These are my first Words on Blogspot.
My plan starting out is to blog three times a week - on a point of local (Lalor Electorate) interest, on a point of national interest (Australian Internal Affairs) and on a point of world interest that affects all Australians (Australian External Affairs). But I realise that this will involve a significant workload and discipline.
As this is my first blog, I believe it is fair and reasonable that it be a bit longer than future blogs. It is important to build a firm foundation for future blogs.
So for this first blog, here is a brief PREAMBLE, followed by my 2 paragraph POLITICAL PLEDGE and the equivalent of 2 pages of PROFESSIONAL CREDENTIALS from my 20 plus years of top tier commercial, government and constitutional legal practice
PREAMBLE
My POLITICAL PLEDGE and my PROFESSIONAL CREDENTIALS and my above links to my twitter micro-blogs and my websites are intended to give 14,000,000 voting Australians (with special reference to the 140,000 franchised voters on the electoral roll for the Federal Electorate of Lalor) some starting information by which they can measure up my qualities and abilities to be elected as their (and my own) Federal Member of the House of Representatives, when the next Federal Election is called, some time between now and the end of 2013.
Obviously, Australia is suffering from a dreadful period of political disenchantment, chronic sickness within our long dominant two (or one) party dominated political organs of State and Federal Government, and our many suppressed Constitutional Crisis's. Our suppressed Constitutional crises are not only the lingering legacy from the Whitlam Dismissal of November, 11 1975 but more recent legacies such as the Rudd Dismissal / Gillard Ascendancy of June 24, 2010 and the continuation since September 13, 2010 of the current, compromised Gillard minority federal Parliament and Government. Our suppressed Constitutional crises include submerged legacies from our pre- and post-colonial centuries of White Australian elitism and apartheid government laws, practices and customs, unaddressed injustices done to our earliest forced settlers (Irish political prisoners and petty British thieves), and of course the unaddressed wrongs done to the first indigenous Australians (who landed millennia before the British Red Coats and their convict slaves first arrived, a mere 220 years ago).
Probably the root relic of the Constitutional crises which are at the heart of our present political malaise is the Federation Constitutional Swindle that was foisted on 2,000,000 then living Australians (including the few Australian men and South Australian women who were "allowed" to vote), whereby the ruling class lawyers of the day drew up a Constitution for themselves (with few voices of dissent within their class and very little allowance for dissatisfaction from the majority of, non-lawyer class Australians). We know the name given to the parchment of that instrument, which was little more than a licence to rule, drafted by the elite within the self-interested lawyer class of the Australian colonies pre-federation era (the 1890's), was sanctioned by Queen Victoria of England and the United Kingdom House of Lords and House of Commons, and was passed into British laws on July 9, 1900 as the "Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 (of the United Kingdom)".
Today, we know the fruits of that Constitutional Swindle, taught to us in our official history books as "Federation" and "the birth of the Commonwealth of Australia", by the reality of government in Australia today, where 98% of all State and Federal parliamentarians, 99% of all senior State and Federal Ministers of the Crown and other senior bureaucrats, and 100% of all State and Federal Judges and other senior judicial officers are ... members of the elite ruling lawyer class. Almost every one of our governmen and governwomen today (those holding top positions in the parliamentary, the bureaucratic and the judicial branches of our State and Federal governments) can trace their family trees back through 4 or 5 generations, to governmen (or in more recent generations some governwomen) who held those or similar positions and of course had the same surnames.
Our Australian political caste system, our barely out of sight "Bunyip Aristocracy" with its rigidity of birth rights to positions, privileges and political powers, makes the Indian Hindu Caste System look positively liberal and liberating. And yet, almost all of the time, we think very little of it. We very rarely even see it. Though we feel its effects and consequences every where around us as we attempt to go about our daily lives unhampered by maximum government regulation and interference.
Despite the lip-servicing and candy-coated appearances of ballot boxes and other supposedly democratic institutions and processes, and despite the saccharine spin and propaganda for what passes for (and what doesn't pass for) independent (of government) press and electronic media, the reality of government in Australia today, at all times since Federation, and even in colonial times right back to the first white British landing in 1788, is that government in Australia is a birth right and a hereditary occupation reserved for the current generation of ruling class lawyers and their future lawyerly offspring.
Today, Australia is, as always, a 1st rate country run by a 5th generation of 4th rate lawyers.
In 1960's Australia, where I was born, we were labelled "The Lucky Country." As we sang "God Save the Queen" at morning assemblies and on important public occasinos, we were propaganda filled to take this as a label of pride, when Donald Horne meant this as satire, as a wake up call that much was not right.
"We are a 1st class country run by 2nd class people" is what Emeritus Professor Horne wrote and said at his book launches in 1964.
Bowing to pressures of political correctness - Academia is just one more of the multitude of halls of government, of course - Professor Donald Horne later revised this to "mostly 2nd class people" in successive revisions up until about 2004.} The "mediocre" country is the repressed label he gave to the political elite, the ruling class lawyers of that generation, 50 years and two generations ago.
