It's all about the oil...

Halliburton is a name known throughout the western world, and predominantly because it sends anti-war warriors into a foaming mouthed frenzy. One of Halliburton's subsidiaries is Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR). A very large company, KBR deals predominantly with infrastructure and service contracts.

The Australian Defence Force utilises KBR's services in a number of capacities, mainly in the field of training support services and logistics contracts. What's the big deal? Well, a young punter in NSW has apparently just finished 8 months researching contracts that KBR have been awarded in Australia. Although it was ostensibly for a class assignment for a journalism course, the uber-spy Nick Calacouras, a final-year journalism student at the University of Technology Sydney, finished up deranged and maddened by the intricate web that the Halliburton proxy, KBR, had integrated into the ADF contract system.

And I can see why he went crazy on this research. I mean, it took me, oh, shit, let's see, 3 whole minutes to go to Contracts.gov.au, click on Public users, search for contracts by supplier. Big hint here Nick. If you spelt KBR as K.B.R, you wouldn't have gotten a match up. If you put in Kellogg Brown Root, stipulate a date range of no more than 12 months period, select the Department of Defence to search in, and Hey Presto!

181 contracts awarded in the last 12 months to KBR. Total value? Fuck knows, probably a lot. I could have easily clicked each contract link to give me full visiblity on the contract, as required by the Department's Corporate Governance Regulations. If I did that though, it wouldn't be a conspiracy about KBR being enmeshed in Defence, funding Halliburton's Oil War (TM) in Iraq.

How this clown took 8 months to discover something I can achieve in mere minutes with a home PC is more an indicator of the parlous state of journalist research skills in Australia than some form of sinister plot for KBR to take over the running of the ADF.

Can anyone tell me why logistics and training roles formerly done by uniformed ADF members are now contracted to civil firms like KBR, which are staffed by the aforementioned uniformed members that have taken a pension AND a payrise?

Can anyone spell Commercial Support Program (CSP) ? Can anyone spell A.L.P? Can anyone spell B.E.A.Z.L.E.Y? How about H.Y.P.O.C.R.I.S.Y?

Today's Bastards Inc. stock tip is brought to you by the Green Left Weekly. If it's pissing off greenies and wrecking the environment, I'm buying!

Crossposted at Bastards Inc.

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