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Officials told the ex-employee they had completed annual online training in fraud and corruption and should have known their conduct was wrong.
However the former worker escaped sanction because they no longer worked for the department.
The freedom of information documents also revealed another public servant apparently changed the font on a legitimate medical certificate, then photocopied it to create a fraudulent version that falsely extended their sick leave.
The employee had written to a co-worker claiming he was “going up to see the GP today” before supplying the dodgy document.
Upon being informed the ruse was up, the employee admitted wrongdoing.
“I don’t remember exact details as it was a long while ago ... I believe I photocopied the original. I truly cannot remember why I didn’t go back to the medical centre,” the staff member told investigators.
The employee said they became ill after returning from abroad and "the medical centre suggested a quarantine for a few days to ensure it wasn't anything I picked up while overseas".
The employee incurred a fine, which was withdrawn from their pay in eight instalments. In imposing the sanction, an unnamed official noted the worker had displayed “a level of remorse”.
Confirmation of the incidents follows a departmental review that this year found staff had colluded to file fake medical expense claims, while others lacked the training to do their jobs or had repeatedly abused their powers.
The Department of Home Affairs was created in December last year and combined existing immigration, border protection, law enforcement and intelligence units.
In a statement, the department said it "takes all allegations of misconduct and corruption seriously".
"Robust action is taken against individuals where corrupt conduct is identified. This also includes referring matters to the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity," it said.
Olivia de Havilland, legendary star of classics like Gone With the Wind and (my personal favorite) Lady In a Cage, was born on this day in 1916. The newly minted centenarian has called three continents her home (she was born in Japan), lived through two world wars, had two husbands, and won two Oscars.
When asked by People for the advice she would give her younger self, de Havilland responded, “Take a long leave of absence from the Warner contract and go to Mills College, where the scholarship I had won in 1934 is still waiting for me!” Now that’s a movie I’d watch.
The Boom! graphic novel series featuring mice will get the 'Jungle Book' treatment as a CG live-action.
Matt Reeves and Gary Whitta are teaming up to adapt the Eisner-winning graphic novel series Mouse Guard.
Fox has optioned the best-selling work by David Petersen that will be penned by Whitta, the screenwriter of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Reeves, the director of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Cloverfield, will produce the adaptation via his 6th & Idaho banner, along with Mouse Guard publisher Boom! Studios' Ross Richie and Stephen Christy. Reeves is not intending to helm the project.
The studio is looking to make a live-action movie utilizing the performance-capture technology pioneered for Fox’s acclaimed Apes franchise as well as technology used by Disney’s live-action animal tale The Jungle Book to bring the Mouse Guard world to vivid life.
Created, written and illustrated by Petersen, Mouse Guard tells of anthropomorphic mice set in medieval times, focusing on a brotherhood of mice that is sworn to protect the common folk. Or rodent, as it were.
The series, which just celebrated its 10th anniversary and hails from Boom!’s imprint Achaia, has almost one million copies in print and has been translated into 10 languages. It is considered one of the most successful independent comic book franchises of the last decade, with three volumes of the main series, three v...
Adam Kassan will executive produce for 6th & Idaho, and Boom!'s Adam Yoelin and David Petersen will co-produce. Mark Roybal will oversee for the studio.
Boom! is prepping its first production, The Empty Man, which will star James Badge Dale and is set to begin shooting in August. The company, which enjoys perhaps the largest IP library outside of Marvel and DC, also has adaptations of its hit comics Lumberjanes and James Wan’s Malignant Man in development at Fox.
Whitta, who counts the Denzel Washington thriller The Book of Eli amongst his credits, is repped by UTA, Circle of Confusion and Behr & Abramson; Reeves is repped by CAA, 3 Arts and Jackoway Tyerman; Boom! is repped by Matt Saver; and Petersen is repped by attorney Matt Sugarman.
GOVERNMENTS often get more than they bargained for when they hand control of major infrastructure to private equity companies.
Australians had a lucky escape when private equity consortium Airline Partners Australia (APA) failed to get hold of Qantas last year.
If APA had succeeded, Qantas would have been illplaced to deal with the financial crunch imposed by skyrocketing oil prices.
