THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST AUSTRALIAN INDUSTRY

A study of the programme for the New International Economic Order leaves no doubt that the planners behind this programme envisage a world in which different countries are allocated specific activities. This means that some present activities are scheduled to be phased out. For example, the Australian dairy industry is being steadily reduced, with the end result that Australia will eventually be importing dairy products from New Zealand. But in New Zealand, its textile industry has been marked down for phasing out. It is not sufficiently "efficient".
The concept of the "World Car" has been promoted for some time, with suggestions that Australia fit into an international production system. The acceptance of the recommendation by the Industries Assistance Commission that the Federal Government end the present protection for the Australian car industry would certainly cause industrial havoc.

As a declared internationalist, a supporter of the New International Economic Order, Prime Minister Fraser is indicating that he would like to adopt the IAC report. But he is faced with the political reality that any open support for the IAC report would end any chances the Liberal Governments of Victoria and South Australia may still have of surviving the next State Elections. Mr. Fraser said last week that "I think what we are after over the long term is industry that is competitive by world standards and get more and more into the business of exporting, because this really is best for Australia".

The only sane purpose of exporting, of course, is so that necessary imports can be obtained. But Mr. Fraser sees exporting as a means of attempting to sustain the domestic economy; even if much of the exporting is done on credit. His anti-Communism does not inhibit his support of increasing exports to the Soviet Union.

Much of the controversy concerning "free trade" or "protection" is misleading because it ignores basic realities. It may be true that some Asian countries, with cheaper labour than in Australia, can, for example, supply Australians with electronic equipment at a lower price than for similar equipment in Australia. But acceptance of the lower price means that Australia lacks a vital electronics industry.
Scrapping Australian secondary industry merely because of what appears to be a short-term benefit in price is a policy of national suicide. The biggest factor in the alleged "inefficiency" of Australian industry is crushing taxation, both direct and indirect, and high interest rates. If this factor were drastically reduced, Australian manufacturers would have no problems in competing successfully with foreign organisations wishing to export to Australia.

DOUBLE TALK ON TAXATION

Prime Minister Fraser must surely be one of the greatest political exponents of double talk Australia has yet produced. While leader of the Opposition he strongly attacked the taxation policies of the Whitlam Government. On a number of occasions he has said he was going to reduce taxation. The last Whitlam Budget, in 1975, estimated that it was going to rip $17,500 off the Australian taxpayers. In Mr. Fraser's 1981 Budget, he has lifted that rip off to over $40,000 million. Mr. Fraser's Government is taking a bigger percentage of the average individual's tax dollar than any previous government in Australian history.

A major feature of the 1981 Budget was the iniquitous Sales Tax legislation. But now, hoping to head off the mounting revolt against the Sales Tax legislation, Prime Minister Fraser has magnanimously announced that tax cuts are a virtual certainty next year. He said this in his address to the annual general meeting of the State Council of the South Australian Liberal Party last weekend. Mr. Fraser claimed that it was the Liberals' "good housekeeping" which made it possible to cut taxes.

The commonsense taxpayer will find it hard to understand why Mr. Fraser should be so determined to impose his Sales Tax legislation if he can promise tax cuts next year. Why not simply refrain from imposing the Sales Tax legislation? Because of the hold up in the Sales Tax legislation, tens of millions of proposed new tax dollars are not being collected. But there is no suggestion that the government has any financial problems because of this. In fact Mr. Fraser says he is in the position to offer tax cuts!

Mr. Eric Risstrom, Secretary of the Taxpayers' Association cynically predicts "The tax cuts will not scratch the surface, until they get closer to the next election". Mr. Risstrom points out that six years ago, when the Fraser Government came to office, a typical family, husband, wife and two children, were paying 8.9 cents in every dollar for income tax, including health care, while today the same family is paying 16 cents for income tax and basic health care.
With the abolition of even part tax indexation, every increase in wages automatically provides the taxation department with increased revenue. For blatant political window dressing, Prime Minister Fraser now says, in fact, that he will not take quite as much. This is what he calls a tax cut! Taxpayers should treat this confidence trick with the contempt it deserves, and increase their demands that, for a start, the Sales Tax legislation not be implemented.

BRIEF COMMENTS

Rigidly maintaining his pro-Zionist stance, Prime Minister Fraser told the Liberal Party members in Adelaide "it is the Soviet Union, not Israel which has continually obstructed the peace progress in the Middle East".
The Soviet has always been anxious to destabilise the Middle East, which is why it played a vital role in backing the Zionist aggression which displaced the Palestinians from their homeland, and why it continues to assist Israel with a steady flow of Jews. The only way the Soviet can be thwarted in the Middle East is for the Western powers, including the U.S.A., to insist that Israel withdraw to the pre-1967 borders, that an independent Palestine be established, and that the West pledge to maintain the borders. Terrorist Begin, backed by International Zionism, refuses to accept this suggestion, probably the only one which could prevent a revolution in Egypt and, ultimately, in Saudi Arabia.

President Reagan's policies have already produced the highest unemployment figures for five years. Wage and price controls have been tried in the past, in an attempt to halt inflation, but the results were disastrous. Now the Reagan Administration is threatening business executives if they increase prices. This has already had the type of impact we have predicted. Detroit's car factories expect to sell fewer than six million cars this year, compared with the usual 11 million. The full impact on the economy will be felt next year.
The glowing talk about Australia's "resource boom" will be on a more dismal note in 1982. Inflation can only be reversed constructively by changing the financial policies producing it. Escalating debt, crushing taxation and murderous inflation rates are the major factors, which must be challenged.
(Essential reading now: "A Programme for Reversing Inflation", by Eric D. Butler, Price 80c. "Freedom and Inflation", by Dr. Bryan Monahan, Price 80 cents.)

Replying to Victorian Housing Minister Kennett, Federal Treasurer John Howard says that interest rates were not forcing people to sacrifice the dream of owning their own home. But in Adelaide last weekend Prime Minister Fraser said the government "recognised there was a problem with rising interest rates". The biggest "problem" facing Mr. Fraser is that the people Mr. Howard says do not exist, are going to vote against his government at the next elections!