THE REPUBLICAN OFFENSIVE GAINS MOMENTUM

Prime Minister Bob Hawke's fellow republican, Mr. Rupert Murdoch, the newspaper magnate financed by his international banking friends continues his campaign to make Australia a Republic. An editorial in "The Australian" of March 21st states, "The Labor Party has taken the first gentle step down the republican road..."

While the realities of politics have compelled Mr. Hawke to qualify his expressed desire to have a Socialist Republic established in Australia there is a powerful movement designed to turn Australia into a Republic by the bi-centennial celebrations of 1988. The subtle campaign to change the Australian flag is a major feature of the anti-royalist strategy.

"The Age", Melbourne, in its issue of March 21st not only attempts to downgrade the arrival of Prince Charles and Lady Diana in its news coverage of the royal visit to Alice Springs, but editorially also attempts to advance the republican cause. "As Prince Charles will discover the mood of the country has changed appreciably since he was here last. Australia now has a Labor Government with new commitments, new values and new priorities. The outlook is more open to republicanism... Observing that support among Australian electors for a republic has risen from 15 % to 28 % during the reign of Elizabeth II.

"The Australian" comments: that "as Australia's multiracial society develops our ties with the British Monarch will no longer seem appropriate and Australia will be ready for a republic."
It is blatant dishonesty to keep referring to "the British Monarch" without stressing that it is part of the total constitutional heritage which Australia as well as other countries have derived from Britain. British constitutional developments have their roots in a Christian heritage of 2000 years. If the principle of Monarchy is to be abolished because it developed to its present form in Britain then logically all other constitutional principles derived from Britain should be abolished. Perhaps even the English language should be outlawed so that Australians can demonstrate their "independence"!

In the meantime Americans refuse to abolish the British system of imperial measurements, attempt to maintain English Common Law and turn out in huge crowds to welcome a visit from the Queen. If the majority of Australians including those of non-British background who support the principle of Monarchy and Christian values do not unite to defend their heritage which the Socialist Republicans and their allies seek to take from them then they will be defeated by a well organised and heavily financed minority. The most critical watershed in the history of Australia has been reached.

THE GREAT GOD DEFICIT

A number of Sunday papers including the Sunday Telegraph (20/3/83) predicted a big rise in Local Government rates this year. The reason given was the projected government deficit of $96 billion now looming on Mr. Hawke's horizon.
Within one week of assuming the Prime Ministership Mr. Hawke has abandoned his pre-election promises to appease the "Great God Deficit" who has apparently decreed that lower taxes, petrol prices and chances of recovery should be turned into burnt offerings by the Treasury high priests.

Last August's Budget brought down by the previous altar boy John Howard; total Commonwealth Receipts were estimated to bring in $45,393 million, while outlays were estimated at $47,067 million leaving a Deficit estimate of $1,674 million. In a mid-year review presented as a "confidential" Budget deficit minute paper by the Treasury head John Stone to Prime Minister Hawke; the figures had "blown out" as follows: Total Receipts - $44,420 mil. Total 0utlays - $48, 765, leaving a current Deficit of $4,345 million. So with little more than half the year through Mr. Howard's estimates were out by $2.5 billion.

However Mr. Stone's forward estimate is for a 1983-84 deficit of $9.6 billion. "The first thing I should say on that matter is that the forward estimates processes which culminate in the production by the Department of Finance each year at about this time of the report on the forward estimates of Budget outlays for the following three years are quite separate from the "first bids" processes which typically get underway in departments about this time... they are formally unrelated to the "first bids" processes for the immediately following year…"

Mr. Stone s revised estimates for the 1982-83 period show estimated Receipts to be $44,420 million, and estimated Outlays to be $48,765million, leaving an estimate for the Deficit this coming Budget time of $4,345 million.

This is confirmed by the Queensland economist Mr. H.W. Herbert, writing in The Sunday Mail (February 27th, 1983) "...The total Budget deficit by June is expected to be about $6,000 million. Take away the overseas deficit of $1,7000 million (financed from external Funds) and you are left with about $4,000 million as the domestic deficit for 1982-83.
This deficit is financed, in the first instance, by the Treasury and Reserve Bank lending the government money...- The expected domestic deficit for 1982-83 of $4,300 million is modest on overseas standards, only 2.6 percent of our G.N.P. of $165 million"

Mr. Herbert went on: "Deficits of about 5 percent are common overseas (Japan, 5.6 percent). Nor are deficits of this size inflationary, although they would be under conditions of full employment... It is going to take a big injection of spending to get unemployment moving down..."

It appears that Mr. Hawke is deliberately using "scare" tactics- by refusing to acknowledge that increased spending is necessary to get Australia moving again. Why? Was it a preconceived plan to avoid the necessity of honouring his pre-election bribes?

BRIEF COMMENTS

According to Mr. Geoff Kitney writing in "The National Times" March 13th to 19th. When Mr. Bob Hawke was advised by the Reserve Bank and senior government officials on the effects of the flood of money out of Australia in the pre-election period there were only two options, "being prepared to borrow heavily overseas, to defend the $A, or a devaluation." There was, of course, another option: for Mr. Hawke to announce that Australia's internal financial policies were not going to be determined by international speculators; that whatever was physically possible and desirable in Australia would be made financially possible. But there is not the slightest indication that Prime Minister Hawks is planning to attack the Financial Dictatorship. He wants to stay in office as long as possible.

In a statement issued on the eve of the Federal Elections, Mr. Alexander Psalti, President of the Eastern Metropolitan Branch of the Victorian National Party, called upon Prime Minister Fraser to promise if re-elected to implement a number of policies, including a reduction in income tax, the abolition of Sales Tax, a drastic reduction in the foreign aid programme of $800 million, the halting of "the silent invasion by many thousands of Asians and Africans, and the holding of a referendum on Australia's future immigration policy. Mr. Psalti said that unless Mr. Fraser was prepared to implement the policies listed, "he has no right attacking the Socialist left and kicking the communist can, as most of his policies in the above mentioned fields would be quite consistent with the objectives of both the World's Marxist strategists and the A.L.P.'s socialist left."

While we have little respect for the views of defeated West Australian Liberal, Mr. John Hyde, we note with interest his statement after the Federal elections, that "the policies which have for seven years guided the government have essentially been those of socialist parties the world over...." But in a message to his colleagues who survived March 5th, Mr. Malcolm Fraser said that unless the Liberals could regain office at the next elections, it might be impossible to halt the Socialist drive. Both the foreign and domestic policies of the Fraser Government aided and abetted the Socialist advance. Mr. Malcolm Fraser was Mr. Bob Hawke's biggest asset in his election campaign.

Past English cricketers like Denis Compton and Bill Edrich, along with thousands of cricket supporters, have at long last made it clear that they are sick of sport being used for political purposes. The committee of the famous Marylebone Cricket Club rejected the initial move requesting them to call a special meeting to consider the selection of an MCC team to tour South Africa in 1983-84. But they were eventually forced to agree to the meeting when a sufficient number of MCC members petitioned that a meeting of members be held. It is highly probable that the necessary two-thirds majority of the club's 18,000 members will be obtained in support of the South African tour. What then? If the Thatcher government refused to try to stop the tour, there would be a major political explosion in the UN and amongst Commonwealth countries. England's cricket lovers may be responsible for some much needed sanity in international affairs.