THE PEOPLE BETRAYED

This is the heading given to the Editorial of The Wimmera Mail-Times, January 13th by its Editor. This editorial hits the issue of Sales Tax so hard that we shall republish it for the benefit of all our supporters. There has been a burst of anti-Sales Tax activity around that region of Victoria known as the Wimmera, with many letters in the regional newspaper, and the collection of signatures for a petition of protest against sales tax taking place in Horsham, the largest Wimmera town. No doubt the Editorial mentioned above in The Wimmera Mail-Times reflects the general hostility, which the new sales taxes have generated in the broad community, and it runs:

"The Federal Treasurer, Mr. Howard, has repeated his statement that Australia places too much emphasis on income tax and that a higher proportion of government revenue should be raised by indirect taxes such as sales tax. "Mr. Howard is getting his way. Cabinet has bowed to his peculiar economic philosophy. Perhaps it could be 'sold' to the Australian people if it were accompanied by a spot of honesty and square dealing. "But look at the robbery date planned by the Canberra bandits with the hinted but non-specific tax cuts. "Sales tax on previously non-taxable goods will be imposed in March. Income tax reductions, which were supposed to be implemented at the corresponding time, are now hinted as election bribes in 1983. In other words, the Government will reap multi-millions, and then give nothing back because any tax cut given next year will be absorbed by inflation between now and then. This is the way that governments, advised by a socialist based bureaucracy, operate. The 'liberal' tag is the greatest lie of all time. Enterprise is gunned down with the ruthlessness of a specially trained hit squad. "The so-called 'free' Government is taxing the heart out of people and trying to justify its actions by slavish repetition of Fabian socialist dogma and comparisons with other world regimes. If we allowed our people more enterprise we would be the envy of the rest of the world, instead of trying to comply with common restrictive standards. "In the meantime, the Federal Parliamentary National Party has ten cents each way, making a few noises to calm the murmurings at home, but failing miserably when it comes to the real crunch of raising opposition hands in Parliament. "The people are being betrayed on all sides."

IMMIGRATION STILL THE GOVERNMENT'S TENDER SPOT

"The R.S.L. has attacked the selection of members on the new Immigration review panel." The Sun (Melbourne) January 20th.

There are some 14 members on this new panel. We agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Bruce Ruxton, the Victorian State President of the Returned Services League that most of the members of the panel are not qualified to represent the views of Australians at large. Only an officially administered referendum on Immigration will do that; and that is the very thing that the Fraser Government does not want.

Mr. Macphee's new panel on Immigration includes Ivan Durant, whose contribution to Australian "art" was the dumping of a dead cow outside Victoria's National Gallery in Melbourne. Sir Garfield Sobers was certainly a great cricketer; and Marilyn Rowe is a lovely ballerina. Ray Barret is a top-notch Australian actor. But so what? We are talking about Immigration - not cricket, ballet dancing nor acting! As for the "art" mentioned above; the less said the better.
Our interpretation of this panel is that it is just a fumble by a nervous government to attempt to calm an increasingly disquieted electorate. Even Mr. Macphee, the Minister for Immigration, has told Mr. Al Grassby, the Commissioner for Community Relations, to desist from inflammatory statements.

In a remarkable exhibition of forthright comment late last year, Mr. Macphee virtually admitted what we have always known - that Al Grassby was an embarrassment to the Government; an electoral liability; and that his ''flamboyance" was producing a backlash against both Mr. Grassby and the Government's Immigration policies. Mr. Grassby will NOT have his seven-year term of office extended. His Commission of Community Relations has been absorbed into the new Human Rights Commission (this new "Commission" has been set up to coincide with the Government's formal recognition of a United Nations ruling or declaration on Human Rights. This was also a convenient opportunity to scale down Al Grassby: he no longer will report annually to the Parliament - an event the mass media loved to highlight.)

In a quite silly article in The Weekend Australian (Jan. 23-24) the reporter, or Editor, gives the article the title: "Bruce shoots from the lip". The reporter merely repeats what Mr. Bruce Ruxton has said on Immigration, the Irish question, Republicanism, but presents his views as somehow eccentric. It doesn't wash, as Mr. Ruxton's comments are plain commonsense. It is The Australian, which comes off second best this time.

