A good behaviour Bond

Dear Morrie

I’m angry at the unfairness of Australia’s judicial system.
In recent weeks two events have crystallised in my mind the inequities in the way criminals are dealt with in our country.
In the Northern Territory we’ve seen young kids thrown into jail because they stole Texta pens or a handful of loose change.
Yet, only a few days ago I watched TV and saw that master corporate shyster Alan Bond walking free before finishing his sentence – even though he supposedly defrauded people of around $1 billion.
Just where is the justice in that?
I’m angry that there seems to be one law for the rich and another for the poor.
Christopher Skase is still living it up in Spain, apparently still dying from his lung complaint.
He’s taking longer to pop off than former Senator Mal (sorry, Doctor) Colston.
Why is it that if you’ve got power, money or influence you escape the long arm of the law, but if you are poor, powerless – or black – you have to do your time and then some.
Morrie, you’re the only person I know who can do something about this rotten system.
Please help, otherwise I’ll lose all faith in our entire society.

Angry
Adelaide

Dear Angry,

Let me be right upfront with you, sport.
It’s not often I do this – in fact I’ve never done it before – but in this case I must declare a pecuniary interest in this subject.
To be frank, I know Bondy. I’ve known him for years. In fact him and I have done a few deals over the years. Not all of them successful.
But regardless of my connection with him, I reckon you’re spot on when it comes to sniffing the wind and finding our justice system on the nose.
Believe you me, I know at first hand just how rough justice can be in this country.
Let’s face it, we all make mistakes as we stroll through the arcade of life. We all have had our run-ins with the law.
I’m not ashamed to say I’ve had my fair share. It’s hard not to if you’re an entrepreneurial type like me, or Bondy, or Skasie.
But, unlike Alan and Chris, I’ve always copped the full force of the law. I’ve had the choker chain put on me plenty of times by small-minded bean counters – I’m talking about those stickybeaks in the consumer or corporate affairs bureaus dotted across our country like roadblocks to business success.
Every time they come after me I’ve stood my ground and fought the good fight. And each time they lay some charge against me I’ve always stayed to fight and copped the consequences.
Unlike Skasie, I didn’t fly off to do some heavy breathing in Majorca and bodgie up some photos to make people think I was lying on an operating table with my ribs fanned out like the Sydney Opera House.
No, I’ve always taken what’s coming to me, even when I didn’t think I deserved a bit of it.
For instance, back in ’76 our “justice” system reckoned Bondy and I were in breach of some old, dusty and obscure regulation in the companies law.
We were in hot water just because we didn’t allow ourselves and our investors to get tangled up in the red tape of a prospectus when we were trying to float a major new property development company.
For years Bondy and I had had our eyes on a vast tract of land just an easy drive north of the trendy sidewalk cafes of the cosmopolitan South Australian capital of Adelaide.
We’d often talked about divvying it up into a couple of thousand 12 or 16 perch blocks so that more people – especially young families – could get a real start in life by buying their own block of dirt and building their dream home.
But, as so often happens in this country, there were the nitpickers who did everything possible to shatter our dreams – and those of our investors.
We didn’t want to make people wait for the trimmings like water, power and sewerage, so we started selling blocks off the plan. Well, not so much off the plan as off the artist’s impression.
Once we started all the wowsers and doomsayers came out of the woodwork and put every possible obstacle in our way.
Worst of all were the environmentalists who tried to draw all sorts of red herrings across our path.
They reckoned our development wasn’t “green” enough.
Bondy and I knew different. It was green alright – especially at night.
I still reckon Maralinga Mews would have been a ripsnorter of a development if we had just been left alone to get on with it.
But, it wasn’t to be.
The corporate coppers slapped the cuffs on me – Alan dissolved our partnership at a special directors’ meeting in the front seat of his Merc and drove off just as I saw the flashing blue lights approaching through his cloud of dust on the road leading up to our – or from that moment, my – sales tent.
To cut a long story short, I paid the penalty for daring to live my dream.
I don’t like dwelling on the past, and I’ve got nothing personal against Bondy. Suffice to say we never spoke again, especially after he pretended not to recognise me at Laurel Connell’s birthday bash a few year later.
So I can completely understand your point of view, and I’m prepared to do something about it.
I’ve set up a new scheme that will allow ordinary citizens like you and me to put people like Bondy and Skasie behind bars and make them serve out their full sentences.
I’m planning to get together a fighting fund to take people like Bondy and Skasie to court and make them serve their time.
But, like all crusades, it’ll take a fair bit of dough to get rolling – especially when you consider most top-flight QCs don’t get out of bed to piss for less than 10-grand a day.
So, I’m asking you, your friends and anyone who believes in justice to kick in.
Send me a cheque made out to Cage Australia’s Sentenced Highfliers and I’ll soon get things moving at my end.
Bugger it, to save your time and mine, just make it out to CASH.
I’ll be in touch.

Morrie

Morrie Bezzle is a former chairman of Winged Keel Investments,
executive director of Uluru Topsoil Pty Ltd and
a director of Lake Eyre Timeshare Resort Pty Ltd.