This column comes to you from Bali, written to the sigh of the breeze through the coconut palms, the crash of waves on a silvery beach, the tinkle of a gamelan orchestra. The mobs of drunken Aussie bogans hooning up and down Jalan Legian in Kuta each night are out of sight, out of mind.

The tranquility, however, is deceptive. Just over the horizon, deep in the Indian Ocean, armadas of refugee boats are heading south, loaded to the gunwales with Islamic terrorists hell-bent on destroying our wonderful Australian way of life. The onslaught threatens all we hold dear.

Or so you would think, to read the news on the net. I should never have brought the laptop on holiday. The uproar gets hotter, sound and fury signifying only that an election is weeks away.

Sometimes it is helpful to get out of Australia to work out what the place is all about. Distance provides a fresh perspective. The view from Bali is not pretty.

There we are, a rich and comfortable nation, living in peace, riding a resources boom that is the envy of the world. We have full employment as near as damn it, and all the economic indicators are pointing up, in defiance of the lingering aftershocks of the global financial earthquake. The lucky country's luck is holding, as ever.

By world standards, the number of boats heading our way is a trickle. Yet again we whip ourselves into a frenzy. Pandering to the lowest common denominator of ignorance and xenophobia, government and opposition compete to out-tough each other.

In Tony Abbott's case it's his ludicrous promise to "turn the boats back". Just how ludicrous was demonstrated on Wednesday when he was stopped in his tracks by a navy wife in suburban Penrith. She was concerned - sensibly - that asylum seekers ordered to return to Indonesia would simply sink or set fire to their vessels, as they have done so often before. Her husband and his shipmates would be in danger.

Phoney Tony, waffling like crazy, had to admit to her that sending the boats back was ''not something we'd be able to do all the time". Case destroyed.

Not that the government is behaving any better. Increasingly, the ''Timor solution'' is looking like the timorous solution. There is no rational reason for setting up a processing centre in East Timor or anywhere else offshore.

The cheapest, most efficient place to have it would be Darwin or Port Hedland. Yet that can't happen because it would be howled down as Julia Gillard opening the floodgates. Gutless, and at enormous expense, the government will bully the East Timorese into shouldering the burden for us. No matter what the neighbouring Indonesians might think.

Far from fixing the problem, a Timor "solution" would only exacerbate it. There would be no need for the boats to make the dangerous journey to Ashmore Reef or Christmas Island. They would head straight for Dili, safely in Indonesian territorial waters for all but the last few kilometres. The trickle would become a flood. East Timor and our wonderful processing centre would be swamped.

But that would be well after the next election.

Mike Carlton

from Crikey .....

Our wealthy magnificent seven are more take than give

Adam Schwab writes:

ANDREW FORREST, BRW RICH LIST, CLIVE PALMER, FRANK LOWY, GINA RINEHART, HARRY TRIGUBOFF, JAMES PACKER, JEANNE PRATT

Former founding chairman of eCorp and Microsoft executive Daniel Petre's brilliant article in Crikey detailing the astonishing lack of Australian philanthropy among the wealthy was well overdue. But not only do Australia's rich give away a relatively small proportion of their wealth -- but when they do, the donations are often made in unusual circumstances by businessmen with chequered histories. Consider our seven richest people (from this year's BRW Rich List).

Frank Lowy - One of Australia's best-known philanthropists, who (together with fellow immigrant John Saunders) built Westfield into one of Australia's greatest business success stories. But despite his lofty reputation for charity, Lowy's public donations of $15 million each year amount to less than one half of one per cent of his net worth. Not only that, but much of the money he donates comes directly from Westfield shareholders who pay Lowy and his sons the extraordinary remuneration of $30 million annually to run the shopping centre developer - this is despite Westfield shares being about half their 2007 levels. Lowy conceded as much at the company's AGM this year, when he noted "I don't keep that money I get from the company, I give it away to a lot more deserving causes. I don't think Westfield shareholders are a deserving cause to give them an extra cent."

