Clive Palmer - Sticking my neck out

As I type (13th of August) the so called nicknamed "Clive Palmer Bill" has passed the Lower House of the WA Parliament. I didn't watch all of it intently but I did watch some of it.

I'm not a Clive supporter. There may well be 2 sides you can choose from to support on this but there's a dozen aspects that this opens up.

I'm very uncomfortable that a bill like this was required at all. Only reason I'm even likely to become even slightly comfortable with it is...well to be honest I'm still looking to see how I can support such a bill. Can't find a reason to support this bill.

It targets Clive Palmer based on the idea he is a threat to WA. 
BUT...it's still potentially dangerous in intent & in action as a precedent.

I'm not the shadow of Lawyer's bootlace so it's untrained thought here...I'm not sure we should be dissolving a person's right of law to pursue through the courts. It prevents Mr Palmer from taking the WA Government to court whether the WA Government is in the wrong or not. That's a strikingly dangerous jump. (Understatement on over reach)

There's only one reason why I'd be comfortable & I'm not sure it's enough to get me over the line to supporting this bill. I'm hoping there is very heavy Legislative Council scrutiny of the advice driving this bill and whatever sunset clause is put in it. As it names Mr Palmer, any transferees past or present, his companies etc it is very much targeting him and only him (and his interests) This is THE Clive Palmer Bill. So perhaps THAT is the Sunset Clause. 

The concern is we need not only a serious push for Upper House oversight, but later after its all over full scrutiny. Nope even with that I'm still thinking it's a very bad idea taking away someone's natural rights under law.

The danger not explored here is this opens the door to this type of legislation where we can legislate away the rights of anyone. We're entering a VERY dangerous place. By all means the government can state this is large & unique threat however there is no mention what is stopping this being applied to others of a not so large, not so unique threat. Where is the prescriptive cut off line?

Legislating away a persons legal right to damages is probably a way bigger milestone bill than Voluntary Assisted Dying ever was. No...correction, it is certain not probably.

So yes I am all about protecting Australia or in this case Western Australia. I am largely disappointed that some rules, laws penalties were not enforced without fear nor favour during this State of Emergency some of which set Palmer on his course of a Constitional Challenge and now this latest claim. He is a unique challenge to WA and required very unique (and I hope a...) one off resolution.

Yes I think the McGowan government and Mr Quigley should have been able to prevent it getting to this point but alas, here we are.

Don't be over joyed just yet. Once passed, it isn't over. The likely result is a High Court challenge and as we know, Mr Palmer has never been afraid, indeed possibly been very keen to launch legal action.
Expect discussion using the phrase Sovereign Risk & Over Reach to pop up regularly

Now this is central to a consitutional democracy's rights and it is a pivotal moment in Australian legislation. As huge as it is I'll be sitting with the stopwatch to see how much time is devoted to this on ABC's Political Programme "Insiders" on Sunday. I'm thinking close to 8 minutes, maybe 12 minutes tops...actually I'll be surprised if it snares a total of 5 minutes. It's WA afterall & a Victorian or NSW state election would take up half a programme.

Wait n see. 
In any case, the bill has to pass the Upper House & probably go to an urgent committee, soaking up more time but at least some explanations.

Like the COVID situation, the fat lady hasn't sung, she's not even in her dressing room, she's at home & won't be leaving for the theatre for a very long time.

I think those that voted in favour of the Bill will regret it dearly. This is politically toxic and will probably result in a number of political scalps.

Late Edit - (Sept 2nd 2020) -  I did tell one MP I know (after it passed the Lower & Upper House,

 "I'm not in Parliament but I would have voted against this very very dangerous Bill"

Late Edit - (Nov 6th 2020) - An MP has told me it was rammed through with such urgency with opposition MPs told about it "just as Mr Quigly was presenting it in the Lower House. Even though it now turns out the Government had been working on this action for at least 3 months. The West Austrlian went into full Attack mode to demonise & mock Mr Palmer so public support gathered around the Act in the weeks that followed it ascension. Love or hate Mr Palmer this is a very uncomfortable spot WA is in having passed a Act that effectively removes all legal avenues on a contract & removes all Freedom of Information access afterwards. Its a dark day of dangerous over reach. I'm not a Palmer supporter at all, but he needs to win this case for proper natural justice for all of us. So again  "I'm not in Parliament but I would have voted against this very very dangerous Bill"

Conversations with interesting "thunking"

Probably a few edits and/or additions to come into this...

Went to a fellow's 50th birthday last night, wide range of interesting people there, diverse thinking. Among them city dwellers, grain growers, political nerds and good ol' common sense thinkers & question askers.

