"IT'S TIME TO STOP THE ROT."

by Eric D. Butler
In his address to the nation on February 16th, Prime Minister Whitlam reached a new low in hypocrisy and double-talk as he attempted to present himself as a staunch defender of convention, tradition and democracy, allegedly now threatened because Premier Tom Lewis of N.S.W. declines to appoint a Labor Senator to fill the Senate vacancy resulting from the sudden appointment of ex-Senator Murphy, Attorney-General, to the High Court of Australia. Mr. Whitlam said in his address, "It's time to stop the rot." But the rot has been created by Mr. Whitlam and his colleagues, and it is refreshing that Mr. Lewis has seized the opportunity to try to do something to check it.

He has displayed commendable courage in the face of a national campaign of vilification by Mr. Whitlam and his press lackeys, with very little open support from his own Liberal Party colleagues in the Commonwealth Parliament. Former Liberal Prime Minister John Gorton described Mr. Lewis as "mad". Badly upset by the Lewis stand, one that was obviously not even considered possible when the Murphy appointment was made, Mr. Whitlam has desperately attempted to turn the situation to his own political advantage. What is the dreadful "crime" which Mr. Lewis has committed? He has refused to follow a convention, which the major political parties at Canberra have used to maintain the Senate as a party-political House.

The Federal Constitution was designed to ensure that the basic powers of the separate States were not eroded by the Federal Government. The Senate was created on the basis that all States were, irrespective of size and population, entitled to equal representation. The Constitution specifically charges the State Parliaments with the responsibility of filling any vacancy. There is no reference to a political party representative being chosen. Mr. Whitlam and his colleagues are attempting to argue that irrespective of the intention of the framers of the Constitution, the Senate has long ceased to operate as a State House. This is unfortunately true, but by his stand Mr. Lewis has rendered the nation a signal service by focusing attention upon what should be the true role of the Senate.
Like the Queensland Premier, Mr. J. Bjelke-Petersen the only premier to back him, Mr. Lewis has faced the fact that the Whitlam Government is formally committed to the destruction of the States.

One of the most telling of the Save-our-State brochures issued during the Queensland State Elections drew attention to the fact that at the 1973 ALP Federal Convention, held on the Gold Coast, ex-Senator Murphy chaired the committee, which proposed a change in the ALP party platform to endorse a policy of abolishing the States. In supporting the amendment, Mr. Whitlam said, "I am, always have been, and ever will be a firm, avowed centralist...I don't see any validity in the State boundaries..."
Although a number of delegates opposed the proposal, one describing it as a "breathtaking prescription for dismembering the States", it was adopted and is official ALP policy.
In spite of lip service about the States at this year's Terrigal Conference, the official anti-States policy remains. Why should Mr. Lewis be required to replace one Senator pledged to the destruction of the States with another Senator pledged to do likewise? Such an act would be one of betrayal, not support of a worthwhile convention.

While it is true that even High Court Chief Justices have been appointed direct from party political ranks, the Murphy appointment defied all generally accepted traditions. This is the man who personally led the raid on Australia's Intelligence and Security Organisation, and who introduced legislation assaulting basic human rights. On the eve of his swearing in as a High Court Judge, Mr. W. C. Wentworth N.S.W. Liberal MP, alleged at Canberra that the abrupt move to the High Court was "to beat a rap." Mr. Wentworth charged that files had been concealed.
Other serious allegations and rumours concern Mr. Justice Murphy's relationship with Miss Junie Morosi, whom he introduced to Dr. Cairns and others, and the business relationship between Mrs. Murphy and Miss Morosi's husband Mr. Ditchburn. Then there was the appointment of Mr. Ditchburn to the Commonwealth Film Board by the former Attorney General.
If the Liberal-Country Party Coalition has any backbone, it would immediately upon being elected appoint a Royal Commission to investigate the Murphy affair.

It is hard to restrain oneself in examining Mr. Whitlam's address to the nation. The man who mouths his concern about democracy was the same man who without consulting the Australian people, and in defiance of what was clearly the will of the majority, attempted to impose his own National Anthem upon the Australian people. As for the convention of appointing Senators to fill vacancies, Mr. Whitlam insults the Australian people by taking it for granted that they have forgotten the Gair affair and his attempt to increase his strength in the Senate.

Mr. Whitlam asks Australians to believe that he supports the convention that a Senate vacancy should be filled by a member of the same party but he insisted that Senator Gair would only get the ambassadorship of Ireland if he vacated his Senate seat under circumstances, which would enable the ALP to gain the seat. When Mr. J. Bjelke-Petersen announced that he would fill the vacancy with a DLP representative because Senator Gair represented that party, Mr. Whitlam announced that he and Senator Murphy would take action in the High Court in an attempt to prevent this happening. One would have thought that in view of the Gair affair, and the Attorney General's incredible activities, that the Prime Minister might at least have consulted with Mr. Lewis to ascertain if he would appoint a Senator from the Labor Party. But presumably this was considered beneath the dignity of our petulant Prime Minister who merely told Mr. Lewis of the Murphy appointment. He never thought that Mr. Lewis would dare to do what he has done.

