The Guardian 28 June, 2006
Dingo bytes
In Melbourne, businessman Ron Walker has questioned the courtroom testimony of his mate Robert Champion de Crespigny over payments the latter claims were made to underworld figure Mick Gatto by a company — Primelife Corporation — the pair ran together. Now, without wishing to deprive him of his right to an assumption of innocence, Walker’s CV somewhat undermines his credibility: former National Treasurer of the Liberal Party; Chairman of the Australian Grand Prix Corporation; founder of the property development company Hudson Conway which built the Crown Casino complex in Melbourne. When he resigned from Hudson Conway the sale of his shares netted him $86 million. Would you buy a used car from him?
West Australian police arrested a ten-year-old Aboriginal girl at a Perth primary school because she allegedly threatened staff and students with children’s paper scissors and a piece of brick. The Aboriginal Legal Service of WA said the child became upset after a difference of opinion with a staff member and that the school failed to ask Aboriginal education officers to intervene before the situation escalated. The police were called and one of the officers used pepper spray on the girl. CEO of the Legal Service, Dennis Eggington, said it was understood that the girl’s clothing was so soaked with pepper spray she had to be changed and that when their lawyers arrived at the lock up police had already started to question the child without a guardian present.
Nestlé has been on the run since the late 1970s when a worldwide campaign began against its deadly drive to promote its baby food products in third world countries. Bribing doctors and hospitals to have new mothers feed their babies Nestlé baby foods instead of breastfeeding, so that when the women went home they were forced to clean baby bottles and other implements in unsanitary water, causing widespread dysentery and death among infants. The Swiss food giant has been trying to present a clean image ever since, its latest being the take over of weight-loss company Jennie Craig. What? The company that makes Kit Kats and Nesquik is now out there helping people stay healthy through weight loss programs. Dingo doesn’t swallow it for a minute.
CAPITALIST HOG OF THE WEEK: is merchant banker Malcolm Turnbull, one of five individuals who have had writs served on them seeking a total of $500 million in damages over the collapse of insurance company HIH. In 1998, HIH paid $300 million to take over FAI Insurances. Turnbull was FAI’s financial adviser at the time. The investment bank he chaired, Goldman Sachs Australia, is also being sued. FAI’s 1998 profits and assets were falsely boosted by sham contracts for reinsurance. Thing is, Turnbull is now Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. Would you buy a used car from him?