checks such as audits are lacking 
• communication and reporting lines are unclear
• employee supervision and performance management are inadequate
• employees have high levels of discretion in their decision-making
• employees develop close relationships with external stakeholders
• accepted ethical standards are lacking
• the corporate culture condones rule breaking and short cuts.

Merriam-Webster defines integrity as 1. firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : incorruptibility. 2 : an unimpaired condition : soundness. 3 : the quality or state of being complete or undivided : completeness. That definition is expanded in the following. ICAC’s “deliberate” is similar to lack of integrity.

That incoming “reform” government elected on 21 May has got into a lot of trouble by extending LNP corruption through its policies and personnel:

Port-barrelling in a pre-election timeframe is traditional; but the gross level and politicisation of Morrison and Berejiklian have been regarded as corrupt in intent. The major source in Australia on systemic corruption appears to be this author’s https://www.kobo.com/au/en/ebook/righteous-blame where “malevolence” is frequently used as well as integrity and corruption.

The fact is, Albanese’s reference to an increasing state of corruption is the malevolent breakdown of “due diligence” and “the rule of law” as analysed in Righteous Blame and my other books as listed at Kobo.

The problems from Morrison are widely regarded as “challenging”. The situation is much worse than that BUT the solutions are herein:

In the real world, corruption prevention and integrity have been delayed a year for the commencement of the Fed ICAC which will take another year for its first result, and continuation of Morrison corruption as though Morrison was not corrupt:

• As yet, on 24 June, the Albanese Government has refused to come to grips with serial plagiarism by LNP and ALP ministers, agencies and the Rail Union, from NSW’s top urban analyst amounting to criminal levels of corruption, with massive “economic cost” losses of value and increases in avoidable debt; but attempts to raise with the PM and Treasurer a sensible and cost-effective way to expiation has met “shameful tolerance” by ministers, agencies and parliamentarians. They are now sharing the load of allegations of corruption on the basis of the preceding definitions
• the Treasurer has a personal friendship with a major corruption force, Stephen Kennedy, in the previous government with whom that top analyst had been battling over gross planning and management failures and in turn been banned by Kennedy from government media links. Kennedy visited the Treasurer in the Treasurer’s Queensland home after the Ministry key roles were confirmed, with no independent witness evident in the photographs, and from that moment trust was seriously damaged – and must be confronted
• The Albanese Government has inherited many critical policy, projects and relationship problems, some it had agreed with at the time (mostly in 2021), and dealt with some and not with others as though integrity has an on/off switch. The PM had vowed to end the false sanctity of National “Cabinet” minutes but walked out of the first meeting with Premiers refusing to say why he has then changed his mind, as though they still pretended there had been no conflict during Morrison’s and Berejiklian’s predations. The Treasurer had referred to the gross waste in the AUKUS/Biden nuclear subs check mate of the Morrison “PM ATM”; but the new PM met Biden in Tokyo and came out offering his first born and house to the US Military Gods and Chalmers was mute

^{Kennedy wrecked Western Sydney’s economic future and Morrison responses
to bushfires, coronavirus and migration, flooding and ethno-economic challenges. Chalmers has risked much}

The continuation of Morrison/Kennedy malevolence produced inevitable frustration especially as yet another set of valuable ideas for the new Pm were being washed away. These words on 16 June are highly reminiscent of similar I have written including

Positive effects from proceeding and negatives from again rejecting are set out below. The blog indicates a possibility of Jim Chalmers’ involvement with Kennedy (see the Rogues Gallery page). This applies to Albo’s and Jim’s:

The PM’s announcement of Professor Glyn Davis to head the department of Prime Minister of Cabinet paralleled the anti-corruption policy, as the SMH put it

The purposes of this page include “positive change” in repairing integrity, with the PM’s promise “to change”:

• the identification of pre-ICAC corruption,
• means of expiation of the effects of cruel and malevolent corruption, and
• means of avoiding further such instances of corruption including reversing the dominant “slam the door closed”.

The theft of all or any of a citizen’s property without cause, such as plagiarism of published, protected ideas, and denial of promised relief such as bushfire and flood reconstruction, are corrupt in intent and effect, and non-return of the property is also corrupt including with the “shameful tolerance” by ministers and Parliamentarians.

