Self Employed Australia

"Everyone needs an Advocate"

“Everyone needs an Advocate”

Rule of law

Fearing the truth – Australia’s government institutions – ATO

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Richard-BoyleIn April 2018 we were intimately involved in the production of the ABC Four Corners program ‘Mongrel Bunch of Bastards’. The program exposed evidence of the ATO’s abuse of small business people. The program brought real ‘grunt’ to our campaign to reform the ATO. And we have to say that in our observation the ATO has improved since then. There’s still much to be done, but it is better.

Included in the Four Corners program was the profiling of Richard Boyle. Richard was a case officer in the ATO who exposed ATO abuse of small business people and he explained this on the program. The consequence of this is that Richard was charged and is being prosecuted. Richard has become one of Australia’s most high-profile whistleblowers. He faces a lengthy jail sentence if convicted.

In the production of the program, and subsequently, SEA has had considerable dealings with Richard. In July 2022, SEA released a statement joining the call for the charges against Richard to be dropped. In the statement we explain our dealings with Richard as well as our view of him and his whistleblower actions. We said:

…in our view the charges against Richard must be considered within the ambit of Richard’s whistleblower activity as it exposed malpractice within the ATO.

…Richard’s whistleblowing action (and the activities related to that) were done in order to protect taxpayers from garnishee activity by the ATO which breached the ATO’s own procedural requirements.

In all our dealings with Richard we have found him to be a person of the highest ethical and moral standards.

Our statement provides the full details of the independent investigations into Richard’s whistleblowing. Those investigations detail the maladministration of the ATO at the time and, in our view, effectively support the propriety of Richard’s exposure of the truth.

This Monday (18 September 2023) the ABC 7.30 Report ran a full segment on Richard Boyle. This time they interviewed a small business taxpayer (Dirk Fielding) who Richard had helped in 2017 and who, through the ATO’s actions, has been used to generate Richard’s prosecution. Dirk refers to the prosecution as ‘insanity’.

Further, last week some 30 MPs and Senators joined the call to have the charges against Richard dropped. We again join that call and reiterate the reasons for the dropping of the charges as we explained in our statement of July 2022.

Inside the Truth Police

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truth-policeIn late July we alerted you to the planned Misinformation and Disinformation laws. The laws will require social media platforms (Facebook, etc.) to determine what is ‘true’ and to warn people for posting ‘untruths’ and then ‘cancelling’ them.

Here’s the government’s information sheet on the law.

We mentioned that we, Self-Employed Australia, have had experience with such ‘truth’ suppression. A member put up on their Facebook page a post we made commenting on the outcome of our Supreme Court action over hotel quarantine. Facebook had its ‘truth police’ sanction the member. We’ve now completed a detailed analysis of that experience.

The full detail is available on Ken’s Substack post here: ‘The Truth Police are here’.

It’s a detailed analysis of how Facebook imposes its ‘truth’ on the public and suppresses dissenting ‘truths’. We go into the detail because it gives an insight from a real experience to which anyone could be subjected.

The essence is that Facebook took an objection to the exposure of this statement by a judge in the ruling on SEA’s court action. The judge said:

“If SEA is not granted an extension of time the individuals referred to in the First Request will be freed from the not insignificant stress of potentially being subjected to prosecution for serious criminal offences… the 20 individuals identified in the First Request may suffer considerable prejudice if SEA is granted an extension of time…”[emphasis added]

That is, the opinion could be reasonably formed that the judge was commenting that if a person subject to potential prosecution was under stress, then that was a reason not to proceed.

Facebook sought to close down and suppress that comment in our view, and we explain in detail how Facebook’s outsourced ‘truth police’ approached this. Rather than determining what Facebook says is ‘fact’, our analysis is that they were in fact expressing an opinion on SEA’s opinion on the Court’s judgement. That’s okay if opinion is presented as opinion. It’s a different matter altogether, however, to present opinion as ‘fact’.

We say that it’s fine if Facebook wants to determine what is true for its platform. It owns the platform. It can do what it likes. But it is something entirely different for parliament to pass a law that all social media platforms must do as Facebook has done.

The compulsory silencing of opinion on the basis of political ‘fact’ determination by appointed ‘truth police’ heralds an era of oppression of the people. We have seen this far too often in the history of human activity. The consequences are always ugly, sometimes horrifyingly so.

The full analysis is here.

