1. Be at the polling center real early, as I m suspecting that there may be a long queue due to the new polling process. Many will be sick of waiting and waste their vote. Don't be a fool to do that. Polling center opens at 8am till 5pm. Polling center gate closes at 5:00pm sharp RTM time.  ( Conduct of Elections Act.Regulation23. Closing of poll.. " No ballot paper shall be issued to a voter after the hour fixed for the closing of the poll but if at that hour there is in the polling station any voter to whom a ballot paper has been issued, such voter shall be allowed to vote."

Note the voter must have the ballot paper in hand when polls close to be able to vote..)

2. Check on-line first (http://daftarj.spr.gov.my/semakpru13.aspx) and print out your details before going to the voting center. You may be able to by-pass the Barung counter since you have a printout and know where to go and thus short cut your time. 

3. Bring your IC, if you lost your IC, then use the temp IC. If you also lost your temp IC, then you can use your passport. Avoid using passport as we the counting agents will insist you fill up a Borang 11 which will take time, and affects the queue. This time EC allows even Gov't employee tag� polling agent will seek verification if sees anyone using that. 

4. Make sure your left hand index finger is clean, any makings or stains will caused you to be disallowed to vote. If you got band aid plaster on that finger, they will require you to use the right hand index instead. The default is left hand index finger. No stains allow on either fingers. The polling kerani will mark your left index finger with an ink. 

5. Important! The ink will take about 30 second to dry. Bring along a tissue to dry off your finger before holding your ballot papers. Any smudge or stain on the ballot paper will render it spoiled vote. So be extremely careful. Now you understand why you need to be there early.

6. Your ballot paper will have a serial number, but must be clean of any extra marking or words or stains, smudge, pencil/pen marking or dots or TEAR on all the surface of the ballot papers. YOU CAN REJECT THE PIECE OF BALLOT PAPER AND INSIST ON A NEW ONE IF YOU SEE ANY OF THOSE. Do not be intimidated by anyone there as this is your ABSOLUTE RIGHT.

7. Ensure that the kerani that handed you the ballot paper, do not write the serial No. of your ballot papers next to your name on the list. He or she is suppose to just neatly cross out your name on the list. If you see that she wrote something, please raise hell. Make sure she crosses out your name on her list and we will do the same on ours.

8. If in some strange (may happen) event you were told that you have already voted, eventho you have not, and your fingers have no markings, you MUST raise hell. We the polling agents will raise hell too. It means that somebody has voted on your behalf. You will be required to fill forms and etc. Remember, your constitutional right to vote.

9. Do not wear any t-shirt or buttons or hat that is aligned to any of the political parties. You will be ask to remove or disallowed to enter the polling center. 

10. When casting your vote, be careful not to make any other marks on the ballot paper. You will be using a pen instead of the usual pencil. So if you make a mistake and it is accidental, please request for a new ballot paper. They have 10% extra papers to cater for this sort of things. 

11. Fold the ballot paper neatly in half checking to see that all is in order before proceeding to the ballot boxes. Here, we will have 2 ballot boxes for Parliament and State.

12. At the ballot boxes, SHOW and put the ballot paper into their corresponding box. Stand there to ensure that the kerani push your vote into the box. Please do not have any tissue or other paper in your hands as you may be stopped for search by the Polling agent. We are trained to look out for people who brings out their blank voting papers to sell. Don't do that, you 'll go to jail. 

14. I am not aware of any special lane for the disabled or elderly. 

Please do read again what I have written and feel free to forward to all your friends, make sure that everyone goes to vote. Every vote counts. This election is most crucial.

Billionaire's decades of profits spirited away

Date

April 28, 2013

• 57 reading now
• Read later

Mark Baker

Editor-at-Large, The Age

View more articles from Mark Baker

Glamorous property deals and harbourside mansions reaped nothing
for the taxpayer.

• submit to reddit
• Email article
• Print
• Reprints & permissions

Big business: Onn Mahmud. Photo: Supplied

One of Asia's richest tycoons has avoided tax on tens of millions of dollars in profits from Australian property deals over the past two decades.

Onn Mahmud - brother of the billionaire chief minister of Sarawak in Malaysian Borneo - has used an elaborate global financial network to export his earnings from a portfolio of Sydney commercial and residential properties worth an estimated $100 million.

In one deal, Mr Onn sold an apartment development site in Potts Point for $15.5 million in 2007, realising a profit of $10.8 million.

Farok Abdul Majeed, who is suing Mr Onn for the $5 million he claims he is owed. Photo: Supplied

A former senior business associate of Mr Onn said no capital gains tax was paid on the deal and all of the proceeds were repatriated to a trust based in the Cayman Islands.

Advertisement

''All his operations were carefully structured to ensure that he paid no tax in Australia,'' said Farok Abdul Majeed, who ran Mr Onn's Sydney property deals for several years.

Mr Onn's wife and children live in a mansion in Carrara Road, Vaucluse, with sweeping harbour views, but he spends most of his time in Singapore and Malaysia.

Documents obtained by Fairfax Media indicate that Mr Onn gave conflicting information to authorities to secure an Australia business visa and build the property portfolio he ran through Cayman Island trusts managed by merchant bankers Merrill Lynch in the Isle of Man.

Mr Abdul Majeed is fighting to recover millions of dollars he claims to be owed in unpaid fees, commissions and expenses. Leading architects Crone Partners also claim to be owed more than $500,000 for professional services.

