One of the themes we have long followed here at barnabyisright.com is this blogger’s conviction that Australians will inevitably be caught up in the wave of government theft of citizens’ superannuation that has been slowly but surely sweeping the Western world since the GFC.
Indeed, as we have documented many times, the tide has already gone out in preparation for the big wave’s arrival on our shores, with Labor having quietly implemented a sneaky Liberal party policy aiming to direct your employer to send your future super payments to a special new department at the ATO, not directly to your super fund.
We have previously seen that PM-in-waiting Bill Shorten, Minister for Superannuation, has described Australians’ $1.3 Trillion in individual superannuation savings as “our sovereign wealth fund”, a “significant national asset”.
In today’s Australian newspaper, we learn that Shorten is off to Israel to meet and greet, and investigate the Israeli superannuation fund industry.
Your humble blogger’s sceptical eyebrow was raised sharply on noting that, while the emphasis of the story is that, purportedly, Bill is visiting Israel “to examine ways for the retirement savings system to help kick-start the Australian venture capital business” – a disturbing development in its own right – Bill’s spokeswoman let a very different kind of cat out of the bag:
SOME of the leading figures in the multi-trillion-dollar superannuation sector will join federal Financial Services Minister Bill Shorten on a visit to Israel later this week as the government examines ways for the retirement savings system to help kick-start the Australian venture capital business.
Joining Mr Shorten on the visit will be Australian Prudential Regulation Authority deputy chairman Ross Jones, MLC chief executive Steve Tucker and Challenger Group retirement income chairman Jeremy Cooper, author of the contentious Cooper Report on the superannuation sector.
During the visit, co-ordinated by the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce and the Israeli embassy, the group will meet executives of leading Israeli financial services companies, including its largest insurance group, Migdal, and fellow insurer Clal Insurance Enterprise Holdings.
It will also meet officials of the Capital Market, Insurance, and Savings Department, which supervises insurance and the long-term savings market.
Mr Shorten is also planning one-on-one meetings with Bank of Israel governor Professor Stanley Fischer, chief scientist Avi Hasson and Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
“The chamber is very excited about the Shorten-led trade mission,” said AICC chairman Paul Israel, who is based in Tel Aviv. “For the first time Australian pension funds will be exposed to the vibrant and innovative Israeli venture capital and hi-tech scene.”
Mr Israel said the week-long trade mission would investigate how Israel — with 7.2 million people, a third of the size of Tasmania, 60 per cent desert, only 63 years old with limited natural resources — had produced more start-ups than large, peaceful and stable nations such as Japan, India, Korea, Canada, Britain and Australia.
It would look at Israel’s superannuation, tax reform, venture capital and seed fund models, as well as its innovation and entrepreneurship culture, he said.
A spokeswoman for Mr Shorten said it was important that super funds looked beyond traditional assets classes and the government was keen to remove investment barriers to them.
She said the trip was designed to improve Australian super funds’ understanding of Israel as an investment destination, particularly in light of the strong venture capital sector there.
Hold on. Wasn’t the purpose of the trip to examine “ways for the retirement savings system to help kick-start the Australian venture capital business”?
Mr Shorten also hopes Australian super funds can get an understanding of how Israel’s pension funds go about investing in innovative and early stage companies.
“Innovative” and “early stage”.
That is bankster and speculator code for “high risk”.
Given the volatility on global share markets, and the parlous state of the global economy, one wonders why any responsible politician would be interested in finding ways to direct their citizens’ retirement savings into high risk start-up ventures.
In Australia … or Israel.
Barnaby Is Right 
I think you underlined the correct passage. Sounds to me like the Israelies looking for suckers with deep pockets…. sorry, I mean sophisticated investors.
N.M Rothschilds at it again…..
Who the hell set up Israel?? Rothschilds.!! And NO!!. I’m NOT anti-Jewish! Just ANTI-Rothschilds.
They’re into everything but a sh.t sandwich.
Dr.Megan Clark. Head of CSIRO. Geologist!! Ex Board member of N.M.Rothschilds, Aust… Able to influence junior scientific members of CSIRO( who want to keep their jobs) to spruik Global Warming/Climate Change pseudo-scientific garbage…
And what have we got…… A Carbon Tax/Derivatives Tading Scheme in the making….and who is “volunteering” to take on the onerous duty of being the Carbon Banker for Australia????