UPDATE at 1.30 pm on 17 June

The PM and Treasurer received another “win-win” Value Proposition this morning which represents resolution of human rights abuses they are perpetuating as well as significant benefits to Australia and to the PM personally. The substance is later but the overview of a win-win negotiation – if the other side has any decency at all – is:

There were further outgoings on the same theme as reflected here, am waiting for the Albanese Integrity Government to get back to me asap so we can get on with the timeline:

22 June

Just saw Jimmy Barnes with Pickering talking fondly of the past – YES! Gave this to the Canberra lads this morning and still trying to get them to wake up, I know I’m not stupid and corrupt so what is going on in Albo’s and Jim’s corner – it’s a Kennedy creeping around:

The 23rd of June started with further offers to facilitate the expiation of plagiarism by Australian national and state governments and unions as explained below. The day saw further governmental avoidance of discussion and non-acceptance of positive ways to maximise the people’s trust in their government.

Integrity / Professionalism  /  Societal   Risk   Matrix

Albo fought with Tanner against probity but look at these positives and negatives and wonder why Jim is negative – look who is pulling his strings!

Jim! I simply want to get my life back and see my friends before they head north for months, and you have been given the answers on platters and you still am a total shit, NOT GIVING ME MY MONEY

It is important to me that there be accountability and transparency as evil is being done behind closed doors and the PM must keep his promise to implement INTEGRITY. The contrary point of view is

The PM denied INTEGRITY when he enforced secrecy in an illegitimate closed-door forum which has to be referred to a Federal ICAC. The Treasurer remains an impediment to integrity and citizen rights:

I apologise Professor Davis

On the 19th the ABC’s Insiders had a News journalist trying to say that Albanese was looking good but her spots on her hyena hide were not changing, while also saying that NSW’s Perrottet was really clever really, ignoring that every Budget he presented has massive lies in them (me and Auditor General) as the next one will. This is a good symbol for him

The PM is facing the same historical situation which was created by much the same personae:

The biggest challenge was always to change mindsets especially that of new PM Anthony Albanese who showed through a long stint as Minister for Infrastructure a proclivity for mateship and cronies. On 11 June 2022 a stasis in progress with integrity and continuance of dysfunctional structures and attitudes was clearly obvious and has become more toxic with proposed beneficial donations to community priorities being prevented by a Labor PM lacking in Labor values, causing massive conflict which has no Public Service vector for conciliation:

16 June PM does not respond to Value Proposition

The substance of the offer follows but the reaction was put to the PM, Treasurer and Ministers in terms such as these:

The PM and Treasurer were told explicitly that “political and moral suasion” would proceed, primarily on the next two pages (the third is not visible yet).

It could be there is an intraocular bacterium that prevents intelligent PMs, ministers and independents from cognitive inputs. Damn it, too many corruptions are surviving the supposed Integrity government

23 June the PM, Treasurer and PM&C again do not respond to positive propositions to expiate the effects of serial plagiarism by LNP and Labor Governments as well as restore the author’s submissions to fund an iA holistic review of infrastructure planning in the context of changes in economic, demographic, climate, migration and natural risk parameters (as well as other benefits detailed on this page) ~

Update

The events of the last month have a definite pattern, the PM is picking cherries in the visible target areas, and smothering initiative and reform in the substantive ones. He is extending Morrison’s cruelty instead of healing victims. At the moment of writing, he is seen to have rejected or deferred or whatever the following “integrity repair” program (c) dated 9 June – given that in some 15 years of contacting him he has replied NEVER, no matter how damaging his “decision/s”:

It can be seen that there are many obvious “victims” of this presumed cruel recusal and others which are seen in this and related websites: first responders here, 8,000 Aboriginal works reducing fire risk in a carefully programmed manner (c) elsewhere.

