In case you're wondering:
Crikey! Mayne sells for $1m
By Jesse Hogan
February 2, 2005 - 10:27AM/the AGE
Crikey! founder Stephen Mayne in front of the Melbourne Town Hall in 2001 during an unsuccessful bid for election to council.
Prominent shareholder activist and rebel publisher Stephen Mayne has agreed to sell his Crikey! media business for $1 million.
Text Media founders Eric Beecher and Di Gribble have bought Crikey! through their company, Private Media Partners (PMP), and are due to take full control of operations at the start of next month.
Crikey! specialises in media and business through its website and subscriber newsletter but also has a stable of commentators on politics, sport and other issues.
Age business columnist Christopher Webb reported in December last year that Mr Beecher had offered $1 million to buy Crikey!, but that Mr Mayne had refused.
Mr Mayne announced the sale to subscribers of his daily email service this morning, believing "there is only so much you can do from the spare rooms of a modest suburban house in Melbourne's eastern suburbs".
"After five years of struggle, including moving house five times in 30 months, we really couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel," Mr Mayne said in a statement.
"It is time to get a life again rather than literally working every day of the week on Crikey!, including 6-8 hours every Sunday."
Under the terms of the deal PMP will pay Mr Mayne a $200,000 deposit, which will give them full control for an 18-month period.
After the 18 months PMP must either pay the remaining $800,000 or hand back control to Mr Mayne, surrendering its deposit.
Mr Beecher said Crikey! would retain its investigative focus under PMP's management, as well as its key contributors, which include former political adviser Christian Kerr.
"We intend to ensure that Crikey! remains mandatory reading for anyone interested in politics, media, business, professions and other areas of society that matter to thinking people."
PMP already publishes media collation magazine The Reader, and may include some of its resources in the production of Crikey!.
Mr Mayne, a renowned business journalist and former political adviser, rose to prominence in 1999 when he created jeffed.com, a website devoted gripes against his former boss, then-Premier Jeff Kennett.
He later began Crikey!, which gained significant popularity due to its publishing of rumours and innuendo.
This lax stance landed Mr Mayne in troubled with the law, famously selling his house to pay a defamation settlement to radio announcer Steve Price.
In recent years Mr Mayne has avoided similar litigation through stricter publishing guidelines.
Crikey's main income source is its subscriber email service, which has grown significantly in recent years, but Mr Mayne says his family still has debts of more than $50,000 through the business.
As part of the agreement Mr Mayne will remain a regular contributor to Crikey!, and also The Reader, but also plans to focus on shareholder activism, turning up at company annual meetings to grill supposedly underperforming directors.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2005/02/02/1107228736077.html
`
Interesting!!!
Mind you, Crikey is VERY uneven in quality - will be inteesting to see what they do with it.
Yes, it will be interesting to see, Deb.
And I agree about the unevenness. Lately Crikey! has been getting into stories about TV shows/personalities
. Now I see why: this sale & the intention of the new owners to concentrate on politics, media, etc. It'll be a different deal. More "respectable", I'd imagine.
My lament is for the loss of the outrageous leaks from insiders that fill us in on the missing links to the big stories in the media. I can't think of another suitable place to send them to reach the right audience.
Any takers for a re-run of the abortion debate, #99?
Beazley's ALP to champion the new rich
By Louise Dodson and Peter Hartcher
February 3, 2005/SMH
Labor must make Australians feel secure in their new wealth as the fundamental prerequisite for everything the party does, according to the new Leader of the Opposition, Kim Beazley.
Flagging a significant shift in political strategy and policy priorities, he said Labor "shouldn't have to be embarrassed" by the increasing wealth and prosperity of the electorate because it was the reform program of earlier Labor governments that had made it possible.
Mr Beazley also committed Labor to a new economic policy that would give priority to tax relief for middle- and upper-income earners, an overhaul of transport systems and a national approach to solving the skills shortage in business.
