A world’s smallest continent, South East of Asia, and a country situated between the Indian and Pacific oceans.
Aboriginal tribes are thought to have migrated from southeastern Asia 20,000 years ago; first Europeans were British convicts sent there as a penal colony.
A commonwealth comprising the continent of Australia, the island state of Tasmania, two external territories, and several dependencies. The first British settlement, a penal colony at Port Jackson (now part of Sydney), was established in 1788. The present-day states grew as separate colonies; six of them formed a federation in 1901. In 1911 Northern Territory joined the commonwealth and the Capital Territory, site of Canberra, was created. Canberra is the capital and Sydney is the largest city. Population: 20,400,000.
A former British colony, now an independent member of the Commonwealth, constitutional links with Britain formally abolished in 1986; consists chiefly of a low plateau, mostly arid in the west, with the basin of the Murray River and the Great Dividing Range in the east and the Great Barrier Reef off the NE coast. Official language: English. Religion: Christian majority. Currency: dollar. Capital: Canberra. Pop: 19 913 000 (2004 est). Area: 7 682 300 sq km (2 966 150 sq miles)
Australia has been ranked the eighth least corrupt nation in an international ranking of 180 countries.
It has gained one place since last year, in figures released by Transparency International (TI).
New Zealand and Denmark were deemed to have the lowest levels of perceived corruption, while Somalia and Afghanistan had the highest levels.
IF, AS an Australian citizen, you perform an act of bribery offshore, you can be fined $1 million, jailed for 10 years and your company can be fined $10 million, which all sounds very proper except that nobody has ever been prosecuted.
Offshore corruption is suddenly on the agenda. Just as we recovered from the Stern Hu affair - where an Australian citizen working for miner Rio Tinto got 10 years' jail for corruption - BHP is being investigated over bribery allegations in Cambodia.
But you won't find Australian regulators doing anything here. The Rio scandal was uncovered by officials in China. The BHP case was started by America's powerful Securities and Exchange Commission.
We have the Commonwealth Criminal Code (2001), which opened up offshore jurisdictions to Australian regulators.
And it's true the fines were lifted to the million-dollar level just a few months ago - they used to be tiny - $66,000 for individuals and $300,000 for companies.
But unless you have someone enforcing the law, the bad guys go about their business undeterred. In effect, it means that if you have a brown paper bag of unmarked bills under a full moon on the beach at Far Away Island you don't really have to worry about the ''Australian'' regulator. As for the local regulator … they might just be coming down the beach to meet you.
It is logical to assume that if giant Australian companies are getting into trouble, then a host of smaller operators might usefully be monitored.
This is not conjecture; it's a safe assumption based on what has just occurred in the US where last year the Department of Justice revealed that the number of ''offshore corruption'' cases it is working on has tripled in two years. ''It's a remarkable increase in the volume of investigations,'' says Michael Ahern, executive director of Transparency International (Australia), an organisation that tracks offshore corruption.
The Corruption Perceptions Index is based on expert and business surveys to measure the perceived levels of corruption in the public sectors of various countries.
The Berlin-based organisation said countries whose infrastructure had been "torn apart" by conflict needed help from outside to prevent a culture of corruption taking root.
"The international community must find efficient ways to help war-torn countries to develop and sustain their own institutions," TI head Huguette Labelle said.
Overall, the 2009 corruption list is "of great concern," the organisation said, with the majority of countries scoring under five in the ranking, which ranges from zero (highly corrupt) and 10 (very clean).
The most corrupt nation on Earth remained Somalia, the impoverished and war-torn Horn of Africa state that has been without a functioning government for two decades, notching up a score of 1.1.
A decade ago Australia was the top-ranked ''clean'' country in the world by Transparency International. Today it has fallen to eighth place. It might come as a surprise to many people but Australia is one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
Australia's worsening record in offshore corruption relates largely to the Australian Wheat Board scandal in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which involved government kickbacks.
But the ranking is likely to deteriorate further with the Rio case and - potentially - BHP'S ''Cambodia'' case, news of which broke only in recent days and relates to alleged bribery at a former bauxite operation.
The BHP case has prompted questions about both the significance of the event and the manner in which the corporation - for all its stated ambitions to be a top-class corporate citizen - disclosed the bad news at the bottom of a production report.
''Disclosure is crucial,'' says James Thier, of Australian Ethical Investments. ''Australians have a relatively good reputation in this area. The essential issue is the policy of the companies themselves, and it could always be better.''
Although recent events have pointed towards Asia and China, the global flashpoint for offshore corruption is in Africa, where the volume of mining and exploration activity has reached unprecedented levels. And Australians are coming up against other ''offshore players'', especially China, where attitudes to bribes can differ.
Australia might not score as well as we might like in the Transparency International tables or on the OECD's offshore bribery scorecard. In fact, at the OECD we are classified as having ''little or no enforcement'', along with such countries as Mexico and Turkey. But it's worth noting that under the OECD agreement - the 2009 convention on combating bribery of foreign public officials - China is not even on the list because it has not signed up.
Politicians wax fat with illegal perks provided by the ruling elite. While the average citizen remains ignorant to what is taking place, the alert observer can build a case against the institution of ‘party politics’.
