Herald Sun - Craig Binnie
July 18, 2009
FRUSTRATED home hunters have wasted countless weekends visiting properties that were out of their price range.
Estate agent Century 21 Wilson Pride was the worst price predictor of the big agencies according to a Herald Sun study of 74 auctions from last weekend.
The agency missed the actual selling price by an average of 19 per cent.
In one case the firm said the expected selling price of an Elwood flat was $325,000. It sold for $412,500.
Buyers advocate David Morrell said agents were messing with people's lives by giving extremely low price estimates.
"If someone is looking in the $300,000 price range they probably don't have a $400,000 budget," he said.
"So all that happens is they waste their time and the agent gets a bigger crowd to make themselves look good at the auction.
"This has got to stop."
Collins Simms was the second worst agent in the study. The agency erred by 17 per cent. Jellis Craig was third on 15 per cent.
Hocking Stuart was off by 11 per cent and Biggin and Scott was off by 14 per cent.
Prospective buyers are particularly angry when properties pass in after bids that are above the advertised price.
Last weekend, Hocking Stuart advertised a Prahran house at $1 million plus and passed it in at $1,020,000 on a reserve of $1,120,000.
Nelson Alexander advertised a house at Gowanbrae at $670,000-$730,000. It was passed in at $700,000 with a reserve of $750,000.
Bennison Mackinnon advertised a Port Melbourne house at $700,000 plus. It was passed in at $760,000, the vendors refused a later offer of $770,000 - $70,000 above the advertised price - and did not disclose the reserve.
Estate agents stress that predicting prices at auction is nearly impossible. But it is deliberate underquoting that angers buyers. Prospective buyers regularly offer the advertised price only to be told the owner will not sell unless it's well above that price.
But the agents continue to advertise the property at the lower price.
The Real Estate Institute of Victoria's chief executive Enzo Raimondo said Consumer Affairs Victoria needed to take action against agents who were breaking the law.
"They are the regulator," Mr Raimondo said. "They really need to do something, enforce them, get rid of some of the practices that aren't helpful."
Mr Raimondo said quoting a price range with an upper and lower price that accurately reflected the market price was a fairer way to quote.
Mr Raimondo said buyers, and agents who did the right thing, should complain to CAV when they saw cases of underquoting.
"Don't tolerate this sort of substandard behaviour," Mr Raimondo said.
CAV said yesterday it was on the lookout for underquoting, but Mr Raimondo mocked a claim by CAV that it had 80 investigators monitoring agents for underquoting and other offences.
"The last person they pinged for underquoting was someone we reported," he said.
CAV spokeswoman Heather Abbott said price-plus advertising was discouraged but was not illegal unless the price was below the price at which the agent knew the vendor was willing to sell.
She said it was up to buyers to research the market.
"CAV views this type of advertising as potentially misleading and complaints received in this regard are assessed and investigated in accordance with CAV policies," she said.
"Agents have been informed they must use their knowledge and skills when appraising property and ensure their advertising reflects a price, which they believe is the likely or estimated selling price.
"CAV will continue to take enforcement action against real estate agents where regulations have been breached.
"Prosecution is reserved for the most serious of cases.
"While agents have a responsibility to advertise a property at the vendor's asking or, in the absence of this price, the likely selling price, consumers have a responsibility to ensure they are informed."
Comment
I recently sold in Melbourne discussed selling price with agent. Price discussed was to be high 700 k low 800 K. First adv by the agent went in at 650 k plus. Rang agent and asked why? Reply was "you have to get people in" I complained. Next adv was 700k plus. Sold at 840K. I can see why people get frustrated, time wasted, inspection reports etc. Consumer Affairs Victoria needed to take action against agents who were breaking the law.
Posted by: Alan of Merimbula ex Melbourne 9:31am July 18, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Raid on estate agents underquoting prices
NEWS - By Craig Binnie
July 28, 2009
SIXTY estate agents' offices have been raided in Victoria by investigators in a major crackdown on underquoting.
More than 1000 recent property sales files were inspected and several agents are expected to face prosecution.
At least one agent tried to stop investigators accessing his files and others were said to be shocked at the scope of the investigation, the Herald Sun reports.
Consumer Affairs Victoria director Dr Claire Noone said the agent initially denied inspectors entry. "However, after being advised that failure to allow entry and inspection of files were both offences under the Estate Agents Act, CAV successfully gained entry," she said.
HAVE you been a victim of underquoting? Tell us below.
The raids follow the Herald Sun's campaign on agents misleading and using time-wasting advertising tactics that trick buyers into inspecting properties they cannot afford.
Up to 80 investigators are examining seized files seeking illegal and unethical price underquoting. Dr Noone said agents found to be systematically breaking the law would face disciplinary action and potentially lose their licences.
The raids centred on western and northern suburbs including Brunswick, Clifton Hill, Coburg, Craigieburn, Essendon, Pascoe Vale, Point Cook and Werribee.
Dr Noone said investigators collected details relating to the estimated selling price established by the agent, the vendor's price, the advertised price and the final sale price.
"Any agent engaging in dubious practices will be thoroughly investigated," she said.
The breadth of the raids stunned agents who have told the Real Estate Institute of Victoria that there was no need to abide by laws banning deliberate underquoting because nobody was enforcing them.
Last year CAV's compliance, monitoring and inspections of agents resulted in just five enforceable undertakings, five civil proceedings and two criminal prosecutions.
Dr Noone said the blitz aimed to ensure agents followed guidelines and the law.
The State Government is examining ways to clean up the real estate industry. Consumer Affairs Minister Tony Robinson is considering a ban on price-plus advertising such as $400,000+ because agents have misused it.
July 28, 2009
SIXTY estate agents' offices have been raided in Victoria by investigators in a major crackdown on underquoting.
More than 1000 recent property sales files were inspected and several agents are expected to face prosecution.
At least one agent tried to stop investigators accessing his files and others were said to be shocked at the scope of the investigation, the Herald Sun reports.
Consumer Affairs Victoria director Dr Claire Noone said the agent initially denied inspectors entry. "However, after being advised that failure to allow entry and inspection of files were both offences under the Estate Agents Act, CAV successfully gained entry," she said.
HAVE you been a victim of underquoting? Tell us below.
The raids follow the Herald Sun's campaign on agents misleading and using time-wasting advertising tactics that trick buyers into inspecting properties they cannot afford.
Up to 80 investigators are examining seized files seeking illegal and unethical price underquoting. Dr Noone said agents found to be systematically breaking the law would face disciplinary action and potentially lose their licences.
The raids centred on western and northern suburbs including Brunswick, Clifton Hill, Coburg, Craigieburn, Essendon, Pascoe Vale, Point Cook and Werribee.
Dr Noone said investigators collected details relating to the estimated selling price established by the agent, the vendor's price, the advertised price and the final sale price.
"Any agent engaging in dubious practices will be thoroughly investigated," she said.
The breadth of the raids stunned agents who have told the Real Estate Institute of Victoria that there was no need to abide by laws banning deliberate underquoting because nobody was enforcing them.
Last year CAV's compliance, monitoring and inspections of agents resulted in just five enforceable undertakings, five civil proceedings and two criminal prosecutions.
Dr Noone said the blitz aimed to ensure agents followed guidelines and the law.
The State Government is examining ways to clean up the real estate industry. Consumer Affairs Minister Tony Robinson is considering a ban on price-plus advertising such as $400,000+ because agents have misused it.
Estate agents raided by Consumer Affairs Victoria
The Age - AAP - July 29, 2009
Investigators raided the offices of dozens of Victorian estate agencies in a major offensive against underquoting.
Sixty offices have been raided by Consumer Affairs Victoria (CAV) and files relating to more than 1,000 recent property sales were inspected, News Ltd reported.
One agent tried to prevent CAV inspectors from seeing sales files, CAV director Dr Claire Noone said.
‘‘However, after being advised that failure to allow entry and inspection of files were both offences under the Estate Agents Act, CAV successfully gained entry," she said.
The raids, which focused on agencies in Melbourne's north and west, were aimed at stopping unscrupulous agents from misleading clients and using dodgy advertising to tempt buyers to inspect properties they can't afford.
Up to 80 investigators are examining seized files.
Agents found to be breaching the law will face disciplinary action and could lose their trading licence, Dr Noone said.
Investigators raided the offices of dozens of Victorian estate agencies in a major offensive against underquoting.
Sixty offices have been raided by Consumer Affairs Victoria (CAV) and files relating to more than 1,000 recent property sales were inspected, News Ltd reported.
One agent tried to prevent CAV inspectors from seeing sales files, CAV director Dr Claire Noone said.
‘‘However, after being advised that failure to allow entry and inspection of files were both offences under the Estate Agents Act, CAV successfully gained entry," she said.
The raids, which focused on agencies in Melbourne's north and west, were aimed at stopping unscrupulous agents from misleading clients and using dodgy advertising to tempt buyers to inspect properties they can't afford.
Up to 80 investigators are examining seized files.
Agents found to be breaching the law will face disciplinary action and could lose their trading licence, Dr Noone said.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future
NYT - "If you don’t have it, just forget it! No matter how capable you are, they will not hire you."
WANG JINDONG, a college graduate in China, on the loss of a file containing his grades, evaluations and other personal information.
WUBU, China — For much of his education, Xue Longlong was silently accompanied from grade to grade, school to school, by a sealed Manila envelope stamped top secret. Stuffed inside were grades, test results, evaluations by fellow students and teachers, his Communist Party application and — most important for his job prospects — proof of his 2006 college degree.
Everyone in China who has been to high school has such a file. The files are irreplaceable histories of achievement and failure, the starting point for potential employers, government officials and others judging an individual’s worth. Often keys to the future, they are locked tight in government, school or workplace cabinets to eliminate any chance they might vanish.
But two years ago, Mr. Xue’s file did vanish. So did the files of at least 10 others, all 2006 college graduates with exemplary records, all from poor families living near this gritty north-central town on the wide banks of the Yellow River.
With the Manila folders went their futures, they say.
read more
WANG JINDONG, a college graduate in China, on the loss of a file containing his grades, evaluations and other personal information.
WUBU, China — For much of his education, Xue Longlong was silently accompanied from grade to grade, school to school, by a sealed Manila envelope stamped top secret. Stuffed inside were grades, test results, evaluations by fellow students and teachers, his Communist Party application and — most important for his job prospects — proof of his 2006 college degree.
Everyone in China who has been to high school has such a file. The files are irreplaceable histories of achievement and failure, the starting point for potential employers, government officials and others judging an individual’s worth. Often keys to the future, they are locked tight in government, school or workplace cabinets to eliminate any chance they might vanish.