The deal was to be financed by loading Qantas with debt, financed by asset stripping and using the the corporate tax liability wiped out by the failure to generate profit to pay interest on the debt and hope that a rising value and capital gains concessions over four or five years would more than compensate for the lac...
Under the deal, equity was to be cut from $6 billion to $3.6 billion and debt was to be increased from $5 billion to $8-$9 billion and allow consortium members to give financial engineers behind the deal $4 billion after the company was stripped of its assets and then leasing back its planes.
The deal required no particular managerial skill except in financial engineering. Its success depended on a favourable environment for civil aviation.
A crucial assumption announced at the time of the bid was that 50% of its fuel requirements for 2008 would be hedged at a worst-case rate of $US70 a barrel. The rate now is around $US130 a barrel. The price of oil is likely to hit $US200 a barrel next year.
Based on the existing price, Qantas predicts the fuel bill will increase by $2 billion next year.
The volatile outlook for the industry suggests that only players with a sold equity cushion and maximum flexibility to contain costs will survive in the medium term based on the assumption that oil prices will continue to rise.
The APA bid was not in the public interest. If it had succeeded it would have wiped $300 million from the tax base, added to Australia's foreign debt and probably led to bankruptcy of the airline without a massive bail-out from taxpayers. A key player in the APA consortium was Sir Rod Eddington via his association with...
He was appointed to chair the East-West Needs Assessment study by the Victorian Government, which has made a series of controversial recommendations forMelbourne's transport infrastructure including its financing.
Since the failed bid for Qantas, Eddington was appointed chairman of the 12-member Infrastructure Australia Council with responsibility for recommending the infrastructure priorities for the Federal Government.
Babcock & Brown is in the news because it is under attack in financial markets. Even more important from a national interest perspective has been its conduct when it successfully acquired monopoly public infrastructure assets.
In 2001, Babcock & Brown acquired the Dalrymple Bay Coal terminal for $630 million. Its customers are 13 mines in the Bowen Basin owned by some of the world's largest mining companies linked by a network owned by Queensland Rail.
In 2003, Babcock & Brown claimed that before it could expand its facilities to meet the growing demand from Asia, the charge for coal loading should be increased from $2.08 a tonne to $2.77 a tonne.
This led to a long process arbitrated by the Queensland Competition Authority. In 2004, the QCA recommended a cut in the handling charges from $2.08 to $1.53 a tonne based on a weighted average cost of capital of 8.2%. Given that the facility is a monopoly asset, effectively risk free, this was an attractive rate of re...
In 2005, a final decision put the price at $1.72 a tonne, a 12% increase on the draft decision.
Since then Babcock & Brown has undertaken a minor expansion in capacity.
According to an independent study, supply bottlenecks at the Dalrymple facility are costing the Australian economy $1 billion a year.
An industry newsletter, Port Strategy, quoted the then Queensland Premier last year as saying the Dalrymple terminal was the state's ''worst port'' and he was ``an idiot'' for selling Dalrymple on a 99-year lease in 2001, with the idea of having a private port competing with government-owned ports.
Babcock & Brown is up-front about how it makes money. In the prospectus for Babcock CapitalManagement in 2005 that became the vehicle for acquiring Irish telco eircom in 2006, it gave examples of the situations in which the company might invest: ''The company may acquire a diversified business where it has assessed the...
''The company would then seek to extract value by divesting some or all of the constituent businesses through trade sales or public offerings or unlocking the value of these businesses in some other manner.'' Since eircom was privatised at the end of the 1990s, the company has been taken over twice by private equity. T...
Capital expenditure is less than half the level of the 1990s because it is constrained by high financing costs and probably an unstainable debt ratio.
The Irish telco is in danger of becoming a ``zombie'' company, according to European rating agency Fitch quoted in the Irish Independent newspaper.
According to Fitch, zombie companies were bought by private equity in highly leveraged deals shortly before the debt bubble burst last summer and are now judged by investors to be worth less than they owe to creditors.
Far from transferring risk to the private sector, these are good examples of the long-term costs and dangers of privatisations and public-private partnership deals underpinned by private equity.
They will cost the community billions of dollars to clean up.
Govt pensions: The next ticking fiscal time bomb?
