Transparency Archives – Page 4 of 16 – Stephen Andrew Kickstart Queensland

Stephen Andrew statement on hidden connections of power elites

Many people, like me, are starting to wake up to the fact that things are not what they seem in Australia. For years now, we have all been fed the line that Australia is a democratic ‘meritocracy’ where those who reach the top, do so as a product of their own gifts, talent, intelligence or hard work – none of which is even remotely true.

Most people operating at the top of Australia’s elite circle of power are part of a far more nepotistic and insidious system altogether – one where hard work and talent matters much less than who are connected to, or even who your father, mother, or sibling was, or who you are married to. Take Boris Johnson in the UK, whose father, Stanley Johnson, was an influential Conservative Party politician and later, a member of the European Parliament, European Commission and World Bank. Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre Trudeau, was of course the famous Prime Minister of Canada, whose two administrations bridged the 1960, 1970s and 1980s. Jacinda Ardern is the daughter of Ross Ardern, a NZ High Commissioner to Cook Islands and more recently, Administrator of Tokelau. His brother, Ian, is Head of the Mormon Church in New Zealand and Pacific region.

Scott Morrison’s Great Aunt was Mary Gilmore, who once founded a utopian socialist colony in Paraguay with the socialist William Lane.

Morrison’s older brother, Alan, serves as Chair of AHPRA (Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency) Committee on Paramedicine and Chair of the government’s Health Services Working Group. Then there is Jane Halton, who Morrison appointed as head of the government’s National Covid-19 Co-ordination Commission. Jane is the daughter of Charles Halton, a British Military Scientist brought to Australia in 1973 by Gough Whitlam to overhaul the country’s transport system, and who served as Secretary of Defence and Secretary of the Department of Communications under Hawke and Keating. Daughter Jane is now the CHAIR OF CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations), set up and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust and World Economic Forum in 2015. Jane was part of Event 201, a pandemic exercise organised and funded by John Hopkins, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations and the World Economic Forum in October 2019. Jane’s husband is Trevor Sutton, Deputy of the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Chair of the Governing Council of Statistics for the Asian and Pacific region. Trevor heads the Statistical Business Transformation Group which received a $256 million investment program to radically transform how ABS collects, processes and disseminates information, data and statistics.

In 2016, ABS data collection and survey systems were awarded to Accenture, a partner of ID2020 and GAVI. Trevor is a Member of the Institute for Health Metrics & Evaluation of which Jane Halton is also a Board Member, and which receives funding from the Gates Foundation and WHO. Trevor Sutton’s brother is Dr Brett Sutton. Dr Sutton is the Chief Health Officer of Victoria, who advises Dan Andrews Government on public health and pandemic response measures. Interestingly, Jane Halton also has a brother, Philip Halton, who is Deputy Commissioner of QBCC, Queensland’s building and construction regulator.

These are just a few examples but there are many more – some are well-known, while others are tightly guarded secrets.

Stephen Andrew statement on The Curious Case of Peter Costello

The role that ‘conflicts of interest’ can play in government decision-making is rarely discussed and increasingly difficult to detect. It usually involves cozy, mutually beneficial ‘quid pro quo’ relationships between high-level bureaucrats, politicians, foundations, media and wealthy vested interests in the corporate sector.

Today, those ‘wealthy vested interests’ are just as likely to be a giant medical or biotech company, or members of the highly ‘corporatised’ university sector that gobbles up billions in research monies each year, while making trillions in profits from intellectual property rights. All are financially intertwined with Big Tech, Big Data, Big Government and Big Media – all of which make up Australia’s ‘Bio Industrial Complex’.

Here is just one example illustrating the many conflicts of interest and concentration of power amongst Australia’s government/corporate/media elites. Peter Costello was the Treasurer under John Howard for many years. Today he is the Chair of the Commonwealth Government’s largest financial asset – the Commonwealth Government’s Future Fund.

The Fund has around $246 billion invested in various global companies. Its top investments include all the ‘Big Pharma’ names, like CSL, Pfizer, GSK, Johnson & Johnson and Merck. It holds shares of $1.064 billion in CSL, $270.4 million in Roche, $246 million in Johnson and Johnson, $188 million in Pfizer, $153 million in Novartis and over $144 million in Merck.

The Fund also invests heavily in ‘Big Tech’ with shares of $700 million in Apple, $656 million in Microsoft, $606 million in Tencent, $494 million in Alphabet (Google) and $308 million in Facebook.

Interestingly, Mr Costello is also the current Chair of another wealthy and powerful organisation in Australia, the giant media monopoly, Nine Entertainment Holdings. In addition to the Channel Nine multi-channel network, NEH owns Stan, Wide World of Sports and many of Australia’s best-known news outlets, including Sydney Morning Herald, Melbourne Age, Brisbane Times, WA Today and the Australian Financial Review. It owns a string of radio stations across the country and a stable of Lifestyle magazines covering everything from food to financial advice.

So, basically, we have two enormously powerful organisations within Australia, one with connections to the government’s billion-dollar investments in Big Pharma and Big Tech, and the other, a giant monopoly provider of Australia’s news and information. All seemingly under the influence and control of one person, ex-Treasurer, Peter Costello.

I am not saying that one hand could be influencing the other here – just pointing out how tightly controlled Australia is at the top, and how riddled with ‘conflict of interest’ issues, which someone really needs to get to the bottom of – and soon.