But two years ago, Mr. Xue’s file did vanish. So did the files of at least 10 others, all 2006 college graduates with exemplary records, all from poor families living near this gritty north-central town on the wide banks of the Yellow River.
With the Manila folders went their futures, they say.
read more
Sunday, July 26, 2009
States: more often a brake on good government than on bad.
Paul Kelly, Editor-at-large | July 25, 2009
Article from: The Australian
IN an aggressive analysis, Liberal spokesman Tony Abbott reveals how much Kevin Rudd's 2007 public hospital takeover pledge shocked the Howard government and calls on the Liberal Party to abandon a century of history and embrace greater powers for the national government.
Abbott's argument is that John Howard, far from intruding on state powers, should have gone much further. Abbott's central proposition is that "the federation is broken and does need to be fixed". This is his conclusion from his experience as a federal minister and the main idea in his new book, Battlelines, that expounds a modern conservatism for the Liberal Party and seeks a new constitution for Australia.
For Abbott, Liberal Party attitudes on federalism are obsolete, divorced from public opinion and doomed to permanent policy failure. He is convinced that Rudd's new federalism also will fail and urges the Liberal Party to confront the crisis in Australian governance. Abbott argues the Howard government was locked into an unwinnable dilemma. It kept taking "hits for political problems that weren't its fault but which it had no way to fix". The public hospital dilemma, now facing the Rudd government, was the supreme example.
But there were many others. "Tackling the dysfunctional federation turned out to be a lost opportunity for the Howard government," Abbott says, alluding to serious disputes within the former government.
"One of the paradoxes of the 2007 election was the perverse way federal Labor benefited from state Labor's failures.
"When voters complained about poor public hospitals, public schools and public transport, John Howard correctly observed that these were state responsibilities. By contrast, Kevin Rudd capitalised on voters' anger by promising to work with the states to solve the problems that state government ineptitude had largely brought about."
For Abbott, Howard opened the door to the revolution. He says Howard approached gun laws, school curriculum and water policy in terms of "solving problems", rather than as an exercise in federal theory or constitutional niceties. Abbott's contempt for state governments that break deals, bolster trade union powers, run huge bureaucracies and refuse serious reforms is palpable. In Battlelines he wants Howard's philosophy to be taken to its next stage.
Abbott dramatises his argument by seeking a constitutional referendum that enables the national government to pass laws "for the peace, order and good government of the country". This means the national government could propose laws in any area free from the constraints of Section 51 of the Constitution. As Abbott says, his idea "wouldn't abolish the states" but would stop them from "jeopardising policy in areas where the national government was determined to intervene".
The mechanism would be similar to the "disallowance provisions" the commonwealth parliament has in relation to territory laws. Equipped with this power, the commonwealth would be better placed to impose policy directions on the states. Once the power existed, it would need to be used only in rare instances. This is a radical solution unlikely to win internal Liberal Party support or pass at referendum. Abbott says the message from Rudd's problems is obvious: fixing the federation is Australia's "biggest political problem" and will fall to the next Coalition government.
He argues the narrative from the Howard years cannot be avoided; in schools, health, water, mental health and disability services, "the states rarely delivered" despite federal funds. They are resistant to structural reform and neither bribery nor penalties works.
Abbott argues that economic prosperity under Howard only intensified public demands. People locked in traffic jams or waiting with distressed kids for hours in a public hospital just wanted their problems fixed. The pressure inevitably settled on the prime minister because people "expect the commonwealth to 'do something"'. He wants to purge the old-fashioned Liberal Party fixation with state rights and have a debate based on the experiences of the Howard era.
He says the people want "national leadership", not "constitutional purity".
Much of the present federalism debate is futile, Abbott asserts. Proposals usually mean giving the states more revenue powers or fewer spending responsibilities. He says: "The difficulty is that people are reluctant to give the states any more powers than they currently have and the states won't surrender anything without a trade-off. The only way to sort out responsibilities in areas where the two levels of government are both involved is to put one level of government in overall charge."
This would not be needed if competent state governments such as those of Nick Greiner or Jeff Kennett still existed. But those days are gone. The truth, Abbott says, is that the states are the 2nd XI of Australian politics and they "are much more often a brake on good government than on bad".
Abbott reveals that after Rudd's 2007 pledge to take over the public hospital system if improvements were not delivered, there was a Howard-Abbott-Peter Costello meeting in Howard's Sydney office to try to devise a response. Various alternatives were canvassed including "the 'mega' option of a full commonwealth government takeover".
Abbott says "in the end no decision was taken because there was no course of action which all three of us could agree".
"The truth was that the Howard government had become a prisoner of its record as all long-lived governments eventually do," he writes. "An immediate commonwealth (public hospital) takeover might have looked like responding to the other side. As well, it would have provoked the Liberal Party's 'anti-centralism' brigade, even though it was the states that had run hospitals from head office through giant unwieldy bureaucracies. At that stage anything dramatic would have been cast as an admission of public failure."
Compared with Rudd's bold headlines about a possible commonwealth takeover, the Howard government's takeover of a single hospital, the Mersey Hospital near Devonport, with the creation of a local board to run it, seemed a "second order change". Abbott wanted a radical assertion of commonwealth powers but never got it. The irony is that the Rudd government now seems unlikely to honour the expectations it created on public hospitals.
Aware of the criticism he will provoke, Abbott lays down two markers.
First, more commonwealth policy clout means less government bureaucracy, more privatisation and service delivery through private entities. Second, it means smaller government overall.
"There are very few problems in contemporary Australia that a dysfunctional federation doesn't make worse," Abbott says. "The state governments have a legal responsibility for issues which only the national government has the political authority and financial muscle to resolve. At present, the only effective way to improve public hospitals, for instance, or to allocate Murray-Darling water better or to establish a national school curriculum is for the commonwealth to bribe the states. All to often the states take the money but fail to deliver the outcomes.
"In large areas of our national life, no one is really in charge because the commonwealth funds the service but the state delivers it. Hence, in these areas, the state governments tend to wield power without responsibility while the commonwealth suffers responsibility without power."
Article from: The Australian
IN an aggressive analysis, Liberal spokesman Tony Abbott reveals how much Kevin Rudd's 2007 public hospital takeover pledge shocked the Howard government and calls on the Liberal Party to abandon a century of history and embrace greater powers for the national government.
Abbott's argument is that John Howard, far from intruding on state powers, should have gone much further. Abbott's central proposition is that "the federation is broken and does need to be fixed". This is his conclusion from his experience as a federal minister and the main idea in his new book, Battlelines, that expounds a modern conservatism for the Liberal Party and seeks a new constitution for Australia.
For Abbott, Liberal Party attitudes on federalism are obsolete, divorced from public opinion and doomed to permanent policy failure. He is convinced that Rudd's new federalism also will fail and urges the Liberal Party to confront the crisis in Australian governance. Abbott argues the Howard government was locked into an unwinnable dilemma. It kept taking "hits for political problems that weren't its fault but which it had no way to fix". The public hospital dilemma, now facing the Rudd government, was the supreme example.
But there were many others. "Tackling the dysfunctional federation turned out to be a lost opportunity for the Howard government," Abbott says, alluding to serious disputes within the former government.
"One of the paradoxes of the 2007 election was the perverse way federal Labor benefited from state Labor's failures.
"When voters complained about poor public hospitals, public schools and public transport, John Howard correctly observed that these were state responsibilities. By contrast, Kevin Rudd capitalised on voters' anger by promising to work with the states to solve the problems that state government ineptitude had largely brought about."
For Abbott, Howard opened the door to the revolution. He says Howard approached gun laws, school curriculum and water policy in terms of "solving problems", rather than as an exercise in federal theory or constitutional niceties. Abbott's contempt for state governments that break deals, bolster trade union powers, run huge bureaucracies and refuse serious reforms is palpable. In Battlelines he wants Howard's philosophy to be taken to its next stage.
Abbott dramatises his argument by seeking a constitutional referendum that enables the national government to pass laws "for the peace, order and good government of the country". This means the national government could propose laws in any area free from the constraints of Section 51 of the Constitution. As Abbott says, his idea "wouldn't abolish the states" but would stop them from "jeopardising policy in areas where the national government was determined to intervene".
The mechanism would be similar to the "disallowance provisions" the commonwealth parliament has in relation to territory laws. Equipped with this power, the commonwealth would be better placed to impose policy directions on the states. Once the power existed, it would need to be used only in rare instances. This is a radical solution unlikely to win internal Liberal Party support or pass at referendum. Abbott says the message from Rudd's problems is obvious: fixing the federation is Australia's "biggest political problem" and will fall to the next Coalition government.
He argues the narrative from the Howard years cannot be avoided; in schools, health, water, mental health and disability services, "the states rarely delivered" despite federal funds. They are resistant to structural reform and neither bribery nor penalties works.
Abbott argues that economic prosperity under Howard only intensified public demands. People locked in traffic jams or waiting with distressed kids for hours in a public hospital just wanted their problems fixed. The pressure inevitably settled on the prime minister because people "expect the commonwealth to 'do something"'. He wants to purge the old-fashioned Liberal Party fixation with state rights and have a debate based on the experiences of the Howard era.
He says the people want "national leadership", not "constitutional purity".
Much of the present federalism debate is futile, Abbott asserts. Proposals usually mean giving the states more revenue powers or fewer spending responsibilities. He says: "The difficulty is that people are reluctant to give the states any more powers than they currently have and the states won't surrender anything without a trade-off. The only way to sort out responsibilities in areas where the two levels of government are both involved is to put one level of government in overall charge."
This would not be needed if competent state governments such as those of Nick Greiner or Jeff Kennett still existed. But those days are gone. The truth, Abbott says, is that the states are the 2nd XI of Australian politics and they "are much more often a brake on good government than on bad".
Abbott reveals that after Rudd's 2007 pledge to take over the public hospital system if improvements were not delivered, there was a Howard-Abbott-Peter Costello meeting in Howard's Sydney office to try to devise a response. Various alternatives were canvassed including "the 'mega' option of a full commonwealth government takeover".
Abbott says "in the end no decision was taken because there was no course of action which all three of us could agree".
"The truth was that the Howard government had become a prisoner of its record as all long-lived governments eventually do," he writes. "An immediate commonwealth (public hospital) takeover might have looked like responding to the other side. As well, it would have provoked the Liberal Party's 'anti-centralism' brigade, even though it was the states that had run hospitals from head office through giant unwieldy bureaucracies. At that stage anything dramatic would have been cast as an admission of public failure."
Compared with Rudd's bold headlines about a possible commonwealth takeover, the Howard government's takeover of a single hospital, the Mersey Hospital near Devonport, with the creation of a local board to run it, seemed a "second order change". Abbott wanted a radical assertion of commonwealth powers but never got it. The irony is that the Rudd government now seems unlikely to honour the expectations it created on public hospitals.
