HAWKE GOVERNMENT DISINTEGRATING

Those who heard and saw Prime Minister Hawke responding to the censure motion in the Federal Parliament last week were struck with what many believed to be a dramatic change in Mr. Hawke. The truth is, as we have consistently pointed out, that Mr. Hawke is a creature of the media and his advisers, and is only a fair weather performer. Mr. Hawke merely reverted to his real self last week. The leopard cannot change his spots.

This does not mean that Mr. Hawke cannot recover lost ground, and that the nightmare of the latest Morgan Poll surveys temporarily overcomes. The polls reveal that an election at present would see Mr. Hawke swept from office. But what then? This is the question worrying those who know that the Opposition parties have yet to cleanse themselves of the disease, which led to the destruction of the Fraser Government.

Anyone who doubts that former Federal Treasurer John Howard, now a devotee of Mr. Hawke's strategy for increasing indirect taxation, has learned anything should consider his eulogy of the American recovery. What has happened, of course, is that the anti- Socialist Ronald Reagan has used the old Keynesian deficit budget technique to stimulate the economy while at the same time permitting the farmers to be squeezed in order to hold down the inflation rate. Under the Reagan Administration the deficit has reached new record levels.

Federal Reserve Board chairman, Mr. Paul Volker, told Congress last week that as the American debt level escalates, time was running out on the U.S. economy and that the present situation could be compared to Latin America four years ago. Mr. Volcker made an urgent plea for a curbing of federal deficits as the "only alternative" to severe economic reverses some time in the future. Press reports state that Congressmen were astonished at Mr. Volcker's blunt language and that there was "nervous laughter" from the packed committee room. Generally overlooked is that heavy international investment in the U.S.A. has also helped to contribute to a stimulated economy.

Mr. Hawke has also been following the American lead, with big increases in Australia's external debts. But debt is like a powerful drug and there comes the day of reckoning. Business leaders are urging that Federal Treasurer Paul Keating reduce the deficit at a time when it has been revealed that the increase in the money supply has been greater than projected in the last budget. Mr. Keating promises ''no credit curb". Which explains the spate of propaganda about shifting the burden of taxation to an increase in indirect taxation. Mr. Hawke now faces a bigger explosion than that which occurred as a result of the MX missile test cancellation. It will be produced at the July "Tax Summit" Conference.

The Hawke-Keating strategy for indirect taxation will result in another conflict with the radical Left Wing of the Labor Party. The danger is that in an attempt to placate Members like Mr. Hand calling for capital gains and similar taxation, the Hawke Government will also move in this direction. As we consistently pointed out, the feverish search f or ever higher taxation is inevitable under the present policy of debt finance. The disintegration of the Hawke Government is inevitable unless there is a complete change of financial policy. Mr. Hawke is too much a creature of the debt merchants to attempt this. But it is conceivable that in a state of deep national crisis, he could do what William Morris Hughes and Mr. Joe Lyons did before him; desert the Labor Party in an attempt to head some type of national "consensus" government.

It is ironic that while the storm clouds grow darker by the hour in Australia, Prime Minister Hawke announces that he has accepted an invitation to participate in a "Summit" Conference being staged by the Canadian Progressive Conservative Government, whose leader, Mr. Mulroney, obviously believes that there is substance to Mr. Hawke's rhetoric. Mr. Hawke says that the Canadian invitation is an occasion to report on Australia's progress in the long term restructuring of the economy. Canadians might ponder on why a government calling itself Conservative should be inviting a leading member of the Socialist International to lecture on his alleged achievements in Australia. Our Canadian friends should point out that for Mr. Hawke to be offering advice on economics to the Canadian Government is akin to a drowning man offering swimming lessons.

BRIEF COMMENTS

We have on occasions lamented the failure of Mr. B.A. Santamaria of the National Civic Council, a brilliant commentator, to come to grips with the basic problem of a disintegrating Civilisation, the debt system. We record with pleasure, therefore, that "News Weekly" of February 20, republishes an article on finance by the famous British historian, Sir Arthur Bryant, who died recently at 80 years of age. Sir Arthur asked in this article, from "The Illustrated London News" of February, 1983, "why should it be considered more inflationary to issue a carefully calculated amount of money, with no interest bearing debt attached to it, than to print an unlimited amount of money charged with heavy interest rates, payable in future taxation, forcing the manufacturer and public services to keep raising their prices?"

Bishop Tutu of South Africa has allowed himself to he used in the mounting international attack against South Africa. The world's media have remained silent on the subject of how little support the good Bishop has amongst his fellow Christians. Despite the tremendous boost of having just been awarded the Nobel peace prize, at the Johannesburg Church of England Electoral College, consisting of clergy and laity, Bishop Tutu could only muster 89 votes of the 149 required for election. As a result of the deadlock, the matter was referred to the synod of Bishops who, ignoring the tradition of choosing an outsider as a compromise when there is such strong opposition to a candidate, selected Bishop Tutu. A mass defection of Anglicans is the result.

Malaysia is a country, which the multicultural devotees rarely mention. There have been bloody racial conflicts in the past between the indigenous Malays and those of Chinese background. The Constitution has ensured that the Malays are entrenched as the political rulers. Now comes the threat of a big Moslem revival with strong support for radical Islam. Fears are growing that the fragile political systems is going to collapse. Perhaps Mr. Al Grassby should be rushed to Malaysia to deal with the problem. Australia should take heed.

