TASMANIAN PREMIER DIVIDES QUEENSLAND LIBS

Jeremy Lee Sends This Appraisal of Current Queensland Politics
The decision by Tasmanian Premier Robin Gray to enter the Queensland State election on behalf of Joh Bjelke-Petersen and the Nationals has exposed yet again the shambles the Liberal Party has become. Current Liberal pretender, Terry White, immediately reacted by calling the Tasmanian Premier a traitor to the Party, while former Queensland Liberal Attorney General, Sam Doumany, has invited Mr. Gray to campaign in his electorate, apparently in defiance of Mr. White. We now have the extraordinary situation in Queensland where four former Liberal Premiers have personally endorsed.!Joh Bjelke- Petersen. They are former NSW Premier, Tom Lewis, former Victorian Premiers Sir Henry Bolte, and Mr. Lindsay Thompson, and former Western Australian Premier, Sir Charles Court.

With the visit to Queensland of the only Liberal heading a government anywhere in Australia, Mr. Robin Gray - to endorse the National Leader Mr. Bjelke-Petersen, the whole election has taken on an "Alice-in-Wonderland" atmosphere.
The truth is that the whole Liberal Party is disintegrating. In the Federal sphere there is now public debate between Liberal factions on economic policy. The trendy faction, headed by Ian Macphee, is at loggerheads with the "dry's", with the non-aligned Andrew Peacock fluttering uncertainly from group to group. His presence in Queensland, alongside Terry White, appealing for "responsible government", has hardly set the election alight.

How much of this disintegration has filtered through to the electorate remains to be seen. The National Party machine hasn't helped by running a series of woefully shallow ads depicting the Premier kissing babies, with little to say of any consequence. The same sickness, which insists on substituting "image" and "P.R." for meaty policies, is as evident in the National Party machine as it is in the Liberals.

The truth is, the Premier of Queensland is posed to become the most significant political figure on the Australian scene AFTER the election, if he can be persuaded to identify the issues correctly, and provide the national leadership so desperately required. Unless, he does so, Australia's constitutional machinery will be dismantled, piece-by-piece, by a Federal Government in the hands of the most ruthless and unscrupulous politicians since Federation.

There is very deep concern throughout Australia at the future of the Constitution. If the Liberals who have backed the Premier in the election were invited to combine in a joint call to Australians for a move to re-establish constitutional sanctity, a new political axis could be established round which some integrity and direction could be established. It must be impressed on the Premier that the real battle begins after the State election.

PREMIER HINTS AT ACTION

In an October 7th issue of his regular Press statement "PERSONALLY SPEAKING", the Queensland Premier, Mr. Bjelke-Petersen, gives a hint that he may take a lead on the Constitution. Part of his statement said:
"… The people have consistently rejected referendums that have served to centralise power in Canberra. It is likely that if the Commonwealth Government put up referendums that reduced Federal powers, the people would accept such decentralist moves. But the newly expanded "external affairs" power is a sinister side step around the people. It is a power that can only destroy the very basis of the federal contract.

Australia already has some 500 bilateral treaties with some 77 countries and is party to between 325 and 350 multilateral treaties and conventions... A national plan to recover and reinforce the Constitution is now urgently needed before the Federal power brokers annihilate the independence of the States.

The people have the right to determine their constitution and I share a heavy responsibility to do my utmost, along with other federalists, to see that our people get a say in constitutional change. Obviously it is now essential that genuine federalists unite in a common cause to mobilise a counter attack on the centralist threat to our constitution, and set the groundwork for a national plan to give the constitution back to the people. The minimum change must include a constitutional amendment giving people a referendum when High Court decisions drastically change the power balance between the Commonwealth and the States ... After the Government's election victory on October 22, it will be our duty to spearhead a nationwide campaign to return the constitution to the people".

SOVIET DELEGATION TO AUSTRALIA

"A senior Soviet Government official is expected to lead a specialised trade delegation to Australia next year as part of the resumption to normal trading relations between the two countries. The visit is understood to have been agreed to in Moscow during the first official government-to-government talks on trade since the former Fraser Government imposed sanctions over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan..." (Financial Review, 12/10/83).

The report continues: "...In what appears to be a compromise in exchange for a long-term wheat contract - still to be finalised - as well as continued supply of other produce, the Australian delegation told the Soviets it had asked Australian companies to consider buying more goods from the USSR. This approach, covering items ranging from tractors to fertilisers, had been made to some of Australians leading exporters to the USSR..."
Mr. Armand Hammer ought to be pleased. The well-known octogenarian, one of those who funded Lenin in the October revolution, is one of the biggest fertiliser manufacturers in the USSR. He also has a large coal contract in China, and produces oil for Col. Gaddhafi in Libya, as well as at Blina in West Australia.