N.M.Rothschilds, nonetheless together with their freaky little offshoot E3Group!!
http://www2.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=90090
These suckers are lining up to commence the financial strip-mining of the Aussie economy!!
You’ll love this then – http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=30468
I think they are being far more transparent regarding stealing super. If the reports are true, they will simply be hiking taxes on super funds. Far simpler cuts out all the middle men.
http://www.hotfrog.com.au/Companies/Rothschild-Australia-Asset-Management-Limited_174234
Trevor Rowe AM,Executive Chairman,Rothschild, was a member of the Australian April 2011 trade mission to Israel. Why does Shorten need to go to Israel when he could get all the advice he needs here
“Rothschild Australia Limited – one of the leading investment banking organisations providing financial services to governments,corporations and individuals worldwide”.
The idea that Super is Australia’s sovereign wealth is repugnant. It is not, it is national wealth but not Sovereign otherwise that means nobody really owns their super it is the governments. If you look in the CIA factbook Israel has 74% government debt to GDP, is this really the country we want to follow? https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/is.html
All your $ belong to the government. Through the alchemy of legal tender & central banking, the government can suck the national wealth dry for their own ends. Which is exactly what they are doing.
Theoretically, the system is different her in Oz, at least that’s what the pollies say.
To an extent that’s true as validated by our coming through the GFC better than a lot of other countries, ignoring the significant losses by the banks (anyone wondered why post-GFC fees went crazy ?). The GFC is realistically a wake-up call and one which most Aussies seem to have ignored or not understood.
But look closely at pollies claims and we see a different picture emerging.
Let’s do a banking sector firewall hardness check in case of a EU collapse.
But then we’re told we’re safe, the EU won’t collapse and we won’t be impacted to hard anyway even if it did.
Let’s prepare a $7B bailout for the EU too.
Yep – yet another “donation” of TAXPAYER funds to futilely attempt to prop up fundamentally unsound countries. How many bailouts (loans) has the EU had so far ? 25 or so. Fixed nothing. Worse than ever. Going down. No hope. Get it ?
The EU is insolvent with almost $13T of debt. They CAN”T repay the loans within decades !
Now if I, an engineer not an economist, can see the bleeding obvious why can’t our pollies and treasurer ?
The EU collapse is imminent as is the US. Australia WILL be hit hard by the severe economic depression that follows and the government WILL use every means at its disposal to attempt to prop up our economy too.
Promises and laws will go out the window and they’ll follow the USA’s lead and raid Super funds, telling us it’s necessary and it’ll all (somehow) be repaid.
Yep. Right…
Even if they don’t do a raid, the true value of our FIAT currency will be revealed and I suspect we’re looking at devaluation hitting both savings and retirement funds wiping out a large percentage of both. Welcome to the USA people.
Your apathy and ignorance is about to cost you BIG TIME.
http://www.blissful-wisdom.com/george-carlin-was-a-visionary.html
And now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your ***** retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this ****** place. It’s a big club and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in The Big Club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long whey they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media, telling you what to believe, what to think, and what to buy.
The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged, and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-working people – white collar, blue collar, it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good, honest, hard-working people continue – these are people of modest means – continue to elect these **** suckers who don’t give a **** about you. They don’t give a **** about you. They don’t give a **** about you. They don’t care about you at all. At all. At all, and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telstra
PrivatisationTelstra was privatised in three different stages, informally known as “T1” ($3.30), “T2” ($7.40) and “T3” ($3.60) in 1997, 1999 and 2006 respectively.[5][6] In T1, the government sold one third of its shares in Telstra for A$14 billion and publicly listed the company on the Australian Stock Exchange.[5] In 1999, a further 16% of Telstra shares were sold to the public, leaving the Australian government with 51% ownership. In 2006, T3 was announced by the government and was the largest of the three public releases, reducing the Government’s ownership of Telstra to 17%.[7] The 17% remainder of Telstra was placed in Australia’s Future Fund, which will provide superannuation and pensions for Australia’s public servants.[8] In 2009 the Future Fund sold off another $2.4B worth of shares reducing the government’s stake in Telstra to 10.9%.[9]
http://www.futurefund.gov.au/about_the_future_fund/board_member_profiles
Now with the governments sale of shares and Telstra in a good position, it will be interesting to see how high Telstra shares rise.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/telstras-good-news-pays-dividends-as-its-shares-bounce-back-20120426-1xnw2.html
——————————————————————————–
The gig is up – by Australian People