BASS

"The voters of Bass have overwhelmingly rejected the iniquities and inequities of the strange variant of Socialism Mr. Whitlam offers. As the Leader of the Opposition rightly said yesterday, they have given the lead to the people of Australia." - Editorial, The Australian, June 30th.

Well, what has happened? First of all (but not that importantly) the Federal Secretary of the Australian Labor Party Mr. David Combe, doesn't know what he is talking about. As reported in On Target (June 20th) Mr. Combe stated that the Bass by-election was in no way a National election. It was, very much so. Mr. Combe's own leader, Mr. Whitlam, cut the ground from under his feet (Mr. Combe's) the next day when The Sun (Melbourne) June 18th, reported: - "The Prime Minister, Mr. Whitlam, last night acknowledged that the Bass by-election would be a virtual referendum on his Government's programme." This impressive display of solidarity with his officials is typical of Gough Whitlam, who would throw anyone to the wolves to score a political point.

We hope that all this political waffle from the direction of the A.L.P. concerning "failure of communication" with the electorate will die a long-overdue death. This" line" which we have heard from many of the A.L.P. chieftains has it that the "Australian" Government of Mr. Whitlam is moving too quickly for the electorate to comprehend fully its aims and objectives, and that more effort and time must be expended in "explaining" these to Australians.

With typical Socialist arrogance (and ignorance), which a re-reading of Wilmot Robertson's words in our "Thought for the Week" (above) may bring into sharper focus, the Socialist ideologues convince themselves that all that they are attempting is correct, it is the dopey electorate with which they are (unfortunately) lumbered which is holding the Socialist Utopia back. This self-deception must be a form of insanity: the ideology is the fact; the truth: the practical results of the ideology (facts) are to them the shadows.

We suspect that the Department of the Media was established partially for this reason; how much easier it would be to "explain" Labor policies if only the A.L.P. machine could gain control over those worrisome Dailies in Sydney and Melbourne, and put a gag on some of those gnat-like political commentators on the T.V. channels. It would be really "to everyone's benefit" if all the organs of the media were to "co-ordinate and rationalise" their opinion and commentary. Freedom of speech? Now that's "neanderthal": only "troglodytes" worry about such an archaic principle these days.

The policy makers in the P.M.s Department, and Foreign Affairs are far too sophisticated and "advanced" to be restrained by such notions. So no volume of political excuses will obscure the fact that the Socialists received a heavy drubbing in Bass. The political aftermath of the by-election has been thoroughly covered by the political commentators in the dailies.

What of the future? Next is South Australia. Half the swing that occurred in Bass would have Mr. Dunstan on the ropes. Will this happen? It could; the main worry for anti-Socialists is the weakness of the South Australian Opposition. There virtually isn't any Opposition. The key point that anti-Socialists should keep uppermost in their minds are that a vote against Dunstan is a vote against Whitlam and his Socialist cabal.

Bass has been a shocking rebuff, on a personal level to Mr. Whitlam. He entered the hustings in Bass with head held high, and with his usual arrogance well exposed. His reputation as the "vote winner" has dissolved, and is no more. What of Mr. Fraser? Well, Bass was good for him, of course. What about the "no election - no double dissolution" statements? He may have to change his mind.

Mr. Fraser's objective is obviously to let the Socialists stew in their own juice until the end of their normal term of office, by which time the Australian electorate would be so sick to death of them that the Socialists would be rejected for years to come. There is something to be said for this view; but we believe that circumstances have now changed and this is no longer the correct view.

There is a possibility of the appointment of two senators for the A.C.T. by the Government, and also Federal electoral re-distributions that are now on the drawing board. Impending High Court rulings will lend clarity to the present clouded picture; but if Mr. Whitlam could pull these off the Opposition would have nothing to be confident about. So Mr. Fraser must weigh all these factors as he comes under more pressure from his own team to go in for the "kill", and the Cairns bombshell - just burst is still rocking Canberra. We repeat; the Australian political scene is most fluid.

UNION REJECTS WAGE RESTRAINTS

"Suggestions by the Prime Minister, Mr. Whitlam, and other members of Cabinet, that workers should tighten their belts and accept wage restraint were yesterday rejected by Australia's largest group of white collar workers." - The Australian. June 19th.

We have observed previously in these pages that unions in general, and certainly Communist-dominated unions will not co-operate with wage restraints. Wage earners at large want to be compensated against the ravages of inflation. Furthermore, the Communists want, yearn for more and ever more social friction, which will bring the day of revolution in Australia closer.

In a pre-Budget submission to the Government the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations, representing one third of a million white collar workers in some 37 unions said; "Employees could not be expected to make sacrifices because of the economic crisis created by the Capitalist system which was increasingly being shaped by the great monopolies, multinational corporations, and international cartels." All this phraseology has a very familiar ring.

The Council wants the taxation deductions system to be overhauled so that the high-income earners are slugged much more, and the average wage earners slugged less. We noticed that the Left-wingers never have any argument with taxation itself; or even high taxation, Taxation is good; but the "rich" are not being sufficiently slugged; that's the trouble.

The Left-wingers in this Council are giving us due warning: "But workers must not be sacrificed in forlorn attempts to cure the system's ills." "The deliberate creation of unemployment, whether contrived by employers or government, will not solve the economic problem. It will cause untold misery to thousands of people and it carries the threat of industrial and civil strife on a massive scale."

