PREMIER BJELKE-PETERSEN LEADS AGAIN

While disagreeing completely with Queensland Premier Bjelke-Petersen's reported statement that "Australia is bankrupt", we warmly applaud his anti-death duty policy. He has touched a deep nerve centre in the body politic with his stated intention of abolishing death duties completely in his August budget.

The Premier has stated that "This State has long been a progressive pace-setter in so many fields that our move to wipe death duty is just another of those logical, and desired moves in lifting unwanted burdens from the over-taxed public. As the first State committed to abolition, Queensland will give Australians the lead in both removing this tax and doing something to ease taxation generally. We have already removed death duty between spouse and spouse, and consequently set the pace for reform".

Victorians can thank Premier Bjelke-Petersen's lead for the promise by Liberal Premier Hamer in his pre-election policy speech, that his Government will also abolish death duty between spouse and spouse. The concept of death duties is a Marxists one. The abolition of the right of inheritance was one of Karl Marx's ten steps for communising a State, listed in "The Communist Manifesto". Like many other Marxist concepts such as heavy progressive income tax, the policy of death duties has been applied by non-Socialist as well as Socialist Governments.

Needless to say, there have been shrieks of rage from the Socialists and their allies about the Queensland Premier's assault on one of their sacred cows. They are lurid in their criticism of the principle of "inherited wealth" and seek to foster one of man's most undesirable traits - envy. Premier Bjelke-Petersen's anti-death duty policy has not only upset his Liberal Treasurer Sir Gordon Chalk, but has caused consternation at Canberra. If Queensland becomes a type of tax-avoiding haven, other States will be forced to abolish death duties also - or large numbers of people and organisations will move to Queensland!

Any attempt by a Federal Government to increase Federal death duties - at present minimal compared with State duties - would provoke a national storm of protest. Premier Bjelke-Petersen has once again showed shrewd political judgment by taking up an issue, which, with continuing inflation, is affecting severely increasing numbers of people. In launching his anti-death duties offensive, the Queensland Premier has also returned to the subject of a realistic anti-inflation policy stating that unless the Fraser Government adopts the principles of the "Petersen Plan", it has no hope of reversing inflation.

In a statement issued on March 18th, the Premier said that he supports the financial policies advocated by the well-known Queensland consulting economist, Mr. H. W. Herbert. The Premier said that Mr. Herbert had proposed a reduction in Sales Tax and Federal Government charges as a realistic means of immediately reducing prices and lessening the next wage drive. The Premier also said that "The Commonwealth is placing too much emphasis on reducing the budget deficit and Mr. Herbert has underlined the pitfalls of such a strategy".

He questioned the Canberra attitude that there was too much money within the community and that it had to be mopped up. He endorsed Mr. Herbert's suggestion that the deficit should be used to directly lower costs of goods and services, observing that the principle was the same as the "Petersen Plan" proposal to give price support to stabilise food prices in the consumer price index. The Premier said that he was commending the Herbert proposals to the Commonwealth Government.

While stressing once again that we do not agree with all the Queensland Premier has said and done, we express the view that he is the only Western political leader at present making any constructive proposals for reversing inflation, and therefore should be encouraged in every possible way. He will certainly have tens of thousands of new supporters throughout Australia as a result of his anti-death duty policy.

INTENSIFIED ATTACK ON THE MONARCHY

"Sydney - The Federal Opposition leader, Mr. Whitlam, yesterday accused the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, and Australian judges of believing themselves to be infallible. 'The Governor-General, by his actions, has established himself as certainly a more powerful figure than any Prime Minister, but also more powerful than any monarch since the Stuarts, Mr. Whitlam said". - From Philip McIntosh in "The Age", Melbourne, March 23rd.

It is now clear that Mr. Gough Whitlam, continuing as Labor leader only because he serves, at least for the time being, the purposes of the more extreme Socialists of the Labor Movement, is determined to persevere with a bitter campaign against the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr. But those backing this campaign are not merely concerned with a personal vendetta against Sir John Kerr, hopefully forcing him to resign.

