Five awful things

Stinkers from the government and the judges of New South Wales ... Tasmanian update from Bureau de Spank ... Singapore sling ... Theodora blogs

At least five awful things have happened over the past week or so.

1. The outgoing NSW Labor state government approved Lend Lease's Barangaroo development proposal. Such a crying shame. This was an opportunity for Sydney to have a go at something brilliant, only to be lumbered with yet another urban mediocrity.

Great lumpy buildings designed to maximise the floor space and commercial opportunity have been approved by the planning minister Tony Kelly, a former accountant and shire administrator.

Ex-Premier Bob Carr, who often was wrong, was right with his original vision for this gem of a harbourside site. He toyed with a brilliant I.M. Pei-style Bank of China building and leaving a good third of the land undeveloped for a future generation to build something that suited its needs - maybe another concern hall.

There's a distinct lack of a "wow factor" in Lord Rogers' Barangaroo designs, except for the hotel build over the harbour, which looks brilliant - but has attracted most of the criticism.

The proposed development gives the impression that designing Sydney's urban landscape hasn't changed much since Joe Cahill was in charge of aesthetics.

2. The rotting remnants of the Keneally government bent its knee, once again, to its pals and palm greasers in the hotel industry and blocked the Lord Mayor of Sydney's plan to restrict late night trading for pubs with a history of violence and anti-social behaviour of the part of pie-eyed patrons.

Minister Kelly said that Clover Moore's late night development control plan amendments caused "uncertainty in the community".

3. The  speaker of the NSW Legislative Assembly and president of the Legislative Council have refused to refer to the police evidence that child pornography has been accessed on parliamentary computers by MPs or their staff.

Ernst & Young, which had been commissioned to examine internet filtering at parliament house, discovered that nine websites containing sexually explicit images of young people had been accessed from the computers of the state's law makers. 

Prof George Williams had a good piece about this in the SMH on Tuesday (Dec. 21).

The corruption and incompetence of the regime in Sydney has been tirelessly documented, but this cover-up just about takes the cake. Curiously, the Opposition has not asked ICAC to investigate.

4. Property developer Ron Medich, accused of Michael McGurk's murder, was granted bail by Justice Derek Price in the NSW Supreme Court.

Brother Roy Medich stumped up the $1 million security. More here.

Price said he gave little weight to the submission that Medich needed to be in contact with his stockbroker and be able to monitor his share portfolio.

5. The Court of Appeal decision (Spigelman, Beazley and Giles) in Morley V ASIC was a shocker.

The non-executive directors of James Hardie are off the hook on a  technicality that sticks in the craw.

Spigs & Co said ASIC had not proved that the non-execs approved a misleading announcement that Hardie's asbestos compensation scheme was "fully funded", when in fact it was $1.8 billion short.

In the process the Spigeltent has cranked-up the standard of proof required for ASIC's civil penalty cases.

Bernie Banton's widow Karen said it all:

"I think it just speaks volumes. These people absolutely knew. Whether they were aware or not of what was in a press release is beside the point, they were attempting, as a company, to abdicate their responsibility to future asbestos sufferers."

Spot on Karen.

No wonder Spigs left this unhappy judgment until the last day of term. After it was handed down he folded his tent for the year.

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There is an update from my field agent in Van Dieman's Land further to a recent report on former solicitor Joanne Matthews, who came to grief filling out the forms for a first home owners' grant.

Contrary to advice we received from The Mercury the local Law and Order Society sought her removal from the jam roll for prof misconduct. 

Strangely, Justice Shan Tennent closed the court for the hearing, but now her reasons have been posted on Austlii and we see that a strike-off order was made.

It emerged that Joanne had falsely declared on two occasions in 2005 that she had never previously owned a home, when in fact she had jointly owned two.

Both times the home grant did not come to fruition. She withdrew from one mortgage offer and the second application was "suspended".

Had their application been successful she and her hubby would have received $7,000 from the government.

In November 2007 a magistrate found her guilty of the charge of attempting to dishonestly acquire a financial advantage. Another charge of making a misleading statement was dismissed. She was fined $15,000 (the equivalent of two first home owner grants).

She appealed, but didn't pursue the appeal. She said she would go to the bar, but she never applied for a ticket.

Last year she went bankrupt and remains undischarged.

Despite the big spanking for dishonesty we understand that Joanne is fruitfully ensconced on Andrew Wilkie's staff.

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One of the crappiest ideas of 2010 was to have the Singapore Stock Exchange takeover the Australian Stock Exchange.

All the usual guff was trotted out by the proponents of this unsightly legover: bigger footprint in Asia ... expansion of Australian opportunities in fast growing securities markets ... taking the ASX to a new plateau ... blah, blah.

Smooth-as-satin David Gonski is pushing the deal as chairman of the ASX.

Gonski is also pally with the authorities in Singapore and sits on the board of the Lee family's favourite winged carrier, Singapore Airlines.

Personally, I think we should have as little as possible to do with Singapore.

One reason is its over-obliging judiciary, which hands out dollops of money to Singapore's oligarchs for media slights to their delicate reputations.

The judges also have a far too precious view of themselves.

The latest instance was the jailing of a 75-year old British author, Alan Shadrake, who wrote a book called Once a Jolly Hangman about capital punishment in the island state. In the process he "insulted the judiciary".

He was given six weeks in the clink, plus a fine of S$20,000 and had costs of S$55,000 awarded against him.

High Court judge Quentin Loh dismissed a last-minute apology by Shadrake, saying it was a "tactical ploy to obtain a reduced sentence".

The ACCC has waved through the ASX takeover, saying it is unlikely to result in a lessening of competition. 

It still has to get a rubber stamp from Wayne Swan and the parliament itself.

There's a Free Alan Shadrake Facebook page.