Much has happened within South Africa, the PIC, and the GEPF (the Fund) since the HSF released its last briefs on these intertwined subjects. Most relevant to the topic at hand, the country has managed for the time-being to stave off junk status and the former tainted Deputy Minister of Finance Sfiso Buthelezi has been...
Gungubene holds a B Com Law, was mayor of Ekurhuleni from 2010 until 2016 and was an outspoken Zuma critic. Journalists dubbed him ‘the lord of corporate governance’ because of his hardy questioning style during the Communications and Public Enterprise Committee Hearings. While this change at the top is of course a ve...
This makes clear the massive risk that has resulted from the PIC being Eskom’s lender of last resort since 2014 when the PIC began buying Eskom debt in private placements after demand from other buyers dried up. Through the PIC, the GEPF’s Eskom long term bond holdings increased from R74bn in 2016 to R84bn in 2017 alon...
- consumer behaviour, which is not only trying to limit electricity usage, but is moving away from Eskom altogether, as a result of unpredictable supply over the past few years, expected further out-of-the-ordinary tariff increases and easily installed alternative energy sources, such as solar panels.
According to Government Employee Pension Law, a member or pensioner has the right to communicate directly with the GEPF regards any matter that affects him or her personally. Therefore, given the concerns expressed by pensioners, members and others to the HSF around the risks facing the GEPF, and ultimately the securit...
But when these and other pensioners approached the Fund and its Trustees with their concerns, no matter how detailed their questions, they were consistently stonewalled with generalised answers. The overriding response from the GEPF has been that members and pensioners need not worry because the pension fund is a defin...
And this is where the paradox lies. If the Fund were to become underfunded, it could well be from defaults on its massive SOE debt holdings – around R165bn according to the latest annual report. So not only will the government be liable to bring the Fund back to fully-funded status in order to provide pension payouts, ...
The major issues around transparency and accountability at the PIC and GEPF were discussed in two HSF briefs published in July and August last year entitled The Public Investment Corporation and The Government Employees Pension Fund – An Overview and Addressing the Concerns of Government Employee Pension Fund Members a...
In response to the PIC’s R5bn one month loan to Eskom in February, there was major concern expressed by numerous GEPF stakeholders, most notably the Public Servants Association (PSA). When asked about these concerns, Matjila said the “The PIC is accountable to the GEPF directly in terms of the investment mandate signed...
The Board of the PIC is to include a representative of registered trade unions whose members form the majority of the members of the GEPF.
This Bill also calls for an annual report reflecting all investments, whether listed or unlisted.
Along the same vein, the PIC too refuses to provide details on the R9.3bn it provided to Lancaster 101 in 2016 as the BEE partner at Steinhoff International. This on top of the R25bn exposure the PIC already had to Steinhoff before the share price capitulated. These unfortunately are only a few of many failed attempts...
Within the Fund’s 2017 Annual Report it was noted that “[T]he fund was making contributions at rates lower than recommended by the [Fund] actuaries” and “The shortfall has an impact in the funding level of the Fund.” And while the actuaries did conclude that the Fund currently stands at a minimum funding level of 121.5...
Regards the drop in new investments, nowhere with the 2014/15 or 2016/17 reports was an explanation given. While there may well be legitimate reasons for this, such as a possible lack of investment opportunity, it does beg the question whether this will translate into a decrease in investment returns that’ll apply grea...
There are hefty challenges that remain within the PIC and GEPF despite the new leadership at the helm of the former. Firstly, given that the PIC and GEPF are the largest investors in many of the SOEs, including Eskom, it is expected that the PIC should apply pressure on the parastatals regards governance and strategy, ...
Secondly, both the PIC and GEPF have major room for improvement regards transparency in the investment portfolios as well as improvements in stakeholder communications. Lastly and all importantly, these factors feed into the GEPF’s funded status and the security of pensions, with warning signs in the financial indicato...
GEPF Monitoring Group, GEPF Cash Flow Analysis: 2008 to 2017.
UNIONDALE, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) — The Islanders say they are aware of goalie Rick DiPietro’s comments about depression and suicide, and plan to handle the matter internally.