Once more the Australian family is being put to the sword. The Rothschilds Group of Bankers, who own the ‘Zionist Banking Manipulators.’ (As they do every other Zionist Banking Manipulators Bank in every country in the Western World ) are going to up interest rates until people paying off mortgages are driven to the wall.
The men of straw who run the Australian economy(?) for the Rothschilds don’t care that usurious interest rates make it impossible for Australian marriage spouses to live together as a family.
For the last fifty-three years (when Ben Chifley died ) successive malpracticing Governments have stolen Home Ownership not only from the lower class but from the middle class. Circa 1986, a hike of interest rates to 17.5 per cent by Hawke ~Keating ~ Dawkins and Button saw many farmers kill their families before turning the gun on themselves ~ having lost the family farm which had been theirs for generations.
Some two million families have disintegrated since1972. Political Parties are made up of every type of bluebeard.
A ‘blue’ card is not necessary so we get paedophiles, lesbians and opportunists who delight in destroying families as it makes it easier to get at the children. (Take a lookat Queensland’s ‘foster’ families record )
We get people who receive $1 million after three terms and still ask poorer people for donations to pay their court costs! It is quite simple, as the record speaks for itself, we get arsehole after arsehole. The politicians who manage Australia for the Rothschild-‘Illuminati’ have destroyed some 2 million families by encouraging them to ‘invest’ in nefarious schemes then commence to bleed them dry.
It shouldbe noted here that a hike in interest rates does not affect politicians,bureaucrats and bank staff. In an Australian ‘democracy’ some are more equal than others. Also, as noted before, all politicians own rental property and have a constant need for tenants.
They have a sound interest in making sure home borrowers go broke.
African countries accounted for half of those in the bottom 20 of the list, including Angola which is now the continent's top oil exporter after emerging from a 27-year civil war.
But it was not just countries riven by conflict that saw their ratings slide. Italy, a member of the Group of Seven rich countries, came in at 63rd on the list, from 55th last year.
Fellow EU member Greece fared even worse, at 71st, slipping from 57th.
Seemingly winning the fight against corruption were Liberia - whose score improved from 2.4 to 3.1, shooting up 41 places to 97th - and Gambia, which went from 158th on the list to 106th.
Other significant improvements were registered by Norway, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Montenegro and Malawi.
The United States inched up from 7.3 to 7.5 but dropped one place in the rankings to 19th. China's rating was stable at 3.6 but also fell seven places to 79th.
Russia continued to be very low down in the list, coming in at 146th place, although its score edged higher to 2.2 from 2.1.
Aboriginal tribes are thought to have migrated from southeastern Asia 20,000 years ago; first Europeans were British convicts sent there as a penal colony.
A commonwealth comprising the continent of Australia, the island state of Tasmania, two external territories, and several dependencies. The first British settlement, a penal colony at Port Jackson (now part of Sydney), was established in 1788. The present-day states grew as separate colonies; six of them formed a federation in 1901. In 1911 Northern Territory joined the commonwealth and the Capital Territory, site of Canberra, was created. Canberra is the capital and Sydney is the largest city. Population: 20,400,000.
A former British colony, now an independent member of the Commonwealth, constitutional links with Britain formally abolished in 1986; consists chiefly of a low plateau, mostly arid in the west, with the basin of the Murray River and the Great Dividing Range in the east and the Great Barrier Reef off the NE coast. Official language: English. Religion: Christian majority. Currency: dollar. Capital: Canberra. Pop: 19 913 000 (2004 est). Area: 7 682 300 sq km (2 966 150 sq miles)
Australia has been ranked the eighth least corrupt nation in an international ranking of 180 countries.
It has gained one place since last year, in figures released by Transparency International (TI).
New Zealand and Denmark were deemed to have the lowest levels of perceived corruption, while Somalia and Afghanistan had the highest levels.
IF, AS an Australian citizen, you perform an act of bribery offshore, you can be fined $1 million, jailed for 10 years and your company can be fined $10 million, which all sounds very proper except that nobody has ever been prosecuted.
Offshore corruption is suddenly on the agenda. Just as we recovered from the Stern Hu affair - where an Australian citizen working for miner Rio Tinto got 10 years' jail for corruption - BHP is being investigated over bribery allegations in Cambodia.
But you won't find Australian regulators doing anything here. The Rio scandal was uncovered by officials in China. The BHP case was started by America's powerful Securities and Exchange Commission.
We have the Commonwealth Criminal Code (2001), which opened up offshore jurisdictions to Australian regulators.
And it's true the fines were lifted to the million-dollar level just a few months ago - they used to be tiny - $66,000 for individuals and $300,000 for companies.
But unless you have someone enforcing the law, the bad guys go about their business undeterred. In effect, it means that if you have a brown paper bag of unmarked bills under a full moon on the beach at Far Away Island you don't really have to worry about the ''Australian'' regulator. As for the local regulator … they might just be coming down the beach to meet you.
It is logical to assume that if giant Australian companies are getting into trouble, then a host of smaller operators might usefully be monitored.
