MISSISSIPPI GOUGH - GAMBLING MAN

"There is much more to the tax proposals in Mr. Whitlam's Labor policy speech than the simple arithmetic of how much it will cost the average taxpayer, whoever he might be." - Editorial, "The Australian", November 21st. There is a striking advertisement for a popular brand of cigarette now appearing in the "glossies" (expensive, mainly women's magazines), in which the central character says words to the effect that: "I beat the Mississippi Gambler and won back my ... (precious name brand cigarettes)." The advertisement is set in the Mississippi River Boat era, when all manner of cardsharpers, "pea and thimble" men, and various others preyed on the greed and gullibility of riverboat travellers.

Gough Whitlam has a name for being something of a gambler - he does like the Turf - and his latest "payroll tax" offensive is well in line with his love of a flutter. This is a real "pea and thimble" trick, which he is palming off onto the Australian electorate, and it might just come off. In asking the Australian electorate to endorse his (gambling) scheme to abolish payroll tax, suddenly the "tax on jobs", by foregoing the Fraser Governments scheduled tax cuts to come into force on Feb.1st next year (1978), Gough Whitlam is taking a new and politically somewhat daring approach.

Notice how often the word "new" appears in advertisements for the various consumer products advertised on T.V. This model, this soap powder is "New, New, new, new, new." It's an attention grabber, which the St. Kilda Road witches and wizards understand all too well. The very "newness" of Gough Whitlam' s approach on payroll tax is a "grabber". We have not the slightest doubt that there will be more ultimately involved, for the Australian taxpayer, than the sacrifice of scheduled tax cuts. We must bear in mind that hundreds of thousands of pensioners may be likely to miss out on increments, and furthermore, we would expect income tax to be increased in the first Hurford (or whoever is Labor Treasurer) Budget in 1978.

As the newspaper editorials are saying, there is no guarantee that the abolition of payroll tax will automatically stimulate business to quickened activity; but it must have some stimulative impact if it places more purchasing power in the hands of consumers - and manufacturers are consumers also. However, as we imply, because this is a "pea and thimble" trick, what purchasing power increase is allowed to a certain section of the community will be taken away by other measures.

We admit to amusement (although the issue isn't intrinsically funny) that a Labor leader should now suddenly call payroll tax a "tax on jobs". It was the Curtin Labor Government, which introduced payroll tax in 1941: the rate was 2½%. The Gorton Government passed this tax to the States in 1971 as a sort of growth tax. It was raised by the States to 4½% in 1973, and then to 5% in 1974. There is not the slightest doubt that payroll tax is partly responsible for today's high unemployment. It's abolition will appeal strongly to Australia's tens of thousands of small businessmen, in particular.

The League of Rights stands for reduction of all taxation. All taxation is inflationary. We shall be pleased to see the end of payroll tax, but we shall not be pleased to see the other measures, which a Whitlam Government will employ to replace the foregone revenue from payroll tax. "Mississippi Gough" will be operating the pea and thimble!

NO FILLIP FOR LYNCH

"The former Treasurer, Mr. Lynch, is expected to face a challenge to his position as Deputy Leader of the Parliamentary Liberal Party after the December 10 elections." The Sun (Melbourne) November 21st.

Mr. Lynch has gone, and we don't expect him to make a comeback on the Cabinet trail. Supporters have read all the "gossip" in the newspapers. Mr. Lynch hasn't done anything technically illegal; he was just too greedy to hold the high public office he did. He destroyed himself. Gough Whitlam, a polished performer on the hustings when he smells blood, is shrewdly pressing home the advantage he has unexpectedly received by needling Malcolm Fraser into confirming that Phillip Lynch will not in the future be reinstated as Treasurer. This must be most embarrassing to Mr. Fraser.

Yes, politics is a dirty game, but there is never any dearth of hopeful players - the pickings are too good! The name of the game is numbers and power. Get in, and stay there - at all costs! Never mind the faces and knuckles of those beneath you on the ladder. What has interested us is that Phillip Lynch's involvement in land speculation and rip off profits was mooted in "The Vanguard", the weekly organ of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) some two months or so ago! How did the Peking oriented comrades know? Obviously, they have a contact, or contacts that are close to the action.

Another interesting point, which some supporters may have missed, is the flood of support for Mr. Lynch from the leaders of the National Country Party, who must see the most serious repercussions for the National Country Party from a quite possible defeat of the Fraser Government on December 10th. On the other hand, the return of the Government with a greatly reduced majority will place the N.C.P. in a much stronger position within the coalition, and this is what Messrs. Anthony, Sinclair and Nixon want.