Fifty years and two generations later of accumulating mediocrity (some might say degenerate, in-breeding) within our ruling lawyer class political elite, how much more mediocre are our parliamentarians, ministers and other bureaucrats and judges than their grandfathers were back in 1960s Australia? A disturbing trend that we see every night on the TV news, we read every day in our newspapers, and we feel every time we try to go about our ordinary daily affairs free of government over-governing us.
I don't think we Australians can afford to suffer or to sustain this disturbing trend for too many more generations, however beneficial the whole set-up is for our ruling lawyer classes and their future offspring.
Well my name is James. And I am going to take us away from all that.
I have not found traces of any pre-1778 Australian ancestors or any post-1788 white Irish or British convict-slaves in my family tree. Nor, disappointingly, can I claim any recharging of my bloodlines from the waves of white European immigration to Australia in the 1950s or the waves of Mediterranean European immigration of the 1960s, or the successive waves of Asian immigration into Australia that began at the end of the 1970s at about the time that Americans Neil Armstrong and Edwin Buzz Aldrin were walking on the Moon (when I was in primary school).
But I can count my blessings that, within the benefit of knowledge of 5 living generations of family history, I am a first generation lawyer (even a first generation university graduate) who has no blood, school, marriage or even postcode ties or allegiances to any of the past or present ruling caste lawyer elite who control all of all halls of government.
As far as I can tell, within 5 generations of living memory in my family, I am at least 5th generation indigenous to this Sorry Country - A country where the parliament, the government and the media are all broken - and the breaking occurred by deliberate political acts of sabotage by generations of ruling class lawyers.
As far as I can tell, my first "Australian" ancestors were of a mixture of mostly Scotts and Germans, sturdy and industrious folk who came to this land by free choice (“boat people” of their days, who paid full faires and carried all requisite legal documents of entry). My ancestors were not victims of British political and legal injustice, draped in prison garb and shipped like live cattle, in British prison chains, like too many of their contemporaries.
If you have read this far into my first blog, I thank you.
I encourage you to follow my hashtag discussion tweets on some of the history and politics and current affairs behind these points I have made in this preamble. Please search on #ConstitutionalSwindle #FamilyLawFail #AusNewFederalism #Auspol and #Lalor in my twitter feed at - http:/www.twitter.com/JamesJohnsonCHR.
And I leave you with my simple, 2 paragraph, political pledge and 2 pages of professional profile.
Best wishes
James Johnson
Independent Federal Candidate for Lalor
MY POLITICAL PLEDGE
I BELIEVE IN AFFORDABLE, progressive, liberal GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS THAT
1. WORK by educating and empowering individuals, families and communities,
2. ARE SENSIBLY FUNDED within conservative, open and accountable government budgets, AND
3. ARE DELIVERED through LEAN AND LOW COST legislative and public service frameworks.
I PLEDGE AT ALL TIMES, from both inside and outside of the Parliament, TO ADVOCATE MEASURES:
1. TO CUT the Cost of Government
2. TO INTRODUCE democratising election laws and practices
3. TO ENCOURAGE more, new, non-lawyer, non-political party controlled Senators & MHRs
4. TO RESTORE Justice to our Courts (and remove lawyers-only privilege-laws & end taxpayer / litigant funded lawyers picnics)
5. TO INVESTIGATE, Stop and Prosecute the daily #HumanRights abuses in our anti-family #FamilyLawFail Law Courts.
6. TO INVESTIGATE, Stop and Prosecute Governmen and Governwomen rorting, waste and abuse, currently rampant in all levels and all branches of State and Federal Government.
JAMES JOHNSON
Independent Federal Candidate for Lalor
Solicitor and Barrister of the High Court of Australia
(Celebrating 20 Years of Legal Practice 1990 - 2010)
MY CREDENTIALS
James Johnson
SOLICITOR & BARRISTER OF THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA
Professional History
[1990 – ] Legal Practitioner, Legal and Media Consultant, Australian Solicitor and Barrister
[2001 – 2007] Senior Legal Counsel with Primelife Corporation and RenaissanceTV
[1999 – 2007] General Counsel with $%^&* Regional Water Authority
[1994 – 1999] Senior Associate and then Special Counsel with *%^&* *%^&*
[1989 – 1994] Articled Clerk, Solicitor and then Senior Associate with *%^&* *%^&* *%^&*
[1987 – 1988] Economist (Tutor and Relieving Lecturer), Dept. of Economics at Monash University
Other Professional Roles
[1998 – 2003] Author, monthly column on Tax Issues for the Victorian Law Institute Journal
[1999 – 2001] Member, Legal Practitioners Liability Committee’s GST Panel
[1999 – 2000] Member, Victorian State Revenue Office's State Taxes Liaison Committee
[1999 – 2000] Chairman, Law Institute of Victoria’s State Taxes Committee
[1998 – 2000] Chairman, Law Institute of Victoria’s GST Taskforce
Qualifications
[May 1990] Admitted to Practice as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Federal Courts of Australia and the High Court of Australia and as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria
[May 1989] Graduated LL.B, Monash University
[April 1986] Graduated B.Ec (Class 2A Hons), Monash University
Practice Areas
Government – Constitutional Law – International Law – Human Rights – Civil and Political Rights – Major Projects – International and Australian, Project, Structured and Corporate Finance – Property Construction – Aged Care and Retirement Villages Regulation and Development – Power & Gas – Transport – Water Regulation and Development – Public Finance and Administration – Taxation – Information – Media – Communications – Technology
During a 20 plus year legal career James has provided top-tier legals and advisory services to hundreds of
major Australian and International Corporations, and worked with all tiers of government in Australia.