CBH came up & I was asked about my view now I'm an ex-grain grower. Yes I think it's a stellar outfit with some problems. If I was still in grain I'd not be in favour of privatising it but now I'm out with no skin in the game so its up to all its owners. But interesting thing was I was sounded out by a mate who's a shareholder/member & what he wanted to know was my thinking on the board, the way they do things, who was a good director who was a numpty & who was where in between.

Legal Actions - Fact, I couldn't give a very accurate view on the pdirectors involved, most I've never met. Yes I have a view on legal actions pending between directors, ex-directors or possibly between CBH and previous directors. Most of my view there I'm not sharing but I think it's likely CBH's D&O Insurance needs cleaning up. Director & Officer Insurance is a funny area with traps and pitfalls with many boards not reading & understanding their agreement. They could very easily find themselves having little or no financial protection if they're not following it properly. Personally I think its fair to expect any ex-director to be copping legal action by the board/company (or in this case Co-Operative) to be covered by the D&O insurance if the action is over something that happened whilst they were on the board. Legal action between 2 parties covered by D&O is not uncommon & its probably not popular with Insurers but it does prevent one party or the board employing 2 Queens Councillors & pouring 100s of 1000s of dollar in a deliberate thuggery/bullying campaign.

AGMs - Other point discussed was AGMs and I gave my view and staggered to hear my friend say "Yeah but we haven't got governance training, we don't know what questions to ask, how to ask them and if we go close to doing that we get shut down". Now I don't know if this is a legit thign or someone just sounding off because they've had a few beers & are grumpy about something...(??)

True or not I don't know but there is this. The AGM is the "Member's Meeting". The board runs the company and once a year the board, all of the board must give an account of their year, their actions and their chosen strategic thinking. So too an account of management's strategic planning and the resulting outcomes.
Board does the strategic thinking, management builds the strategic plan of that instructed thinking by the board and they set about to enact, report back & hopefully acheiving.

At the AGM a lot is in the annual report/s (or should be) and the meeting is where members have the right to be heard, the right to ask questions and the right to information. If the chairman and /or the board are shutting you down, time perhaps to consider wiping sections of the board out if they can't be persuaded to pull their socks up.

What members should be asking (and not limited to this list) is...

1. Do you do regular board performance assessments
2. Do you do regular chairman performance assessments
3. Do you do regular individual director assessments of skills missing & needed
4. Do you have a regular Director Education Programme driven by the results of number 3
5. Do you have a set Board Training level or qualification and equally importantly how often is the regular refresher courses? Because skills perish/
6. Do you have regular CEO performance evaluations, education/training requirement assessment
7. Do you list directors attendance record for every board meeting & every committee meeting 
8. Do you have a Conflict of Interests register and is it working as it should
9. Is the Chairman selected by the board or by the members. (if its by the members a board with a poor or poor & corrupt Chair is stuck with him/her until the next AGM. Not a good practice)

And if not any of the above...why? (Don't expect assessments to be made public, but you should expect the board to freely explain what issues they found and what improvements they put in place.

Members should know that Directors are personally, legally & financially responsible for every decision they make on the board & heaven help you if any director isn't keenly aware of this.
Be aware also, not making a decision IS A DECISION.
Be aware they have a fiduciary duty, they owe it to the perpetuity of the organisation and the shareholders. Whilst they're to take into account other stakeholders and always work with the law, the primary interest is the shareholders interest...always.

The Chair does not control the AGM, he/she chairs it, they control traffic. But if the members want answers they are entitled to ask questions and if there's insufficient time according to the Chairman, then the chairman needs to think quick and work out how to extend the AGM or address those concerns out of session with everyone's agreement. He/she cannot shut down debate just because they have to be somewhere or don't want to be there anymore.

Yes I got asked about zone based directors and only my no-skin-in-the-game view but I think they'd be better served by dropping the zones & just having any eligible aspiring director applying for a board seat irrespective of where they grow/deliver grain. You want the better applicants & not siloing them into small contests which means potentially good directors might miss getting elected in the their good director crowded zone and a dud or factional plant might get in via another zone. Unwise.

Many are protective of the zones as they see their zone needs representation on the board. Well all zones must be represented by all directors. The currect system is akin to nominess directors and whilst they have in the past got things done for their own area, its not what a nominee director can or should do. Their fiduciary duty is to the entire membership not to a select home crowd.

At any rate, the cases in the past where directors intervened and got a new wheatbin or extensions or whatever, was a crossing of the governance line between board & management. Its indefensible for a director to do anything more than approach the CEO with the concerns of home town growers & stand the hell back, leave it to management to decide and for management to report back to the board.

