ANTI-AUSTRALIAN RACIAL DISCRIMINATION BILL

Mr. Al Grassby who acts as if he is the unofficial Minister for Immigration, has explained that the 1974 version of the 1973 Racial Discrimination Bill was the result of his work. The interesting Miss Morosi has also played her part in the framing of this blatantly anti-Australian piece of proposed totalitarianism, which was scheduled to be introduced at Canberra this week. The proposed legislation is even worse than that which has been used in the United Kingdom to try to prevent the indigenous British from criticising an alien invasion which they fear is threatening their traditional way of life.

Dr. Jim Cairns has argued that he had the right to choose Miss Morosi as his private secretary because she was congenial. Under the Racial Discrimination Bill an employer who argued that he had chosen a European instead of a non-European because he felt that the European would make a more suitable and congenial employee, could be charged with discrimination. Under the Racial Discrimination Bill, if a landlord or agent is known to express some dislike of a particular race or nation and refuses to have as tenant a person of that group because she or he is a bad character, and a complaint is made, it is assumed that the refusal is on racial grounds and the onus is on the accused person to prove other wise. Traditional British justice is reversed.

Under the Racial Discrimination Bill, a "prescribed authority" can call a person before him and examine him under oath. The person being examined is not permitted to object to answering on the ground that his answer may incriminate him. This is a major step towards the Police State. Contrary to the claims of the multi-racialists, opposition to multi-racial policies does not necessarily step from feelings of hatred, contempt or superiority. There are sound psychological, political and cultural reasons for considering multi-racialism to be a hate-generating and disastrous policy.

Non-ideological physical anthropologists like the famous Sir Arthur Keith have stressed that it is only in homogeneous societies that there is the necessary stability for true individual progress. Troublemakers are already exploiting alleged discrimination in Australia against minority ethnic groups. The witch-hunters and the subversives would have an "open go" under what should perhaps be described as the Grassby Bill. If the Liberal and Country Party Members of the Parliament do not present a solid front against this new totalitarian threat, and use their numbers in the Senate to reject it, then we trust that they will at least have the decency to stop claiming that they are defending a free Australia.

We recommend that all readers of On Target immediately get letters and telegrams away to Liberal and Country Party Senators and Members of the House of Representatives, asking them to throw this anti-Australian legislation out.

FORMER ATTORNEY-GENERAL OF VICTORIA RE-DEFINES THE ROLE OF THE SENATE

Sir George Reid, Q.C. a former Attorney-General of Victoria, wrote a letter to the Editor of The Age (Melbourne) that was published in this newspaper on Feb. 20th. We are pleased to re-produce this letter in On Target, as it is such a clear statement of the Senate's true role. The letter runs:
"Sir, In the controversy concerning the selection by the Parliament of New South Wales of a senatorial replacement for Mr. Justice Murphy, it is well to remember what the Commonwealth Constitution intended to be the true function of the Senate. "Far from being a 'party' House it was intended to be a legislative chamber protecting the Federal system, and ensuring the equality and prestige of the States, irrespective of their size and population. Thus from the beginning of Federation each State has had an equal number of senators. As pointed out in Quick and Garran (the monumental work on the Constitution) it is something more than a chamber of revision and review. 'It is the chamber in which the States, considered as separate entities, and corporate parts of the Commonwealth, are represented.'
"The scheme of proportional representation for Senate voting, while it may have remedied the imbalance between political parties, nevertheless is itself a reinforcement of the party system, and has further weakened the concept of the States' House.
"There have been only a few instances of independent candidates gaining or retaining seats in the Senate. The royal road to election as a senator normally is that he or she had been an office bearer in a party political organization.
"The so -called gentlemen's agreement or convention which envisages that a casual vacancy in the Senate should be filled by a person of the same political party as the departed senator, is itself a further emphasis on the concept of a party House, and in this regard is a sin against the spirit of the Constitution.
"In the transaction of its business the Senate over the years has departed from its prime purpose of being a 'States' House. In the words of Professor L. F. Crisp (a leading authority on constitutional problems) the most obvious field for specialised debate and committee work by the Senate is in the field of Commonwealth-State relations. There is no evidence that the Senate has been conspicuous in this area, although in recent years it has set up innumerable committees to inquire into various phases of public administration, some of which may have more properly fallen within the province of State Parliaments.
"Had the Senate been more active in its prime purpose as a "States" House it would not now be necessary for State Governments to be setting up ministries of Federal and State relations.
"It is to be hoped that at some future session of the constitutional convention, the status and functions of the Senate will be the subject of discussion with a view to formulating amendments to the Constitution designed to strengthen the prime purpose of the Senate as a States House, and as a safeguard of the Federal System."

Sir George Reid, Q. C., prepared a paper - "Our Constitutional Heritage" which was read at the Seminar of the Australian League of Rights, in September 1971. The Australian Heritage Society, a Division of the League, was launched at this particular Seminar.

A NOTED ECONOMIST SPEAKS BLUNTLY ON MONEY

"For countries like Australia, the inflation cure would be 'moderate unemployment' - for nine of twelve months - nobody knows exactly". - Professor Arthur Shenfleld, Brisbane Courier-Mail February 20th.

Professor Shenfield was for ten years economic director of the Federation of British Industries, and for ten years economic director of the Confederation of British Industry. He is visiting Australia under the sponsorship of various Chambers of Manufactures throughout Australia. Incidentally, we are not in agreement with his "cure" for inflation, which is a sharp period of rather severe deflation. This does slow inflation, certainly, but it is by no means a "cure."