These include 19 of Australia's top 20 (and 48 of the top 54) most profitable ASX listed Companies
(source: based on Business Review Weekly's Top 1000 Corporate Money Earners for 2010).
Publications
James is the author of more than 100 substantial published papers, seminar presentations, government and client training manuals on legal and commercial issues as diverse as GST, stamp duties, banking law,
project finance, structured finance, privacy laws, constitutional laws and human rights laws.
Full Publications List is available on request.
Over Twenty Years of Australian and International Transaction Experience – 1990 to 2011
Energy, Infrastructure, Transport, Water and Government Projects
Advising on industry, regulatory, acquisition and financing aspects of Victorian electricity privatizations 1996 to 1998 including: (1) the Electricite de France – AGL A$1 billion bid for United Energy; (2) the AGL – GPU consortium’s A$950 million acquisition of Solaris Power; (3) Westpac and Bank of America syndicated funding of Texas Utility’s A$2 billion acquisition of Eastern Energy; (4) the PowerGen plc – Itochu – AMP Society – Hastings consortium’s A$2.4 billion acquisition of Yallourn Energy; (5) The National Grid Group plc – Itochu consortium’s bid for PowerNet Victoria.
Advising Commonwealth Government Owned ANL Limited through a 1995, 3 month, secondment from on legal due diligence and tender sale process, on general banking facilities and the workout of leveraged charterparty lease facilities.
Advising ANZ Bank on, and documenting the A$500 million issue of tax-enhanced infrastructure bonds as part of the A$1.8 billion plus financing of the Melbourne City Link Project (1995).
Advising various Government and non-Government stake-holders on water, sewerage, recycled water, wind, hydro, solar and other green energy projects.
Corporate, Commercial and Trade
Advising on domestic and international supply contracts for commodities, goods, services, intellectual property and technology rights, including assistance documenting and negotiating transactions.
Advising on banking, trading and commercial contracts, mergers, disposals and acquisitions of businesses.
Advising domestic and international clients on Australian commercial, trade practices, foreign investment and privacy laws.
Agribusiness
Advising Fosters Brewing Group Limited (then Elders IXL) on the operations and trade sale of a number of Agribusiness Divisions, including Elders Meat, Brewing Materials and Elders Pastoral, via secondment (1990 – 1991).
Advising Italian textiles and technology company Naco SpA on the A$100 million plus supply of paper processing plant and technology to an Australian public company Arissa Limited (1999).
Property, Construction and Development
Front and back-end advice on various construction projects, including civil construction works (such as water treatment and reclamation plants, dual reticulation schemes, agricultural recycled water projects, biosolids projects), residential projects (including resort style and retirement living facilities) and on commercial, retail and industrial projects.
Advising on bricks and mortar mortgages, corporate loans, construction loans, project financings, joint venture and profit share arrangements for residential, commercial and retail construction projects.
Advising Primelife Corporation Limited / Babcock & Brown Communities, Australia’s largest ASX-listed developer and manager of resort style retirement villages and premier aged care hostels through a 3 year general retainer for property, commercial, finance, regulatory and taxation matters (2001 – 2007).
Advising Hudson Conway Limited on property transactions with a combined value in excess of A$1 Billion, including acquisitions, sales, restructurings, financings, securitisations and public and private securities offers for landmark properties including suburban and regional shopping centres, CBD Office Towers, Luxury Hotels (1989 – 1994).
Advising ANZ Bank on the A$280 million plus structured sale and partial leaseback of the landmark Melbourne Stock Exchange Building, 530 Collins Street, Melbourne (1992).
Advising the Victorian Department of Treasury and Finance on various privatizations and industry reforms, including legislative requirements and establishment of corporations law entities for industry ownership restructuring of the A$400 million Construction Industry Long Service Leave Fund (1996).
Advising the City of Maribyrnong on the A$23 Million workout of a major property development, including a major lease renegotiation and the then largest, structured debt raising by a Victorian municipal corporation (1998).
Finance and Taxation
Structuring and documenting structured lease facilities (including leveraged, financial and operating leases) for aircraft and ships and other tax effective financial structures.
Structuring, documenting and negotiating corporate banking and treasury facilities, including secured, unsecured, and subordinated debt arrangements.
Advising, structuring and documenting mortgage, lease and other receivables-backed securitisation programs for arrangers (including ANZ Bank and Merrill Lynch) and for ratings agencies (Standard & Poors) (1994 – 1999).
Advising Goldman Sachs J B Were on documentation and issue of exchangeable unsecured notes products, including for ASX-listed securities issued by Djerriwarrh, National Australia Bank and Fosters Brewing Group (1996 - 1999).