Aware of the criticism he will provoke, Abbott lays down two markers.
First, more commonwealth policy clout means less government bureaucracy, more privatisation and service delivery through private entities. Second, it means smaller government overall.
"There are very few problems in contemporary Australia that a dysfunctional federation doesn't make worse," Abbott says. "The state governments have a legal responsibility for issues which only the national government has the political authority and financial muscle to resolve. At present, the only effective way to improve public hospitals, for instance, or to allocate Murray-Darling water better or to establish a national school curriculum is for the commonwealth to bribe the states. All to often the states take the money but fail to deliver the outcomes.
"In large areas of our national life, no one is really in charge because the commonwealth funds the service but the state delivers it. Hence, in these areas, the state governments tend to wield power without responsibility while the commonwealth suffers responsibility without power."
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Gates Faults U.S. on Data Privacy and Immigration
By HEATHER TIMMONS - NYT - 25 July 09
NEW DELHI, India — In a far-ranging speech on Friday, Bill Gates criticized the American government’s policy on immigration and data privacy, predicted giant leaps in technology in the near future and explained why he had to shut down his Facebook page.
“Over the next decade, the entire way we interact” with computers will change, Mr. Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, told hundreds of government officials and information technology executives in New Delhi. Mr. Gates spoke of cellphones that would recognize people around them or be used to test for diseases, computers equipped with voice recognition and an Internet that was used for much more than Web pages.
While the recession has been a “big deal,” it has not slowed innovation, he said, in part because countries like India and companies like Microsoft are investing in education and research for a new generation of computer scientists.
Microsoft is angling to work on India’s national identity card project, Mr. Gates said, and he will be meeting with Nandan Nilekani, the minister in charge. Like Mr. Gates, Mr. Nilekani stopped running the technology company he helped to start, Infosys, after expanding it into one of the biggest players in the business. He is now tasked with providing identity cards for India’s 1.2 billion citizens starting in 2011. Right now in India, many records like births, deaths, immunizations and driving violations are kept on paper in local offices.
Mr. Gates was also critical of the United States government’s unwillingness to adopt a national identity card, or allow some businesses, like health care, to centralize data-keeping on individuals.
“It has always come back to the idea that ‘The computer knows too much about you,’ ” he said.
The United States “got off to a bad start” when it comes to using computers to keep data about its citizens, he said. Doctors are not allowed to share records about an individual patient, and virtual doctor visits are banned, he said, which “wastes a lot of money.” The United States “had better come up with a better model” for health care, he said.
He was also critical of Congress’s stance on immigration, and said he would like to see immigration exceptions for “smart people.” Canadian laws are more favorable, he said, because they allow immigrants to work if they are offered a high-paying job. Microsoft has created “a lot of jobs in Canada for that reason,” he said.
Asked whether he ever “unplugs,” abandoning e-mail messages, computers and his cellphone entirely, Mr. Gates laughed and said “I’m not a 24-hour technology person.” He said he read a lot “and sometimes not on a screen.” He added that he was not big on text messaging. “All these tools of technology let us waste our time if we’re not careful,” he said.
Mr. Gates said the buzzwords “social networking” applied to something that had been around for a long time — a way to communicate with numerous people at the same time.
He acknowledged that he once had a Facebook page, but every day “ten thousand people tried to be my friend.” He said he spent too much time trying to decide “Do I know them? Don’t I know them?” Ultimately, he said, “I had to give it up.”
NEW DELHI, India — In a far-ranging speech on Friday, Bill Gates criticized the American government’s policy on immigration and data privacy, predicted giant leaps in technology in the near future and explained why he had to shut down his Facebook page.
“Over the next decade, the entire way we interact” with computers will change, Mr. Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, told hundreds of government officials and information technology executives in New Delhi. Mr. Gates spoke of cellphones that would recognize people around them or be used to test for diseases, computers equipped with voice recognition and an Internet that was used for much more than Web pages.
While the recession has been a “big deal,” it has not slowed innovation, he said, in part because countries like India and companies like Microsoft are investing in education and research for a new generation of computer scientists.
Microsoft is angling to work on India’s national identity card project, Mr. Gates said, and he will be meeting with Nandan Nilekani, the minister in charge. Like Mr. Gates, Mr. Nilekani stopped running the technology company he helped to start, Infosys, after expanding it into one of the biggest players in the business. He is now tasked with providing identity cards for India’s 1.2 billion citizens starting in 2011. Right now in India, many records like births, deaths, immunizations and driving violations are kept on paper in local offices.
Mr. Gates was also critical of the United States government’s unwillingness to adopt a national identity card, or allow some businesses, like health care, to centralize data-keeping on individuals.
“It has always come back to the idea that ‘The computer knows too much about you,’ ” he said.
The United States “got off to a bad start” when it comes to using computers to keep data about its citizens, he said. Doctors are not allowed to share records about an individual patient, and virtual doctor visits are banned, he said, which “wastes a lot of money.” The United States “had better come up with a better model” for health care, he said.
He was also critical of Congress’s stance on immigration, and said he would like to see immigration exceptions for “smart people.” Canadian laws are more favorable, he said, because they allow immigrants to work if they are offered a high-paying job. Microsoft has created “a lot of jobs in Canada for that reason,” he said.
Asked whether he ever “unplugs,” abandoning e-mail messages, computers and his cellphone entirely, Mr. Gates laughed and said “I’m not a 24-hour technology person.” He said he read a lot “and sometimes not on a screen.” He added that he was not big on text messaging. “All these tools of technology let us waste our time if we’re not careful,” he said.
Mr. Gates said the buzzwords “social networking” applied to something that had been around for a long time — a way to communicate with numerous people at the same time.
He acknowledged that he once had a Facebook page, but every day “ten thousand people tried to be my friend.” He said he spent too much time trying to decide “Do I know them? Don’t I know them?” Ultimately, he said, “I had to give it up.”
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Conservative lawyers struggle with Web 2.0
Source: The New Lawyer | 23 July 09
As law firms strive to get closer to clients and better position themselves to bid for work in the global economic crisis, social networking has become the tool de rigeur.
Law firms and their professional service counterparts are increasingly focusing on networking and collective intelligence technologies as a way to maintain market position, a new report into how social networking is used in law firms reveals.
Firms are using "Web 2.0 to communicate with customers and business partners, as well as to encourage collaboration in the firm and help manage knowledge internally," the report, Social Networking for the Legal Profession, written by Penny Edwards and Lee Bryant from Headshift, states.
Lawyers are particularly well suited to social networking, the report suggests. It has "always been an important feature of the way they do business, and there are many characteristics of lawerly behaviour that map very closely to the features of online social networking".
The Headshift report suggests however that lawyers, "traditionally conservative" adopters of technology, have not had the time to consider the implications of these social and technological developments. Some dismiss them as "passing fads" and consider them "unlikely to have any material impact on the legal world".
The popularity of sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube just add to lawyers' perception that social networking is just for the online, out-of-work and younger generation of lawyers.
The development of legal content and expertise as a social endeavour, the relationship-based business development, on top of the nature of a "strong guild-like legal community", each enhance this compatibility, it states.
Technological advances and continued evolution is offering increased opportunities for re-engineering business, the 181 page report states. "New social technologies offer possibilities for radical change in the way things are done."
In August 2008, CCH surveyed 229 professionals from the legal and professional service professions to gauge the effects of Web 2.0 usage on the way professionals access, absorb and disseminate information.
The survey found that 31.4 per cent of respondents use social network sits for frequent personal use, while 42.4 per cent thought a social online community concept in a specific professional context would be valuable.
The CCH survey found that 20.1 per cent of the legal sector respondents use social networking sites for professional use frequently. Wikis are even more popular within the legal sector, frequently used for professional purposes by 33.3 per cent of respondents. Blogs, however, remain the most popular, being used professionally by 35.2 per cent of people.
As law firms strive to get closer to clients and better position themselves to bid for work in the global economic crisis, social networking has become the tool de rigeur. Law firms and their professional service counterparts are increasingly focusing on networking and collective intelligence technologies as a way to maintain market position, a new report into how social networking is used in law firms reveals.
Firms are using "Web 2.0 to communicate with customers and business partners, as well as to encourage collaboration in the firm and help manage knowledge internally," the report, Social Networking for the Legal Profession, written by Penny Edwards and Lee Bryant from Headshift, states.
Lawyers are particularly well suited to social networking, the report suggests. It has "always been an important feature of the way they do business, and there are many characteristics of lawerly behaviour that map very closely to the features of online social networking".
The Headshift report suggests however that lawyers, "traditionally conservative" adopters of technology, have not had the time to consider the implications of these social and technological developments. Some dismiss them as "passing fads" and consider them "unlikely to have any material impact on the legal world".
The popularity of sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube just add to lawyers' perception that social networking is just for the online, out-of-work and younger generation of lawyers.
The development of legal content and expertise as a social endeavour, the relationship-based business development, on top of the nature of a "strong guild-like legal community", each enhance this compatibility, it states.
Technological advances and continued evolution is offering increased opportunities for re-engineering business, the 181 page report states. "New social technologies offer possibilities for radical change in the way things are done."
In August 2008, CCH surveyed 229 professionals from the legal and professional service professions to gauge the effects of Web 2.0 usage on the way professionals access, absorb and disseminate information.
The survey found that 31.4 per cent of respondents use social network sits for frequent personal use, while 42.4 per cent thought a social online community concept in a specific professional context would be valuable.
The CCH survey found that 20.1 per cent of the legal sector respondents use social networking sites for professional use frequently. Wikis are even more popular within the legal sector, frequently used for professional purposes by 33.3 per cent of respondents. Blogs, however, remain the most popular, being used professionally by 35.2 per cent of people.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
The favourite tricks of real estate agents
Marika Dobbin | The Age
July 15, 2009
Stuart Washington's recent blog about the dirty little secrets of financial planners got such a big response we thought we'd give it another crack, but this time looking at another group of suits in posh cars - real estate agents. Most real estate agents are decent folk. But there are grubby ones too, those who play property like a Monopoly game and love to cheat. Here are some favourite tricks.
Have you been on the receiving end of any tricks of the trade? Have your say.
Dirty little secret #1
There is an old adage among real-estate agents, ''quote 'em low and watch 'em go. Quote 'em high and watch 'em die". The practice of under quoting is widespread and has surged again in recent months. It is when potential buyers are told a price much lower than a property's true market value and the owner's reserve. Unfortunately, under quoting is rife because it works. Every weekend hopeful buyers are lured to an auction thinking they can afford, for example, $850,000-plus for a four bedroom house in Templestowe, Melbourne, only to be broken hearted when sells for $1.51m, as happened at 45 Taparoo Road last month.