Then there are Lowy's pesky tax issues. In 1995 Lowy paid $25 million to settle a $50 million tax bill, while a US Senate Committee alleges that Lowy concealed $US68 million from the ATO (which Lowy claims to have given, ironically to Israeli charities). When questioned by the US Senate, Lowy's son, Peter, refused to answer questions on the incident, claiming the 5th amendment (which gives people the right not to answer questions that may incriminate them).

Gina Rinehart - Not a well-known public donor to charities despite an inheritance now valued at $4.75 billion. She didn't appear on a BRW list of Australia's top 50 charitable donors in 2005.

Pratt Family - One of Australia's best-known philanthropic families. Led by patron of the arts Jeanne Pratt, the family gives upwards of $12 million each year. Admittedly, the generosity of the Pratt family pales in comparison to the claims that Richard Pratt's private company, Visy, benefited by as much as $600 million from the operation of an illegally cartel with rival Amcor (Visy accepted a $36 million fine over the long-running incident). Pratt was also involved in a series of dubious corporate manoeuvres in the 1980s involving John Elliott's Elders IXL and the Occidental and Regal insurance businesses.

Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest - Twiggy is one of Australia's true colourful business characters who has built two mining enterprises almost from scratch and a very well known donor to various charities. Sadly, alongside Twiggy's public generosity comes controversy. After being allegedly forced out of his role at Anaconda Nickel, Forrest made a $3.5 million donation to a charity called "Leaping Joey" and claimed a tax deduction. The ATO unsuccessfully challenged the donation, claiming that it was actually a termination payment and Forrest should have paid income tax on the payment.

Twiggy also garnered much favourable press in 2007 when he made an $80 million donation (consisting of Poseidon Nickel options and Fortescue Metals shares) to the Australian Children's Trust. Sadly for the children, the $80 million in shares and options are now worth about $40 million. Fortunately for Forrest, he would have been most likely able to collect a substantial tax deduction based on the value of the gift before the Poseidon options become worthless.

Harry Triguboff - like Sydney neighbor and contemporary Lowy, has built a $4 billion property empire. Triguboff has remained a relative clean-skin and is believed to donate about $10 million to charities. This is about 0.2 percent of his wealth.

James Packer - has not made a name as a public giver to charity, but father Kerry always preferred to give his random generosity extremely private. Packer also doesn't take a salary (like Kerry). That said, Packer may well have been better off donating some of the billions he garnered from the exquisitely timed sale of his media interests than investing in Las Vegas casinos.

Clive Palmer - has accumulated $3.92 billion from his resource interests but is most well known for his donations to the Liberal Party (he is believed to donate $800,000 annually). Perhaps coincidentally, the Opposition was a vocal opponent of the Resources Super Profits Tax. Admittedly, some would reasonably argue that Queensland's Liberal National Party is a suitably disadvantaged group.

My gut feeling is that, using my observations of the working families' economic standards of Australia as it also affects my family and myself, I have always been suspicious of these so-called “philanthropists” by their track record, which in the final settling of my financial confusion, may never ever have any major affect on the beneficiaries of their largesse. Some one will prosper, but who?

Kerry Packer with all of his political influence, spent more money on gambling than he ever paid in tax.  How could that be?  These wealthy business people are “wealthy business people” because they retain the best of economic and tax avoiding advisers.  To Kerry’s credit, he admitted it and also reminded the Senate inquiry that even the lowest taxed worker still tries to reduce their tax.  Is that not so?

A large business saves a lot but the small battler sometimes saves a little – or is prosecuted.

When I read an article on the “philanthropy” of the most wealthy Media Baron in Australia, I found it hard to argue the issue because of my respect for the author – but now I think I can.

However, let us not forget that successful business people DO avoid tax as much as possible. Do they not?  And when we ordinary people receive our group certificates we can either punt ourselves or “pay the piper”.  Still we donate to charities in much more sincere ways than does the “big end of town”.

I have skimmed over the various philanthropists, famous by their donations to some “organization”, which is usually managed under their own name one way or another - all have profited, in some way, by creating a “business tax dodge” that also makes them a profit. Is that not so? 