I for one believe that Mr. Lewis deserves the thanks of all Australians concerned about the erosion of the genuine Australian traditional way of life by the Socialist centralists. And now that the question of the Senate and its role in the Australian parliamentary system has been publicised, consideration should be given, not only to the filling of casual vacancies in the Senate, but to elevating the Senate into a genuine House of Review representing the States. The time is long overdue for the reversing of the centralist drive.

SNEDDEN PROGRAMME MEANS CONTINUING INFLATION

With a fanfare of publicity, and a series of party rallies, Liberal leader Mr. B. Snedden has announced his finance-economic programme. As we have already observed, much of it has already been adopted by the Labor Party in their dialectical moves designed to keep them in office. "Stimulating" the private sector of the economy under present financial rules can make no contribution whatever to reversing inflation. As a study of bank figures reveal, new financial credit is now being created at a record new rate. Irrespective of whether this new money is finding its way into circulation through private or Government activities, it is being issued as a debt carrying the current record high interest charges. Without debt expansion at an accelerating rate, the economic and social system would collapse in a short time.

Debt expansion together with high interest rates makes continuing high inflation a certainty. It is not a question of opinion, but of arithmetic. Mr. Snedden was asked a question about this subject at a public meeting in the Diamond Valley (Victoria) Federal electorate on Monday evening of this week. Using official figures for 1972-73, the questioner pointed out that while gross domestic product for this year was worth $40,983 million, over the same year only $22,518 million was distributed in wages and salaries. The deficiency of approximately $18,000 million made it imperative for more money to be borrowed and spent by both private and public organisations to prevent a major economic collapse. But this expanded borrowing adds further to financial costs, which must be charged into prices in an attempt to recover them. The overall result is inevitable inflation. Mr. Snedden had no answer to the facts given in the question.

The Whitlam Government's total deficit for 1974-75 will be in excess of $2,000 million, a record. If this same amount were issued as a credit, instead of a debt, and applied to the financing of the "Petersen Plan" - the abolition of Sales Tax and the use of consumer discounts - inflation would be reversed immediately in Australia. If new credit can be created to keep expanding financial costs and making higher prices inevitable, then why cannot it be applied to reducing prices, resulting in a genuine increase in purchasing power and removing from the Communists their major instrument for creating strikes and other industrial sabotage?

As we have already explained, the pressure of events has forced even Dr. Cairns to adopt partially the "Petersen Plan" for the car industry. A big reduction in Sales Tax has dramatically reduced the price of new cars, stimulated sales, kept thousands of wage-earners with incomes previously threatened, and this has been done without imposing any new taxes. Unless Mr. Snedden adopts the "Petersen Plan" or some similar policy, he will, when eventually brought to office by an electoral backlash against the Whitlam Government, crash in disaster.

We make this prediction, not because we want it to come true, or because we have any party political axe to sharpen, but because of an understanding of the basic nature of the problem-threatening Civilisation gained over 50 years of close association with political and economic events. Let no Australian say that the League of Rights has not attempted to warn of what must happen under financial policies which make the advance of Socialism and revolution appear "inevitable."

BRIEF COMMENTS

Mr. Ivor Benson, the distinguished South African journalist, comments as follows after a recent visit to Rhodesia to explain to Rhodesians how the Afrikaner press, previously conservative, has been captured by the liberal internationalists.
"The main impression of Rhodesia and the Rhodesians after more than nine years of sanctions, increasing psychological warfare and terrorist activity, is one of prosperity, good order and high morale; a state of affairs which must make Rhodesia the envy of those who are trying with desperate haste to impose their 'solutions' on all Southern Africa."

Federal Country Party spokesmen have discovered that desperate primary producers, especially wool and beef producers need a drastic reduction in interest rates. Country Party Member for Gwydir, Mr. Ralph Hunt, in welcoming the reversed (temporarily) policy on the proposed capital gains tax and super phosphate bounty, warns that thousands of farmers will have to walk off their properties unless the Federal Government gives substantial relief. Thousands walked off farms during the last rural crisis, under the Liberal-Country Party Coalition, and the League of Rights was smeared by some Country Party Members for urging long-term, low-interest finance. But events have proved that the League was right.

Mr. B. Snedden and Mr. Whitlam have one thing in common: both are now advocates of reduced Government spending, but both decline to state specifically where the reductions are to take place. Mr. Snedden has said, under critical questioning, that he will, if elected Prime Minister, "sack" Mr. Al Grassby. But will Mr. Grassby's new bureaucracy be closed down? Mr. Snedden and his colleagues must be pressed much more vigorously concerning just where they propose to make worthwhile reductions in Commonwealth Government spending.

At the same time Mr. Whitlam is paying lip service to the necessity for reducing Commonwealth spending, it has been announced that over the next four months the Whitlam Government will mount one of the biggest publicity campaigns ever undertaken by a Government. It will spend $1.5 million in advertising to explain the Medibank health insurance scheme due to start on July 1. The Whitlam Government hopes that it will mark the last chapter in the Government's battle with the health funds and doctors over the introduction of the scheme.

Mr. David Bornstein stepped down from the safe Victorian Labor electorate of Brunswick East to become a Public Relations Officer with Mr. Tom Uren's Department for Urban and Regional Development. It appears that Mr. Bornstein feels that, even if Mr. Snedden becomes the Prime Minister, he is assured of a permanent and well-paid position with the Department for Urban and Regional Development.