A TIDE IN THE AFFAIRS OF STATE

Shakespeare wrote of "a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune", but what if that tide is missed, the result is a decline into the hallows. Across Australia today there is a rising tide of concern, alarm and anger. The very fabric of traditional Australian society is being torn apart. As we warned last week, the anger in rural Australia is going to mount unless the Hawke Government provides some genuine relief. The thousands of farmers who shouted outside Parliament House in Canberra last week were relatively well behaved. But anger could eventually explode into violent action.

In spite of a virtual black out of the Human Rights issue in the major media of the nation, at long last there is a growing realisation that the League of Rights was not so "extreme" after all when it warned years ago where the signing of UN Conventions would lead Australia. As Assistant National Director, Jeremy Lee, moved southwards through NSW last week he was addressing some of the biggest meetings seen for years. Warnings on the most frightening piece of legislation ever introduced in the Federal Parliament are now starting to appear in Provincial dailies, country and metropolitan papers. A few of the Evangelical Churches have entered the battle.

Spending money it does not actually have, the League of Rights continues to provide the various types of "ammunition" required to fight and defeat the Bill of Rights, and the massive forces lined up behind the campaign to impose it upon the Australian people before they fully realise that their traditional way of life is threatened as never before.

In Victoria there is another explosive ingredient in the ferment, sweeping Australia; the threatened imposed amalgamation of Victoria's Municipalities. The League has over many years exposed the long term Fabian Socialist strategy behind Local Government amalgamations. In his vicious attack on the League of Rights, and National Director Eric Butler, Dr. Ken Coghill, secretary to the Victorian Cabinet, has added further fuel to the flames of controversy, with a number of Councils reacting strongly. The Colac Shire reacted to the Coghill letter by carrying a resolution that a public meeting be held in the near future and that Dr. Coghill be invited to appear to substantiate his charges with Mr. Eric Butler and RSL President Bruce Ruxton present.

As revolt sweeps across Victoria, the Fabian Socialists have decided to speed up their programme and have announced that they are going to impose their programme in about half the time originally intended. No doubt there is fear that if the amalgamation controversy is still raging too close to the next State Elections, the Labor Socialist Government could be swept out of office.

The main role of the League in the growing national ferment, which will be further intensified with a renewed call for the threatened Land Rights programme to the implemented, is to provide guidance, information and expertise. But it is essential that the League's relatively small full-time staff be given the full co-operation of League supporters. We make a special appeal for all subscribers to League journals to pay their subscriptions they receive their renewal notices. Savage postal charges imposed by the postal monopoly is one of the biggest costs the League has to bear. Why help the monopoly by delaying subscription renewals, which means that reminders must be sent. This also places a strain on our mainly volunteer League office team.

The Basic Fund is the main lifeline of the League. Please ensure the 1985-86 Fund is filled as soon as possible. We must have the paper for the flood of literature pouring from the League's printing presses. The demand is going to grow as this eventful year unfolds. We must take every advantage of the rising tide across the nation to steer the ship of state past the worst of the threatening dangers. And in spite of denials by Prime Minister Hawke, we believe that we could be threatened by another early election before the end of the year.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT FORCED AMALGAMATIONS; JOHN CAIN'S VIETNAM??

"Local Government is a hand-to-hand combat type of industry but these guys want to do a Vietnam-type aerial bombing." Dr. Michael Jones, Local Govt. expert, in The Sun (Melb.) Feb. 17.

We have stated before in these pages that the Victorian Socialist Left ideologues believe that they have Local Government in Victoria "in the bag", but they are now becoming nervous, and that is why they have speeded up their "pre-regionalisation" programme. Mr. Peter Ross Edwards, the Leader of the Victorian Parliamentary National Party, has called for a referendum; rather local referenda - on the issue of council amalgamations, but we suspect he knows as well as do we this will not be "on". He is quite right when he says (The Sun (Melb.) Feb.l7th) - "Their (Socialist Left) plans would totally wipe out local government as we know it today - local government would become regional government." Dr. Michael Jones includes Mr. Stuart Norris, the Victorian Government's Local Government Commission Chairman, in what he terms the "limousine Left", those "ambitious lawyers and champagne socialists who fantasize about Labor's ability to take over local government."

Dr. Jones poured scorn on Stuart Morris' "research findings", but what we do endorse are Dr. Jones' warnings to the Cain Government. Dr. Jones' opinion is that in the escalating local government battles, guerrilla activity (as is being conducted by the League of Rights) will win out against superior weaponry. (government ministerial authority, etc.) John Cain and his colleagues have underestimated the strongly felt right to form a local authority by local people. People's homes and families are interwoven through this right. Dr. Jones expects the "amalgamation fever" to rise, and that it could come about that even a new political party could be born out of the intense feeling.

We can assure both Dr. Michael Jones (good luck to him!) and the present Victorian Government that the League of Rights is only just warming up to the local government amalgamation battle; that the League of Rights is acknowledged by its opponents as being expert in political "guerilla warfare". The overly confident Mr. Stuart Morris will probably be given a lesson in political guerrilla warfare, which he'll remember to the end of his life. Premier John Cain, and his Socialist Left pillars of support, could well feel the balmy winds of electoral support turn, quite quickly really, into an Antarctic chill of impending electoral defeat as the year advances. We hope so.

All actionists
Step up the distribution of our "Amalgamation" Special issue of "Intelligence Survey". We know they are hurting the Socialist Left centralists because they are squealing. The socialist ideologues, being essentially Marxist people; consumed with envy, and a passionate desire to arrogate to themselves the right to "do good" to you whether you want it or not (themselves to be the judge!) like to dish it out ... but they can't take it. They squeal. Make them squeal more. Prices: 6 copies for $3; 12 copies for $5; 50 copies for $15.00; 100 copies for $25. From G.P.O. Box 1052J, Melbourne, Vic., 3001.

BRIEF COMMENTS

Mr. Al Grassby has now been appointed as special Adviser on Human Relations to Premier Wran of New South Wales. He will receive $47,000 a year. But Al Grassby was also recently appointed as Chairman of the Federal Government's National Consultative Committee on the latest UN-promoted propaganda movement, the International Year of Peace. It has been estimated that, like his fellow Socialist former SA Premier Don Dunstan, now in the pay of the Cain Government, Grassby is "earning" something over $100,000 a year. Many of the early Socialists, who were at least genuine idealists, would be astonished to see how the modern Socialists live. We are revolted by this manifestation of wallowing in the public trough.

If Robert Holmes a Court is successful in taking over BHP, this will mean that Australia's biggest company will go under the control, of the Oppenheimer-Rothschild complex. There is no suggestion that BHP would be more efficient if Holmes a Court and his financial backers gained control. The name of the game of take-overs is power. C.H. Douglas saw the shape of things to come in his 1934 Melbourne Town Hall address, "The Monopolistic Idea." (Price $1.00 posted). The new breed Australian Socialists appear to welcome the development of the take over programme. This is not surprising, when the growing close relationship between Big Government and Big Business is considered. How much Big Business money was poured into the recent massive Labor campaign in Western Australia? It is estimated that the Labor Party spent at least four times more than the Liberal Party.

REPORT FROM NATIONAL DIRECTOR