Here are the words:

The Advisor will provide to the Principal within 1 month of commencement of the Deed (earlier re parts as might be agreed):

1. List and samples of Intellectual Property associated with his review of Federal and NSW programs and budgets, climate mitigation and related defence approaches, the history and features of transport/land use proposals, and his knowledge of iA, iNSW and GSC (and other) procedures and methodologies;  provided the Principal agrees to and meets the terms of (A) below
2. Coronavirus Context Analysis
   1. Financial and budgeting
   2. Medical and health integration – IP such as Murray/Gibbons Template to be shared and marketed internationally
   3. History and applicability of bubonic plague to go with 1919 influence as governance precedents, brief based on “Thank God for the Plague, Sydney 1900-12”
3. Bushfire Context Analyses including indigenous landcare model engaging c 8,000 properly trained, equipped and managed traditional bush folk over an initial 10 years
4. Infrastructure Context analyses as might be relevant
   1. NSW Government statements, reports and correspondence
   2. iA and iNSW, GSC and NSW Productivity Commission reports if not already held
   3. Associated or transport, land use and technology reports from around Australia and the world
   4. GSC, ROC, RDA and associated regional reports
   5. Industry stakeholders’ correspondence, statements and reports
   6. Media reports
5. Integrity illustrations, flow charts and references to publications and drafts
6. Draft EDDINGTON BEDROCK – from Christie to Greiner to Gibbons – dealing with Sydney & regional transport, project planning and probity, logistics, and employment planning frameworks and incorporating ROC, Federal and State, and industry/community concerns; and Creative Reconstruction of NSW Local Governance
7. Draft Eastern Seabord Rail Freight Development Plan including Ports Strategy (especially to resolve the PM’s painful problem in Port Botany and re-formulate Inland Rail into a Rail Bridge)
8. Draft correspondence for engaging NSW principals or other arrangement and generally in the Feasibility Testing phase (not long-term)

It remains that the Treasurer has retained the Morrison/Frydenberg operative Stephen Kennedy at $1 million p.a. while refusing to repair the dysfunctionalities resulting from his own failed critiques of Morrison/ Frydenberg catastrophes Vs my profoundly professional and creative ones (being documented at Rogues Gallery). That is understandable from an ego point of view and unacceptable regarding public policy outcomes.

Resumes

PM Albanese has appointed the famous university supremo and welfare advocate Professor Glyn Davis as Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, the top bureaucrat in Australia. The PM’s famous hands-on approach and preference for picking winners and friends would be warehoused while he articulates the leadership the nation has been craving. Thus INTEGRITY could become a national treasure if the PM does what he promised – to change.

Unusual to lose the c

Gaetjens and Kennedy, the ratbags’ go-to team

This page was created to open-up the revealed history of decision-making around integrity the current new PM, and in his role as Minister for Infrastructure from 2007 to 2013. Events have moved on in that ~

• Professor Glyn Davis has been appointed as Secretary of PM&C – he has arrived straight into the frying pan – recruited to strengthen integrity in an holistic sense to find his main ally seeking justice for himself, his family and his well-publicised beneficiaries, and forced into combative mode by years of exile into homelessness.  Latter has added his proposed knees-up for the Murray River zone’s front line responders, the paramedics, police and firies, who saved his life and the lives of many others but who are largely unheralded, with PM Albanese invited as guest of honour.
• The Government has selectively reversed some of its predecessor’s transgressions against integrity but not others and even then incompletely. There is a lack of risk awareness, that key persons think they are above accountability and can turn off integrity (or simply not turn it on)
• Senior Ministers have remained remote from integrity matters in the same way that Morrison’s Cabinet did
• Former PM Kevin Rudd has contributed to rational discussion (with my reply at top):

The battle between Albanese and Tanner in 2007 is recounted below

I have been writing recovery plans for 10 years as governance progressively disintegrated and I ask the PM and his ministers, as well as Professor Davis, why do you continue to punish the main agent of reform and reward the agents of decreptitude?

Treasurer Chalmers appears in the media with his happy family and every family should be free of oppression – so why does he oppress me and my intended beneficiaries?

Integrity cannot be switched on or off, time to wrap up the old ego

It is suggested that the Labor reform government has the following 4 immediate Integrity questions to deal with:

• Why has it failed to oppose and repair its predecessors’ and own thefts from and abuses of citizen’s rights and kept the same illegitimate approach of locking its doors against victims?  Why has it ignored “better options” to improve efficiency and equity, reduce waste and corruption, and enforce “fairness”?
• Why has its focussed down on “NSW ICAC” (financial corruption) instead of repairing Treasury and iA malevolence and incompetence as illustrations of proper Integrity (having a parallel Common Law meaning to “fit and proper”)?
• Why has it rewarded  the previous administration’s anti-ethical mercenary in Turnbull’s campaign to camouflage’s his wife’s and his own excursions into destructive policy-making and Morrison/Frydenberg’s into Corona Malenomics, rorting and cruelty?
• Why have its initial selective reversals of its predecessor’s travesties been incomplete, in effect forcing victims into the courts to correct what should never have happened and should have been expunged already?