Dirty little secret #2
The reverse of under quoting is over quoting, a ploy some agents use to win business. In this case, agents promise a vendor their house will fetch a price well above its market value, whether to convince them to sell or to beat others for the right to sell it. Once the contract is signed, the agent begins to groom the owner to accept a lower price. Adding even more insult to injury is the fact that many times property is actually sold for less than it is worth. This happens when the agent can not be bothered with the hard yakka to get, for example, an extra 5 per cent for their vendor. Such agents have a churn mentality, simply finding a price the owner will accept, selling the house and moving on to the next campaign.
Dirty little secret #3
Vendors can be cheated in another way too. Very naughty agents have been known to withhold good offers made before auction, even those well above the reserve, for several reasons. Sometimes, the offer comes through another agent at the firm and the original agent doesn't want to share commission. So, the bid is never put to the vendor or is put to them but at less than the real offer to be knocked back. Other times the agency wants to promote its brand by pushing ahead with the auction no matter what. It wants the vendor to spend the full amount on advertising because it is a lighthouse to attract other buyers and sellers to the business.
Dirty little secret #4
Now we get to the dummy tricks, used by agents who never outgrew their imaginary friends. Dummy offers are when agents claim to the vendor or buyer they have an offer that is purely fabrication. This tactic is used to make buyers increase their bid in a private sale or expression of interest campaign. It can also be used to groom vendors into accepting a lower price than they want. Remember, the agent wants to sell more than anything, to get their commission. If the agent has promised an unrealistic $1m for a property, a common trick is come back with a fake offer, say $800,000. The vendor will reject it but the process of talking down from their original expectation has started.
Dirty little secret #5
Dummy bidding is another old trick in the magic bag. While in the past it was normal for auctioneers to accept bids cast by street trees and passing pigeons when action was slow, these days it has become more sophisticated. Some very sneaky agents and vendors now enlist friends to cast fake bids that push prices up. Like under quoting, dummy bidding is popular because it works. And, it is almost impossible to prove, making it still very much a part of the real estate landscape.
Now the Top Five is done, but there is one last secret worth mentioning, possibly the worst kept secret of all. The visual trickery used in advertising photos is so endemic consumers are wise to it, in a big way. Lounge rooms are stretched, power lines removed and artificial sunlight beamed in, all thanks to some serious Photoshopping. A relatively new trick is the use of flashy display furniture that is actually made on a smaller scale than real furniture to tizz up an ordinary house and make the room look bigger.
Having revealed all of that, it is easy to see why real-estate agents have a collective reputation only slightly less murky than journalists. For what it is worth, I have dealt with many agents in the course of my duties and found most to be upstanding. Whether you can trust a journalist on that is up to you.
Thanks to buyers advocate David Morrell, from Morrell and Koren for his help with this list.
Marika Dobbin is The Age's Property Editor
July 15, 2009
Stuart Washington's recent blog about the dirty little secrets of financial planners got such a big response we thought we'd give it another crack, but this time looking at another group of suits in posh cars - real estate agents. Most real estate agents are decent folk. But there are grubby ones too, those who play property like a Monopoly game and love to cheat. Here are some favourite tricks.
Have you been on the receiving end of any tricks of the trade? Have your say.
Dirty little secret #1
There is an old adage among real-estate agents, ''quote 'em low and watch 'em go. Quote 'em high and watch 'em die". The practice of under quoting is widespread and has surged again in recent months. It is when potential buyers are told a price much lower than a property's true market value and the owner's reserve. Unfortunately, under quoting is rife because it works. Every weekend hopeful buyers are lured to an auction thinking they can afford, for example, $850,000-plus for a four bedroom house in Templestowe, Melbourne, only to be broken hearted when sells for $1.51m, as happened at 45 Taparoo Road last month.
Dirty little secret #2
The reverse of under quoting is over quoting, a ploy some agents use to win business. In this case, agents promise a vendor their house will fetch a price well above its market value, whether to convince them to sell or to beat others for the right to sell it. Once the contract is signed, the agent begins to groom the owner to accept a lower price. Adding even more insult to injury is the fact that many times property is actually sold for less than it is worth. This happens when the agent can not be bothered with the hard yakka to get, for example, an extra 5 per cent for their vendor. Such agents have a churn mentality, simply finding a price the owner will accept, selling the house and moving on to the next campaign.
Dirty little secret #3
Vendors can be cheated in another way too. Very naughty agents have been known to withhold good offers made before auction, even those well above the reserve, for several reasons. Sometimes, the offer comes through another agent at the firm and the original agent doesn't want to share commission. So, the bid is never put to the vendor or is put to them but at less than the real offer to be knocked back. Other times the agency wants to promote its brand by pushing ahead with the auction no matter what. It wants the vendor to spend the full amount on advertising because it is a lighthouse to attract other buyers and sellers to the business.
Dirty little secret #4
Now we get to the dummy tricks, used by agents who never outgrew their imaginary friends. Dummy offers are when agents claim to the vendor or buyer they have an offer that is purely fabrication. This tactic is used to make buyers increase their bid in a private sale or expression of interest campaign. It can also be used to groom vendors into accepting a lower price than they want. Remember, the agent wants to sell more than anything, to get their commission. If the agent has promised an unrealistic $1m for a property, a common trick is come back with a fake offer, say $800,000. The vendor will reject it but the process of talking down from their original expectation has started.
Dirty little secret #5
Dummy bidding is another old trick in the magic bag. While in the past it was normal for auctioneers to accept bids cast by street trees and passing pigeons when action was slow, these days it has become more sophisticated. Some very sneaky agents and vendors now enlist friends to cast fake bids that push prices up. Like under quoting, dummy bidding is popular because it works. And, it is almost impossible to prove, making it still very much a part of the real estate landscape.
Now the Top Five is done, but there is one last secret worth mentioning, possibly the worst kept secret of all. The visual trickery used in advertising photos is so endemic consumers are wise to it, in a big way. Lounge rooms are stretched, power lines removed and artificial sunlight beamed in, all thanks to some serious Photoshopping. A relatively new trick is the use of flashy display furniture that is actually made on a smaller scale than real furniture to tizz up an ordinary house and make the room look bigger.
Having revealed all of that, it is easy to see why real-estate agents have a collective reputation only slightly less murky than journalists. For what it is worth, I have dealt with many agents in the course of my duties and found most to be upstanding. Whether you can trust a journalist on that is up to you.
Thanks to buyers advocate David Morrell, from Morrell and Koren for his help with this list.
Marika Dobbin is The Age's Property Editor
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Banks muscle out smaller rivals in loans market
Peter Martin | The Age
July 14, 2009
AUSTRALIA'S banks have gained almost unrivalled dominance over the financial system, accounting for almost $90 of each $100 lent, an all-time high.
The market-share figures for May, covering personal loans, housing loans, commercial loans and lease finance came as Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner gave support to a new inquiry into the financial system.
Addressing international regulators in Sydney, Mr Tanner said the pace of financial innovation had now "outstripped the capacity" of regulators to keep up.
"The world has changed beyond recognition," he told the conference. "Whether we're talking about the United States or Australia, we need a regulatory regime that's appropriate for 2010 and beyond, not one that simply reinvents the past."
Australia's last inquiry into the financial system in 1996-97 took place at a time when competitors to the banks had a large and growing market share.
The May figures show the share of new loans issued by building societies, credit unions, wholesale lenders and finance companies fell to a record low 10.6 per cent, down from 15 per cent a year ago. The banks' share was a record 89.4 per cent, up from 85 per cent.
The banks' share of new mortgages climbed from 90 to 92 per cent and their share of motor vehicle and other lease finance jumped from 35 to 45 per cent.
Former Competition and Consumer Commissioner Stephen King said there was now a real question over the degree to which the Big Four banks "were keeping each other honest and were kept honest by facing competition".
"These figures show the smaller players are becoming less relevant as a constraint on the banks. We have a straight-out competition problem. The last 18 months have reversed a 20-year trend for the banks to face more competition," he said.
Professor King is one of the six public policy economists who last week petitioned Treasurer Wayne Swan, asking for a new inquiry into Australia's financial system.
"The last financial system inquiry was carried out against a background of the banks facing increasing constraints on their behaviour from emerging competitors, and that has turned around," he said.
"What the people who say we don't need an inquiry are ignoring is that the rest of the world is changing. In the UK and other countries the old rule book is being thrown out. We can't act as if we are an island."
On Sunday, Financial Services Minister Chris Bowen opened the door to a new financial system inquiry, saying he "would not rule out" such a review "at the appropriate time".
Mr Swan is believed to be open to the idea of an inquiry after the dust has settled on the financial crisis.
Mr Tanner said Australia's regulators had been vigilant in overseeing Australia's financial sector, but that it was clear that new international rules were needed.
New lending for housing hit a record high in May. The figures showed a sharp jump in borrowing for investment properties, suggesting that more investors were "positively gearing" to take advantage of high rents and low interest rates.
July 14, 2009
AUSTRALIA'S banks have gained almost unrivalled dominance over the financial system, accounting for almost $90 of each $100 lent, an all-time high.
The market-share figures for May, covering personal loans, housing loans, commercial loans and lease finance came as Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner gave support to a new inquiry into the financial system.
Addressing international regulators in Sydney, Mr Tanner said the pace of financial innovation had now "outstripped the capacity" of regulators to keep up.
"The world has changed beyond recognition," he told the conference. "Whether we're talking about the United States or Australia, we need a regulatory regime that's appropriate for 2010 and beyond, not one that simply reinvents the past."
Australia's last inquiry into the financial system in 1996-97 took place at a time when competitors to the banks had a large and growing market share.
The May figures show the share of new loans issued by building societies, credit unions, wholesale lenders and finance companies fell to a record low 10.6 per cent, down from 15 per cent a year ago. The banks' share was a record 89.4 per cent, up from 85 per cent.
The banks' share of new mortgages climbed from 90 to 92 per cent and their share of motor vehicle and other lease finance jumped from 35 to 45 per cent.
Former Competition and Consumer Commissioner Stephen King said there was now a real question over the degree to which the Big Four banks "were keeping each other honest and were kept honest by facing competition".
"These figures show the smaller players are becoming less relevant as a constraint on the banks. We have a straight-out competition problem. The last 18 months have reversed a 20-year trend for the banks to face more competition," he said.
Professor King is one of the six public policy economists who last week petitioned Treasurer Wayne Swan, asking for a new inquiry into Australia's financial system.
"The last financial system inquiry was carried out against a background of the banks facing increasing constraints on their behaviour from emerging competitors, and that has turned around," he said.