The Communists are licking their lips in anticipation of the almost certain development of a revolutionary situation in Australia as a direct result of hyperinflation and unemployment. Mr. Fraser and his colleagues may anticipate a steady ride into power, but how will they stay in office by mouthing political platitudes in a revolutionary situation? We doubt whether they have thought that far ahead!

STIRRING UNANIMITY BETWEEN DEFENCE LEADERS

"The Defence Minister, (Mr. Morrison) has rejected the assumption that Australia faces no foreseeable threat for 15 years as the basis for defence policies." - The Age (Melbourne) July lst.

"The Defence Department's Head Sir Arthur Tange has supported the ten-to-fifteen years no-defence-threat advice given to the Federal Government". - The Sun (Melbourne) July lst.

What confidence this evokes in the hearts of Australians! The League of Rights considers that it is insanity to base the Nations defence priorities on a period of time so far ahead as ten to fifteen years. We welcome, therefore, Mr. Morrison's attitude. He thinks (as do we) that fifteen years is too long a period in which reliable predictions can be made. Radical alterations to conditions affecting Australia's security can occur in much less time than that.

Sir Arthur Tange, with the arrogance of the high bureaucrat, is of the opinion "that such advice should be given to Governments to allow them to plan their equipment buying". Now here is the typical bureaucratic mentality.
The bureaucratic priorities are
1). The bureaucrat, and his advancement/security.
2). The Department to which he belongs.
3). The Nation: well back in the priority scale.

Sir Arthur also felt disposed to slam "those more dogmatic press editors" who did not agree with the 15-year circle of safety, or ring of confidence. He doesn't like pressure groups, and he certainly would not like the Australian League of Rights. We are old-fashioned. We were brought up to believe that the role of public service administrators was to administer government policies, and not enter the political arena. Sir Arthur does not welcome views opposite to his own, which themselves apparently are based on the needs and requirements of his own Department, rather than on the hard defence facts of life, as laid down in no uncertain terms lately by former defence leaders: men who have forgotten more about military matters than Sir Arthur Tange a civilian bureaucrat, will ever know.

BRIEF COMMENTS

The Vice-Chancellor of Melbourne University. (Professor Derham) has warned of increasing "Australian" Government interference in the affairs of universities. Professor Derham referred to recent intervention by some Labor Parliamentarians on behalf of Professor Wheelwright, of Sydney University, a Left-wing Professor of Economics, who has not been gaining the promotion the Left thinks is his due. Forty-nine members of the Federal Labor Caucus have asked the Federal Government 's Committee on Discrimination in Employment to "investigate" the issue. The principle at stake is whether universities are to remain autonomous or not. Vice Chancellors are to learn that "the man who pays the piper calls the tune". Once an institution becomes geared to government funds it is in a disadvantageous position to reject the enforcement of unwelcome policy charge.

We are no great admirers of the Queensland Treasurer, Sir Gordon Chalk. Nevertheless, he did talk some financial sense recently when he was commenting on the attempted Whitlam Governments takeover of State railways. He said; "If the Prime Minister is able to take over all railway debts, estimated at $300 million, why could he not give this money to the States to enable them to carry on as they are with local and State administration?" The answer is that he (Mr. Whitlam) doesn't want to. Mr. Whitlam, a Socialist ideologue, wants centralisation of all Government administration and control. Governments can only attain control (power) at the expense of the individual. The more power a government has; the less power (sovereignty) has the individual: and vice versa.
The League of Rights stands for decentralisation of political and economic power back into the hands of the individual: the opposite of Socialism/Communism - and the Communists and Socialists know it!

Weekly Review (U.K June 25th) has keen comment on the state of affairs in present day Portugal. There is a close parallel between the Communist strategy, which was successful in the capture of Czechoslovakia in Feb. 1948, and the current Communist strategy in Portugal. It is more than significant that Alvaro Cunhal the Portuguese Communist leader, along with some of his close comrades, spent no less than twelve years in Prague (capital of Czechoslovakia) learning the lessons of the 1948 Revolution. The current Portuguese situation was described with acid frankness by a Moscow commentator of late, and we quote:
"The history of democratic movement in countries where the masses were cut off from political life e.g. (Portugal) abound with examples of a primary merger of precisely the most backward and poorest sections of the population with their own class enemies until these masses of people learn class consciousness from the lessons of life and their own daily reality, and until they become hardened and become fighters for the cause of the revolutionary restructuring of society."
The "translation" of this, paraphrased, reads:- "historically inevitable" (Communist) democratic movements in backward countries like Portugal show that the peasantry and lower classes are dependent upon the ruling classes - their class enemies. This will obtain until Communist propaganda and indoctrination, and the physical forces in the hands of the Communist revolutionaries convince and/or "persuade" them that they must join the revolution.
Alvaro Cunhal and his comrades, along with the Marxist officers of the Armed Forces Movement (which runs Portugal) overturned the verdict of the people at the recent elections. Moscow commented: "For the better future of their homeland the Portuguese Communists are demonstrating their patriotism and their determination to defend the interest of the people. The masses learn in the course of such a struggle."

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