Has anyone checked Julie Bishop for a pulse or other signs of life lately?
There is a US Presidential election campaign underway.
In April 2015 Bill Clinton made this announcement about restrictions to the Clinton Foundation accepting money from foreign governments while Hillary was running for President.
Of all the brain-dead outright stupid and unnecessary deals I've encountered - and Gillard, Rudd and Turnbull take some beating - this has to be the singularly most stupid, least necessary, least thought-through and most embarrassing deal for the Australian Government I've seen in a long, long, long time.
This DFAT genii initiative only started in June this year and was published to the Australian Government's DFAT website on 20 July 2016.
This deal just got underway - with these guys!
The Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership (CGEP) is an initiative of the Clinton Foundation. CGEP combines the best of non-profit and for-profit approaches to create new enterprises that capitalise market opportunities to generate social impact by addressing market gaps in developing country supply or distribution chains. CGEP are overseeing this partnership’s enterprise development process including feasibility studies and market research, recruitment of pilot and the general manager, management of pilot and transition to enterprise, development and expansion of farmer technical assistance program, recruitment and training of farmers, design of logistics systems, and management of the commercial agreement with Unilever.
We've already hit one milestone - with more "value for money" in a couple of weeks.
On 30 August, still a few weeks away, Bill's people, Frank's people and the DFAT guys will get together to workshop what the whole deal is supposed to be about and put it in an MOU.
So why all the fuss? Why all the risk? Why are we dealing with the devil?
Indonesia's coconut sugar producers can't wait, that's why!
Never before has so little money purchased so much trouble for so small a gain.
Here's the deal synopsis.
We've kicked in half a million. Plus Australia's soul and our "leveragable DFAT connections".
The boss, Frank Giustra from the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership gets to "leverage" Australia's government contacts in incorruptible Indonesia.
You beauty, get that private jet fired up boys, we're off to resource rich Indonesia, the land of "semua bisa diatur" ("all can be arranged", a phrase an Indonesian traffic cop might use - or a provincial governor with some hardwood forests, or the top half of a mountain in West Irian with a bit of gold in it - or a meeting with someone like, say, Frank "There's Uranium in them thar Kazakhstan Hills" Giustra!)
Here's Frank and Bill and hundreds of pair of white shoes
Photo: Joaquin Sarmiento/AFP/Getty Images
Former president Bill Clinton speaks next to Canadian billionaire Frank Giustra, center, and Mexican businessman Marco Slim, during the innauguration ceremony of the Acceso Oferta Local Food Company in Cartagena, Colombia on May 15, 2013.Frank Giustra, a Canadian billionaire with interests in mining and filmmaking, gave $100 million to establish the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership. CGEP is technically a registered Canadian charity. It gives money to a sister organization with the same name that is part the broader Clinton foundation. The purpose of having two organizations with the same name, according to CGEP’s website, is so “Giustra and other Canadian residents could receive a charitable tax credit” for their donations.
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