Einstein is dangerously wrong. Silence him with a new law!

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einsteinWhen Albert Einstein published his new theories around 1905 he challenged the established ‘truth’ of Newton’s laws of physics. Einstein was attacked by the scientific establishment at the time who were wedded to, and career-dependent on, Newton’s laws. Many sought to stop him. However, Einstein’s theory ultimately became the new ‘truth’.

This is how humans advance. ‘Truth’ is a view or perspective that is universally held, until such time as it is challenged, found to be faulty and replaced by a new view that becomes the new ‘truth’.

The Australian government is proposing a law that will force digital platforms (Facebook, etc.) to be the determiners of what is ‘true’. The government has put out a ‘Fact Sheet’ about this planned law and they are asking for your input.

The ‘Fact Sheet’ is here (with our markups)

We think it’s important that the government receive many responses and we encourage you to do so.

The planned law is very broad in its reach covering “Misinformation and Disinformation” that will “cause serious harm”

  • It defines misinformation as “content that is false, misleading or deceptive” but doesn’t define what those things are, leaving that open to interpretation.
  • It doesn’t define what is ‘harm’, leaving that open to interpretation.

But

  • The ‘Fact Sheet’ talks of “harm” that “…affects a significant portion of the Australian population, economy or environment, or undermines the integrity of an Australian democratic process.”

That is:

  • The law will cover almost anything that anyone says or thinks and that what is ‘true’ is to be determined by ‘truth authorities’ that supply ‘truth’ determinations to Facebook and other digital platforms.
  • The law will not be constrained to criminal or potential criminal incitement, or to issues of defamation and so on. The law will cover anything.

In ‘truth’, this law is an attempt by government (through third parties) to control what they, the prevailing establishment/s in society, decide/s is ‘true’. It will enable misinformation or disinformation that an establishment wants propagated as their ‘truth’ to be the only authorised ‘truth’.

Take this example from the opinion/‘truth’ website Wikipedia on the flat earth theory:

  • It is a historical myth that medieval Europeans generally thought the Earth was flat. This myth was created in the 17th century by Protestants to argue against Catholic.

That is, one religious group used the ‘flat earth’ allegation to take issue with a competing religious group. This is what humans have always done. ‘Truth’ and ‘facts’ are manipulated for purposes of power and oppression. The only way to limit this is to allow the broadest of human expression and challenge to existing ‘truths’.

The beauty of Wikipedia is that almost anyone can put up an opinion on their ‘truth’. Wikipedia allows competing opinions on ‘truth’ to flourish. But this law will surely suppress this feature of Wikipedia.

Self-Employed Australia has had experience with such ‘truth’ suppression. A member put up on their Facebook page a post we made commenting on the outcome of our Supreme Court action over hotel quarantine. Facebook had its ‘truth police’ sanction the member. Did Facebook’s ‘truth police’ contact us to seek our perspective? No! The ‘truth police’ instead ran with a spin the Victorian government would have wanted.

This is what this ‘truth’ law will enforce—government/establishment-sanctioned ‘truth’, with civil and criminal penalties for breaches.

In addition to responding to the ‘Fact Sheet’ above we encourage you to express your ‘truth’ to your local federal MP and State Senators.

The most effective emails are those that are respectful, to the point and personal. A follow-up phone call to the member’s office adds extra weight.

You can find your local member’s contact details through this parliamentary website. The search functions are good.

Robodebt lies and fraud: How corrupt government works

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robodebtRobodebt was and is a huge a scandal that was eventually investigated by a Royal Commission. We’ve studied the 1000-pages-plus Royal Commission Report—it’s a shocking read—and have written a summary and analysis.

If you read anything of what we write, this analysis stands out as one of the most significant we have written. (9-minute read)

The issue goes to the heart of whether government can be trusted to be honest and accountable.

Frankly, Robdebt should shatter any naivety Australians may hold about the ‘purity’ of government. Robodebt shows that governments will lie and cheat, particularly when transparency and accountability are more a public relations con than reality.

The Robodebt Royal Commission Report details how the government of the day decided that there must by wide-ranging social security fraud. It claimed the fraud to be in the order of well over $1 billion per year, but there were no facts to back that claim. Nonetheless, it was pushed as a political priority and the public service was charged with delivering the policy.

The orchestrated ‘scam’ that the government imposed on 866,857 Australians was pretty simple in its design as was its inbuilt flaw.