Mr Onn is reported to be the second richest person in Malaysia with a fortune of more than $2 billion, most of it drawn from deals involving timber exports that have decimated the tropical rainforests of Sarawak. His 2002 business visa application was sponsored by Ryan Park Limited and three associated companies he and his family controlled, Ferncroft Limited, Golden Arrow Limited and Cherry Blossom Limited. In the application, Mr Onn said Ryan Park and the other companies had invested more than $50 million in Sydney real estate. Mr Abdul Majeed said he believes Mr Onn's total property investments in Australia were double that amount.

Ryan Park's ABN registration describes it as an ''Australian private company'' but it has no record with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and was registered in the Cayman Islands in 1991 as a ''non-resident'' entity.

In March 2007, executives of Merrill Lynch swore in a statutory declaration in the Isle of Man that Ryan Park was ''an unregistered foreign company'' that ''does not carry on business in Australia''.

Ryan Park - and the three other companies also registered in Cayman Islands - were struck off the Islands' company register several years ago.

The property portfolio assembled by Mr Onn between the early 1990s and 2007 included a hotel and restaurant complex in central Sydney and an office building in Elizabeth Street sold in 2005 reaping a profit believed to be more than $5 million.

Mr Abdul Majeed said that when the site in Wylde Street, Potts Point, was sold in 2007, the proceeds were repatriated to a Cayman Islands trust whose beneficiaries were members of Mr Onn's family.

The unrealised plans to build a luxury apartment tower on the Potts Point site made it, for a while, the talk of the town. In 2008 a duplex penthouse was sold off the plan for a record $20 million.

Mr Abdul Majeed, a Malaysian-born property development and project management consultant, has resumed legal action to recover more than $5 million he claims to be owed by Mr Onn.

In August 2007, a NSW Supreme Court judge ordered Mr Onn to pay $2.2 million to Mr Abdul Majeed for outstanding fees and commissions. The order was discontinued after he failed to appear at a subsequent hearing at which the order was challenged by Mr Onn's lawyers.

Mr Onn did not respond to a series of questions from Fairfax Media sent last week to his Singapore lawyers.

Has The Star reached a tipping point?

They say a bad ad does more harm than good. But that message seems to be lost on RAPP KL, the international agency behind the �kick-ass� MCA ads that attacks the opposition in The Star.

The public backlash in social media had respondents fuming mad citing them as malicious.

One ad which reads, �A vote for DAP is a vote for PAS� had a leading journalist respond, �A vote for BN can also be a vote for Perkasa.�

Everything seems to be going wrong with the campaign.

The ads that ran on Sunday appear to have been written before the DAP was allowed to use their Rocket symbol, but it was too late to change the ads. Hence the ad where the Rocket morphs into a PAS symbol draws further confusion.

A regional advertising industry publisher got into the fray today saying: �Like The Star, ad agency RAPP KL links back to MCA as it is part of the Foetus Group, which also includes Naga DDB, Milk PR, Beyond Events and Vizeum Media Services.�

Foetus Group Chairman is Vincent Lee, who is also Executive Deputy Chairman of Star Publications (M) Bhd. Sadly, the finger points directly to Lee.

In other words, MCA = The Star.

The Malaysian Code of Advertising (2008) states: No advertisement should contain statements or suggestions which may offend the religious, political, sentimental or racial susceptibilities of any community.

But Association of Accredited Advertising Agents (4As) Malaysia President Johnny Mun told The Malaysian Insider, �The Code only applies to product advertising generally and does not govern political advertisements.�

This throws every argument in the book out of whack because a past 4As President told AdBuster, �The Code applies to all ads.�

Vincent Lee

Does this mean the current 4As President is under pressure from another ex 4As President, Vincent Lee himself, who served two full terms in office.

Is it any wonder why no journalist has bothered to ask chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority Malaysia (ASAM), Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir for his opinion? He is known to be  �friendly� to The Star.

AdBuster also has inside information that the people writing the ads had their hands forced. They have been bombarded in social media and SMSes making them the latest black sheep of the industry.

�BN has spent over RM160 million in advertising expenditure (adex) in the first three months this year using a block buster strategy, making them three times bigger than the next biggest spender,� says leading media guru Bala Pomaleh, CEO of Carat Media Malaysia in avideo today.

In March alone, the PM�s Office spent at least RM73 million on ads according to Nielsen Media Research. This clearly makes it the most expensive general election ever in terms of adex.

�In comparison, a leading telco or FMMC marketers would normally spend this kind of money in one whole calendar year!� adds advertising strategist Kapil Sethi.

On a macro scale, has The Star reached its tipping point?

Are its competitors smelling blood and an opportunity to knock The Star of its leadership pedestal with this recent bashing by its own readers?

Suddenly, many competitors of The Star seem to be coming out of hiding. All this is showing up a new reality: that quite a few people do not like The Star for many varied reasons. Have they now found a final reason to nail it for good?

Besides peddling racial fear against Pakatan Rakyat (PR) the campaign could backfire in the May 5 general election. But it seems they are dead bent on sticking to their strategy despite the writing on the wall. This sort of cocksure aloofness is what may sound the death knell for The Star. They have gambled their readers away for the sake of MCA.

In another development, The Malay Mail (which is the only English daily, apart from theSun, accepting ads from Opposition parties) has gained readership inroads with a bigger print run of 200,000 copies a day since Nomination Day. Their new Cover Page has also caught on very well.

The Star�s radio arm has also not been spared. Their recently rebranded Red FM drew flak from its listeners for airing political ads on its airwaves which portrays the Opposition coalition in bad light. A Facebook page called �We Fully Boycott Red.FM� is currently gaining traction.

But the latest salvo is in the form of an online petition that has gathered a perfect storm with over 800 signatures in just one day alone.

This entire drama is unfolding by the hour, so stay tuned �.