Thursday, May 12, 2016



Tainted


Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been named in the Panama Papers:

The Australian Financial Review reported that in the 1990s the Prime Minister and former NSW Premier Neville Wran were on the board of Star Mining NL and its subsidiary in the British Virgin Islands, Star Technology Service, which had been incorporated by Mossack Fonseca two years earlier.

Star Mining is an Australian listed company which hoped to develop a $20 billion Siberian gold mine called Sukhoi Log.

[...]

In response to allegations Star Technologies had made donations to Russian politicians, Mr Turnbull's spokesman said the Prime Minister was not aware of any such donations in the time before or after he was a director.


The newspaper reports stress that there's no suggestion of impropriety on Turnbull's part. At the same time, it leaves him tainted. Its one thing to be "in business", quite another to be in business via a tax haven with a company alleged to have engaged in corrupt behaviour.