TRUTH ON RHODESIA BREAKING THROUGH

Little did we ever think that "The Age" (Melbourne) would be publishing articles and editorials in favour of Rhodesia. It wouldn't have happened some years ago. Mr. Chris Barnard is writing first-rate articles on the real state of the batting in Rhodesia now, and in its Editorial of November 16th, titled "Rhodesia Treadmill."

The Age editorialist writes some strong words of fact. We can reproduce these in part only:
"For those who may have been wondering how Rhodesia stands after the latest British settlement initiative, the black-nationalist leader, Joshua Nkomo, has issued a simple statement: bluntly, he says, the efforts have failed. The war will go on until there is a direct hand over of power to the guerilla forces, which he and his Marxist partner of convenience, Robert Mugabe, jointly command from bases in neighbouring black African territories.
This is nothing new. It has been clear for some time that, confident of eventual military victory under their 'Patriotic Front' banner, Messrs. Nkomo and Mugabe want to press on with guns, not words. The resolution of their personal squabble for power (itself a pointer to possible future bloodshed, considering both lead two distinct guerilla factions) can come later.

So, apparently, can the seduction or intimidation of the large following commanded by the home based black moderate leaders, Bishop Abel Muzowera and the fast ascending Rev. Ndabaninga Sithole "The Australian" of November 21st carries a report that Nkomo's Z.A.P.U. and Mugabe's Z.A.N.U., which together form the 'Patriotic Front' have had an armed clash over control of territory. The longer Rhodesia holds on, the more the truth will emerge, and the more discredited the Peacocks of the West will become.

WILLIAMSBURG 7 CONFERENCE

We have had many enquiries recently about the recent Williamsburg 7 Conference, which was held in Canberra between November 1st and 4th. We saw no mention of it at all in the metropolitan newspapers, nor any mention of it per the electronic media. We must conclude that it was a semi-secret Conference. We knew of the Conference several weeks ago, but the only reference we have seen to it was in The Vanguard (October 27th), the weekly voice of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist). We present that information from The Vanguard article, which we feel, is correct: much of the article is naturally Communist propaganda.

The Conference was held under the auspices of the Australian Institute of International Affairs in conjunction with the Asia Society. Now the Australian Institute of International Affairs would be associated with the Royal Institute of International Affairs, which C.H. Douglas in some of his writings refers to as the "Chatham House Gang". They are the international socialist establishment people: many bankers, financiers, authors - prominent people. Their cousins on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean are the Council on Foreign Relations crowd (C.F.R.). These types of people, prominent in their respective fields, lend their names to international socialist, One World, plans and schemes: very few indeed would understand the real underlying nature and purpose of their organisations, but are swept along by a One-World, humanitarian ideology. But the manipulators are there in the background.

The Asia Society is a Rockefeller Foundation, which subsidises the activities of political scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, etc. in the Asian region. Naturally most of these would push the same sort of toxins, which are causing social illness in Britain and America. We are not sure as yet whether or not the Commonwealth Government is picking up the bill for the Conference. Some of the participants (according to The Vanguard) were Mr. Rod Carnegie, managing director of Conzinc Rio Tinto of Australia, Sir Laurence McIntyre, of the Australian Institute of International Affairs, Mr. John Reid, Chairman of James Hardie Asbestos Ltd., General Murtopo of Indonesia, Rachmat Saleh, Governor, Bank of Indonesia, and many others prominent in banking and oil in the South East Asian region.

The Williamsburg 7 Conference belongs to the Bilderberger stream of conferences, with the location shifted to South East Asia. It does show the mounting importance of this area of the globe, and the consequent interest being shown in it by the Rockefeller menagerie.

The Power of the Minority

"The disastrous results produced the modern party system and by the use of the mass vote to destroy and eliminate the more intelligent vote, have influenced political thinking to such an extent that certain factors vital to the control of governments have escaped their proper emphasis. Democratic government has come to mean, in common parlance, 'the counting of noses', and hence it is assumed that if the 'counting of noses' is introduced into a country like India or China, a democratic government has been installed. This is a major fallacy.

The British parliamentary system of government, in the day of its greatest success, that is, before the rigid party system came into force; rested on the power of independent members. Also, parliamentary systems of government are maintained within bounds mostly by outside criticism and by pressure exerted by a large number of different types of voluntary organisations, which have had long experience in self-government, and whose executives have had the necessary training in the complicated business of the political and semi-political worlds. It should be remembered, too, that few other countries have had the intensive and the long experience in local government as has Great Britain."
From Our Sham Democracy (1946) by James Guthrie.