ACADEMIC DREAMTIME

According to a report in News Weekly (August 31st) - and from our own observations, many trendy, Left leaning Australian academics are ecstatic over the High Court's Franklin Dam ruling. There are still some people who wrongly consider that the Franklin Dam can never be built. This is incorrect. The ruling by the High Court was to the effect that the Franklin Dam cannot be built without the permission of the relevant Commonwealth Minister. The situation could arise where a future Commonwealth Government would authorise its "relevant" Minister to give such permission for the Dam to be built. We have only recently expressed the opinion that we could well see that dam being built in some future time; certainly not whilst the Socialists are in power at Canberra; where they intend to stay - make no mistake about that.

Now the "smart set" among the Australian academics has done a "double take": the penny has dropped that there are serious implications for them all in this High Court ruling. What is it? A little something cooked up in that United Nations yet again. It is the Draft Convention on the Recognition of Studies, Diplomas and Degrees of Higher Education in Asia and the Pacific, prepared by U.N.E.S.C.O. What is it all about? It means just that there should be mutual recognition of courses and qualifications throughout the Asia and Pacific regions.

The academics have now become alarmed because this could affect their pockets! (The hip pocket nerve is twitching). If Australia signs and ratifies this Convention, then Australian universities and colleges of Higher Education will be forced to accept qualifications from quite obviously inferior educational institutions (no discrimination comrades.) Further, this could, and probably would, have an adverse effect on the employment of Australian academic staff (don't forget that the Equal Opportunity and Sex Discrimination legislation would be brought into full play then, to give advantage to non-Australian applicants for academic positions. The Socialists would see to that).

Not surprisingly, the "Australian Committee of Direction and Principals of Colleges and Advanced Education" has withdrawn support for the Convention, and the Australian Vice Chancellors' Committee has sought legal advice on the issue. The Vice Chancellors can seek legal advice until they are blue in the face for all the good that will do them. These decisions from the "quiet revolution", now being brought on by the Canberra Socialists, and given impetus and energy by the crypto Communists buried in the bureaucracy and elsewhere, are political decisions, as, for example are the two recent revolutionary decisions of the High Court. Strict legalism doesn't come into it. News Weekly comments that: "the chickens have come home to roost" Indeed they have.

BRIEF COMMENT

Thank Heavens for Professor Lauchlan Chipman. He has dubbed Senator Susan Ryan's Sex Discrimination Bill "a disgraceful piece of legislation." Professor Lauchlan Chipman is not only Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wollongong, but also Visiting Professor at the Department of Jurisprudence, University of Sydney. (He has qualifications in Law, as well as Philosophy).

The "quiet revolutionaries" at Canberra; the Hawke Socialists, are "keeping mum" about their centralist attacks on the Constitution, our democracy, and the freedoms of the individual. They intend to chip a little of each away at a time. Professor Chipman stated that this Bill allowed "Reverse discrimination" in favour of women when qualified candidates for selection or promotion were equal in merit. The violated fundamental human rights (just watch Senator Gareth Evans skate around this one!) to do with onus of proof, and the right of the individual not to self-incriminate. Professor Chipman was addressing an Australian Family Association Seminar in Melbourne University very recently.

WHY YOUNG VOTERS ARE SO ALIENATED

The following excellent letter to The Australian (17/10) is from Professor Joan Rydon, Professor of Politics, La Trobe University, Melbourne:
"The recent discussion on the failure of many young Australians to enrol as voters has tended to assume that this is based on lack of understanding or ignorance of the electoral and parliamentary systems. There has been a chorus of well meaning assertions that the youth should be better educated and the schools should do more to teach the duties of citizenship. "But perhaps ignorance is not the problem. It may be that young people do not wish to vote, not only because they may be unemployed, alienated, etc., but because they recognise the shortcomings of our present electoral practices.
Further education and genuine understanding may make them even more reluctant to participate in a system which
(a) Attempts to make voting compulsory;
(b) Suggests voters must indicate preferences where they have none;
(c) In safe seats makes voting largely a farce since the important decision has already been made by the dominant party at pre-selection;
(d) Allows parties to indulge in absurd advertising with little respect for truth or their ability to carry out unrealistic promises.

"If young people are to be persuaded to enrol, efforts should be made to make electoral procedures more rational by making clear that with a secret ballot voting cannot be compulsory, and that while a voter may be required to accept a ballot paper he is not obliged to mark it, making the marking of preferences optional and by attempting to improve the level of political discussion and argument. "This might be done by following the British example of outlawing political advertisements on radio and television and limiting expenditure on election campaigns. There have been reports of disquiet within the Liberal Party on election advertising.
"Mr. Young, while Minister of State, suggested there was a need to improve the standards of electioneering. Yet the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reform has recommended against the limitation of election expenditure and proposes that parties and candidates should now be given taxpayers' money to add to that which they already squander on advertising - despite the fact that committees of both Labor and Liberal Parties have suggested that much of this advertising is ineffectual.
"The committee had the opportunity to recommend simpler and more rational systems of voting. Its failure to do so and its suggestion that voters should be able to vote for a list of preferences in the Senate ensures that the parties will still be able to control and manipulate the voting process and that the ordinary voter will he left dependent on their instructions or how to vote cards."