IMMIGRATION: POLITICIANS' ALBATROSS

"In a cogent blueprint for reform the Fitzgerald report has warned that the political consensus sustaining Australia's immigration policy is faltering and at risk - thereby posing a historic challenge for the Hawke Government". - The Weekend Australian (June 4th-5th)

We use the word, "politicians"' (above) without qualification, deliberately. The reason is that both the major political parties in Australia came to an agreement to ditch the traditional Australian immigration policy many years ago to embark on the policy, which has led to "multiculturalism" (a euphemism for multiracialism) and also the Asianisation of Australia. One day the full story will be told by true historians: the story of the snide jettisoning of an immigration policy (traditional) framed to develop a homogeneous population so as to avoid future racial tensions and conflagrations. But pressures were subtly applied. No politician bucks that holy cow, the United Nations, if he/she wants any sort of political career.

Readers will well recall, that when the Liberal/National Coalition was in power, "Labor" stalwarts like Mr. Mike Young were also on the political platforms with the Coalition Minister for Immigration - to show "solidarity" with the (then) Government in Immigration. Both parties were united on the new multiculturalism and the Asianisaton. Readers will recall that outspoken, courageous men like Professor Geoffrey Blainey, of Melbourne University, and Mr. Bruce Ruxton, President of the Victorian Branch of the R.S.L. were condemned as "racists" by the mass media. Professor Blainey has been vilified by "little men", whom we might call "two-bob academics" in other universities, whose standings in the disciplines of history are puny in comparison to Australia's leading historian. They even attempted to denigrate Blainey's professional standing. Mr. Ruxton can always give better than he gets.

That the present "multicultural" immigration policy has poor national support is now obvious. No less than 43% of Australians born oversees have not taken out Australian citizenship. Perhaps even more significantly, as many as 19% of Australians, and this includes all ethnics, not just the Anglo-Celts, consider that Australia should take NO MORE immigrants. The Australians who most rejected further immigrants were the blue-collar workers (23%). Some 65% of Australians want fewer immigrants. These figures from a poll published in The Age (Melbourne), June 6th. How will the KawkKeating Junta deal with this?

Paul Kelly in The Australian, June 6th says - "Migration: a political gun at Hawke's head". No doubt John Howard is pleased, momentarily, that he is in Opposition. Kelly further says: "There are sanctions (in the Fitzgerald Report) against those who refuse citizenship: the withdrawal of non survival benefits. Moreover, only citizens can sponsor relatives. It is tough stuff, and just watch the politicians crawl for cover"... Yes, Mr. Kelly, we shall be watching.

We are generally in favour of some sort of loss of status for those migrants who show disregard for Australian citizenship. Most certainly, they should not be able to sponsor relatives. The Weekend Australian (June 6th) editorialises that the Government should ignore the recommendation that Australia disengage from resettlement of Indo-Chinese refugees. The reason - according to this Editorial is that we "have historical responsibilities" to these Indo-Chinese people. This will open up some old wounds: more and more Australians are coming to realise that the war in Vietnam was a no-win war that the American Administrations of the time did never intend to win the war, militarily, but to "force Vietnam to the conference table."

Many American generals have said that the war could, at any time, have been won over a time span of 6 weeks to six months. General MacArthur had the same constraints during the Korean War, which he was not allowed to win, and who warned America that if he were not allowed to win the Korean War, it would be fought all over again, in another part of Asia, in ten years. His timing was pretty close. So, the notion of "historical responsibilities are arguable.

What about Dr. Stephen Fitzgerald; what of his background? He seems to us to be a mix of sound and unsound. We don't think he should be crowing because there have been no race riots in Australia. But, right enough, we have not YET had true race riots, as have occurred in Britain, the U.S.A., South Africa, Sri Lanka, Fiji, and other countries where the racial mix has been more explosive. Australia has not yet developed that explosive mixture, but it will, if the multicultural madness goes on.

SUMMITS COME AND SUMMITS GO

"The Soviet leader, Mr. Gorbachev, has secured the last minute election of key supporters of his reform drive as delegates to the far reaching Communist Party Conference this month, despite efforts by bureaucrats to reject them." - The Age (Melbourne), June 6th.

On the occasion of the last Summit, we recall that we headed our On Target item, "Summits for Suckers". We have not changed our mind. What has come out of this latest Reagan-Gorbachev meeting, anyway? It seems to us that Mikhail Gorbachev needed this "Summit" more than Ronald Reagan, whose term as President has only a matter of mere months to run. The outcome of this Summit won't affect him very much, if at all. But it appears most important for Gorbachev, who is uneasy in power: the Communist Party hard liners don't like all this "glasnost" and "perestroika".

We can well understand how these hard liners feel viz. "we've got America and the West, generally, on the ropes: they are going down, gradually, just as Lenin said they would. Their systems of finance economics are under great strain; and are in almost certain danger of collapse under the weight of crushing international debts. The 'historic' role of the Communist Parties of the world will be to exploit the ensuing tumultuous social and revolutionary conflicts towards the ultimate victory of the proletariats over their Capitalistic oppressors. We don't have to change course; we should not change course - we will lose our revolutionary momentum".... They (the Kremlin hard liners) would be talking something like that. But Mr. Gorbachev is taking a different line, and is extra busy in placing "Gorbachev men" in strategic places in the Soviet hierarchy.