He said the party had to champion the interests of an increasingly well-to-do population. .... <cont>
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Beazleys-ALP-to-champion-the-new-rich/2005/02/02/1107228770766.html?oneclick=true
I'm trying not to be too negative about Kim, but it's hard, it's hard ....
`
Hi Olga
That 'new rich' stuff is interesting - I thought Australians were more in debt than ever....
regardless we are living in an age of spiritual poverty.
Oh my!! Hey - I am a middle income earner - loot for ME?????
Yes, I understood that our current debt situation was at "crisis" level, hinge.
But it's the shift in priorities that's so disappointing. The Liberal Party you have when you're not having the Liberal Party? Not exactly the way win back those ALP voters who drifted to the Greens, wherever, looking for more principled policies, I would have thought .....
dlowan wrote:Oh my!! Hey - I am a middle income earner - loot for ME?????
Yes, Deb, it appears that that's how Mr Beazley would have it! :wink:
Here's the recipe for a better, happier, more compassionate Australia, courtesy of the OECD! (the
blue bits are my emphasis):
Cut high tax rates: OECD
David Uren, Economics correspondent
February 03, 2005/the Australian
THE OECD has told the Howard Government that it needs to cut high personal income tax rates and further deregulate the job market as part of a broad agenda to "reinvigorate" economic reform and sustain productivity growth.
The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development yesterday said Australia's short-term economic outlook remained rosy.
As the Reserve Bank revealed it had again decided to keep official interest rates on hold, the OECD predicted economic growth would lift from last year's 3.6per cent to 3.8 per cent this year.
But it warned that the slowdown in economic reform would make it more difficult to deal with challenges such as the ageing of the population.
"The pace of reform has recently not been as strong as it could have been," the OECD said in a 200-page report on the Australian economy.
"However, there is now an opportunity for Australian governments to pursue a new nationally co-ordinated agenda to reinvigorate reform and meet future challenges ..."
With the Government set to gain control of the Senate from July, the OECD said this agenda would aim both to lift Australian living standards towards the highest in the world and to combat long-term budget pressures from the ageing population and rising health costs.
The agenda includes:
Cutting the top marginal tax rate to boost work incentives.
The OECD says the 48.5 per cent top income personal tax rate (including the Medicare levy) cuts in at a "relatively low" level of income by international standards.
Last year's federal budget lifted this top income tax threshold from $62,500 to $70,001 -- and to $80,000 from next financial year.
While welcoming this, the OECD said the 48.5 per cent top tax rate remained a work disincentive and might hurt the economy by encouraging young professionals to migrate overseas.
As well, the gap between the top income tax rate and the 30 per cent company tax rate encouraged tax avoidance.
"Further improving rewards from work for people at higher income levels would enhance incentives for work, skill acquisition, and savings," the OECD said.
Welfare reform, including cutting high "effective marginal tax rates" facing low-income earners through the combination of tax and the withdrawal of benefits.
Despite recent reforms, these high effective tax rates continued to reduce the financial incentives for welfare recipients to seek work.
Promoting job growth by further deregulating the labour market to reduce the influence of industrial awards set by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.
"There is still much scope for further easing of the regulatory requirements for collective and for individual agreements," the OECD said.
Reducing the number of issues that could be covered by industrial awards would be a start, it said.
There should also be legislation to ban "pattern bargaining", in which unions take simultaneous action to shut down an industry.
Although dismissing workers was easier in Australia than in most other nations, the OECD said existing laws discouraged small companies from taking on workers.
"The Government is now in a position to address these issues and should proceed as soon as practicable," it said.
Completing the "substantial unfinished business" in competition policy in the face of political resistance.
The OECD accused the Howard Government of failing to show leadership to state governments on competition policy in the face of political resistance.
The OECD accused the Howard Government of not complying with its own competition reform requirements.
It said a competitive national electricity market had failed to be set up, called for more efforts to promote competition for Telstra and said the pace of rural water reform needed to be accelerated.
The OECD's reform push also includes health and education. The health system, it said, needed more market incentives and a strong user-pays approach.
Private health insurers should be able to cover risks outside hospitals, while there should also be less reliance on paying doctors on a fee-for-service basis, which encouraged them to over-service their patients.