"What the people who say we don't need an inquiry are ignoring is that the rest of the world is changing. In the UK and other countries the old rule book is being thrown out. We can't act as if we are an island."
On Sunday, Financial Services Minister Chris Bowen opened the door to a new financial system inquiry, saying he "would not rule out" such a review "at the appropriate time".
Mr Swan is believed to be open to the idea of an inquiry after the dust has settled on the financial crisis.
Mr Tanner said Australia's regulators had been vigilant in overseeing Australia's financial sector, but that it was clear that new international rules were needed.
New lending for housing hit a record high in May. The figures showed a sharp jump in borrowing for investment properties, suggesting that more investors were "positively gearing" to take advantage of high rents and low interest rates.
Monday, July 13, 2009
COAG needs dose of political Viagra
Mike Steketee | July 11, 2009
Article from: The Australian
WOULD you like to earn a lazy $2.4 billion? That's a year. It's Kevin Rudd's latest get-rich-quick scheme. On second thoughts, hold the quick part. And, unfortunately, it would have to be shared with 22 million other Australians. Still, in these straitened times, why look a gift horse in the mouth?
After his latest meeting with premiers and chief ministers last week, the Prime Minister announced another breakthrough in his project to fix the federation. The breakthroughs at the Council of Australian Governments came so thick and fast that this one barely rated a mention in the media. Rudd and Transport Minister Anthony Albanese said the meeting had agreed to "historic" reforms to streamline transport regulations that "have the potential to boost national income by as much as $2.4bn a year". There would be a single national regulator for trucks, covering areas such as inspection standards, safe driving hours, weight limits and registration.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority would become the national regulator of all commercial vessels operating in Australian waters, not just those that travel between states, as now. And there would be a national rail safety system.
What good ideas. Trucks have been travelling interstate for many years but still have to comply with all sorts of different rules when they cross borders. Trains don't stop at state borders either, at least not since the extension of the standard gauge, but nevertheless Australia has seven rail safety regulators and three rail safety investigators. Considering the US, with 50 states, has had one body responsible for rail safety since 1932 and there has been a European rail authority to harmonise the regulations of 23 countries since 2004, such a reform in Australia is, in the words of Rudd and Albanese, long overdue.
The cost of the tonnes of red tape, the duplication and the conflicting rules covering not only transport but scores of other areas add up to multiples of the $2.4bn on offer in transport. Clearing these thickets can provide a significant boost to productivity. According to Business Council of Australia president Greig Gailey, the progress COAG makes over the next 18 months in implementing such long-term reforms will determine Australia's prosperity for the next decade.
But before we get carried away with the euphoria, it pays to apply a reality check. Heads of government like to have so-called announceables following COAG meetings, but experience suggests these announcements should not always be taken at face value. The first niggling doubt emerges with a short sentence at the end of the Rudd-Albanese statement: "It is proposed that all reforms will be fully implemented by 2013." That suggests there are just a few wrinkles to be ironed out. More than a few, as it turns out.
What the COAG meeting actually achieved on rail safety last week was to put the reforms into reverse, with the potential, believe it or not, for Australia to end up with more safety regulators than it has now.
A meeting of commonwealth and state transport ministers in May signed off on a single national rail safety regulator to "provide a one-stop shop for all those operating in and on our rail networks", as the statement issued at the time said. Victoria subsequently had second thoughts when the state's transport bureaucrats raised concerns. Did Victoria really want a national body determining safety issues on Melbourne's trams and trains? What if that resulted in a demand that Victoria spend billions of dollars on its rail systems to comply with national rules?
The advisers were persuasive enough for Premier John Brumby to take the objections first to a meeting with his state and territory counterparts, and then to COAG last week. Instead of telling Brumby where to get off, Rudd meekly went along. As a result - and contrary to the misleading Rudd-Albanese announcement - COAG failed to agree on a single national regulator. In the words of the detail buried deep in the COAG communique, there will be "further consideration of the scope and form of the regulator following receipt of advice at the end of 2009 from the standing committee on transport on specific safety requirements within jurisdictions, especially in relation to urban systems and the interface with interstate and freight operations". You can bet the Victorian bureaucrats had a celebratory cappuccino after that one.
In plain English, what the communique means is that the Victorians want their own regulator for metropolitan rail. The other states may start thinking what's good for Victoria will do them nicely, as well. As Bryan Nye, chief executive of the industry body the Australasian Rail Association, puts it, under the Victorian proposals "we will end up with a bigger mess than we have now". Take a freight train carrying grain from rural Victoria to Geelong. Part of its journey is on the Melbourne metropolitan network, where it could come under the jurisdiction of the metropolitan regulator as well as the national one. "Sheer madness," Nye says.
Still, nothing much surprises Nye and others in the rail industry. Administration of the railways is a metaphor for everything that is wrong with the Australian federation. The reforms on rail safety are as blindingly obvious as a uniform rail gauge, but that doesn't stop them being next to impossible to achieve.
Federal and state governments reached agreement as long ago as 1996 on the need for "a cost-effective, nationally consistent approach to railway safety". In 1999, an independent review commissioned by governments recommended a single national rail safety regulator, a finding since echoed by the Productivity Commission and the National Transport Commission. In 2006, COAG identified as one of six hot spots warranting priority action the harmonisation of rail and road regulation, including safety. All governments are supposed to have passed national rail safety legislation two years ago but most missed the deadline and Tasmania and the Northern Territory have not yet gotten around to introducing their bills. The acts that have passed all include variations from the national model. For example, NSW decided it would require two drivers on interstate freight trains, meaning that an extra driver has to be sent to Victoria or South Australia to get on board before trains cross into NSW. It would be funny if it weren't so serious.
Fixing the federation is one of Rudd's professed priorities and he calls COAG "the workhorse of the nation". There has indeed been progress but it has been more in the process than in terms of achievements. As public servants present and former from Rudd down will tell you, the right structure has to be put in place and it is the result that matters.
But in some areas, such as managing the Murray-Darling Basin, time is running out and the delays are causing real harm. There has been no end to the benchmarks and goals and interim targets for tackling everything from indigenous disadvantage and homelessness to standardising business reporting, but precious little yet in real resources on the ground.
In transport, agreement on a single regulator for trucks is significant, as are new heavy vehicle user charges. But like many other issues, including uniform national occupational health and safety laws for businesses operating across state boundaries, the timetable has slipped. The operation of the new arrangements is often years away and compromises have cast doubt on the eventual result.
What COAG needs is a good dose of political Viagra. If that doesn't work, Rudd should drop the nice guy approach and flex some of the commonwealth's muscle. If Victoria is so keen on fencing off its metropolitan rail system from big bad government in Canberra, then Rudd may like to suggest that it do without the commonwealth funding as well, including the $3.2bn being kicked in for a new express line from Werribee to the city. Then we would quickly find out states' rights, too, have their limits.
Article from: The Australian
WOULD you like to earn a lazy $2.4 billion? That's a year. It's Kevin Rudd's latest get-rich-quick scheme. On second thoughts, hold the quick part. And, unfortunately, it would have to be shared with 22 million other Australians. Still, in these straitened times, why look a gift horse in the mouth?
After his latest meeting with premiers and chief ministers last week, the Prime Minister announced another breakthrough in his project to fix the federation. The breakthroughs at the Council of Australian Governments came so thick and fast that this one barely rated a mention in the media. Rudd and Transport Minister Anthony Albanese said the meeting had agreed to "historic" reforms to streamline transport regulations that "have the potential to boost national income by as much as $2.4bn a year". There would be a single national regulator for trucks, covering areas such as inspection standards, safe driving hours, weight limits and registration.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority would become the national regulator of all commercial vessels operating in Australian waters, not just those that travel between states, as now. And there would be a national rail safety system.
What good ideas. Trucks have been travelling interstate for many years but still have to comply with all sorts of different rules when they cross borders. Trains don't stop at state borders either, at least not since the extension of the standard gauge, but nevertheless Australia has seven rail safety regulators and three rail safety investigators. Considering the US, with 50 states, has had one body responsible for rail safety since 1932 and there has been a European rail authority to harmonise the regulations of 23 countries since 2004, such a reform in Australia is, in the words of Rudd and Albanese, long overdue.
The cost of the tonnes of red tape, the duplication and the conflicting rules covering not only transport but scores of other areas add up to multiples of the $2.4bn on offer in transport. Clearing these thickets can provide a significant boost to productivity. According to Business Council of Australia president Greig Gailey, the progress COAG makes over the next 18 months in implementing such long-term reforms will determine Australia's prosperity for the next decade.
But before we get carried away with the euphoria, it pays to apply a reality check. Heads of government like to have so-called announceables following COAG meetings, but experience suggests these announcements should not always be taken at face value. The first niggling doubt emerges with a short sentence at the end of the Rudd-Albanese statement: "It is proposed that all reforms will be fully implemented by 2013." That suggests there are just a few wrinkles to be ironed out. More than a few, as it turns out.
What the COAG meeting actually achieved on rail safety last week was to put the reforms into reverse, with the potential, believe it or not, for Australia to end up with more safety regulators than it has now.
A meeting of commonwealth and state transport ministers in May signed off on a single national rail safety regulator to "provide a one-stop shop for all those operating in and on our rail networks", as the statement issued at the time said. Victoria subsequently had second thoughts when the state's transport bureaucrats raised concerns. Did Victoria really want a national body determining safety issues on Melbourne's trams and trains? What if that resulted in a demand that Victoria spend billions of dollars on its rail systems to comply with national rules?
The advisers were persuasive enough for Premier John Brumby to take the objections first to a meeting with his state and territory counterparts, and then to COAG last week. Instead of telling Brumby where to get off, Rudd meekly went along. As a result - and contrary to the misleading Rudd-Albanese announcement - COAG failed to agree on a single national regulator. In the words of the detail buried deep in the COAG communique, there will be "further consideration of the scope and form of the regulator following receipt of advice at the end of 2009 from the standing committee on transport on specific safety requirements within jurisdictions, especially in relation to urban systems and the interface with interstate and freight operations". You can bet the Victorian bureaucrats had a celebratory cappuccino after that one.
In plain English, what the communique means is that the Victorians want their own regulator for metropolitan rail. The other states may start thinking what's good for Victoria will do them nicely, as well. As Bryan Nye, chief executive of the industry body the Australasian Rail Association, puts it, under the Victorian proposals "we will end up with a bigger mess than we have now". Take a freight train carrying grain from rural Victoria to Geelong. Part of its journey is on the Melbourne metropolitan network, where it could come under the jurisdiction of the metropolitan regulator as well as the national one. "Sheer madness," Nye says.