A former, highly placed Communist in Europe once remarked to us that the most essential quality for survival possessed by a comrade is a "capacity for intrigue". We can't be sure just what the Gorbachev men are up to: Communists also have a well-developed capacity for dissimulation (pretending to be otherwise than what is so) - for mainly dialectical reasons. However, we can be sure that Mr. Gorbachev needed that show of brotherly love with Ronald Reagan for home consumption, to hose down some of his Party enemies. Who will "star" in the next Summit? Bush? Dukakis? Our money is still on Bush.

BRIEF COMMENTS

The Victorian Liberals have broken ranks and will support the coming referendum of the recognition of Local Government in the Australian Constitution. We regard this amendment on Local Government as the most dangerous of the four referenda, as we detailed in last week's issue of On Target. It really doesn't surprise us that Mr. Jeff Kennett (Victorian Opposition Leader) should favour this referendum. Really, as we have written before, we are not alone in our view that the Victorian Liberals can't win with Kennett. The Queensland Liberals will support the one-vote-one-value referendum.

The Toronto Star (Canada), May 23, reports that Israeli experts working secretly in China are involved in perfecting the guidance systems of nuclear capable missiles, which were later sold to Saudi Arabia. Israeli leaders have expressed alarm concerning the presence of the missiles in Saudi Arabia. Such are the ironies of modern power politics.

The bitter feeling concerning the reported intentions of the Australian Bureau of Statistics to compel "surveyed" Australians to submit to physical medical examinations, blood tests, etc., is still about. The Head of the Bureau, Mr. Ian Castles, had a letter published in The Age (Melbourne), June 1st., bemoaning the whole affair. He disclaims the notion that there was, ever, any intention on the part of the Bureau to carry forward such a programme. Maybe there was; maybe there wasn't. Of one thing we can be sure: the Bureau will be more than careful in the release of information on its "surveys".

The Wall Street Journal (U.S.A.), May 16th reports that West German banks are rushing to provide money and financing know how for Soviet leader, Gorbachev's, economic reforms. After several lean years of business with Moscow, German banks, have embarked on a new round of lending, and as Mr. Gorbachev's overhaul of the Soviet foreign trade system takes effect the bankers expect to help their industrial clients in Germany pick up a large chunk of new business, too.... And so it goes on, and this is a clue to what has been written (above) in our item on the recent Summit: the international bankers are all there, smiling and rubbing their hands in the background.

FED UP

OBSCENE PERSECUTION

This letter appeared in the R.S.L. journal, Reveille (May-June, 1988): the correspondent is an "H.J. Webster, of Nowra, N.S.W.:
"With reference to the article in the March/April Reveille, titled 'Aussie net for hidden Nazis may be too wide', whilst I agree with the R.S.L. statements that concern must be felt about the validity of evidence that is nearly fifty years old, I do not believe that the R.S.L. has gone far enough with their condemnation of this doubtful piece of legislation which has been written to include possible prosecution of Australian servicemen. "It is my contention that to attempt to persecute and prosecute for events nearly fifty years old is unnecessarily costly, is futile, and invokes no honour on those doing the prosecuting.
"The Government has now called a statute of limitation on any serviceman's claims to injuries incurred or developed from World War II. They have also instructed that we should no longer show resentment or hatred for the Japanese, and yet we Australians suffered far worse from the Japanese than we did from the Hun. No one who has seen the terrible photograph of the Japanese officer about to behead an Australian airman, nor those who remember the atrocities of Changi or the Burma railroad, or those who remember the treatment meted out to our nursing sisters, can ever really forgive. That would take the patience of a saint and there were very few of those in the Australian forces.
The Italian atrocities in Abyssinia have also been swept under the carpet. So I ask, why should we discriminate against one single nation, bad as their crimes may have been, just to satisfy the vengeful lusting of a number of Jews, who have demonstrated in Palestine that they are as vicious and savage as any Nazi.
"Most of the Nazis or ex-Nazis who would be liable to prosecution under this legislation would now be in their late sixties. Those who would have been in positions of power and authority during the war years and before, will be older, and mostly in their seventies. The picture of a doddering old man facing trial and possible execution for a crime committed so long ago, and one that he may not now remember, is an obscenity. "The Germans and Nazis who made it to this country after the war have kept a very low profile, and have generally assimilated well. A number now have families and friends who are completely unaware of the past history of these people, and it would be completely unfair to make these folk aware that their elders were guilty of atrocities committed during the hot blooded time of youth and war fever, for I have no doubt that the German was taught to hate, just as we were. "Forty three years is too long. It is time that the hate was finished…"

I'M AT A LOSS
A "Paul Bristow" of East Hills (N.S.W.), had this letter published in The Weekend Australian, June 4-5:
"Fair dinkum, I just don't believe what's going on in this country any more. "I try to put up a brave front, tell myself things are on the improve and then - bang - I hear the latest self-righteous drivel coming out of the mouths of our fancied leaders in Canberra. "Yet again, Mr. Keating tells us that times are looking good and are even to get better. Frankly, I am at a loss as to the mathematics he uses to work this one out. "Give or take the odd billion, we now find ourselves with a national debt of $120 billion. It's like me as a normal bloke boasting, 'Yeah, I've got a couple of cars, a boat, a house here and one up the coast, and I only owe $492,000.' "Think about it! It'd all be something to laugh at if it wasn't so bloody serious. "Despite this and on top of all that, you can hardly voice an opinion against immigration, alternative homosexual lifestyles, ID cards or gun laws without being branded a racist, conservative, criminal or thug by those who grace the upper echelons of power. "I think, now, finally, I'm catching on. We don't have to worry about anyone invading our shores, because it's going to be an inside job."

FROM "PAM PROBE"