The Saturday Paper on Bob Day's resignation and backstory:
Day’s Monday statement said he left the parliament “devastated”, but he went as a hero to many on the political right. Tony Abbott, for one, paid lavish tribute to a “principled and courageous senator”.
Others were not so kind. Contractors had been stiffed for many millions of dollars. A couple of hundred home buyers were left with defective or unfinished homes. Numbers of them lined up to complain about their dealings with Day’s group of companies.
According to a preliminary estimate by the liquidators, McGrathNicol, Day’s companies owed unsecured creditors – that is, unpaid subcontractors and tradies, not banks – some $12.5 million. That number is expected to rise. So much for mutual trust and mateship.
McGrathNicol’s statement said all work had stopped on homes under construction by five wholly owned subsidiary companies of Day’s Home Australia Pty Ltd across five states: Ashford Homes in Victoria, where there were 57 houses; Huxley Homes in New South Wales, 56; Homestead Homes, South Australia, 48; Collier Homes, Western Australia, 29; and Newstart Homes, Queensland, 17.
In total, 207 families were left in the lurch. That number is expected to grow.
Politics was the obvious next step. Day joined the Liberal Party in 1987 and filled various organisational roles – as well as being a significant donor – before winning preselection for the South Australian seat of Makin in 2007. He lost the election but the next year he contested the preselection of Mayo, the seat vacated by Alexander Downer. The party chose another right-winger, Jamie Briggs, over him.
This wounded Day. He acrimoniously quit the Liberals and set out to find another vehicle to take him into parliament. It was a lot like Clive Palmer’s flameout, except that where Palmer started his own party from scratch, Day took over an existing one.
Within a few months of joining in 2008, Day became the party’s chairman. The new Family First HQ was in a Day-owned building that also housed a number of other right-wing groups, including Cory Bernardi’s Conservative Leadership Foundation.
A couple of years ago I totted up Day’s donations to Family First, as detailed in Australian Electoral Commission returns. Between 2009-10, the year after his takeover of the party and 2011-12, he kicked in more than $2.6 million, including a loan of $1.089 million, which appears never to have been repaid.
Since then, the money has continued to flow. In 2012-13 there was another $381,775, and the next year $484,000. In the most recent year for which figures are available, 2014-15, it was $73,200.
It should be noted that this money all came from his private company, B&B Day Pty Ltd, but one might reasonably wonder at one of his companies handing over millions – most of it applied to the purpose of getting him elected – while his other companies were struggling with massive debts.
It’s all very perplexing. In 2012-13, for example, ASIC records show Home Australia recorded a loss of more than $420,000, yet paid a fully franked dividend of $2.67 million to its owners, including B&B Day. Which then gave $380,000 to Family First.
It may well be the case that the greatest political contribution by the radical deregulationist Bob Day is in providing proof of the need for greater regulation. What a delicious irony.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/new ... 0548003880
"The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment" – Warren Bennis