It was, finally, most heartening to read the letter, published in The Australian (Jan. 20th) - featured by the Editor, and given the title, "Many Non-British Are Monarchists". The correspondent, a Mr. Alexander A. Borg, of Gladesville, N.S.W., takes issue with the Editor of The Australian over the Editorial of January 1st. We are not able to republish all of Mr. Borg's letter, due to limitations of space:
"You cannot assume that non-British people reject the monarchy or our links with Britain simply because they are non-British. A large proportion is, in fact, monarchists, and has no desire to see a republic here... reference to the 40 religions is irrelevant; I challenge....to prove that Catholics, Jews, Ukrainian Uniats, or Methodists do not make as good monarchists as Anglicans. "Finally, your own statement that 'thousands of British migrants came to Australia not to be colonised again but to 'get away' is little short of ridiculous. Were this the case (and I refute the claim that here we are colonised) then those Britons would have gone to America or Holland or Germany. But they chose to come here because the language, political system, and culture were similar to Britain's. "Furthermore, for many years the Australian Immigration Department was conducting a campaign (Bring Out a Briton) telling Britons that Australia was a British country in need of British people."

BRIEF COMMENTS

In The Australian (Jan. 20th) Senator Colin Mason, Deputy Leader of the Australian Democrats, has an article: "The Senate: a shackled watchdog". Shackled, because of tyranny of the party system of government. He also gets in a strong plug for proportional representation - which system would give his party some chance of membership in the House of Representatives if applied there. We well recall that ex-Senator Frank McManus, of the Democratic Labor Party, was continually beating the drum on this issue; and it probably would have given the D.L.P. some representation in the Lower House. Senator Mason is quite right when he comments that the "old" parties (his is "new" and better!) have promoted the fiction that somehow the House of Representatives must be all-powerful, and that this people's House must never be frustrated by the Senate. As he says, this is nonsense. We further agree with him that the Senate has not only the right to amend legislation - it has the duty to do so. We are quite sure he means this to be "when necessary".

The Soviet bloc's debt to the West now stands at 78 Billion Australian dollars. The report, from the New York Times, comments that this pileup of debt has been growing at a slower rate because of high Soviet gold sales. There is an inevitable swipe at South Africa. The report has it that the advocates of a return to the gold standard had better watch it: apart from all the grave disruption it would cause to non- Communist economies, the big beneficiaries would be the Soviet Union AND South Africa. We presume that the implication is that the Soviet AND South Africa are the two great enemies of the West.

It had to happen. Karl Wilson, reporting from London, states that Robert Mugabe, of Zimbabwe, is now anxious to ditch the Lancaster House agreement which set up a Westminister style government for Zimbabwe (the former Rhodesia) to form a one-party state (with Robert Mugabe at the top). No prizes for guessing that Joshua Nkomo leader of the other major party in the coalition government, isn't enthusiastic about the idea. He wants to be at the top also; he can't get there yet. Meanwhile, the white exodus continues. White doctors, teachers, engineers, accountants are voting with their feet.

There is no doubt that the Polish situation is bringing out, as never before, the sad and sorry story of the West's part in the build-up to the Communist Empire. A Meredith (Vic.) actionist has sent us the Editorial of The Courier (Ballarat) Jan 14th. Writing on the Polish situation, and the natural gas deal with the Soviet which will be worth $8 Billion, the editorialist writes: "The pipeline story seems to be typical of the many 'lunacy' deals with the West and by which the Soviet Union has been able to wield the big stick over a free world...we have the democracies funding and founding enterprises or virtually subsidising a nation so that it can devote its financial resources to armaments, including intercontinental missiles." "Such aid is helping stretch economies in the West by rapidly expanding their armament programs to meet the Soviet threat which they themselves have helped to create. It's lunacy."

Jondaryan V.P.A. (Qld.) has received the following letter from Senator Michael Macklin, Australian Democrat for Queensland:
"As you must know, the Australian Democrats have succeeded in delaying the imposition of Sales Tax on essential items until 29th March, 1982. It is, of course, now imperative that pressure is put on Government backbenchers to vote against the Sales Tax Bills when they come before the House of Representatives. "I would assume that you will have written to Government members on these lines. "I have assumed that your letters do, in fact, refer only to the proposed taxes on the necessities of life; I would not imagine that you are suggesting that luxuries should not be taxed."

A letter from Senator G. Georges ran, in part: "As you may know, the relevant legislation has been referred by the Senate to the House of Representatives, with a request for substantial amendment. This move was supported by Senator Georges and the Labor Party. "You can be assured that Senator Georges will continue to oppose the introduction of the sales tax measures announced in the 1981-82 Federal Budget."

Mr. Ian Cameron, Member for Maranoa (Qld.) writes: "I have tried very hard to have the 17½% sales tax on all items reduced to 2½%, along with 30 other backbenchers, but to no avail. The Government will not change their tactics because they are worried that the Democrats will not pass the sales tax increases. I agree that it is unjust to tax a whole range of items, but the Taxation Department put them all in place. "As a backbencher I find it very hard to make any changes...."