This is further illustrated thus:

In view of perceived irrational responses to constructive suggestions, the Morrison era question again arises, how did this happen and what can be done about it?

June 1 ! to senior Ministers:

It is obvious that much of the disarray comes from PM&C and Treasury and “integrity” has to encompass effective repairs as well as adopting better practices:

Small aside, Kobo moved like lightning – https://www.kobo.com/au/en/ebook/righteous-blame, the author’s notes there say a lot!

Why Albanese caused concern in 2007, how the concerns escalated without political or journalistic understanding  &  why Albanese is right about “integrity” but has to change to achieve it

I was sacked by Carr and Hawker via Moore Wilton* as Executive Director Planning in DOT in 1995, for trying to meet real needs (“pushing W Syd too hard”) having started in transport under Prof Dick Spann then the great Peter Cox in 1974-77.  I was on the warpath over Carr’s corruption and Albo walked into that a bit later.

              *   who became Lib PM Howard’s offsider within weeks, that is how smart Carr is

Rudd 2007 statement of values

Nov 2007 imminent PM Rudd said inter alia:

Today I am saying loud and clear that (Howard’s) sort of reckless spending must stop. I am determined that any commitments I make are first and foremost economically responsible. That’s why the commitments I announce today will cost less than one quarter of those Mr Howard announced on Monday.

Furthermore, the commitments I am making today are exclusively directed at tackling the skills shortage, tackling infrastructure bottlenecks and acting on Australia’s environmental and economic challenges. I have said I will spend less than Mr Howard. I have said I will not match his spending dollar for dollar. And I have said I am an economic conservative. Today, I deliver on each of these undertakings.

Mr Howard has opposed boosting the renewable energy target. If elected, I will implement a renewable energy target of 20 per cent by 2020 so that Australia can have a solar future. I establish clean coal innovation fund. And today I announce that if elected I will set up a major new renewable energy fund to develop, commercialise and deploy renewable energy technologies across Australia. We need to harness our enormous potential in solar, wind, geothermal and wave power. This fund will support projects that take renewable energy technology from the lab to the grid.

I am determined to make Australia part of the global climate change solution – not just part of the global climate change problem.

For 11 years Mr Howard’s government has failed to provide leadership in developing our nation’s infrastructure. If elected, I will provide that leadership. I will establish Infrastructure Australia – to tackle the nation’s infrastructure bottlenecks. I will establish a Building Australia Fund. And as one of our first nation-building investments, in partnership with the private sector, we will build a state of the art, fibre optic to the node, National Broadband Network.

Mr Howard’s government offers a second rate, two-speed network –- one for the capital cities and one slow and unreliable system for the rest of Australia. Labor, by contrast, will deliver broadband for the entire nation.  Nation building requires vision.

He developed with Albanese the Nation Building and Jobs Package.

Massive warning Signs – Tanner Vs Albanese

Cabinet rift hits nation’s building program

    * The Age

Katharine Murphy, Canberra

    * October 31, 2008

A DISPUTE between two senior federal ministers has disrupted Government plans to embark on a multibillion-dollar “nation building” program to help shield Australia from recession.  A week after legislation to launch the program was suddenly withdrawn from Parliament, The Age has learned that it was pulled because of a cabinet rift.

The dispute is over the key issue of “ministerial discretion”: how funds will be carved up through the Building Australia Fund, which approves the projects, and what accountability processes will apply.  The Age believes that a difference of views between Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner and Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese meant legislation establishing the new funds was withdrawn at the last minute.

The legislation had been approved by the Labor caucus and was scheduled for introduction to the House of Representatives last Thursday, but was abruptly postponed shortly before 9 am.  It was unexpected, given that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has promised to expedite the Government’s nation-building program in an effort to insulate the economy against a downturn, and the proposal faced a rough ride in the Senate.

Sources say disagreements between the Government’s economic bean counters and spending ministers and their officials have been simmering for months as the Government has worked through the complex policy detail.  Mr Albanese has portfolio responsibility for infrastructure. Mr Tanner has responsibility for the Government’s nation-building funds, and was scheduled to introduce the legislation.