Still, nothing much surprises Nye and others in the rail industry. Administration of the railways is a metaphor for everything that is wrong with the Australian federation. The reforms on rail safety are as blindingly obvious as a uniform rail gauge, but that doesn't stop them being next to impossible to achieve.
Federal and state governments reached agreement as long ago as 1996 on the need for "a cost-effective, nationally consistent approach to railway safety". In 1999, an independent review commissioned by governments recommended a single national rail safety regulator, a finding since echoed by the Productivity Commission and the National Transport Commission. In 2006, COAG identified as one of six hot spots warranting priority action the harmonisation of rail and road regulation, including safety. All governments are supposed to have passed national rail safety legislation two years ago but most missed the deadline and Tasmania and the Northern Territory have not yet gotten around to introducing their bills. The acts that have passed all include variations from the national model. For example, NSW decided it would require two drivers on interstate freight trains, meaning that an extra driver has to be sent to Victoria or South Australia to get on board before trains cross into NSW. It would be funny if it weren't so serious.
Fixing the federation is one of Rudd's professed priorities and he calls COAG "the workhorse of the nation". There has indeed been progress but it has been more in the process than in terms of achievements. As public servants present and former from Rudd down will tell you, the right structure has to be put in place and it is the result that matters.
But in some areas, such as managing the Murray-Darling Basin, time is running out and the delays are causing real harm. There has been no end to the benchmarks and goals and interim targets for tackling everything from indigenous disadvantage and homelessness to standardising business reporting, but precious little yet in real resources on the ground.
In transport, agreement on a single regulator for trucks is significant, as are new heavy vehicle user charges. But like many other issues, including uniform national occupational health and safety laws for businesses operating across state boundaries, the timetable has slipped. The operation of the new arrangements is often years away and compromises have cast doubt on the eventual result.
What COAG needs is a good dose of political Viagra. If that doesn't work, Rudd should drop the nice guy approach and flex some of the commonwealth's muscle. If Victoria is so keen on fencing off its metropolitan rail system from big bad government in Canberra, then Rudd may like to suggest that it do without the commonwealth funding as well, including the $3.2bn being kicked in for a new express line from Werribee to the city. Then we would quickly find out states' rights, too, have their limits.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Online real estate market poised for battle as Google moves in
July 10, 2009 - 5:01PM The Age
It's shaping up as a battle of the online giants.
In one corner are the current champions of Australia's online real estate classifieds, realestate.com.au and Domain, and in the other corner is the challenger Google.
And there's no need for introductions.
While more than 90 per cent of Australians online use Google, the popular search engine is now looking to enter the property search market.
In Australia, that market is dominated by realestate.com.au and Domain. (Domain is owned by Fairfax Media, also the owner of My Small Business.)
Those sites received visits from 22 per cent and 14 per cent respectively of online Australians between March and May, according to Nielsen Online.
So far, realestate.com.au - part of REA Group Ltd and majority owned by News Limited - has only really had to worry about Fairfax's Domain nipping at its heels.
REA chief executive Greg Ellis, who is in his first year at the helm after former CEO Simon Baker's abrupt departure last year, has played down the threat to the realestate.com.au business and told AAP he welcomed the competition.
"It's a fairly rudimentary service," Mr Ellis said of the Google initiative.
"Google's a very good company, it is competition, but we welcome competition because it makes us stay focused for our customers and consumers.
"Our position in the marketplace is very strong - we are the market leader in online real estate."
Both Domain and realestate.com.au also rely to varying degrees on their links ranking well on Google's search results page to attract users to click through to their sites.
Ranking on page one is a virtual goldmine of "clicks".
Google keeps its magic formula to achieve those rankings - or what those in the business call search engine optimisation (SEO) - a closely guarded secret.
Now, with Google's entry into the online property classifieds game, Fairfax general manager of classifieds John Brand said it was like putting "Dracula in charge of the blood bank".
Mr Brand said they too welcomed the competition, but described Google as a search engine and not a property portal like Domain and realestate.com.au.
Domain also has both a print and online classified offering, which neither Google nor REA have, he said.
"At this particular point in time we'll watch very closely - time will tell - but from the agents' point of view we are a one-stop-shop that Google can never compete with," Mr Brand said.
Former REA boss Mr Baker said Google posed no real threat because its free listings would open the door to spam and fake listings.
"Just because it's Google doesn't mean it's going to win," Mr Baker said.
"The realestate.com.aus and Domains of the world, because they (real estate agents) pay to advertise, will have higher quality listings.
"Google will be able to drive traffic there, but they will drive traffic through to a combination of real listings and a combination of old listings, and a combination of some not real listings (spam and fake listings)."
Director of analytics at Nielsen Online, Mark Higginson, said the success of Google will depend upon the site's usability and its relationship with real estate agents, which is where realestate.com.au and Domain are clear leaders.
"Consumers initially only need to be able to decide between properties based on certain criteria, where it is, what does it look like, they're not going to buy a property based on pictures on a website," Mr Higginson said.
"So that's where realestate(.com.au) and Domain have that current advantage, by having the relationships with the real estate agents.
"And it's the real estate agents that sell properties - not the website."
Google now enables property searches through its Google Maps platform.
"We think people will really start to look at these listings a lot online within Google Maps and then click through to individual agency websites when they've found a property they're after," product manager Andrew Foster said.
Google has come into the market while it is in a downturn.
The realestate.com.au boss, Mr Ellis, said the downturn had driven real estate agents online to save money.
Mr Ellis describes the shift from print to online as a "seachange" that would normally have taken years to achieve.
So, is now a good time to buy into the property market?
The downturn in the economy has made housing more affordable, but Mr Ellis said the price of the property is not the issue, it's whether the buyer can afford it.
"But with inflation being relatively low and interest rates low, that would suggest it's a good time to buy," he said.
The federal government's stimulus package had also helped the under-$500,000 market with the extension of the first home buyer grant, he said, while the general economic stimulus has also allowed more money to go into the economy, which has offset the drop in consumer confidence.
"From an overall perspective, the evidence to date would suggest the stimulus has done a good job in weathering the economic storm," Mr Ellis said.
If consumer confidence and retail figures dropped, there may be an argument for another stimulus, he said.
The company has clawed back its international operations in Britain and New Zealand to focus on its Australian business and is planning to release a number of new products to the market.
Mr Ellis said the group had cut back its international operations but this had nothing to do with the global economic downturn.
"Our decision to focus on Australia was nothing to do with the global financial crisis ... (but) that there is a lot more profitable growth to happen in Australia," he said.
"We were spending too much time in the overseas businesses and not enough time in Australia.
"We've accepted now that we are not an international company - we're an Australian company with overseas operations."
Mr Ellis declined to comment on whether REA would withdraw from the United Arab Emirates but said the company remained committed to the businesses in Italy, Luxembourg and Hong Kong.
So, while REA refocuses on its Australian operations, Google's focus is clearly on moving into realestate.com.au's domain.
AAP
It's shaping up as a battle of the online giants.
In one corner are the current champions of Australia's online real estate classifieds, realestate.com.au and Domain, and in the other corner is the challenger Google.
And there's no need for introductions.
While more than 90 per cent of Australians online use Google, the popular search engine is now looking to enter the property search market.
In Australia, that market is dominated by realestate.com.au and Domain. (Domain is owned by Fairfax Media, also the owner of My Small Business.)
Those sites received visits from 22 per cent and 14 per cent respectively of online Australians between March and May, according to Nielsen Online.
So far, realestate.com.au - part of REA Group Ltd and majority owned by News Limited - has only really had to worry about Fairfax's Domain nipping at its heels.
REA chief executive Greg Ellis, who is in his first year at the helm after former CEO Simon Baker's abrupt departure last year, has played down the threat to the realestate.com.au business and told AAP he welcomed the competition.
"It's a fairly rudimentary service," Mr Ellis said of the Google initiative.
"Google's a very good company, it is competition, but we welcome competition because it makes us stay focused for our customers and consumers.
"Our position in the marketplace is very strong - we are the market leader in online real estate."
Both Domain and realestate.com.au also rely to varying degrees on their links ranking well on Google's search results page to attract users to click through to their sites.
Ranking on page one is a virtual goldmine of "clicks".
Google keeps its magic formula to achieve those rankings - or what those in the business call search engine optimisation (SEO) - a closely guarded secret.
Now, with Google's entry into the online property classifieds game, Fairfax general manager of classifieds John Brand said it was like putting "Dracula in charge of the blood bank".
Mr Brand said they too welcomed the competition, but described Google as a search engine and not a property portal like Domain and realestate.com.au.
Domain also has both a print and online classified offering, which neither Google nor REA have, he said.
"At this particular point in time we'll watch very closely - time will tell - but from the agents' point of view we are a one-stop-shop that Google can never compete with," Mr Brand said.
Former REA boss Mr Baker said Google posed no real threat because its free listings would open the door to spam and fake listings.
"Just because it's Google doesn't mean it's going to win," Mr Baker said.
"The realestate.com.aus and Domains of the world, because they (real estate agents) pay to advertise, will have higher quality listings.
"Google will be able to drive traffic there, but they will drive traffic through to a combination of real listings and a combination of old listings, and a combination of some not real listings (spam and fake listings)."
Director of analytics at Nielsen Online, Mark Higginson, said the success of Google will depend upon the site's usability and its relationship with real estate agents, which is where realestate.com.au and Domain are clear leaders.
"Consumers initially only need to be able to decide between properties based on certain criteria, where it is, what does it look like, they're not going to buy a property based on pictures on a website," Mr Higginson said.
"So that's where realestate(.com.au) and Domain have that current advantage, by having the relationships with the real estate agents.
"And it's the real estate agents that sell properties - not the website."
Google now enables property searches through its Google Maps platform.
"We think people will really start to look at these listings a lot online within Google Maps and then click through to individual agency websites when they've found a property they're after," product manager Andrew Foster said.
Google has come into the market while it is in a downturn.
The realestate.com.au boss, Mr Ellis, said the downturn had driven real estate agents online to save money.
Mr Ellis describes the shift from print to online as a "seachange" that would normally have taken years to achieve.
So, is now a good time to buy into the property market?
The downturn in the economy has made housing more affordable, but Mr Ellis said the price of the property is not the issue, it's whether the buyer can afford it.
"But with inflation being relatively low and interest rates low, that would suggest it's a good time to buy," he said.
The federal government's stimulus package had also helped the under-$500,000 market with the extension of the first home buyer grant, he said, while the general economic stimulus has also allowed more money to go into the economy, which has offset the drop in consumer confidence.
"From an overall perspective, the evidence to date would suggest the stimulus has done a good job in weathering the economic storm," Mr Ellis said.
If consumer confidence and retail figures dropped, there may be an argument for another stimulus, he said.
