PHONY TAXATION DEBATE

With Prime Minister Hawke joining his Federal Treasurer Mr. Paul Keating in calling for an increase in indirect taxation, it is becoming obvious that the coming Tax Summit will merely be another Hawke public relations exercise, the real purpose being to sell what has already been agreed upon. Mr. Hawke says that direct taxation is too high. So for obvious reasons of personal hardships, incentives, and economic efficiency, we have got to bring those rates down and bring them down substantially.

"We have got to understand that, if we want, as a community, to have government providing the same level of services in defence, in education, in health, in roads, in all those services which must necessarily be provided for the community by the community, as a whole, via government, then if we are not going to have the income via personal tax to do that, and there is a substantial cut in revenue, then if people want the same level of services basically, then there has got to be an alternative. Now it seems to us that there has got to be a substantial increase in indirect taxation".

Some of Mr. Hawke's "left-wing" Members, and Senator Don Chipp of the Democrats, correctly point out that an increase in indirect taxation must bear heavily upon elderly citizens with fixed incomes, some of these reeling under the Assets Test, and pensioners unless there is some compensating factor introduced into public financing, indirect taxation must stimulate the inflation rate, this in turn leading to more industrial strife.

We can predict now with absolute certainty that any "reform" of the taxation will result in an increase in the total amount of taxes imposed upon the Australian people. Under the present debt system of finance, it is imperative that governments, irrespective of whether they are called Socialist or Capitalist, constantly search for new ways of taxing the people. The non-elected officials are ever ready to make new suggestions about ways and means of taxing the people.

Mr. Eric Risstrom, Secretary of the Taxpayers' Association, warns that the cost of living would jump 8 percent if the government introduced a 5 percent retail tax. He warned that this would "rob savings, life insurance and superannuation" by 8 percent, too. Mr. Risstrom also pointed out that a retail tax would require an extra 4,000 people in the taxation department, and one million firms lodging tax returns each month instead of the present 60,000. Consumers will have to meet the cost in the form of higher prices.
Former Federal Treasurer and Shadow Treasurer for the Liberal Opposition, Mr. John Howard has come out, "in principle", to support Mr. Hawke, demonstrating once again that in reality there in only one party, that is the Financial Party.

The basis of modern taxation is a failure to grasp that, contrary to what Prime Minister Hawke says, that taxation is not the only source of revenue for governments, as witnessed, for example, by the creation of new money to finance deficit budgets, and that if people want economic activity in one area, there must be less in other areas. Taxation would only reflect reality in a society where the economy is being operated to the maximum of its capacity and if the people wanted to build roads, they would perhaps have to stop building houses. But the reality is that a modern industrial society like Australia has enormous production capacity, some of it being wasted, and some not being used.

Total taxation in Australia could be reduced drastically by, for a start, eliminating the national debt, and saving the massive interest bill being paid on that debt. Interest charges are one of the major reasons for high taxation. Those "radical left-wingers" are not radical enough to tackle the debt and interest issue. The present system plays into the hands of the Socialists and their desire to level down society to the one dead level.

A distinguished Roman Catholic philosopher, the late Dr. Coffey, warned back in the early thirties that financial orthodoxy was the bridge over which nations would pass from a system of private enterprise to Marxism. Events continue to confirm this prediction.

(Recommended reading: "Dictatorship by Taxation", by C.H.Douglas, Price: $1.50 posted. "The Money Trick". Price: $3.50. Order from all League bookshops).

CANADIAN HYSTERIA

There have been sensational developments in Canada as the Zionist inspired media, with the CBC playing the major role, have attempted to create an atmosphere of fear and confusion as a preliminary to the Keegstra trial in Alberta next month. Allegedly "anti-semitic hate" is now so great that synagogues are being fire bombed. But in the Toronto trial of Ernest Zundel, defence counsel Mr. Doug Christie, who is also defending Mr. Keegstra, caused a sensation in the court by destroying the credibility of witnesses who claim they saw gas chambers at Auschwitz, and brought in expert witness like the French scholar, Professor Faurisson, and Ditlieb Felderer, author of "Anne Frank's Diary - A Hoax" ($5 posted), who has demonstrated after a detailed personal study of the Auschwitz camp, the absurdity of much of what has been claimed.

A leading banker laughed at the suggestion that there was any link between International Communism and International Finance, but did admit that his bank was involved in making credit available to the Communist nations. No credit was made available to South Africa, but this was on "moral" grounds. However, a side effect of the banker's evidence was a detailed exposition of how the modern banking system creates financial credit. This exposition was not publicised by the media.

Mr. Doug Christie created another sensation last week when he produced as one of his witnesses, Mr. Jim Keegstra himself. The prosecution was completely nonplussed. It is now generally agreed in Canada that the outcome of the Toronto case will have a big bearing on the Keegstra trial. Keegstra has correctly said that there is a "media trial" taking place.

If in a Common Law country like Canada, individuals can be successfully prosecuted for presenting a different view of history, then Senator Gareth Evans and his friends of the Human "Rights" Commission will be pressing for enlarged powers for the Human Rights Commission in Australia. During a short visit to Australia next month on private business, Canadian Assistant National Director of The Canadian League of Rights, Mr. Phillip Butler, will be addressing meetings in Melbourne (March l2th), Western Australia (March 15th and 16th) and Brisbane (March 18th) on Canadian developments. Details of meetings later.

GOVERNMENT EDUCATION DEPARTMENT ATTACKS AUSTRALIAN FLAG

A Perth, W.A., actionist has drawn our attention to a N.S.W. Department of Education "School Certificate Reference Test (1984} English. This English paper is really a not-too-subtle brainwash against the traditional Australian Flag, framed in the form of questions to be answered by the examination candidates. A few of the questions will give supporters the general idea;
"Should we, or shouldn't we change the flag we've got? Just about every body has an opinion. "I have one: I think we should change it and do so for the bicentennial celebrations because that would be a neat and tidy time and way to do it. "Let's have a stylised kangaroo, like the Qantas symbol. And let us put it on our present flag in the space now occupied by the Union Jack in red on a white background or vice-versa if you like - and, you have an instant Aussie flag with a minimum of fuss.

Further brainwashing follows
"He rejects the Union Jack as part of the Australian Flag because; (b) Australia is a multicultural nation (d) Australia's links with Britain have changed, and there is much more in this vein.

The whole exercise is to brainwash the young that the Australian Flag is no good - not representative of Australia at all; not in accordance with "modern realities" such as our separation from Britain, and our "new" multicultural society; which we all voted for, didn't we? Our actionist in Perth makes some comments which we could not better;
"This, and other quotes, by the author illustrate what your Association (actionist is a member of the Australian Flag Association) - is up against. Nowhere does the test paper point out that the present Flag has seen the good times of peace, the difficult times of depression, and the dangerous times of war. "To combat this insidious action in our school and elsewhere, we need to vigorously oppose any change from the present Flag, and we must increase our membership to take in more people who have strong feelings to combat any change as was done unilaterally by the Prime Minister when he simply directed, without any reference to the Parliament of the people, that 'God Save the Queen' was no longer our National Anthem. This, and a new flag are nothing but further steps towards Australia becoming a republic and severing our connection with the Crown."

We certainly encourage readers to support their Australian National Flag Association. The address of the W.A. Branch is "G.P.0. Box F374, PERTH, W.A., 6001.