Accounts suggest that Mr Albanese was unhappy with the legislation produced by Mr Tanner, and asked that it be pulled because it gave him insufficient ministerial discretion over how the money would be allocated.

Mr Tanner — who is pushing a significant accountability agenda within government — has emphasised that proper processes will be followed by the Government in allocating taxpayer funds for new infrastructure projects.

Mr Tanner yesterday declined to comment. Mr Albanese is in Singapore on ministerial business.

Despite the Government’s efforts to speed up its nation-building agenda, it faces several challenges.  There will be smaller-than-expected surpluses courtesy of the Government’s $10 billion fiscal stimulus package, weaker revenue, and less private credit to bankroll major infrastructure projects thanks to the credit crunch.

The Opposition claims that the proposed Building Australia Fund — which is expected to be allocated more than $12 billion from the 2007-08 surplus — could degenerate into a giant slush fund used to bail out struggling state governments.

Former Democrat senator Andrew Murray, who has completed a review of budget transparency for the Government and has an advisory role said the Government had to make the best possible decisions.

“In the long term, governments only matter if they advance the country at all levels; not the least of those is the matter of good government, which is only possible with integrity, transparency and accountability,” he said.

A tracking of port and logistics including Moorebank IMT, urban transit including Gold Coast and truly whacky underground bus corridors and Parramatta Road, airport planning, NBN and local government and general implementation arrangements, led me to conclude that Tanner and Murray were right.  iA is a pathetic wreck right now and my proposals to strengthen it are in line with Rudd’s hopes.

Contrary Direction in NSW

Iemma and Chalmers caused great concern with this re-positioning of transport strategies as reflected in this analysis which I sent to Rees:

ISSUES Sept’08:                                   Resolution of critical issues in Sydney’s rail planning: ~

• stopping the Chatswood to Parramatta rail line at Epping and not supporting Parramatta with NW and SW proposals
• replacing the Anzac Metro and Hills heavy rail extension with the NW Metro
• competition between the Green Line (Minister Albanese) and the Western Fast Rail [NB became critical under Keneally and Greiner and me]
• imminent commencement of the Unsworth bus links and route changes proposed for Warringah Peninsula
• Budget limitations and the need to find sustainable funding mechanisms

The NSW Context which was nationally critical cf COAG 2009:

1. The Christie Report of 2001 identified critical issues and proposed solutions relating to growth areas, rail capacity chokepoints and the introduction of the new generation of heavy rail, Metros
2. RailCorp developed the Anzac Metro – 19 kms from Ryde to Maroubra (see below) and a heavy rail link from Ryde to Rouse Hill (in lieu of previous commitments for direct rail connections between the NW and SW sectors and Parramatta)
3. The Coordinator General, Professor David Richmond, replaced both with the NorthWest Metro with different cost and functionality profiles.  Contentious and expensive. [NB Richmond’s team included a health bureaucrat, as was Richmond, and was driven by a game-player from RailCorp Rodd Staples who had chutzpah but obviously lacked skills]
4. The Metro Strategy emphasises support for Parramatta and other centres, the Global Arc, and priority precincts and special events
5. Budget and other discussions indicate need for issue resolution: 

NW Metro, heavy rail links (Ryde to Parramatta and to NW growth sector), Western Fast Rail (Easson et al), Minister Albanese’s Green Line, inland rail link (Melb/Brisbane freight), long distance passenger etc.  Also Barangaroo, special events, rail capacity chokepoints.

The MOT and Professor Richmond had been involved in replacing the north-west rail and Anzac Metro with the NW Metro; while RailCorp’s planning junior executive was publicly identified as being involved with the commercial interests of the  Western FastRail.   The NSW Government had expressed the need for better ideas regarding routes, methods of finance and  community processes but rejected such such ideas from outsiders.