This is not conjecture; it's a safe assumption based on what has just occurred in the US where last year the Department of Justice revealed that the number of ''offshore corruption'' cases it is working on has tripled in two years. ''It's a remarkable increase in the volume of investigations,'' says Michael Ahern, executive director of Transparency International (Australia), an organisation that tracks offshore corruption.
The Corruption Perceptions Index is based on expert and business surveys to measure the perceived levels of corruption in the public sectors of various countries.
The Berlin-based organisation said countries whose infrastructure had been "torn apart" by conflict needed help from outside to prevent a culture of corruption taking root.
"The international community must find efficient ways to help war-torn countries to develop and sustain their own institutions," TI head Huguette Labelle said.
Overall, the 2009 corruption list is "of great concern," the organisation said, with the majority of countries scoring under five in the ranking, which ranges from zero (highly corrupt) and 10 (very clean).
The most corrupt nation on Earth remained Somalia, the impoverished and war-torn Horn of Africa state that has been without a functioning government for two decades, notching up a score of 1.1.
A decade ago Australia was the top-ranked ''clean'' country in the world by Transparency International. Today it has fallen to eighth place. It might come as a surprise to many people but Australia is one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
Australia's worsening record in offshore corruption relates largely to the Australian Wheat Board scandal in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which involved government kickbacks.
But the ranking is likely to deteriorate further with the Rio case and - potentially - BHP'S ''Cambodia'' case, news of which broke only in recent days and relates to alleged bribery at a former bauxite operation.
The BHP case has prompted questions about both the significance of the event and the manner in which the corporation - for all its stated ambitions to be a top-class corporate citizen - disclosed the bad news at the bottom of a production report.
''Disclosure is crucial,'' says James Thier, of Australian Ethical Investments. ''Australians have a relatively good reputation in this area. The essential issue is the policy of the companies themselves, and it could always be better.''
Although recent events have pointed towards Asia and China, the global flashpoint for offshore corruption is in Africa, where the volume of mining and exploration activity has reached unprecedented levels. And Australians are coming up against other ''offshore players'', especially China, where attitudes to bribes can differ.
Australia might not score as well as we might like in the Transparency International tables or on the OECD's offshore bribery scorecard. In fact, at the OECD we are classified as having ''little or no enforcement'', along with such countries as Mexico and Turkey. But it's worth noting that under the OECD agreement - the 2009 convention on combating bribery of foreign public officials - China is not even on the list because it has not signed up.
Politicians wax fat with illegal perks provided by the ruling elite. While the average citizen remains ignorant to what is taking place, the alert observer can build a case against the institution of ‘party politics’.
Once more the Australian family is being put to the sword. The Rothschilds Group of Bankers, who own the ‘Zionist Banking Manipulators.’ (As they do every other Zionist Banking Manipulators Bank in every country in the Western World ) are going to up interest rates until people paying off mortgages are driven to the wall.
The men of straw who run the Australian economy(?) for the Rothschilds don’t care that usurious interest rates make it impossible for Australian marriage spouses to live together as a family.
For the last fifty-three years (when Ben Chifley died ) successive malpracticing Governments have stolen Home Ownership not only from the lower class but from the middle class. Circa 1986, a hike of interest rates to 17.5 per cent by Hawke ~Keating ~ Dawkins and Button saw many farmers kill their families before turning the gun on themselves ~ having lost the family farm which had been theirs for generations.
Some two million families have disintegrated since1972. Political Parties are made up of every type of bluebeard.
A ‘blue’ card is not necessary so we get paedophiles, lesbians and opportunists who delight in destroying families as it makes it easier to get at the children. (Take a lookat Queensland’s ‘foster’ families record )
We get people who receive $1 million after three terms and still ask poorer people for donations to pay their court costs! It is quite simple, as the record speaks for itself, we get arsehole after arsehole. The politicians who manage Australia for the Rothschild-‘Illuminati’ have destroyed some 2 million families by encouraging them to ‘invest’ in nefarious schemes then commence to bleed them dry.
It shouldbe noted here that a hike in interest rates does not affect politicians,bureaucrats and bank staff. In an Australian ‘democracy’ some are more equal than others. Also, as noted before, all politicians own rental property and have a constant need for tenants.
They have a sound interest in making sure home borrowers go broke.
African countries accounted for half of those in the bottom 20 of the list, including Angola which is now the continent's top oil exporter after emerging from a 27-year civil war.
But it was not just countries riven by conflict that saw their ratings slide. Italy, a member of the Group of Seven rich countries, came in at 63rd on the list, from 55th last year.
Fellow EU member Greece fared even worse, at 71st, slipping from 57th.
Seemingly winning the fight against corruption were Liberia - whose score improved from 2.4 to 3.1, shooting up 41 places to 97th - and Gambia, which went from 158th on the list to 106th.
Other significant improvements were registered by Norway, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Montenegro and Malawi.
The United States inched up from 7.3 to 7.5 but dropped one place in the rankings to 19th. China's rating was stable at 3.6 but also fell seven places to 79th.
Russia continued to be very low down in the list, coming in at 146th place, although its score edged higher to 2.2 from 2.1.
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