DiPietro, placed on waivers and then sent to the minors last week, said in an interview with News 12 Long Island that he has fought depression and pondered suicide because of his history of injuries, the weight of a giant contract and the team’s constant losing.
The 31-year-old goalie later said his comments about suicide shouldn’t be taken literally because he simply intended to credit the support of his wife during his trying time with the Islanders.
He told the New York Post the remarks were meant “100 percent” in jest.
“It’s been a trying last couple years. There have been times that I’ve been depressed, and I don’t know where I’d be without the support of my wife,” he told the Post, adding he’d “never again” make light of the issue.
DiPietro has struggled over the past five seasons. The top overall pick of the 2000 NHL entry draft signed a 15-year, $67.5 million deal in September 2006. He will have eight years and $36 million remaining on the contract after this season.
The Islanders could seek a buyout for DiPietro’s contract this summer.
DiPietro has played only 50 games since the end of 2007-08, including three losses this season. He has missed significant time with hip and knee injuries. Last season, he was limited to eight games due to a concussion and a groin injury that required surgery.
DiPietro has yet to play for the Bridgeport Sound Tigers of the American Hockey League since he was sent down last Saturday. He last played for the Islanders in a 3-1 loss at Ottawa on Feb. 19.
A WOMAN HAS won the right to receive her annual bonus payment after the store she worked in revoked it as a result of a written warning following an incident in which she drove around the car park barrier before it lifted as she was late to collect her children.
The woman, a store assistant at a health and beauty retail store, took her case to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) after her written warning expired in October 2017.
The WRC adjudicated that a “verbal warning would have been a more appropriate sanction” and that the woman’s eligibility for her annual bonus should be unaffected by the first written warning which has now expired.
The complainant’s case says that at around 2.20pm on 11 January 2017, she arrived at the car park beside her workplace, discovered that she had mislaid her parking ticket and became stressed because she had to collect her three children, aged two, six and 12 from school.
She said that she explained her issue to the car park attendant and offered to pay €6, the discounted daily rate required to get the car out. The car park staff member refused to accept the money until she provided her car registration number.
The woman told the staff member that she was late to collect her children, did not know her registration number and that she would provide it to him the following day.
When this offer was refused, the woman told the attendant that she had to leave and that she was concerned about the safety of her children.
While at the barrier, the woman received a call from her son asking her where she was. She said that she became stressed and fearful for her children, drove the car around the barrier and left the car park.
The attendant sent a letter of complaint about the woman’s actions to the respondent of the store on the same day. They submitted CCTV footage of the alleged incident.
The respondent claimed that the woman used “foul language” during the incident.
The complainant was summoned to an investigation meeting on 20 January 2017. Here, the respondent said she did not dispute that she had used inappropriate language during the incident.
The matter was advanced to a disciplinary hearing which took place on 1 February 2017 and was conducted by the store respondent of one of the store’s other branches.
It was at this meeting that she was issued a first written warning to remain on her file for eight months. The eight months have now elapsed. She was also advised that she would lose a bonus payment of €850 due to her having received a written warning.
The woman claims that the sanction was unfair because the incident occurred outside her workplace and her working hours.
She noted that the warning was for eight months, yet the bonus runs over 12 months.
The respondent said that the payment of a bonus was conditional on a performance appraisal which took place in August for the year dating between 31 August 2016 and 31 August 2017.
“Irrespective of the first written warning, the complainant didn’t meet the performance standard necessary to earn the bonus. An employee can appeal the outcome of an appraisal,” the respondent said.
In her findings, WRC adjudication officer Maire Mulcahy noted that this was a once off incident of unacceptable behaviour which did not reflect well on the complainant.
Mulcahy acknowledged that the woman was under self-induced pressure to collect her children.
She said that the respondent’s disciplinary procedure allows for two steps before the provision of a written warning. Step one is a verbal caution or letter or concern. Step two is a verbal warning of six months’ duration.
“The respondent’s decision to issue a first written warning automatically results in the loss of a bonus of approximately €850 for an entire year. The respondent advised that the complainant did not meet the performance standard required to merit a bonus of the 2017 year aside from the incident on 11 January 2017,” Mul...
She has determined that a verbal warning would have been a more appropriate sanction.

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