Albanese’s Green Line and letter by Three Eminents 2008

The metro mayhem led Albanese to develop his own metro, this letter of 26 Oct 2008 was submitted by the retired national chairman and managing partner of Freehills (then Inspector of ICAC), the longest-serving D-G of Planning in Australian history, and moi, the pre-eminent transport planner in the state.  There was a high level intervention in iA’s integrity (Mr Albanese’s selection of iA’s CEO was a factor in it falling behind):

Meeting Sydney’s Carbon Reduction, Infrastructure and Equity Needs and avoiding Political Interference

We are writing as a team – Mr Graham Kelly as former national managing partner of Freehills, chair of NSW TAB and other bodies, owner of Tasmania’s railways, and currently Inspector of ICAC;  the long-term Director General of the NSW Department of Planning and Environment was Mr Richard Smyth;  and Robert Gibbons has held several relevant positions including Manager Planning Co-ordination and later Executive Director Planning & Projects in the NSW Ministry of Transport and General Manager of Newcastle City Council.

There have been shotgun warnings from the Coalition Opposition about the Federal infrastructure “slush funds”.  The Prime Minister’s and Hon. Anthony Albanese’s (“the Federal Minister’s”) counter was that Infrastructure Australia (IA) is a pure, arms’ length, assessor.

The show-window case study, right up front, will be the new proposal for an innerwest metro, in and near the Federal Minister’s and his wife’s, Deputy Premier Carmel Tebbutt’s, home territory.

The recently published story is that the Premier and his advisors met IA officers and/or others last week and then (next day) put in a brand new project, the Central-Rozelle Metro.  The circumstances were that the NSW Government’s earlier proposed projects were reported as not meeting meet IA’s data and analytical requirements.  The pressure was on lest NSW miss out on the initial IA/COAG allocations in December.

Professor David Richmond reportedly said that this new proposal met all of IA’s criteria We’d love to see the analyses and matrices that produced that conclusion, after the non-analytical publicity brochures the same team produced for the ill-conceived NW Metro, which in turn was based on the non-professional dumping of the well-analysed North West railway and Anzac Metro.  Its supposed capacity to service Barangaroo is dubious.  There are massive political implications all round. 

The new idea seems to us and others as being a continuation of the destruction of Wran/Greiner Government structures and processes (documented by former Department Heads) and betrayal of current NSW Treasury guidelines.  There is now no discipline on Governmental urban planning with the recent abolition of Regional Environmental Plans;  with “unsolicited proposals” being the norm instead of the exception.  The private proponents seemingly know how to access influence networks.  The recent Metro proposals have come out of Premier’s and Cabinet which should be a co-ordinating and review agency under State legislation and processes, not a proponent (who can review it?).  There have been reports that Premier’s has brought in Macquarie Bank among others to look at various options.  What!

We note that the Federal Minister had already contracted with the NSW Government to investigate an east-west metro (“the Green Line” – for a total of $30 million) in the same corridor.  We understand that the Green Line has significant advantages but how does the new metro fit in with that project OR the well-connected Michael Easson et al’s Western Fast Rail (also a metro)?  They have radically different impacts on carbon-reducing possibilities in long distance freight and passenger services.

These projects cannot be compared in a straight individual or separated project method.  Moreover, what happens if the NSW Government fails to submit the most likely-to-be-successful options such as the NW heavy rail, Epping to Rouse Hill heavy rail, and Anzac Metro projects?  This is not an inconsequential issue.  The credibility of IA’s nomination processes is at stake.

Our problem with IA’s assessment/prioritisation criteria is this area or catchment based assessment.  IA talks about the “existing environment” of a project and thus has a defence;   but we believe it would be better based if similar to the more encompassing ISTEA criteria in America.  IA talks about non-specified equity and distributional effects.  Indeed.  The innerwest has heaps of public transport.  Western Sydney does not.

Parramatta and the NW and SW growth centres are such a regional context and project-by-project assessment will be insufficient especially when passenger transport conflicts with freight logistics;  and road, heavy and light rail, metro and other modes conflict in non-quantifiable terms.  That this is true is seen in your own recent “Eddington Transport Study” (UK) and “East West Needs Assessment Report” (Victoria).  It is also seen in the just-completed excellent Lehrer infrastructure series in America;  and in Brian Howe’s Building Better Cities criteria.

In this context, IA and the several Governments seem to be conflicted.  This is not a situation that is politically sensible.  IA’s prioritisation processes will be challenged.

We have a proposal to put to you which is relevant to IA’s credibility in prudential, professional and political terms.  We would appreciate an hour of your time so that we can table and discuss our ideas and assist at this critical time in national reform.  It is most important that the Rudd Government’s reforms succeed.