The scheme involved the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) providing the Department of Human Services (DHS) with income records of welfare recipients over short periods of time, usually a fortnight. DHS then assumed that the income for the short period applied over longer periods, say a year.

Based on this false assumption, DHS then alleged that welfare recipients had more income than they had declared, and that overpayment of welfare had occurred as a result on a massive scale. DHS aggressively collected the ‘debts’. Great hardship followed. There were even suicides.

The Commission’s Report details systemic and deliberate lying, deceit, fraud and cover-up layered over the top of incompetence, bad management, maladministration and ignoring the law at the most senior levels of the public service and politics.

The extent of the scandal would surprise many, but what we observe are patterns of behaviour by government that we have seen before—particularly by the ATO as just one example.

We offer our view of how this needs to be addressed. We say that relying on internal government department policies to stop such government fraud (which is the current dominant structure) is not enough. Government, instead, must be held to at least the same levels of transparency and accountability as are expected of the rest of the community.

We say that Parliament needs to take charge of the bureaucracy.

Campaigning is under way—Defending your right to Be Your Own Boss

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campaigningWe thought we’d give you an understanding of the mechanics of our campaign to try and stop the Albanese government from implementing its ‘employee-like’ agenda.

We explained early in May that the government had started the implementation process with the release of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations’ (DEWR) consultation paper.

Our first task was to assess and respond to the paper. We lodged our long submission (11,000 words) to DEWR and in late May provided you a brief overview. The reason for the long submission is simple. The government is throwing up a concept—‘employee-like’—which at first glance could appear reasonable. But it’s only when you delve into the detail of what this means that a full understanding is possible. And it means a direct attack upon your right to be your own boss, to be self-employed.

The next phase in our campaign started last week. This involves focusing on the independent Senators that the government needs to pass any legislation in the Senate. There are seven independent Senators. The government needs four of them to pass legislation.

Last week we began the engagement process with the Senators. It needs to be understood that all Senators and MPs are incredibly busy trying to comprehend a huge range of complex issues. Our responsibility is to present our arguments clearly, factually and as concisely as possible. To this end we’ve produced a four-page summary of our position.

Last week we had initial discussions with staff of some Senators and had one Senator ask us to come to Canberra to explain the issues in person. We did this and had a very productive discussion. It was pleasing to have this level of interest.

We’ve been conducting pro-self-employed advocacy campaigns for over 20 years and we’ve learnt one thing. It’s essential to sit down with Senators and MPs and explain one’s position face-to-face. We’re committed to this. And it’s not just independent Senators we seek to talk to, but also the government itself, the opposition and independent MPs.

This costs money, of course, and this is where your membership fees go.

For example, a one-day trip to Canberra (from Melbourne) usually involves:

  • $500 in airfares, $100 for buses, taxis, etc.

And staying overnight in Canberra (if needed) is expensive during Parliament sitting days—usually starting at around $250 a night (just for basic accommodation!!!)

The government plans to introduce its contentious legislation later this year. To run our advocacy campaign, we anticipate that around eight to ten trips to Canberra will be required before years’ end.

If you’d like to help fund any of those trips, you can do so through our dedicated campaign membership link here.

There’s quite a ‘battle’ going on, with the ACTU (unions) putting out a very aggressive ‘research’ paper which attacks the High Court and is hugely misleading on many fronts. It’s this sort of thing that we need to explain to Senators and MPs otherwise the union agenda will prevail.

We’ll keep you informed.

Justice and Not Above the Law: Class action to bankrupt Victoria?

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not-above-the-lawIt can take a long time for justice and the rule of law to hold people accountable (particularly powerful people), where such accountability is proven to be warranted.

We made our attempt in Victoria to require WorkSafe to hold people (powerful people) accountable for the failures of the 2020 Hotel Quarantine disaster which resulted in 801 deaths. The Victorian Supreme Court ‘knocked us out’ on a technicality which meant that the Court did not have to rule on WorkSafe’s refusal to do its job!

Discernable recently interviewed SEA’s Ken Phillips (Executive Director) and Nick Karamouzis (Chair) where we gave a full report (26min).

But this issue is not over—not by the (proverbial) long shot! A class action for damages is proceeding in the Victorian Supreme Court with considerable success so far.