Inflation spurts forward again so soon as the economy is "reflated" (the new "in" word). However, Professor Arthur Shenfield does speak very bluntly on money creation: -
"The creation of money is in the hands of our Central Bank (in England, the Bank of England; in Australia, the Reserve Bank). But all central banks are subject to the will of governments. They aren't independent." The Reserve Bank of Australia does control the rate of credit creation (money) in Australia by means of its control, via Banking Acts, over the Trading Banks. To say that central banks are subject to the will of governments is rather "simplistic" (another very smart word to use). The relationship between the Reserve Bank and the Commonwealth Government is rather loose, but, hypothetically, if a clash over policy does occur, then the Commonwealth Government does have the final say. But normally the Reserve Bank would be giving more "advice" to the Government, than taking instructions from the Treasurer.

We are quite sure that there has been a clash of interests in very recent times, and that indeed there still is, over the issues of monetary expansion by the Government, and inflation. The Reserve Bank economists have warned the Government that hyperinflation is imminent as a result of huge deficits to wipe out unemployment. And under the rules, this is right!

Let Professor Shenfleld say on: -"It's Governments that decide to create money and thus create inflation. There's no other way it can happen"... "Inflation is the last thing they want, but they produce it."... "Every time you see the Australian Treasurer (Dr. Cairns) running a deficit Budget, you know he's creating money. That money causes inflation. It is the desire of the Government to seek popularity by overspending - which causes inflation."...."So the fear of unemployment also causes Governments to overspend. When they overspend, they create money by asking the Reserve Bank to put down a deficit for them - which it does, out of nothing (our emphasis.)"

There are still economists who cling for dear life to the myth that the banks do not create money out of nothing, and in fact, lend their deposits: which is ridiculous. No-one has ever had his or her bank deposit reduced by one cent because the bank has lent that deposit or part of it to some one else.' We hope some of our homegrown economists will henceforth stop talking drivel on money creation.

BRIEF COMMENTS

Matured students of international affairs know that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are regarded as vitally important to those striving to create the World State; the principal architect of these institutions was the top Soviet agent Harry Dexter White. When Federal Opposition leader Mr. B. Snedden visited the U.S.A. late last year he was invited to address the notorious Council on Foreign Relations (see Gary Allen's None Dare Call It Conspiracy) Mr. Snedden met that major financial backer of Communism, Mr. David Rockefeller, Chairmen of both the CFR and the Chase National Bank. Speaking in the Federal Parliament on February 11th, Mr. Snedden sought leave to insert in Hansard pages 32 and 33 of the Liberal Party's "National Economic Programme 1975", which endorses the World Bank and The International Monetary Fund. Mr. Snedden and his advisers support "Continued progress in the development of Special Drawing Rights as international reserve assets", "Continued active negotiations to achieve mutual reductions in trade barriers", and "Co-operative actions by central banks and the International Monetary Fund to stabilise major financial markets and maintain confidence". Mr. Rockefeller and his colleagues should be delighted.

Speaking in the Federal Parliament on February 19th, Dr. Rex Patterson charged Opposition Members with talking "sanctimonious nonsense" concerning the rural depression. "The wool industry was better off now than it had been for 23 years," said Dr. Patterson. We have no doubt that those wool producers who have managed to survive, struggling desperately to pay escalating rates and other financial costs while attempting to sell their wool on a depressed market, will be most impressed with Dr, Patterson's comments. They are similar to Prime Minister Whitlam's claim that primary producers had "never had it so good."

Opposition Leader B. Snedden was cheered on February 18th when he spoke at the opening of the 1975 Gippsland (Victoria) field day at Lardner. He offered the farmers a prosperous future under a Liberal-Country Party Government. A Rural Bank would be established. We trust that primary producers will remember Mr. Snedden's promises. We recall the Rural Bank proposition being put forward by the Country Party during the last Liberal Country Party Coalition Government. We are not in the vote-catching business; so do not have to try to paint glowing pictures of what we propose to do for anyone. Our responsibility is to present the truth. And the truth is that unless Mr. Snedden and his colleagues change the Fabian-Socialist financial rules now prevailing, the primary producers cheering them today will be cursing them tomorrow as inflation continues with all its disastrous consequences.

Mr., Kevin Bowtell, managing director, Consolidated Meat Holdings Ltd., Albury, N.S.W. gave some striking figures concerning inflation at the 1975 National Agricultural Outlook Conference. Housewives who tend to blame the "profiteering middlemen" should take special notice. Mr. Bowtell said that "Currently, if someone gives us sheep for nothing", it was essential to get 19 cents a pound to export it in boneless form. Even with the present low prices to beef producers, the financial costs connected with killing and handling are now so high that butchers cannot reduce prices any further to consumers. Rates, rents, high interest charges, and wage costs must all be recovered through prices. The Queensland Premier, Mr. J. Bjelke-Petersen, is the only non-Socialist political leader in Australia who has made constructive suggestions for lowering financial costs and thus halting inflation.

Costs in Production: In order to gain a better understanding, picture this in a small way. Imagine that in a community there are ten producers. Each one draws $1,000 at 7% interest from his overdraft account and spends it into the community in the course of production. This is the community's money supply. When the time comes for the overdrafts to be repaid, each borrower must pay back, not only the $1,000 that he has borrowed, but also an additional $70 in interest. This means that although the community's money supply consists of $10,000 the amount needed to repay overdrafts, plus interest, is $10,700: Where is the extra $700 to come from? It is easy to see that if nine of the ten producers manage to draw back enough money to repay their overdrafts, plus interest, the tenth will be bankrupt. It is also obvious that a large proportion of the goods he has produced would theoretically, remain unsold.