A CYNICAL ELECTION TACTIC

by Eric D. Butler
Prime Minister Fraser's determination to have a premature election on December 10th is a manifestation of a political cynicism revolting increasing numbers of Australians. Mr. Fraser's explanation for his early poll is blatantly absurd, and, of course, dishonest. Mr. Fraser's referendum in May was designed to attempt to avoid a half Senate Election at which he feared he would suffer a major electoral backlash.
Mr. Fraser and his colleagues completely reversed themselves on the Simultaneous Elections proposal, compared with 1974 when the Whitlam Government was advocating this proposal. When that proposal was defeated, Mr. Fraser started fostering speculation about an election before the end of the year. Having been primarily responsible for this speculation, Mr. Fraser then announced on October 27th, that he was holding an election on December 10th "to end speculations and the resulting uncertainty." Mr. Fraser could have ended all speculation by announcing that there would be no election in Australia until May of next year.

If Mr. Fraser is so certain that his finance economic strategy is proving successful, that inflation will be less next year, and that unemployment will fall after February, as he claims, then he should have waited until the latest possible date for an election. But Mr. Fraser and his colleagues not only have little confidence in their own propaganda; they have told reluctant Liberal and National Country Party supporters they fear Mr. Whitlam could be replaced by the more popular Mr. Hayden in the first half of next year, making a victory for the ALP almost certain at a May election. Mr. Fraser is taking the risk of an early election in the belief that Mr. Whitlam is going to prove his greatest electoral asset.

All those growing numbers of electors who are disillusioned or disgusted with the Fraser Government are being blackmailed with the threat "But remember that dreadful Whitlam and his terrible record." What will not be stressed is the fact that in the field of both foreign and domestic policy the Fraser Government has taken over where the Whitlam Government left off. The Fraser Government even took over Mr. Hayden's budget and continued with it. If Mr. Hayden has so much finance economic expertise, as both his critics and supporters claim, then why did the finance economic crisis continue to deepen in spite of the Hayden budget?

It can be predicted with absolute certainty that a new Whitlam Government, advised by Mr. Hayden, himself highly regarded by the permanent Treasury "experts", would produce no better results than the Fraser Government. Mr. Hayden's stated policy would certainly re-stimulate the economy, but in the process would intensify inflation.

National-Country Party leader, Doug Anthony has also made his contribution to the politics of cynicism. Upon his recent return from overseas, Mr. Anthony was most reluctant about an early election. But he soon started to reverse himself, and then offered the same excuse as Mr. Fraser: businessmen and potential investors were being affected by uncertainty. One wonders if Mr. Anthony realises just how absurd he so often appears. What uncertainty will be removed by the coming election?

Mr. Fraser talks about obtaining a "thumping majority", but unless something unforeseen happens, Mr. Fraser's present big majority is going to be seriously reduced. Mr. Fraser is quite cynical about losing many of his backbench Members. Not that one can feel any sympathy for Members who did little to challenge the disastrous policies being pursued by the Fraser Government. Most have been content to be "division fodder", standing to be counted at the right time. Those who have openly supported the closing of the Rhodesian Information Centre should be removed if possible.

The Australian League of Rights does not intend to encourage in any way the false and misleading theme that the election should be a Fraser versus Whitlam contest; that it is a question of the "lesser of two evils". Whatever happens in the House of Representatives election, it is vitally important that every effort be made to ensure the election of Senators firmly committed to preserving the status and independence of the Senate. All candidates offering themselves must be pressed for firm written agreements on basic issues. Where none of the candidates will enter into an agreement with electors, then responsible electors should write firmly across their ballot papers, "None of the applicants for this position is acceptable to me."

Irrespective of what happens on December 10th, the continuation of present finance economic policies must sweep Australia further down the revolutionary course now so clear to growing numbers. The salvation of the Federation is going to depend more upon the States and the Senate, which must be made to operate as originally conceived: a States' House.

PARTY DICTATORSHIP

Veteran Liberal MP, W. Wentworth, having resigned from the Liberal Party because he believes the finance economic policies being pursued are disastrous, is offering himself for the Senate. In The Age, Melbourne, of October 28th, Mr. Wentworth makes some penetrating observations on how the party dictatorship works at Canberra. He observes that Federal Parliament "seems to mean less today than it did in 1949 when I was first elected. Even the members today do not take it seriously."

Mr. Wentworth says that attendance is very poor, with usually only 10 or 12 Members in the House. Why? Mr. Wentworth answers: "The trouble, of course, is that nothing is decided there (in Parliament). It has all been rigged in advance - the Government parties have made their decision in the nominal privacy of their party room, and the Opposition has similarly bound its own hands...."

The decline of the House of Representatives seems to come from the fact that it makes no decisions but obsequiously satisfies the decisions made outside it." Commenting upon the broadcasting of parliamentary proceedings, Mr. Wentworth says that Members cannot be blamed for tending "to play to the mike", and that it "may even give the public the salutary illusion that the debates sway votes."

Mr. Wentworth confirms what other honest observers have said about the role of Parliament today, which has been reduced to the level where the permanent bureaucracy fashions vital policies and the Members merely endorse them. One first step towards freeing the individual Member from party tyranny would be secret voting in Parliament. If the principle of secret voting is essential to protect trade unionists from victimisation, then it is much more essential to enable Members of Parliament to vote against disastrous policies without being penalised by the party.

BRIEF COMMENTS

Mr. Ralph Moss, the black American freelance journalist and Episcopalian Minister who has "adopted" Rhodesia, is a type of miracle. Obviously intelligent and highly courageous, this man has thoroughly investigated the Rhodesian story. He has declared on the Rhodesian television that race relations in Rhodesia are the most harmonious in the whole world. He has personally interviewed the African "Nationalist" Leaders, describing some of them like Robert Mugabe, as criminal thugs who should be in prison. He is scathing in his comments on the role of the World Council of Churches in the Rhodesian question. While Ralph Moss was given some media time during his short Australian tour, the press generally shunned him. Ralph Moss was not following the pro-Communist line. It was an inspiration to hear him proclaim that he was returning to the U.S.A. as a missionary for Rhodesia. "Not all blacks are Carter supporters", he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, a former Zionist terrorist, is adopting an increasingly arrogant stand on the subject of Israeli settlements on the West Bank. Last week the General Assembly of the UN adopted a resolution deploring the establishment of these settlements in territory occupied since the 1967 war. Although President Carter has verbally condemned the Israeli policy, his UN Ambassador Andrew Young, a strong supporter of Israel, announced that he was abstaining from voting on the UN resolution. Before the vote was taken, Prime Minister Begin said that Israel would not consider itself bound by the resolution. What a difference in the treatment of Israel and South Africa! But then South Africa does not have a powerful international domestic influence in the U.S.A., as does Israel. The aggressive Begin policy continues to make the possibility of genuine peace impossible in the Middle East.
Essential reading for background: Censored History, by Eric D. Butler. Price .80 cents. Four copies for $2.00.

Prince Philip has caused a stir by quoting Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in a warning that freedom of the individual was threatened in Britain. He said, "It looks at the moment as if we can expect to see an increasing bureaucratic involvement in every aspect of the lives of individuals." He went on, "I predict ... the gradual suppression of anything that does not suit national economic policies... ." Prince Philip concluded by quoting Solzhenitsyn's view that "It is not how the Soviet Union will find a way out of totalitarianism but how the West will be able to avoid the same fate." Prince Philip has posed the question, which must now be uppermost in the minds of courageous men and women prepared to face the truth.