While the plebes who may benefit from these donations, in the final analysis, the so-called beneficiaries will pay, one way or another, for the very same tax dodges that diminish the government’s income and the better life that the people should be entitled to.  Is that not so?

It is not often in this contemporary Australia that we are privy to the dealings of major, and usually foreign owned, international businesses.  However, now and again we are rewarded for our citizenship by being advised that some large Corporation has argued for and achieved a significant reduction on the taxes [to us] that they have avoided, in one case I can quote, for many years.  Struth, I sound like Murdoch.  It was Caltex to which I refer.

For whatever it is worth, the principle that we ordinary “Defenders of the Australian way” who think they benefit from taxation, but pay for it with their lives in wars, have been conditioned to believe that to avoid tax is to avoid your duty to ourselves as the Australian people - which should mean our elected government – as the guardians of our welfare. Is that not so?

When Goldman Sachs agreed to pay multi-million dollars in compensation for their dodgy behavior in the world financial meltdown, it was calculated by the young economist on Lateline as two weeks profit for that organization.

How far has civilization really moved forward when those things are as obscene as the Monarchy’s “cut them in half” absolute power?

God Bless Australia and may we try to learn a lesson to understand the blatant abuse of our media, especially the ABC which, like our taxes, is supposed to be OURS?  Pig’s a…se.  NE OUBLIE.

Yes Ernest...

To present another side to the coin, I know Kerry Packer was making non-publicly disclosed donations to various hospitals around town, on top of the "Packer-Wackers" to which he financed many ambulances to be fitted with. Kerry had been plagued all his life with poor health since childhood, including polio... He was an atheist. His most (non-)famous donations were to the RPA and to St Vincent, in Sydney, when Sister Bernice was running the show... I will quote from the Fairfax stable:

‘She [Sister Bernice] greets the Prime Minister with a hug and has a rose named after her. And she’s the only woman Kerry Packer can’t say no to. When Sister Bernice Elphick needed money for a new project at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Darlinghurst, she would often turn to Mr Packer.
Clearly and compellingly, she would outline her case and, within minutes, the media magnate would be signing a cheque. Ros Packer told The Sun-Herald that her husband had called Sister Bernice ‘the greatest fund-raiser of all time’. ‘She would just say [to Kerry Packer] ‘Darling, I know you’ll fix it’, Mrs Packer said. But because of the respect in which we all held her, we knew she was not asking for any money that was not needed’.

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I know that these cheques to various hospitals were often of the serious seven and eight figures kind...

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from a simplified biography extract:

Kerry's young life was lonely and disrupted.

He was sent to boarding school at the age of five, and just a year later caught a serious illness called polio myelitis or infantile paralysis.

Today children are immunised against the virus, but in the 1940s severe cases could kill or leave a child crippled.

Young Kerry's case was severe and he spent nine months immobilised in an iron lung, an early version of a respirator, which helped him to breathe.

By the time he got back to boarding school, at the age of nine, he was way behind his class mates.

Luckily his recovery from polio had been complete because it was his size and strength that helped him achieve in one area , sport.

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Andrew Forrest has been the main sponsor of an Aboriginal venture called GenerationOne:

From Andrew himself:

My mates, my mentors and my protectors were Indigenous. My virtual big brother was a fellow called Ian Black. An Indigenous guy who, like the others were all smarter than me and played sport better than me. But I got opportunities courtesy of extended family. They didn’t. Despite his natural skills, Ian went from school to welfare. Its a long story, but an all too common one.

Sadly, now, many of my Indigenous mates have died. I am all too tired of attending funerals for people who’d had bright stars in their eyes as young men and women and who deserved all the opportunities and life that real, sustainable jobs provide.

That's why I got together with the PM to announce the plan to get 50,000 jobs for Indigenous Australians - and my thanks to the many employers who have agreed to provide 17,000 vacancies for Indigenous people over time. We have a long way to go and are continuing our work with the business community.