Class action—Victoria

The class action by the international legal firm, Quinn Emanuel, is suing for damages inflicted on the thousands of businesses forced into lockdown during 2020. As with SEA’s application,  the state government attempted to have the application knocked out on technical grounds. But the Full Court of the Supreme Court has dismissed the government’s attempt. The action now progresses. Speculation is that a successful ruling could result in a payout to affected businesses in the many billions of dollars, even enough to bankrupt Victoria.

You can follow the class action here.

Michigan class action took nine years

It’s instructive to note the successful class action in the US state of Michigan where the ex-Governor and eight other government officials faced criminal charges, including manslaughter. This happened after a government-induced health crisis in the city of Flint in 2014. The crisis resulted in twelve deaths and some 90 cases of Legionnaires’ disease.

Just this month the Michigan Supreme Court awarded $US600 million ($A900 million) to finalise the class action for damages—a damages situation vastly smaller than that which occurred in the Victorian lockdown. But note that it took nine years to reach final settlement.

We’ll continue to follow the Victorian class action and keep you updated.

Self Employed. Marxism. Corruption. Not Above The Law

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discernableAt Self-Employed Australia we’re covering what seems to be a wide range of topics. In fact, these all come back to a central ‘thing’ that we seek to protect—namely, your right to be self-employed should you wish. That is, your right to Be Your Own Boss.

One of our great supporters is Discernable, an on-line blog television channel run by Matt Wong. Matt’s a true self-employed, small business innovator. He’s invested his own money, time and effort to pursue a vision that says that media news and issues coverage doesn’t have to be slogan-slamming but can undertake patient, intelligent coverage of issues.

If you haven’t watched Discernable we highly recommend doing so. If you’re like us, you’re likely to find the long (frequently 2 hour) interviews engaging, addictive and binge-watchable. The stories that come from Matt’s guests are fabulously insightful.

Matt has interviewed SEA’s Ken Phillips on several occasions covering our Not Above The Law campaign and more. Just this week Matt interviewed Ken and SEA chairman Nick Karamouzis.

The interview is available here.

discernable

We covered a range of topics. And to make it easy for you here are the timeslots of the issues we covered.

marxism

We trust our interview gives you a good handle on our campaign efforts.

We give evidence on Tax Fairness solution to UK Parliamentary committee/group

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UK-parliamentFor over a decade we’ve been campaigning for fairness and for rule of law principles to be applied when the ATO assesses and administers alleged tax debts, particularly those of self-employed, small business people.

We have found a template ‘solution’ based on how USA law requires tax administration fairness from the IRS. Here’s a video explanation and a one-page summary.

It transpires that the UK also has very similar problems with its tax administrator (HMRC) abusing self-employed people. We have a long-standing campaigning partnership with Contractor Calculator in the UK who, like us, campaigns for tax administration fairness. The UK problem is so severe that an all-party parliamentary group/committee has been formed to seek a solution to HMRC abuse. Some 250 UK MPs are in the group/committee.

Last month (on 21 February) we gave a joint presentation to the Taxpayer Fairness Group’s senior parliamentary members. We offered them a vision of a solution based on the USA model which we also recommend for Australia. Three of us gave presentations followed by Q&A (YouTube links below).

Ken-Phillips     Dave-Chaplin     Jason-Falinski

Jason made some strong points:

“At the core of this is whether governments exist to serve people or citizens exist to serve government … we have provided tax agencies in the Western world with extraordinary powers that are in breach of some pretty fundamental legal rights…”

We provided the UK parliamentary group with:

Almost exclusively, tax debates are about how much money is or should be taken out of which pockets of the people. But the way tax laws are administered cuts to the heart of the power of government over the people. And by ‘government’ we mean the faceless tax bureaucrats who administer the inevitable maze of tax laws.

Tax law administration must be subject to transparency, accountability and checks and balances so that the rule of (tax) law applies in a practical way. That is not the case in Australia nor, it seems, in the UK.

Our campaign is to secure that rule of law. The US model offers a practical template for reform.

 

Outcome: Victorian Supreme Court Action

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supreme-courtThis is a special email to update you on the outcome of our mandamus application to the Victorian Supreme Court over WorkSafe Victoria’s failure to prosecute individuals and entities over the 2020 Hotel Quarantine disaster.

On 2 December 2022, we informed you of the Court’s ruling (delivered that day) which declared that we had not lodged our application ‘on time’. That is, our application was dismissed on a technicality. We disagree with and reject this decision.

