THE VOLATILE NEW ZEALAND SCENE

Mr. Eric Butler filed the following report immediately following a big Lower Hutt meeting when the police had to move the audience out following a bomb threat:
As the international blackmail campaign against New Zealand continues, with the despicable Australian Fraser Government lining up with the barbarians to urge the New Zealand Government to halt the coming South African rugby tour, the internal political situation becomes increasingly volatile. Prime Minister Muldoon clearly is "losing his cool" under the external and internal pressures. National Party supporters are in revolt and there is little doubt that there is going to be a massive protest vote, which will go to the "Social Credit" party.

Mr. Muldoon threatens that if the "Social Credit" party holds the balance of power, which at present looks highly probable, "we would just let the matter rest for two or three months and have another election and they (the public) could repair the damage and sought things out again. This remarkable statement by Mr. Muldoon brought a highly critical response from Dr. W.C. Hodge, a leading New Zealand authority on constitutional law. Dr. Hodge charged that the Prime Minister was "cheapening" the office of the Governor General by inferring that he would automatically act as a rubber stamp for the Prime Minister, and permit him to have a second election if the results of the first did not please him.
Dr. Hodge said that the Prime Minister was assuming a prerogative that the constitution did not give him. If the government of the day lost either a significant vote of no confidence or failed to obtain a parliamentary majority for its budgetary measures, the Governor General would have to say that the government could carry on no longer and would then seek to ascertain if there was any other liaison in the parliament, which could command a majority. Only if the Governor General was not satisfied that such a majority did exist could he direct that another election be held.

If the election does produce the result Mr. Muldoon fears, and persists with his views on a second election, New Zealand could be faced with a major political upheaval similar to that which Australia experienced at the time of Sir John Kerr's withdrawal of Mr. Whitlam' s commission.

Reflecting the state of the New Zealand nation, outspoken National Party Member Mr. W. H. Minogue says that unless the growing pressures on New Zealand can be dealt with, "society can expect continuing inflation, unemployment, lawlessness and no investment..." In an address to a Business and Professional Women's Club, Mr. Minogue said that internationally there was now an over supply situation along with unused industrial production. New Zealand was being subjected to competition from Third World countries, which were producing the goods they normally imported. Mr. Minogue did not offer any concrete solutions, but he has highlighted the reality of the deepening international crisis.

Most New Zealanders remain cool to the suggestion of any type of an economic or political union with Australia. They note that while Prime Minister Fraser preaches greater international free trade, his Government is proposing a steep increase in duty on New Zealand clothing sold in Australia. The reality is, of course, that under the New International Economic Order, the economies of all nations are to be "restructured", with some being eliminated in favour of others.
As the international plot against civilisation moves into the open, little New Zealand may yet be the nation to give a lead towards sanity. The coming New Zealand election will certainly be the most important in the nation's history.

JEREMY LEE REPORTS FROM ST. CATHERINE, ONTARIO

"I have now travelled over 2,000 miles across what must be the flattest and most productive wheat lands in the world outside the Soviet Union - Canada's prairies. The difference, however, between Canada and the U.S.S.R. is that the first produces over 20 million tonnes of wheat each year - a total which it aims to increase in the next decade; while the latter, which was in Tsarist times the "breadbasket of Europe" is facing real food shortages. Food rationing on some items is being introduced in both Poland and the U.S.S.R.

Also across the prairies - particularly Alberta - one can see hundreds of small oil pump jacks, bobbing up and down like iron storks or herons, lifting a few barrels each from depths of 5,000ft or more to the surface. The crude is then pooled and pumped to central refineries, almost completely run by the "big boys" - the hugh oil companies. The Trudeau government has used over 2 billion dollars of tax revenue to create a government owned oil company, with the excuse that this will be a means of retrieving Canadian ownership of its own resources. (He must have closely studied the speeches of Gough Whitlam and R.F.X. Connor in the 1972-75 period!) Strangely enough, however, Trudeau's policies have resulted (N.E.P.) in hundreds of small, Canadian oil companies and rigs pulling up stakes and heading over the border into the Unites States, where some incentives for the little man still remain.