The company has clawed back its international operations in Britain and New Zealand to focus on its Australian business and is planning to release a number of new products to the market.
Mr Ellis said the group had cut back its international operations but this had nothing to do with the global economic downturn.
"Our decision to focus on Australia was nothing to do with the global financial crisis ... (but) that there is a lot more profitable growth to happen in Australia," he said.
"We were spending too much time in the overseas businesses and not enough time in Australia.
"We've accepted now that we are not an international company - we're an Australian company with overseas operations."
Mr Ellis declined to comment on whether REA would withdraw from the United Arab Emirates but said the company remained committed to the businesses in Italy, Luxembourg and Hong Kong.
So, while REA refocuses on its Australian operations, Google's focus is clearly on moving into realestate.com.au's domain.
AAP
Thursday, July 09, 2009
ANZ whispers: 'jobs gone'
ANOTHER day, another round of job cuts at ANZ, where boss Mike Smith seems hell-bent on ensuring the bank's name stands for "Asia and New Zealand Banking Group".
Yesterday 248 staff were given marching orders in nearly every major city, bar Melbourne, as the bank consolidated its "mortgage fulfilment centres".
These staff do the work whenever someone is approved for a mortgage with ANZ. They collect documents, process deeds and ensure settlement occurs on the due date for what is usually the biggest and most emotional purchase a bank customer will make.
For the growing chorus of disgruntled executives at ANZ — the people who blew the lid on the latest cuts and forced the bank into an early media announcement — this decision is symptomatic of the culture that arrived with Smith. It's a culture, they say, that puts the core Australian business and customers in the back seat.
ANZ's chief media flack, Paul Edwards, was on leave for the announcement, which the bank didn't expect to leak to the media. Given the size of previous cuts — 800 middle-management jobs in December, and confirmation in March that 500 jobs had been outsourced to India — the latest figure of 248 staff gone was also deemed to be small.
ANZ staff tell Full Disclosure they have been instructed not to talk to the media, but the latest cuts have loosened some lips. "They keep telling us that no customer-facing jobs will go, that the majority of job losses will be backroom staff," said one. "I can understand moving jobs to Bangalore if there is a better outcome for customers, or at least no effect on the outcome, but how can processing a mortgage overseas, in a different time zone, be a better outcome?
"Different states have different laws. A mortgage is the most emotional purchase our customers ever make. Now, if there is a query from a person in Sydney, they will see their bank manager, who will talk to someone in Melbourne, who will deal with someone in Bangalore. Second, third, even fourth parties will be involved in the process."
The decision to centralise mortgage services was taken after an internal review. A high-level source at the bank said the review decided to outsource much of the work to Bangalore and specialists such as Iron Mountain purely on the basis of cost, not customer service.
There's no doubt the cuts have been deep at ANZ. Last month the bank announced a $10 million package negotiated with the Financial Services Union to retrain staff affected by job cuts, called the New Career Training Fund.
The media release issued by Edwards for that included a "note for editors" stating that "since 2003, employment at ANZ in Australia has risen by over 3500 full-time roles from 16,400 to 19,922 full-time staff as at the end of March 2009".
It was clever spin, befitting Yes Minister or The Hollowmen. Another way of putting it is, since September last year, the number of full-time jobs at ANZ has been cut from 20,364 to fewer than 19,700 and is the lowest level since 2003, with more cuts to come.
Since 2003, the number of people employed in Bangalore has risen from fewer than 500 to more than 3500.
Even at head office, institutional bankers complain about the cutbacks.
"An assistant manager leaves, a graduate steps in, and the position is filled," Full Disclosure was told. "It happens all over the bank and, while some of the kids might be good, they are just not ready for the responsibilities they are being given."
Rod Masson, director of policy for the FSU, says the workload given to inexperienced employees is major complaint from ANZ staff. "It's called 'survivor syndrome'," Masson says. "It's not just people complaining about doing more work. There's just as much concern about the impact job cuts have had on customers."
Next on the list for outsourcing, according to sources at ANZ, is the Private Bank, located in the famous old neo-gothic building on the corner of Collins and Queen streets. It services the bank's cherished high-net-worth customers. Again, no "customer-facing roles", as the bank likes to put it, will be cut.
"It's behind-the-scenes roles that will be sent to India," Full Disclosure was told — by the same sources that informed us of the latest job cuts. "Management is desperate for customers not to know, to be under the impression that nothing has changed, but it's all changing."
Even some of ANZ's more charitable programs are facing cuts. Its Given the Chance program was a partnership with the Brotherhood of St Laurence to give refugees a chance to launch a career. Last year four were given jobs — all with the mortgage services business that has now been axed.
"It's more than symbolic," said one senior banker. "If they want a career with ANZ, they're in the wrong country."
FULL DISCLOSURE / MARK HAWTHORNE | The Age
July 9, 2009
Yesterday 248 staff were given marching orders in nearly every major city, bar Melbourne, as the bank consolidated its "mortgage fulfilment centres".
These staff do the work whenever someone is approved for a mortgage with ANZ. They collect documents, process deeds and ensure settlement occurs on the due date for what is usually the biggest and most emotional purchase a bank customer will make.
For the growing chorus of disgruntled executives at ANZ — the people who blew the lid on the latest cuts and forced the bank into an early media announcement — this decision is symptomatic of the culture that arrived with Smith. It's a culture, they say, that puts the core Australian business and customers in the back seat.
ANZ's chief media flack, Paul Edwards, was on leave for the announcement, which the bank didn't expect to leak to the media. Given the size of previous cuts — 800 middle-management jobs in December, and confirmation in March that 500 jobs had been outsourced to India — the latest figure of 248 staff gone was also deemed to be small.
ANZ staff tell Full Disclosure they have been instructed not to talk to the media, but the latest cuts have loosened some lips. "They keep telling us that no customer-facing jobs will go, that the majority of job losses will be backroom staff," said one. "I can understand moving jobs to Bangalore if there is a better outcome for customers, or at least no effect on the outcome, but how can processing a mortgage overseas, in a different time zone, be a better outcome?
"Different states have different laws. A mortgage is the most emotional purchase our customers ever make. Now, if there is a query from a person in Sydney, they will see their bank manager, who will talk to someone in Melbourne, who will deal with someone in Bangalore. Second, third, even fourth parties will be involved in the process."
The decision to centralise mortgage services was taken after an internal review. A high-level source at the bank said the review decided to outsource much of the work to Bangalore and specialists such as Iron Mountain purely on the basis of cost, not customer service.
There's no doubt the cuts have been deep at ANZ. Last month the bank announced a $10 million package negotiated with the Financial Services Union to retrain staff affected by job cuts, called the New Career Training Fund.
The media release issued by Edwards for that included a "note for editors" stating that "since 2003, employment at ANZ in Australia has risen by over 3500 full-time roles from 16,400 to 19,922 full-time staff as at the end of March 2009".
It was clever spin, befitting Yes Minister or The Hollowmen. Another way of putting it is, since September last year, the number of full-time jobs at ANZ has been cut from 20,364 to fewer than 19,700 and is the lowest level since 2003, with more cuts to come.
Since 2003, the number of people employed in Bangalore has risen from fewer than 500 to more than 3500.
Even at head office, institutional bankers complain about the cutbacks.
"An assistant manager leaves, a graduate steps in, and the position is filled," Full Disclosure was told. "It happens all over the bank and, while some of the kids might be good, they are just not ready for the responsibilities they are being given."
Rod Masson, director of policy for the FSU, says the workload given to inexperienced employees is major complaint from ANZ staff. "It's called 'survivor syndrome'," Masson says. "It's not just people complaining about doing more work. There's just as much concern about the impact job cuts have had on customers."
Next on the list for outsourcing, according to sources at ANZ, is the Private Bank, located in the famous old neo-gothic building on the corner of Collins and Queen streets. It services the bank's cherished high-net-worth customers. Again, no "customer-facing roles", as the bank likes to put it, will be cut.
"It's behind-the-scenes roles that will be sent to India," Full Disclosure was told — by the same sources that informed us of the latest job cuts. "Management is desperate for customers not to know, to be under the impression that nothing has changed, but it's all changing."
Even some of ANZ's more charitable programs are facing cuts. Its Given the Chance program was a partnership with the Brotherhood of St Laurence to give refugees a chance to launch a career. Last year four were given jobs — all with the mortgage services business that has now been axed.
"It's more than symbolic," said one senior banker. "If they want a career with ANZ, they're in the wrong country."
FULL DISCLOSURE / MARK HAWTHORNE | The Age
July 9, 2009
ANZ slashes another 248 jobs
ANZ Bank has axed a further 248 jobs across the country as part of its strategy to slash the size of its Australian workforce.
Yesterday afternoon staff at ANZ's mortgage fulfilment centres in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart were told their jobs would be outsourced.
The centres have been key to the bank's Given the Chance program, a partnership run with the Brotherhood of St Laurence to provide newly arrived refugees with work, raising concerns that several will lose their jobs.
Staff at the centres process documents and settle mortgages for thousands of customers who have financed a house purchase with the bank.
An ANZ spokeswoman said about 150 jobs would be outsourced to companies such as US-based Iron Horse, which specialises in processing such documents. A further 40 jobs will be moved to the bank's technology and operations centre in Bangalore.
The 45 staff working at the mortgage fulfilment office in Melbourne were told there would be "minimal" job losses as they would now have to settle mortgages from interstate.
A further 50 jobs will be created in Melbourne to cope with that increased workload, and some existing staff from interstate will be given the chance to relocate.
The Financial Services Union slammed the job losses.
"What we are seeing here is a very profitable bank in Australia that is failing its employees at a very difficult time, when they should be trying to provide some job security," union policy director Rod Masson said.
In December last year, ANZ announced that 800 middle-management jobs would be cut as part of its One ANZ restructuring program. In March this year the bank said almost 500 jobs had been relocated to Bangalore in the past year.
Since September 2008, the number of full-time Australian staff employed by ANZ has fallen from 20,364 to fewer than 19,700 — its lowest level since 2003. Since 2003, the number of full-time employees at ANZ's Bangalore outpost has increased from fewer than 400 to more than 3500.
According to a source at the bank, 10 people have been employed under the Given the Chance program in the past two years. Many of these now face the prospect of losing their job.
Mark Hawthorne | The Age
July 9, 2009
Yesterday afternoon staff at ANZ's mortgage fulfilment centres in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart were told their jobs would be outsourced.
The centres have been key to the bank's Given the Chance program, a partnership run with the Brotherhood of St Laurence to provide newly arrived refugees with work, raising concerns that several will lose their jobs.
Staff at the centres process documents and settle mortgages for thousands of customers who have financed a house purchase with the bank.