There was no reply from iA.

The Corrupted Cycle – Fruits of the Poisoned Vine

There seemed to be a deliberate stratagem by Baird and Berejiklian to have so many starts-and-stops and new priorities as to confuse observers.  I build major chronologies to sort that stuff out and the main missteps are shown in this graphic:

Jumping forward

I put “rescue plans” to PMs Turnbull then Morrison, to iA and to Baird and Berejiklian, all were ignored.  Their vicious plagiarisms and consequential effects were locked behind closed doors.

So I welcomed the reforming PM Albanese and advised that “integrity” was at the heart of my massive efforts.  This letter of 22 May 2022 illustrates that:

Refreshed Proposal to PM Albanese: 

Critical Issues Solutions in Intergovernmental matters affecting Sydney

There are legitimate expectations that the new Government

will move quickly on major priorities and my work

is publicly advanced in many such areas.

I feel I have to be pre-emptive as Kennedy and others will be staking their claims and I want to stop this BETRAYAL stuff right now, today, and make the book retrospective as history.  He would continue to exclude me as he did under Turnbull and Morrison.  That would make bad vibes much worse.

I ask for understanding of the horrible consequences of criminal plagiarisms, extended homelessness, critical health challenges requiring urgent hospitalisation in February and ongoing symptoms including the horrors of cellulitis fuelled by diabetes’ sugars.

1. I started “Save Sydney” in the face of the events of 2012 which were at national but mainly Sydney levels.  The perceived problems were in ports and logistics, urban transit, land use planning and taxation, and local government revitalisation in line with UK and US directions, based on
   • the extinguishment of the integrity of iA and iNSW protocols, and
   • the sterilisation of very valuable “options” and indeed the exclusion of all options not related to backroom deals primarily with the PRC’s MTR and its associates
2. My history under the Askin Government and through Wran/Unsworth and Greiner/Fahey was of prescient initiative to solve predicted problems.  My ability to do that made me the main driver of initiative and innovation.  That is supported by referees’ testaments and examples include
   • Resolution of Greendog Stevens’ blockade before it happened (Cox)
   • McDonnell Commission into Planning of Bulk Generation Capacity and resolution of Wran/Landa worries
   • Skitube
   •  expressnets in Bondi and the innerwest
   • the CBD traffic oasis suite which includes the “best idea in 100 years” (Loder and Christie), and
   • the Newcastle NSIP which I presented to the City Council 3 days after the announcement of closure of steelmaking and to Minister Knowles one week later, his reaction being this template should apply to every LGA in NSW
3. Theft of my ideas started in 1999 and accelerated under Baird and Berejiklian leading on to both Turnbulls, Morrison, Frydenberg, Gaetjens and Kennedy.  NSWUG tried to steal the Goanna and was stopped, the executive involved was dismissed.  The Planning Institute tried to pinch Creative Reconstruction but backed off.  All were documented at sydneyimprovementpolitics.com, “The Value Proposition”
4. The valuations in the attached draft contract are drawn from that website and represent an en globo solution, with contributions by the Federal and State Governments going to iA’s proposed National Re-Planning trust/pool, with payment for my rights to ideas and reports being satisfied smoothly
5. Subsequently I will focus on my stated priorities especially the national institute to remember forgotten heroes, which will be an open and participative framework with top board and sector expert panels.  This will be world famous and include Brown and Fitzgerald as prominent among the founders of the Labor 1890s movement onwards, with Nugget Coombes also being a priority as with Menzies’ engineers.  (Many others have substantial biographies and so would not be included.)
6. The individual projects in the schedule such as the Tim Fisher Refresher would be the Government’s to pursue having paid for them, with me guiding as required.  I intend to “rescue iA” and take it to a higher level, it is in a sad state at the moment.
7. Please note that this solution set is a win-win for the Albanese Government, with minimal risk to the States and Territories.  It sees me off if done well.  OK?

We are in a disastrous quandary, the Treasurer has kept on the wrecker under Turnbulls and Morrison, Kennedy, and failed to respond to my letter which attempted to resolve literally a decade of failure by the LNP and ALP.  I intend to hold a knees-up with the money owed to me by the RTBU and the NSW and Federal Governments, with PM Albanese as guest of honour, but no response:

Consequences:

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