Today, the President of the Independent Petroleum Association of Canada, which speaks for the genuine Canadian companies who are the backbone of the country, issued a statement calling Trudeau's National Energy Programme (N.E.P.) "So bad, so ill conceived, that it will founder because it is a disaster for the country..."

On the hydrogen scene, an old League supporter from Edmonton, having read the booklet "Three Rings", flew down to the United States to visit the Consumers Solar Electric Power Corporation in Culver City, California, whose chairman is Gerald Schaflander, mentioned in the book. He not only toured the city in a hydrogen powered car, but reported that the major obstacle to the widespread use of hydrogen - the problem of storage - has been overcome with the development of an ammonia based liquid hydride, capable of storing enormous quantities of hydrogen, and easily pumped into the petrol tank of a normal car. A conversion in the engine, currently costing about $350 (US) releases the hydrogen from the hydride so that it can be fired in the normal internal combustion cycle.

The Company has also developed a new type of photovoltaic cell, costing less than one tenth of those currently being produced and sold comercially. This now makes feasible the concept of solar collecting service stations, using solar electricity to produce hydrogen by electrolysis, stored in the new hydride, and pumped straight into the tanks of vehicles, like gasoline is currently operated. In a country like Australia, with its exceptional sunshine and hugh distances, such a development would be near miraculous! However, no news has yet reached me as to whether Energy Minister Senator Carrick has been to see the development which could finally put his country beyond energy blackmail..."

BUREAUCRATIC EXCESS

"The Federal Government's backbench is to be congratulated for its sensible stand on the bureaucratic madness which almost resulted in a nitpicking administration trying to force metrication down people's throats." - Editorial, The Australian, March 28th.

The measure referred to above was proposed legislation, which would have banned reference to imperial measures; abolished the Metric Conversion Board; and imposed fines on anyone using the old system. This is the type of childish immaturity, which does sometimes make us wonder whether or not we Australians have outgrown our colonial past. The Australian bureaucracy does from time to time, run riot. The Australian gives credit to Victorian Senator Austin Lewis, and Queensland M.P. Mr. Donald Cameron for curbing this further metrication idiocy.

ENOCH POWELL STILL WARNING

"A new warning of a racial civil war in Britain was made last night by Enoch Powell". - The Sun, (Melb.) March 30th.

There were two comments, made by Enoch Powell, which interest us. One is that the House of Commons were maintaining a "conspiracy of silence" over immigration. The other is that "the voters had one power over their politicians - they could make them debate and face the issue". We have suspicions that, in Australia, there is maintained the same "conspiracy of silence" in the political sphere: we go further. We suspect that the "conspiracy of silence" also extends to the media. With respect to the voters' power over politicians; they have more power than just forcing politicians to debate and face an issue. If there is enough will in the electorate an issue can be squashed, or a politician can be removed from the scene. Naturally, politicians don't like this power that still does reside in the electorate - some saying that it is undemocratic: quite unreal reasoning, as "democracy" means "government by the people". What such politicians mean, however, is that the electorate is wrong - if they, or some pet issue is rejected.

Gayndah Actionist

"With almost 500,000 unemployed, plus school leavers, and well over a million in poverty, it is plain to see that chaos is likely to arise from this intake of mixed cultural laws and languages. "Britain's problem with multiculturalism provides sufficient evidence of that. "Australia has a vast potential to assist our needy anti-communist neighbours in their own countries with our enormous primary production, if only our leaders adopted sane financial policies based on the principle of 'physical possibilities can be made financial possibilities'.
"If justice, compassion, and loyalty to a war time ally had any place in Mr. Fraser's heart after his fruitless intervention in Africa he would give top priority to Rhodesian refugees whose nation has been sold down the drain to Marxist Mugabe - with still no sign of peace. "Mr. Menadue's proposal should get the same treatment as subsidised housing and V.A.T.

"Multiculturalism is a proven recipe for revolution and it should be vigorously rejected by all loyal Australians. A.A. Pinwill, Gayndah.