THE HAWKE REVOLUTION

By Eric D. Butler
Not since I watched Trudeaumania sweep Canada in 1968 have I seen such a frightening phenomenon as I watched at Canberra last week. Anyone with the most elementary understanding of the present finance economic system can predict with complete certainty now that economic policies of the Hawke government will be disastrous. But what we saw, thanks to the national television coverage, the ABC giving far more coverage of the Hawke Summit than of the Royal tour, was a Prime Minister with a Messianic complex, manipulating a development which could have the most far reaching implications for Australia.

C. H. Douglas once observed that modern elections are a confidence trick on the electors. Within weeks of winning an election during which he promised a wide range of tax cuts, Mr. Hawke was given standing ovation in the Federal Parliament, not by the elected representatives to the Parliament, but by non-elected people, endorsing a Summit communiqué which Mr. Hawke can now claim gives legitimacy to a programme which will not only not reduce taxes, but is more likely to increase them.

Within a few days of being elected, Mr. Hawke was carefully preparing the way for what was to come. He said, "The possibility of general tax cuts is obviously very, very much less likely now in the light of known facts". The only meaning, which can be given to Mr. Hawke's statement, is that he made firm promises of tax reductions during the elections without knowing whether in fact he could implement those promises.

If Mr. Hawke, who has never ceased to remind us that he has studied economics, without making himself aware of the facts he now claims he did not know, then he was highly irresponsible. If he did know the facts, then he was dishonest. Whatever the truth of the matter, Mr. Hawke misled the Australian people even more than Mr. Malcolm Fraser did with his promise of tax reductions, and with his Summit exercise has prepared the electors for a harsh August budget.

The Summit demonstrated the (philosophical and intellectual) bankruptcy of the representatives of "Big Business". Not one of them indicated the slightest understanding of economic realities. It was not surprising then that they unanimously agree to the use of Keynesian financial policies to stimulate the economy, the establishment of a "price surveillance" bureaucracy, government job creation schemes, possibly higher taxation, if felt necessary, instead of tax reductions, and a return to centralised wage fixing. The Summit in essence endorsed a Socialist strategy.
Primary producers should note that Mr. Michael Davidson, of the National Farmers' Federation, also endorsed the Summit communiqué.

It is hard to realise that only two months ago the prices and incomes agreement between the Government and the ACTU, was being attacked by Liberal and National Party spokesmen, some of whom described it as "a socialist manifesto". At the Summit representatives of Big Business and others not only now endorsed this "socialist manifesto", but in doing so dealt a major blow to a Coalition Opposition, which is increasingly been made to look irrelevant. In the absence of a much more effective opposition than Mr. Peacock is capable of mounting, Mr. Hawke may, as some have suggested, already have won the next Federal elections which I predict he will hold late next year if he feels that he could win control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Symptomatic of the thinking of many of those representing Big Business was that of the Prime Minister's close friend, Sir Peter Abeles, who said in his closing speech at the Summit that the policy now agreed to in the communiqué should become a tripartite agreement, with employers being equal partners. Already moves are mooted to create one employers' body as an equivalent of the ACTU. The stage is set to involve The Big Three in Mr. Hawke's National Economic Planning Council.
What Australians saw at Canberra was the installing of an embryonic de facto government. There is little doubt that Mr. Hawke will from now on be justifying his programme by claiming that it was endorsed by the most historic national conference ever held in Australia.

Anyone who has taken the trouble to read Mr. Hawke's views over the years is not surprised by Mr. Hawke's strategy and tactics. The Summit was but a first major step towards changing the nature of Australian society and its institutions. He visualises a new style of government, which will require the end of the Monarchical system and Federalism, and a new type of economy not unlike that operated by the National Socialists in Germany.

In opening the Summit conference, Mr. Hawke said it was not merely a question of reconciliation because of the economic crisis but "It goes far beyond that. It is a question of the shape of the future of Australia as we approach the end of the 20th Century."

Robert Hawke, the Messiah, clearly has no doubt that he is destined to play the major role in shaping that future. But realities are going to demonstrate to Mr. Hawke how they are the great disciplinarians.
I have a feeling that the recent visit of Prince Charles and his charming wife has dealt a body blow to Mr. Hawke's vision of a Socialist Republic. The Monarchy is a central institution upon which the Hawke revolution could founder. It certainly will if Australians now unite across artificial party and sectional divisions to produce a real consensus one in favour of retaining the basic structure of traditional Australian society and its institutions.

ADELAIDE DEMONSTRATION AGAINST LEAGUE EXHIBITION

Since we reported in our issue of April 8th concerning the campaign against the League of Rights Exhibition in the Constitutional museum, Adelaide, there has been a violent intensification of the anti-League campaign. Under the misleading headline, "Protest planned over Nazism Exhibition", "The Australian" of April 15th, reported that "Members of the South Australian Jewish community, the State Council of Churches, the Australian Christian Student Movement, the Indo-China Refugee Association, and representatives of Aboriginal and other ethnic groups will maintain a day long vigil outside the museum in protest at racism, and the housing of the display at the museum."
It would be instructive to learn who was responsible for such an alliance to be brought together in this manner.

"The Australian" report quotes Dr. Leon Mann as a spokesman for the group. Dr. Mann said that a petition was to be collected and that the group would urge the State Government to introduce legislation preventing the use of public buildings for displays, which "showed contempt of minority groups." All those who have seen the League display know that it does not show contempt for any group, minority or otherwise. What it does is to show the type of activities in which the League has been involved in over a longer period of time.

The League has involved itself in the subject of what is called "The Holocaust" because, along with a growing number of highly qualified observers, some of these Jews, it opposes the exploitation of a demonstrable hoax about six million Jews being gassed by the Germans, to advance Political Zionist power policies in the Middle East and elsewhere. Disbelievers in the hoax do not deny that there were German wartime concentration camps, that there was brutality in some camps, that large numbers of all kinds of people died in the camps, and that many Jews perished in different ways along with other people. The International Red Cross Report on conditions in the wartime camps is most objective. But there is no reference to millions of Jews being gassed. Pope Pius has been consistently smeared because he did not condemn the alleged German extermination programme. The Vatican was represented on the International Red Cross.

The Weekend Australian of April 16-17th reported on the daylong rally, which even Mr. Spike Milligan joined. Adelaide television and radio stations covered the demonstration. But the League was not invited to comment. However, "The Advertiser" of Saturday, April 16th did carry a reasonable interview with League State Director, Mr. Frank Bawden, who pointed out that the demonstration had brought increased support for the League. The Adelaide media are being challenged by the League to attend Mr. Jeremy Lee's Conservative Club meeting on Friday, April 29th, when Mr. Lee will speak on "A Christian Perspective of The Holocaust". All Adelaide and near Adelaide supporters should be present with their friends.

BRIEF COMMENTS