Thursday 10th October 1996
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The Federal Government have given up their chase to uncover his millions of dollars in assets salted away when things got tough after a decision to end funding of the expensive venture.
The Commonwealth has already spent Au$700,000 in tracing Skase's assets on top of a multi million dollar bill trying to extradite the man from his little safe house in Spain. There are still warrants out for his arrest, but he continues to live the high life on the island of Majorca in his Au$5,000,000 villa La Noria.
Skase was about to be extradited to face the music a few years ago but by putting up an acting performance that would have made Larry Hagman green with envy he convinced a Spanish court that he was too sick to travel.
What he has left behind in Australia is a stench about his family and that name... no harm intended if your name is Skase but if you live in Australia and your first name is Christopher it must be real hard doing business here.
The sorry story is typical of what has happened to funds earmarked to Aboriginal communities around Australia. In this case a white consultant was appointed to look after their funds and within eighteen months the Deeral people had landed with debts of Au$800,000.
Deeral chief executive officer Duncan McInnes said, "We've all ended with being the first Aboriginal corporation in Australia to go into voluntary liquidation.
"There's no place else for us to go except what black fellas call the fattening farm - jail.
"We've got debts of Au$550,000 to Au$800,000. Nobody knows the real figure; the administrator has all the paperwork now."
The Deeral people are now putting up a shantytown on the main road to Cairns to draw attention to their plight.
ATSIC Cairns and District Regional Council chairwoman Nerelle Nicol has said that they cannot be blamed for the mismanagement of the funds allocated to the Deerall people.
Another Aboriginal community in northern New South Wales have seen much greater success after being awarded Au$1.3 million in the first successful Native Title land claim on mainland Australia since the Mabo decision.
The Taxation Commissioner, Mr Michael Carmody, said yesterday, "I have very grave concerns about the integrity of the tax system if the general tax payer believes and sees that people who for all appearances have high wealth are paying low tax."
You might recall that just before the March elections the Labor Party said that they would recover Au$800 million in unpaid taxes from the wealthy in Australia. Carmody believes that the five-nation tax-avoidance agreement would go a long way in achieving the aim.
Carmody also said that the tax office is looking at ways in people could lodge their tax returns through the Internet!
Super League was looking pretty good at taking them all until Optus came up with the Au$180 million funding package. Now it appears that the game will be split in two in Australia, with the ARL competition, in its current status playing second fiddle.
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