An ANZ spokeswoman said about 150 jobs would be outsourced to companies such as US-based Iron Horse, which specialises in processing such documents. A further 40 jobs will be moved to the bank's technology and operations centre in Bangalore.
The 45 staff working at the mortgage fulfilment office in Melbourne were told there would be "minimal" job losses as they would now have to settle mortgages from interstate.
A further 50 jobs will be created in Melbourne to cope with that increased workload, and some existing staff from interstate will be given the chance to relocate.
The Financial Services Union slammed the job losses.
"What we are seeing here is a very profitable bank in Australia that is failing its employees at a very difficult time, when they should be trying to provide some job security," union policy director Rod Masson said.
In December last year, ANZ announced that 800 middle-management jobs would be cut as part of its One ANZ restructuring program. In March this year the bank said almost 500 jobs had been relocated to Bangalore in the past year.
Since September 2008, the number of full-time Australian staff employed by ANZ has fallen from 20,364 to fewer than 19,700 — its lowest level since 2003. Since 2003, the number of full-time employees at ANZ's Bangalore outpost has increased from fewer than 400 to more than 3500.
According to a source at the bank, 10 people have been employed under the Given the Chance program in the past two years. Many of these now face the prospect of losing their job.
Mark Hawthorne | The Age
July 9, 2009
Sunday, July 05, 2009
The sick feeling of finding out you don't exist
Identity Theft
Cameron Stewart | July 04, 2009
Article from: The Australian
ADELAIDE schoolteacher Ginetta Rossi remembers feeling nauseous when told by authorities that she no longer officially existed.
Rossi, a primary school teacher of 20 years, was renewing her teacher's registration in Adelaide when she discovered that both her identity and her career qualifications had been stolen.
"They told me that their teaching records showed Ginetta Rossi had moved to Victoria the previous year," Rossi recalls.
"I told them I was Ginetta Rossi but they wouldn't believe me."
To make matters worse, when Rossi investigated further, she found that the woman who stole her identity was Renai Brochard, the partner of her former husband.
"I felt sick," says Rossi, who has agreed to speak publicly about her case for the first time.
"It would have been bad enough for someone off the street to steal my identity but this was my ex-husband's partner.
"I thought, 'who is going to believe me?"'
Rossi was a victim of what police say is the vogue crime of the new millennium: identity fraud. A staggering 124,000 Australians each year wake up one day to find that their identity has been stolen.
A further 383,300 also become victims of partial identity theft through credit card fraud.
Identity fraud, which costs Australians up to $4billion a year, is growing rapidly as criminals plunder our personal details from the internet, from rubbish bins, and from online chat rooms in order to adopt our identity. The problem has forced the government to launch new policies to fight the trend.
Attorney-General Robert McClelland told The Weekend Australian: "Identity security is central to Australia's national security, law enforcement and economic interests and vital in protecting Australian citizens from the theft or misuse of their identities."
Victims can lose their life savings or find debt-collectors on their doorstep for debts they did not accrue. Because it involves an invasion of privacy, it can also leave psychological scars.
In the case of Rossi, her loss of identity created ripple effects across two states. While police were investigating the identity theft, she was instructed not to tell anyone.
"I was freaking out thinking 'what if she has done something wrong using my name?'," she says.
Rossi's fears were well founded. By the time she discovered her identity had been stolen, Brochard - now registered in Victoria as teacher Ginetta Rossi - was causing havoc in an exclusive Melbourne private primary school.
Parents at that school, the Melbourne Montessori School, were complaining that the teacher of their six-year-old children did not appear to know the first thing about teaching.
But the school did not believe them for many months and continued to back the fake teacher. It was only when the real Rossi went to police that the whistle was blown on Brochard, who had been teaching at the $7000-a-year school for a full year. The saga ended last year when Brochard was convicted of deception and given a three-month suspended jail term.
But it continues to have an impact on the school, which became the subject of a full-scale review by the authorities and is awaiting a decision from Victorian authorities on whether it retains its registration.
Brochard, meanwhile, returned to South Australia and was employed by an Adelaide childcare centre that was not aware she was a convicted fraudster. She was sacked last October after her identity became known, prompting the South Australian government to order a review into how she was cleared by authorities to work at the Woodcroft childcare centre.
South Australian Early Childhood Development Minister Jay Weatherill this week declined to answer questions from The Weekend Australian about the outcome of that review. Brochard could not be contacted for comment.
Rossi says one of the most distressing aspects of losing her identity was convincing sceptical authorities that she was the real Ginetta Rossi.
"It was initially hard to get people to believe that I was who I said I was," she says. "I remember the look on the poor policewoman's face when I told her, 'I'm here to report identity fraud, I believe my ex-partner's partner has stolen my identity.' She must have thought I was a fruit-loop."
Brochard stole Rossi's identity by telling the Teachers Registration Board of South Australia she was Rossi and that she had lost her registration certificate and needed a duplicate copy.
Brochard then provided a false statutory declaration of her identity to convince authorities to give her a copy of the certificate, which they did.
She then moved to Victoria but when she applied to the Victorian Institute of Teaching to be registered in the state her fake application was shoddy. Brochard misspelled Ginetta on some registration documents and had whited out her name and replaced it with Rossi on her birth certificate.
Despite this, the VIT did not pick up the faults and agreed to register Brochard as a teacher.
Rossi was luckier than most victims of identity fraud in that Brochard did not steal her tax file number or gain access to her bank accounts. A report on identity crime by the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General last year said many victims lost not only their savings but also their personal credit ratings.
"Individual victims of identity crime spend an average of two or more years attempting to fix their credit report and restore their credit rating," the report says.
An increasingly common form of stealing people's personal details is through so-called "phishing emails", in which fake emails purporting to be from trusted institutions like banks ask people to provide personal details.
This week the Australian Federal Police warned of the circulation of a scam email that falsely claimed to be from the AFP and requested personal and financial information.
Arguably the fastest-growing area of identity fraud is via websites such as Facebook and chat rooms. Research conducted by the National Cyber Security Alliance reveals 74 per cent of social networking users divulge personal information such as email addresses, names and birthdays.
Cameron Stewart | July 04, 2009
Article from: The Australian
ADELAIDE schoolteacher Ginetta Rossi remembers feeling nauseous when told by authorities that she no longer officially existed.
Rossi, a primary school teacher of 20 years, was renewing her teacher's registration in Adelaide when she discovered that both her identity and her career qualifications had been stolen.
"They told me that their teaching records showed Ginetta Rossi had moved to Victoria the previous year," Rossi recalls.
"I told them I was Ginetta Rossi but they wouldn't believe me."
To make matters worse, when Rossi investigated further, she found that the woman who stole her identity was Renai Brochard, the partner of her former husband.
"I felt sick," says Rossi, who has agreed to speak publicly about her case for the first time.
"It would have been bad enough for someone off the street to steal my identity but this was my ex-husband's partner.
"I thought, 'who is going to believe me?"'
Rossi was a victim of what police say is the vogue crime of the new millennium: identity fraud. A staggering 124,000 Australians each year wake up one day to find that their identity has been stolen.
A further 383,300 also become victims of partial identity theft through credit card fraud.
Identity fraud, which costs Australians up to $4billion a year, is growing rapidly as criminals plunder our personal details from the internet, from rubbish bins, and from online chat rooms in order to adopt our identity. The problem has forced the government to launch new policies to fight the trend.
Attorney-General Robert McClelland told The Weekend Australian: "Identity security is central to Australia's national security, law enforcement and economic interests and vital in protecting Australian citizens from the theft or misuse of their identities."
Victims can lose their life savings or find debt-collectors on their doorstep for debts they did not accrue. Because it involves an invasion of privacy, it can also leave psychological scars.
In the case of Rossi, her loss of identity created ripple effects across two states. While police were investigating the identity theft, she was instructed not to tell anyone.
"I was freaking out thinking 'what if she has done something wrong using my name?'," she says.
Rossi's fears were well founded. By the time she discovered her identity had been stolen, Brochard - now registered in Victoria as teacher Ginetta Rossi - was causing havoc in an exclusive Melbourne private primary school.
Parents at that school, the Melbourne Montessori School, were complaining that the teacher of their six-year-old children did not appear to know the first thing about teaching.
But the school did not believe them for many months and continued to back the fake teacher. It was only when the real Rossi went to police that the whistle was blown on Brochard, who had been teaching at the $7000-a-year school for a full year. The saga ended last year when Brochard was convicted of deception and given a three-month suspended jail term.
But it continues to have an impact on the school, which became the subject of a full-scale review by the authorities and is awaiting a decision from Victorian authorities on whether it retains its registration.
Brochard, meanwhile, returned to South Australia and was employed by an Adelaide childcare centre that was not aware she was a convicted fraudster. She was sacked last October after her identity became known, prompting the South Australian government to order a review into how she was cleared by authorities to work at the Woodcroft childcare centre.
South Australian Early Childhood Development Minister Jay Weatherill this week declined to answer questions from The Weekend Australian about the outcome of that review. Brochard could not be contacted for comment.
Rossi says one of the most distressing aspects of losing her identity was convincing sceptical authorities that she was the real Ginetta Rossi.
"It was initially hard to get people to believe that I was who I said I was," she says. "I remember the look on the poor policewoman's face when I told her, 'I'm here to report identity fraud, I believe my ex-partner's partner has stolen my identity.' She must have thought I was a fruit-loop."
Brochard stole Rossi's identity by telling the Teachers Registration Board of South Australia she was Rossi and that she had lost her registration certificate and needed a duplicate copy.
Brochard then provided a false statutory declaration of her identity to convince authorities to give her a copy of the certificate, which they did.
She then moved to Victoria but when she applied to the Victorian Institute of Teaching to be registered in the state her fake application was shoddy. Brochard misspelled Ginetta on some registration documents and had whited out her name and replaced it with Rossi on her birth certificate.
Despite this, the VIT did not pick up the faults and agreed to register Brochard as a teacher.
Rossi was luckier than most victims of identity fraud in that Brochard did not steal her tax file number or gain access to her bank accounts. A report on identity crime by the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General last year said many victims lost not only their savings but also their personal credit ratings.
"Individual victims of identity crime spend an average of two or more years attempting to fix their credit report and restore their credit rating," the report says.
An increasingly common form of stealing people's personal details is through so-called "phishing emails", in which fake emails purporting to be from trusted institutions like banks ask people to provide personal details.
This week the Australian Federal Police warned of the circulation of a scam email that falsely claimed to be from the AFP and requested personal and financial information.
Arguably the fastest-growing area of identity fraud is via websites such as Facebook and chat rooms. Research conducted by the National Cyber Security Alliance reveals 74 per cent of social networking users divulge personal information such as email addresses, names and birthdays.
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