A US Foreign Agents Registration Act filing shows our Morrison engaged the services of fmr US Navy Sec, Don Winter, to lay the groundwork for the 18 month #AUKUS study.
Winter seems to have been engaged by Morrison via Burdeshaw Assocs.
Burdeshaw have done well recently winning Aust Govt tenders and providing Sovereign Naval Shipbuilding advice to both Dept of Defence and PM&C.
The ABC in March this year reported that Winter was working as a special advisor to the PM.
Unclear whether the PM&C $1.5m contract to Burdeshaw relates to Winter's role as special adviser.
Winter had previously been the Chair of of the Aust Govt's National Shipbuilding Advisory Board...& prior chaired an oversight panel during the 2016 original submarine selection process.
Also appears that Don Winter held the position of US govt senior defence industry advisor back in 2019, under Donald Trump. At least that was his title was when he went to the Ukraine.
Obviously, there are close knit relationships between Aust & the US, and respective defence contractors/consultants and govt officials.
There's nothing wrong with that.
Well there you have it the $1.5m PM&C contract is to pay for Don Winter as his role as special advisor to the PM.
Appears he was on the same coin, when he was heading up the Naval Shipbuilding Advisory Board.... your taxpayers dollar at work here folks.
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The #NACC was significantly non-compliant with the Govt's finance laws, erroneously reporting construction contracts worth $32.7m as being valued at $666,050.
The $32.7m construction projects represented almost third of the NACC's total resourcing for 2023-24.
The breach - without going into details - was mentioned in the NACC's annual report (p71)
Let's cut to the chase, the NACC Commissioner approved the conflict of interest (COI) guidelines and the requisite COI Form and then ignored the very process he had approved and did not lodge a formal COI Form.
#Leadership
On 12 July 2023, Brereton approved the NACC Senior Assessment Panel (NSAP) terms of reference, including the process to notify any COI.
The NSAP was the body that considered the #Robodebt6 referrals.
A key component of the NSAP terms of ref are the COI process. That process is outlined below.
One can't quibble about them......the word "must" does heavy lifting, as it should...especially in relation to the use of the Form to record a COI.
Starring: PM, PMC, Min for Home Affairs, Dept of Home Affairs.
Cameo: Jillian Segal
Still on the casting couch: Transparency
With much fanfare and a blaze of publicity the appointment of Jillian Segal as the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism (ASECA) was announced on 9 July.
Cameras rolling action!
Albo, flanked by then Immi min, Andrew Giles, & Labor MPs Mike Freelander & Josh Burns were there to show how serious the government was in combating antisemitism (which the PM stated)....and appeasing the pro-Israel lobby.
Just wanted to provide an update on the F-35 jet fighter, obviously a lot of focus on Australia's involvement in the global supply chain/production of the jet fighter.
I've seen a few diagrams most notably this one from 2018, sourced from the Department of Defence's document: F35: AUSTRALIAN INDUSTRY PARTICIPATION THE JOURNEY TO $1 BILLION
The Department of Defence also provide an occasional F-35 Fast Facts update and the most recent one being "September/October 2023" - note timing.
WILL THE LAST NON-CONFLICTED NACCSTER TURN OFF THE #ROBODEBT LIGHT
Aside from #NACC Commissioner Paul Brereton, at least one other Senior Commission Staff (very likely a Deputy Commissioner) also had a conflict of interest.
This nugget is contained in a new FOI request which sought access to the conflict of interest material lodged by the Deputy Commissioners (and senior leadership team) in relation to the #Robodebt referral.
Unhelpfully, the NACC refers to "Senior Commission Staff" making it difficult to distinguish between Deputy Commissioners and the senior leadership team.
I want to belatedly talk about a 14th anniversary which occurred in May.
Cast your minds back to late May 2010.
It was, I believe, the last time an Israeli diplomat was punted from Australia.
The Australian government run by the Labor Political Party (<hi ALP comms team, see what I did there) showed a bit of spine and actually expelled an Israeli diplomat.
Then Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, took that action when our bosom buddies Israel, stole the identities of 4 Australians and forged passports which were then used in the assassination of a Hamas operative.