By Jekhan Aruliah
An appreciation on the retirement of a man who fled Sri
Lanka’s communal riots in 1984 to settle in Australia, and returned three
decades later in 2015 to setup Jaffna’s first luxury hotel. Devoting five years
of his life as the hands-on General Manager of Jetwing Jaffna.
Chris Ponnadurai
Chris was born in Colombo in 1951, the seventh of eight children. His father was a school inspector, who moved the family often as he was transferred around the country. Spending his early life in Jaffna, Batticaloa, and Ratnapura, Chris’ family then moved to Colombo where he finished his school career at the prestigious Isipathana College. From there he joined the Ceylon Hotel School.
Australian government hires private debt collectors to hound welfare recipients
Less than a month after the federal government agreed to a $1.2 billion settlement over the unlawful “robodebt” scheme, it has issued a new call for tenders from private debt collectors to hound welfare recipients for allegedly receiving overpayments.
The new contracts will include several provisions that indicate the department intends to take a more aggressive approach to debt recovery.
The welfare queue outside a Centrelink office in Sydney last March (Photo: WSWS)
Cases will initially be divided equally among a panel of three companies. Their performance will supposedly be assessed according to a “balanced scorecard” comprising “debt recovery performance, customer satisfaction levels, adherence to agreed service levels and contractual arrangements; and quality operational outcomes.”
Aussies warned against Amazon Prime scam
Scamwatch issued the warning today, urging people to be cautious. If you receive a suspicious call claiming to be from Amazon, do not share any personal information or give remote access to your computer - just hang up, the organisation posted on Twitter.
How well can you spot a scam? Take our
In the past, scammers have claimed to be representing a range of organisations, including law enforcement agencies or the Australian Tax Office.
In all cases, if a person is unsure, they are encouraged to hang up, and contact the organisation directly themselves to check the veracity of the call they received.
An urgent warning has been issued to Australians after fraudsters pretending to be from the tax office scam a woman out of $22,000.
The 42-year-old, from the Liverpool area in south-west Sydney, received a phone call at 10am on Monday from someone claiming to be from the Australian Tax Office.
According to police, the con artist told the resident she owed the government money and told her she would be contacted by police.
The woman received a call from a man claiming to be a police officer who instructed her to withdraw $22,000 cash and give it to him (stock image)
A short time later, she got a call from a man claiming to be a police officer who instructed her to withdraw the exorbitant amount of cash and give it to him.
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AN ASPIRING distiller is planning to create a micro gin distillery just outside of Rockhampton.
Matt Mansfield has applied through Livingstone Shire Council for a material change of use to turn his three-bay shed into a micro distillery as a home business.
The property is located at Glendale and it is understood it could be the first distillery for the Livingstone Shire.
The distillery set-up would involve raw ingredients being distilled into consumable white spirits such as gin, to be sold on a commercial basis.
The micro distillery intends to consist of a single 130L copper pot still, bottling table and labelling equipment.