The historic decision of November 11th 1975 has been seized upon by subversives to intensify a long-term campaign against the institution of the Crown. Mr. Donald Horne's bitter book, "The Death of The Lucky Country", was the first major offensive. It has had widespread publicity, the A.B.C. helping. Now comes what has been described as an "in depth" study by Andrew Clark and Clem Lloyd, "Kerr's King Hit". Mr. Lloyd is a former Labor Pressman. The reliability of this work has already been seriously reflected upon by N.S.W. Chief Justice Sir Laurence Street, who flatly disputes a major allegation in "Kerr's King Hit": that Sir John Kerr had consulted him over last year's political crisis, and that he had strongly rejected the proposal to use the reserve powers of the Crown to dismiss Mr. Whitlam. He does this in a letter to Sir John Kerr stating that there was no direct or indirect discussion on the subject before November 11th.

In his address launching "Kerr's King Hit", Mr. Whitlam snidely inferred that he was greatly concerned about the impact of the Kerr decision on the institution of the Monarchy. He claimed, "What Australians must accept is that no monarch could have done what the Governor-General did and got away with it. In safeguarding his own future as an individual, he has compromised the future of the monarchy as an institution....The question we must face is whether vice-regal or judicial pretensions are more important to our national life than the proper role of the Crown and its representatives in the working of Parliament and the Constitution".

The essence of the Whitlam view is that the Monarchy is a type of rubber-stamp, and should not use legitimate powers to resolve the type of political crisis which existed in Australia late last year. Over the years the Socialists have often expressed their concern that the reserve powers of the Monarchy could be used to enable the electors to have a direct say in their own affairs. It is significant that Marxists have criticised the fact that the Crown controls the armed forces. This is seen as a barrier to Marxist revolutions. We have no doubt that when Sir John Kerr stepped into history on November 11th of last year he sent a tremor through the Socialist Republicans everywhere who fear that Sir John's action could encourage other representatives of the Queen to adopt a more positive attitude towards their Ministers.

Sir John Kerr should be supported for his courage in continuing to perform his duties in the face of vulgar Whitlam snubs and the demonstrations of the mindless mobs. In opening the Torrens College of Advanced Education in Adelaide, the Governor-General told shouting students that "As Governor-General of Australia I do not intend to retreat - ever!" and that "I want you to understand that whenever I am invited as the representative of Her Majesty the Queen, I shall come".

We suggest that Prime Minister Fraser might emulate the Governor General's spirit by instructing the A.B.C. to replace Mr. Whitlam's choice of an anthem with "God Save The Queen" at the end of each day's programme. If Mr. Fraser cannot bring himself to do this, then he is, unfortunately, tending to confirm Donald Horne's cynical comment in an A.B.C. programme, that by permitting people to have whatever Anthem they liked, he was doing more to erode the Monarchy than was Whitlam.

BRIEF COMMENTS

Mr. Al Grassby, the Federal Government's Commissioner for Community Relations, says that Australia has 750,000 children on their way to becoming permanent culture cripples. These children have been born in Australia but did not speak English as their first language. The problem mentioned by Mr. Grassby is the result of the type of immigration policy he has helped to impose upon the nation. Social harmony requires an integrated people. The "multi-racial-cultural" theory has never worked satisfactorily anywhere, but has only produced problems for the Grassby's of this world to meddle with instead of doing something more useful. The Fraser Government should get back to the immigration policy, which did not produce the problems now so prevalent - and so costly.

Some weeks ago the daily press featured Pat O'Shane as Australia's "first aboriginal barrister". This is as dishonest as the claim that Charles Perkins was the first aboriginal to take a degree at an Australian University. Like Charles Perkins, Pat O'Shane is a part aboriginal only. The daily press did not report Pat O'Shane's Communist sympathies. A full-page interview appeared in the Communist "Tribune" of February 11th, in which Pat O'Shane mentions her discussion with Fred Paterson, former Communist Member in the Queensland Parliament, concerning how a Communist barrister can combine politics with the law.

The media continues to provide most exaggerated and misleading reports on Rhodesia. Most of the hysteria is in the press headlines, not in Rhodesia, where we are reliably informed life goes on as usual. The despicable "British" Government has offered to intervene if Prime Minister Smith agrees to African rule in two years. This would mean another Marxist African Government. Chairman Des Frost of the Rhodesian Front Party comments tersely: "There would be bloody uproar in my party if the Government agreed to terms like this. What are they offering? Absolutely nothing".
Running true to form, Dr. Kissinger has called for a rapid end to European control in Southern Africa. He "welcomes" the British Government's policy - one of a further retreat in the face of international Communist strategy.

AN URGENT APPEAL CONCERNING WORLD ANTI-COMMUNIST CONFERENCE