Sky News contributor Cory Bernardi says Philanthropy in Australia hit new levels of farce when billionaire Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest was “played like a propaganda puppet by the Chinese Communist Party”.
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This year has marked an extraordinary generosity of spirit from the Australian people. Millions have given to worthy causes – most notably in response to the bushfires earlier in the year.
We should be grateful to all.
However, I have detected a global trend, often used by the super wealthy to make a big deal of their donations which often turn out to be somewhat different than originally portrayed.
It started decades ago with CNN founder Ted Turner pledged $1bn to the UN.
He got headlines and an immediate tax break only the fine print revealed it was actually instalment philanthropy - to be delivered over ten years. Still, it got the UN on board his anti-population agenda.
More recently, we see some famous philanthropists give to causes that are very closely linked to their business interests.
The Gates foundation receives many favourable headlines for their charity and in particular support for global vaccination programs but few know of the Gates’ investments in the vaccine companies themselves. These could turn his billions in donations into tens of billions in profits.
That might help explain his being the second largest funder of the World Health organisation…that’s right - more than any Government bar the United States. A total of $327 million US dollars last year alone.
Perhaps that’s why they want the world locked down until a vaccine is found for Covid-19
Can anyone else see the conflict of interest?
At home we have seen something similar .
‘Philanthropy’ reached new levels of farce when Aussie Billionaire Andrew Forest was played like a propaganda puppet by the Chinese communist party last week at a press conference connected to his charitable foundation Mindaroo.
The announcement was in actual fact a ‘non-tendered government procurement contract’ worth $100 million and had nothing to do with philanthropy at all.
That’s right, we (the taxpayer) are picking up the tab for Twiggy’s latest grandstanding…not to mention we are all paying a much greater national price due to brazen support for the CCP propaganda machine.
That’s not to undermine the very generous donations Mindaroo has made over many years but there are plenty of wealthy people who give generously to hundreds of causes without seeking public recognition.
It’s the model adopted by Australia’s richest woman Gina Rinehart who once said she prefers to keep her donations private. I know for a fact how generous she has been to many causes and yet she has never summonsed reporters to a press conference to be applauded for it.
Nor has she been used as a propaganda tool by a foreign government in the process.
Private giving reminds me of the biblical story where the wealthy made a big show of their alms but the poor widow, giving what little she could, was declared by Jesus to have ‘put in more than all the others’.
Aussie’s are like that. We give what we can, when we can, because we can – not because we want our name up in lights.
Cory Bernardi is the author of seven books and has been a member of the Australian rowing team, a publican, an investment portfolio manager and spent nearly 14 years as an Australian Senator.