You look at a company's books and once you learn how to recaste the numbers in an annual report you can generally see where the red flags lie, where the company is failing or killing it, no matter how well the management MIGHT try to cloud it in smoke & mirrors. The red flags pop up clearly with the right ratios & equations. So too red flags can pop up about the board and how they operate with the right questions from the outside.

A smart board will seek out the best training, the best refresher courses and set about trickling down learning and training to the members to keep them better informed and better assured. Also keep a number of them interested enough to consider running for the board.

Away from CBH, Politics - Politics and things. This was interesting what people said they thought, thought they knew and weren't sure about but took a guess.
I define politics as anywhere where 2 or more people gather to discuss things, debate things to try & improve things. Could be the local footy club or Federal Cabinet.
Politics has some angles to it...

1. Sometimes politics is the elegant form of tribal thuggery. No spear or hammer, but sometimes devious plans are hatched, sometimes fair and common sense.
2. Sometimes in life we have to do deals with people we wouldn't have dinner with. Its a fact. It's not a wrong thing. What is fact is all political parties have run cloak n dagger stuff in or around Parliament ticking along with some techiniques of undermining, tricking, deceiving etc. What & where this goes pear shaped (and it has in every single party ever) is these darkened tactics spill over into their own party room (factions) and even to the operational side of their respective organisations (branch stacking, ambush motions, conflicts of interests ignored or hidden etc) - Yes fiduciary duty exists and is sometimes ignored in the party machines.

And thats some of it.

No I haven't done the science, I haven't done the physical trials but I think its fair to say that sometimes it's easier to herd a 100 cats into the yards with a bull whip than getting humans to work well together for the common interest...egoless, self interest aside etc. Humans...world was a perfect place until they got here. One of the greatest things I miss from my youth is not good working knees, back, stamina, eyesight, hearing etc, what I miss most is the naivety I had thinking everyone did the right thing all the time.
Not to be mistaken, I have great faith in humanity and its remarkable how crime doesn't pay, integrity is for the real win everytime and most people are good and understand this.

The Left, the Right & Fascism

If you're of the Hard Left, then EVERYTHING differing is hard right, oppressive, greed & fascist.
If you're of the Hard Right, then EVERYTHING differing is hard left, incapable of needed hard decisions, keen on public theft & communist.

Both seem to declare themselves as enemies of Conservatism.
I don't think Consevratism sits in the middle. I don't think it sits on the same spectrum as the Left & the Right.

Both hard Left & Right are keener on state control, oppressing someone, high taxing, state ownership and against individual rights, responsbilities. Both have failed business plans as a form of governance.

Hard Left use the word fascism as a derogatory attack word to replace a proper argument even though strangely it's origins are of the very hard left (see its founding philospher Giovanni Gentile). Its made even stranger as some of the very Hard Right actually embrace the term Fascism despite it's origins being of the Hard Left. Fascism is state control, state ownership, state declaring what is good & bad in society and the people do not get a vote, a say. 

You cannot have fascism AND a Westminster System, a Constitutional Monarchy, a democratic republic. From those positions call it Fascism, Socialism, Marxism, Communism or Tribal dictatorship...its anti the people, it crushes dissent, free speech, individual rights and explodes the size of government & taxing.

Call it Fascism, Socialism, Marxism, Communism or Ceramic Unicorn Figurines...it doesn't matter what the name is, its what the intent is. If its authoratarian, state controlling the people & their way of life it is not consevratism.

As a conservative I don't think I sit on the linear left to right spectrum. I sit in a camp that sees a spectrum that is anti conservatism, anti the people, their individual rights and left to its own devices will turn into a brutal murderous regime.

Where have the Hard Left or Hard Right ended well?
Where has it ever worked without brutal murderous oppression and other people's money?
Where?

There is a Left-Right Spectrum but the huge cavernous void between the Left & the Right isn't filled by Conservatism. There's is a spectrum of hate & oppression and the only thing that happens in the middle patch is less state sanctioned theft & murder.

So no, I'm not of the Left or Right. As a conservative I'm actually the direct opposite of the Left & the Right.

Remember the "Left/Right Political Spectrum" comes from France,  French Revolution where with 1500+ members it was easier for counting to put the supporters of the King to the right of the Speaker & the supporters of the revolution to the left.
Things changed over time but even after the revolution & the guillotine began to rust the Left & Right division remained.

Pity in a way, there's more of a triangle shape than a line spectrum. Its more Right & Left vs Conservatism but the more moderate either side, the closer they are to the Conservative point. Regardless if them have some differences, Hard Left & Hard Right are both authoratarian, distatorial leaners and against the conservatives.