The OECD backed the Government's programs to raise the performance of secondary and tertiary education but said more could be done to reduce the gap between the top and bottom performing schools.
"There remain wide discrepancies in achievements, and many youngsters still leave school early with few qualifications," the OECD said.
"Aligning school curricula to better meet the aspirations of the pupils and the requirements of their future employers will help."
The OECD's economic growth forecasts are more optimistic than those of the Treasury, which said in its mid-year update that growth would fall from 4 per cent in 2003-4 to 3 per cent this year.
The OECD expects stronger export growth to take over from slower consumer spending. And it is not concerned about the balance of payments, tipping the current account deficit to fall sharply over the next 12 months.
Yeah - and I ran away from the TV last night when I heard they were unveiling the IR "reforms".
I had a hangover and I wasn't ready to hear.
Ah, Deb, we're just a little echo chamber, reapeating endlessly the agenda of the US Right!
If it happened there, it's gonna happen here, too, down the track ......
... & next on the agenda: screw the workers!! Oh god, I can't watch!
PM puts case for wide IR reforms[/b[/size]]
Steve Lewis and Samantha Maiden
February 07, 2005/ the AUSTRALIAN
JOHN Howard has backed a single national industrial relations system and a dramatic simplification of the existing award structure as core elements of a second wave of workplace reforms.
As cabinet prepares to meet to begin planning the federal Government's more aggressive reform agenda, the Prime Minister has also flagged his intention to pursue blocked welfare measures, including the extension of "mutual obligation" principles to single parents and disability pensioners. And amid calls from Liberal backbenchers for further tax reform, Mr Howard signalled his support for increases to the threshold - now set at $80,000 - at which the top marginal rate of 47 per cent cuts in.
"I would like to see a situation where the point at which the top rate of tax comes in continues to be lifted," Mr Howard told the Nine Network's Sunday program.
Cabinet will hold a two-day strategy meeting later this month to discuss the details of the reform agenda, to be implemented once the Government takes control of the Senate from July 1.
The proposed changes represent the biggest shake-up of industrial relations law in Australia since the first wave of reforms in 1996 introduced individual work contracts. The role of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission is again under scrutiny.
The renewed push for micro-reform comes as Australia's peak business lobby warned that national prosperity could be at risk unless Canberra gets serious on a range of tax, IR and other reforms.
"Serious constraints and imbalances are emerging within the economy that, in the absence of reform in key areas, will slow growth, limit opportunities and undermine the economy's capacity to deal with longer-term challenges," the Business Council of Australia claims in its budget submission. BCA president Hugh Morgan, who will address a government backbench ginger group that is pressing for big tax cuts, called for a "fundamental review of some of the tax issues".
Mr Morgan conceded the call for tax reform did not always give the government of the day the "jollies". But he said Canberra had to "face the fact that there is significant . . . independent advice that taxation is something that needs to be reviewed, and from which there is no escape". While the economy has performed strongly in recent years, the BCA and other pro-reform groups argue the Government has relied on consumption and housing to drive growth.
"Australia cannot rely on past reforms and investments for future growth," Mr Morgan said.
Debate within the Government on reforms is well under way. Mr Howard yesterday flagged an aggressive march on industrial relations.
"I think there is a lot to be said for a single national system," Mr Howard said, although he conceded it would be resisted by most state Labor governments.
A single national framework would streamline the present dual system of federal-state awards and industrial tribunals. Victoria has given over its IR system to the commonwealth, but other states are expected to strongly resist any takeovers.
Mr Howard nominated award simplification as another IR reform to be pursued by the Government.
"The awards could be simplified. They're still a little too prescriptive," he said.
Opposition industrial relations spokesman Stephen Smith accused the Howard Government of preparing to introduce IR reforms that would be "unfair, divisive and extreme". ACTU secretary Greg Combet said: "I've got no doubt that John Howard is set to launch one of the most significant attacks on the protections available to working people that we have seen."