Late in the Victorian election, the Liberal Party decided to do what the League of Rights had been doing weeks previously: distributing brochures on the threat to the Legislative Council. But the Liberal brochure warns that if Mr. Cain gains control of the Upper House, he will be forced by the ALP to abolish it. If Mr. Cain deprived a "reformed" Legislative Council of the power to deny Supply, he will have gained the best of both worlds; an Upper House rubber stamp for the Government while still retaining jobs for the ALP Legislative Councillors. The Liberal Party has been as silent as the grave on the question of where do they stand on the right of the Upper House to deny Supply.

ETHIOPIAN AID GOING TO. U.S.S.R.?
Our Canadian contemporary, On Target, reports as follows: "The Guardian, a New York Marxist journal, published a revealing report on the Ethiopian famine in its February 4th issue, Following, are excerpts:
"As drought in Ethiopia and occupied Eritrea worsens, the Ethiopian Government (Dergue) is responding harshly to increasing criticism of its distribution of international food aid. "Despite widening protests that aid sent to Ethiopia by the European Economic Community (E.E.C.) is being used to feed the army, the Common Market announced that it had voted to continue its present aid... Of over 35,000 tons of grain sent to Ethiopia by the E.E.C. in 1981, none got through to the people who need it, and virtually none is getting through now'. Eritrean Relief Association member Mary Dines of London reported last month, charging that an increasing amount of the food aid is being sent to the U.S.S.R. Dines told the London Times the Soviets 'have made it very clear that they expect the bills for arms to be paid'. Food aid is about the only currency the Dergue has available, and there is growing evidence that much of it is being re-exported on Soviet cargo ships. A Soviet controlled Communist regime rules Ethiopia.

QUEENSLAND POWER STRIKE

'BREAKER' MORANT AND CONSCRIPTION

We have recently been reading "The Life of J.T. Lang", by John R.C. Sleeman (1933). In it, early Australian history abounds; but we were particularly interested in the section on "The Secret Thirty" and "BeakerMorant". Few people know the part Harry Morant played in beating conscription, though he had been dead sixteen years. (Executed during the Boer War).

Morant was an Englishman, but had enlisted in Australia, Hancock was an Australian bushman. We presume that most readers saw the film "Breaker Morant", and are aware that Morant, Handcock and Witton were court martialled for shooting eight Boer prisoners. Whether they were in the right for doing so has been in dispute ever since. Morant and others were also charged with the murder of a German missionary. Morant and Handcock were subsequently shot, and Witton imprisoned for 'life' but released two years later.

Now, this is the part of Australia's history which is little known:
"On 11th August, 1904, Witton was free. "Late that month, in a Sydney hotel, thirty ex-South African (campaign) soldiers met. They had been personal friends of 'The Breakers'. "What they had to say could be boiled down to this:
'Morant and Handcock were executed for carrying out orders. Witton had just seen the light of day, a freeman. Deakin did his best to get him out, he failed. The Labor Government also failed. The legislatures of Natal and Cape Colony failed. A British member of Parliament succeeded where these Government failed. That needs no amplification. We carry no weight. We will form a secret society to fight against Australian soldiers ever again being sent overseas to fight.
"They took the name of 'The Secret Thirty'.

"Every year they met on a date in August arranged a year before. For a special meeting, a card was sent on which was printed Mousequetaire's verse, with the date written below. "When the war (World War I) broke out twenty seven were still living. When the conscription proposals were made, twenty-two were alive. They formed a secret organisation. They worked in secret. They raised funds to fight conscription, it was their testimony to 'That other heart That teased its beating here'.

"When T. J. Lang opened at Auburn (Sydney suburb) to say 'No' to the proposals of Mr. Hughes he did not know, but twenty two men, who had once been thirty, were in the audience. To them, rain didn't matter. What did matter was that Lang, the first politician to dare to speak openly and curse conscription, should he allowed to talk. 'The Breaker' was breaking the last outlaw to be saddled by political cattle duffers, 'The Breaker', unknown to any was playing his last game of poker…
…"In future they worked in the city. They influenced funds to be sent at the right time to the right people. Some of these funds went astray, but they were not responsible for that. Some day, someone may tell the story of how some people found anti-conscription funds stinking to their fingers. The story is an interesting one.

"The real joke of anti-conscription finance was that much of it was subscribed by good Nationalist businessmen, who posing as conscriptionists worked 'under the nose' for the defeat of the proposals. However, these men took no risks. They never asked for a receipt for funds subscribed. Still, that also, is a story that has no place in this book".

Our comment
The history of this period is still, in our view, fuzzy. 'Breaker Morant' was definitely a 'villain', always in trouble. Unpaid bills flowed from him like the wake of a ship; He was "Shoe-horned" out of the British Navy under suspicious circumstances. We understand Harry Morant's father was a senior British Naval officer, but J.T. Lang and the author of his biography, John Sleeman, were anti-British, so we cannot be sure where the exact truth lies. Harry Morant acquired the name "Breaker" from his ability at "breaking in" horses. There are still people in the Gunnedah district of N.SW whose parents remembered "Breaker Morant".

SEPARATION OF CHURCHS AND STATE

(Notes from an address given at a Church meeting recently by a W.A. actionist.)
"... It is obvious that Church and State must be separate. Christianity is the rock upon which this nation was built. We have a Christian based Common Law, Christian based Monarchy, and Christian based Constitution. The beginning of the Constitution reads, "Whereas the people of N.S.W., Victoria, S.A., Qld., and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and under the Constitution hereby established". The Founding Fathers were referring to one God, that being the Father of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ…"

It could be said that in its establishing its religion of secularism, e.g. in public education, which is a system of doctrines and practices that, a) rejects any form of religions faith and worship, and b) believes that and Christianity and Christian Government affairs should not enter into the functions of the State, especially into public education, that our governments are atheist, and are acting unconstitutionally…"