For fuller details on the case:

  • This link is to the ruling of 2 December. We’ve highlighted some sections.
  • This link gives an overview of the 3-year campaign, plus some commentary on the ruling.
  • We have made available a full commentary on the ruling to SEA members.

Here’s a summary

Supreme Court rules require that lodgement needs to occur within 60 days of when the named government department failed to do what that department is required to do by law. The issue was: what was that date?

WorkSafe refused to answer whether they had investigated those named entities as required.  But the ruling states that, as of 29 September 2021, we should have inferred, concluded or assumed that WorkSafe had investigated all the 26 entities/individuals that we named (the Victorian Premier, etc). (Our application was lodged on 14 February 2022.)

We say that that conclusion is wrong and that we did not and could not have known. The Court’s ruling was based on interpreting drawn-out correspondence spanning many months about who said what to whom and what we should have inferred by what was said/written.

The ruling then does two curious things in our view.

  1. It spends considerable time rebutting many of our published allegations/assessments we made as to why individuals/entities should be prosecuted. Why bother to do that when the dismissal of our application on technical grounds was all that was needed? The ruling reads as a defence of the government individuals and entities we named.
  2. The ruling then says that if the court allow SEA’s application that this would put the individuals we named under ‘stress’ and this should not occur.

It seems that the Court is saying that an individual should not be prosecuted for alleged offences if the prosecution were to cause the individual ‘stress’. We ask: Would this principle apply to an accused murderer? That is, should an accused not be prosecuted because they would feel ‘stressed’? We find this a disturbing concept. We will have more to say on this issue.

SEA is committed to continuing our ‘Not Above the Law’ campaign, along with our other campaigns on public policy issues affecting self-employed people and more.

I’m available to chat should you want more information or explanation.

Ken Phillips
Executive Director, Self-Employed Australia
0412 393 692

 

ATO watchdog to be closed down/neutered?

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ATO-watchdog-robodebtIf there are two things to be learnt from the current Royal Commission into the Robodebt scandal, it’s that governments can and do ‘get it wrong’ and that governments can and do inflict massive harm on individuals.

In the Robdebt affair the Australian Taxation Office supplied the income data of tens of thousands of welfare recipients to Services Australia, the federal government’s welfare department. The data was misused by Services Australia resulting in up to 200,000 people who didn’t owe the government anything being hounded by the department over incorrectly assessed debts. The scheme was illegal but the department pushed ahead anyway.

Some might say that the Royal Commission is political payback by the Albanese government against the Morrison government. That’s nonsense. The inquiry is an important investigation into how government can ‘stuff up’ even while claiming to be acting in the public interest. Lessons must be learnt, and remedies implemented to limit the misuse of government power over individuals.

That’s why we are deeply concerned to read media reports of a push to dismantle the independent ATO watchdog, the Inspector-General of Taxation and Taxation Ombudsman. The Tax Ombudsman is a small federal government department that is legislatively charged with investigating complaints against, and reporting on the performance of, the ATO.

In our view the ATO hates this oversight because it creates some measure of transparency. The ATO has a powerful media unit that pumps out stories about how perfect the ATO is. But we know that the ATO gets things wrong on too many occasions. Take this one example.

In the Robodebt Royal Commission the ATO has given evidence that the ATO remained silent about the illegality of the Robodebt program in order to protect the Human Services Department (Services Australia) from adverse publicity. The ATO wanted to show solidarity with other government departments. In fact, the ATO should have spoken up, but they didn’t. This is what happens in governments.

Good public servants will often see the protection of the institution as more important than the protection of ‘the people’, even when government inflicts harm on the people. On the other hand, public servants can have their lives destroyed if they tell the truth. Look at the treatment of ATO whistleblower Richard Boyle.

Governments need to have strong internal watchdog departments. This is what the Taxation Ombudsman does. The Ombudsman has a legislative charter to watch the ATO. Such internal watchdogs act as early warning radar systems. They make for better, more transparent government. They reduce the ability of government to harm ‘the people’. Who knows? A Services Australia watchdog might have prevented the Robodebt scandal.

We’re writing to the Prime Minister and others to ask for commitments to retain the Taxation Ombudsman. In fact, we’re asking for reform and an increase in the Ombudsman’s powers. A parliamentary committee last year recommended just this. Read our summary ‘One Giant Step for Taxpayers – ‘Taxpayer Rights’.