NSW to take on federal govt's IR plans
the AGE 7/02/05
...
..."This is a campaign to take away rights that Australian workers have expected for well over 100 years, this is the final attempt to destroy the commonwealth industrial relations system as a fair and a neutral system to turn into a system which delivers for some abstract market.
"So what we'll find is that families will be under more pressure, businesses, especially small businesses, will be under more pressure and we'll have no fairer results." .... <extract from article>
http://www.theage.com.au/news/Breaking-News/NSW-to-take-on-federal-govts-IR-plans/2005/02/07/1107625097840.html
The first sitting of parliament today, with Kim B as Labor's new leader. Here's one of the AGE's editorials to mark the event:
Will the 'new' Beazley stand up?
February 8, 2005
Labor's fight-back must start today, with the leader setting the
example.
Kim Beazley should not bank on a honeymoon when he returns to Parliament today, less than two weeks into his second incarnation as Opposition Leader. Having already had five years, eight months and 15 days in the job, the Labor leader has to give Australians, including many Labor voters who had given up on him, good reasons to think again. He must begin with a strong display in Parliament against John Howard. It will only get harder for Labor once a Coalition Senate majority takes effect from July.
At the moment, several issues offer ammunition, if Mr Beazley has the stomach for the fight. There is the official non-existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. There is the release of Mamdouh Habib after three years in US military detention without charge, or proper explanation, while David Hicks languishes at Guantanamo Bay. There is the mistreatment of Australian resident Cornelia Rau in an immigration detention centre, which ought to call the whole system into question. Then there is a Senate inquiry into regional funding rorts, which has linked Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson to an alleged attempt to induce independent MP Tony Windsor to quit politics.
Labor has in the past been compromised and inconsistent on issues of Iraq and detention. Mr Beazley's responses to the outrageous cases of Mr Habib and Ms Rau have been muted and unconvincing. Labor must take command of such issues, or expect the Government to dictate terms. Mr Beazley's unfortunate instinct for accommodation has been exposed already by an undertaking that he will retain his front bench until the next election. Some of Labor's best talent is on the back bench only because of clashes with former leader Mark Latham. What sense does it make to review all policies, as Mr Beazley has, without reviewing personnel (which includes minimal-impact deputy leader Jenny Macklin)? Mr Beazley, who claims to have won the job "without owing anyone anything", has failed to assert his authority to ensure Labor has the best possible front bench.
Labor can ill afford to bench any heavy hitters. The Coalition priorities this term - industrial relations, welfare and tax - challenge Labor by going to the core of what it stands for as a social democratic party. Surely, if Mr Beazley has learnt anything from experience, it is the folly of "small target" politics, of trying to play safe. The Opposition may be numerically irrelevant from July, but a timid Labor risks becoming politically invisible, too.
Yep, it aint gonna be easy!
I'm very confused, as usual.
What's wrong with our IR system if we've got the highest employment rate for 28 years? And apparently the libs say we're in the best economic shape we've ever been in? Suddenly this isn't good enough? Why wasn't this mentioned prior to the election - just 3 months ago. I hope the CFMEU is the first to go down, still haven't forgotten them cheering Howard in Tassie. Fools.
How come when comes to goods and services the govt is happy to let 'market forces' determine price, but when it comes to labour 'market forces' can't be trusted?
If labour is in short supply and demand is up then it seems logical that the price goes up but suddenly this is inflationary and legislation must be passed to prevent it. I never heard the effin libs urge anyone to keep the price of petrol, housing or food down in the national interest.
Come the revolution....
(Nice to see you again, hinge!
)
I absolutely know what you mean. It's like, hey, how come our taxes have to subsidize private education & private health? Aren't they PRIVATE, for profit? Same story. Double standards. It's amazing how Howard & co. get away with this stuff, but they sure do! On the economy stuff it's easy ... most of the media commentators hold the same view. And the economy is paramount, as we all know!
You're right, absolutely right .... Crummy deal for low income people, no matter how the cookie crumbles. Looks like the revolution is the only way to get a fair go! :wink:
