DR. K: COGHILL DECLINES TO FACE ERIC BUTLER

Dr. Ken Coghill, Secretary to the Victorian State Cabinet, was highly indignant that the Colac Shire Council had inserted an advertisement in the local Colac paper, stating that be had been invited to attend a public meeting on Wednesday of last week, to meet with RSL President Bruce Ruxton and Mr. Eric Butler, claiming that the Council knew he could not attend. A local spokesman for the Labor Party called for a boycott of the meeting. Presumably the purpose of a boycott was to ensure that the Labor Party supporters did not hear what Mr. Eric Butler had to say in answering the scurrilous allegations made against him by Dr. Coghill in his letter to all Victorian Municipalities, warning them not to heed the League's campaign against the compulsory amalgamation of Victorian Municipalities.

In a letter dated March 3rd, two days before the Colac meeting, and read out at the meeting Dr. Coghill said he would "be delighted to make available to the maximum possible number of people in the community the evidence of the subversive activities of the League commencing during World War Two. "However, neither I nor any other member of the Government will assist the League in promoting its divisive purpose by appearing as a drawcard on a program including a League representative. "Nor would I want to embarrass the President of the R.S.L. Victoria into appearing on a forum with anyone found by an independent inquiry to have acted so as to undermine the war effort..."

As pointed out by Mr. Eric Butler in his address, Dr. Coghill was only precluded from appearing on public platforms with him, or any other League speaker, after the Cain government was being trounced in the 1984 debate on Aboriginal land rights. Like all monopolies, the Socialists cannot stand open competition.
Demonstrating Dr. Coghill's careless handling of the truth, Mr. Eric Butler pointed out at the Colac meeting that as the League of Rights was not established until 1946, it obviously could not have been subverting the Second World War effort. As documented in his devastating exposure of the allegations of Dr. Coghill, Mr. Phillip Adams, and other smearers, The Truth About the Australian League of Rights ($7 posted), Mr. Eric Butler had spearheaded the national grassroots monetary reform campaign which brought the Curtin Government to office in 1941, and a much greater use of the national credit to finance the war effort.

John Curtin, Australia's wartime Labor Prime Minister had endorsed the financial policy advocated by Mr. Eric Butler, with his statement, "The cost of war can be met without piling up huge debts and without interest payments sucking our national credit. But the Labor Party of John Curtin was very different from the Labor Party of Dr. Coghill and his Fabian Socialist colleagues. The Colac meeting endorsed by a unanimous resolution that no Municipal amalgamations should take place without ratepayers being consulted. This democratic concept is alien to the totalitarians of the Victorian Cain government.

A DIALECTICAL RETREAT LAND RIGHTS?

Speaking at the National Press Club last week, Prime Minister Hawke said that the Federal government has been forced by public opinion to abandon its proposed national Aboriginal land rights legislation. Having played a major role in pioneering and sustaining a campaign which progressively gained momentum, the League of Rights welcomes the fact that an enlightened public opinion can still force a government to reverse itself, in a major issue. But we warn that Mr. Hawke's announced retreat does not mean that the land rights issue is going to fade away; the revolutionaries and their many dupes supporting the land rights programme are well placed to continue the battle. Even if Mr. Hawke can avert a defeat in caucus on the issue, it will certainly be pushed at the national ALP Conference in July. Some activists are threatening to take the matter to the United Nations. It is certain that the question is not going to go away.

Mr. Hawke falsely claimed last week that Australians were not as compassionate today as they were in 1967, when they overwhelmingly supported the referendum on Aborigines. But land rights were not an issue at the 1967 referendum, which was, as demonstrated by Peter English in his Land Rights - Birth Rights ($15 posted) a complete confidence trick. Well known activist Mr. Gary Foley, currently head of the Aboriginal Arts Board, has reacted violently to the Hawke retreat, threatening that Aboriginals would disrupts the America's Cup and bicentenary celebrations. There is no evidence that the Federal Government has disciplined Foley who has, like Charles Perkins, compromised the apolitical nature of the public service by threatening the politicians. When the League warned many years ago that the time would come when Aboriginal land rights would become a major national issue, this was dismissed as alarmist without foundation. We now warn that within a relatively short period of time Australians could find the land rights issue internationalised.

REALITY OVERTAKES TREASURER KEATING

As we have pointed out time and time again, it was inevitable under the present policy of debt finance, that harsh realities would eventually puncture the bubbles of hot air rhetoric to which Australians have been subjected by Federal Treasurer Paul Keating, Prime Minister Hawke and their colleagues. The much-publicised economic recovery was no more than a slight stimulus, most of it only affecting Big Business, resulting from a massive expansion of debt.
Servicing the massive external debt has become increasingly difficult as export prices for primary production and minerals fall, and as export markets shrink. The dramatic fall in the price of oil, presumably a development not foreseen by Mr. Keating and his financial gurus, has added to Mr. Keating's worries, which he is now starting to show.

In a desperate attempt to prevent the deficit from experiencing one of those periodic "blow outs", the State governments are being told that they will have to practise "restraint" while the suggestion that Federal social welfare payments will have to be reduced, is starting to produce deep tensions inside the Hawke government. So far from taxation of any kind being reduced, Keating may have to increase it.

The mathematics of debt finance are inexorable. As total debt increased, so must taxation of all kinds, including municipal rates, power and other charges, become higher in order to service interest charges. All taxation must eventually go into prices. Higher prices are the basic cause of industrial unrest. An inevitable result is the development of monopoly, economic, political and union.
The Marxists have never attacked the debt system, knowing that it produces results leading to the establishment of the Marxist State. As the finance economic crisis deepens, it is essential that the widest possible distribution be given to The Money Trick ($4.50 posted).

BRIEF COMMENTS

It is no secret that Zionist influence was exerted in an attempt to force Mr. John Bennett out of the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties. Claiming to speak on behalf of the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties, Mr. Ron Caston and Mr. B. Keon-Cohen have in letters to the media, called for the passing of the Bill of Rights. Some reservations are expressed about the procedural provisions relating to the functioning of the Human Rights and Equal Rights Commission, but these minor matters should be the subject of amendment without preventing the passage of the legislation without delay." Like Senator Don Chipp, leader of the Democrats, Mr. Caston and Mr. Keon-Cohen would like to see the Human Rights Bill's scope widened to include the States' electoral procedures. The Human Rights Bill has strong Zionist support right throughout Australia.

Martin Daly reports from the U.S.A. in The Sun, Melbourne, of March 10th of an almost sensational development in one sector of the depressed American economy: a building boom with construction workers who haven't had a job for years, suddenly back in the production system. The reason? Interest rates have dropped to the lowest level for ten years. New housing projects have jumped 25 percent in two months. The housing boom will not continue indefinitely and will not solve basic problems with the American economy. But a dramatic reduction in interest rates would be a step in the right direction. Australia's primary producers would be a little more cheerful if their interest rates suddenly fell to under 10 percent. What have the politicians to say?

THE THREAT OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION

The following excellent letter (slightly edited) by Tasmanian Senator Shirley Walters, which appeared in sections of the press last weekend, explains simply how the Human Rights Commission will operate if the Bill of Rights is passed:
"Mrs. Anne Citizen (perhaps a junior State public servant) receives in her mail a letter from the Human Rights Commission saying that certain allegations have been made against her and directs her to come to the commission office to answer them. "When she recovers from the shock, she phones the commission office to find out what it's all about. She asks who made the complaint and the commission officer replies that under Section 29 (2), the commission has decided she was not entitled to know. This was confidential.
"Anne Citizen says Australian law always insists that you cannot only meet but question your accuser, that it's not fair and she will arrange for her solicitor to accompany her to the office. " 'No', says the commission officer, 'Under Section 34(4) of the Bill of Rights, you are not entitled to legal representation. Just come by yourself, bringing with you 'certain' documents we understand you have in your possession as well as 'certain' letters we believe will help decide the issue.' " 'They are my private documents and letters and have no connection with the letter referred to in your letter', says Anne Citizen. Under Section 35(2b) says the commission officer, 'you will be fined or imprisoned if you fail to provide the information we demand.' "Anne Citizen then says she will take the matter to court, only to be told that under Section 25(a) (ii) that isn't possible as there is no appeal from the commission's decision to a court.
"Although this may sound like fiction it is indeed how the Bill of Rights is designed. However, there is much more, for it denies us the right to our own home. It does not give us the right to choose our children's school. While it gives us the right to join a trade union, it does not give us the right not to join. It does, mark you, protect you from slavery and torture which is good news for all those slaves presently in Australia..."