THE MOTIVES BEHIND THE REFERENDUMS

The solutions to many crimes require that motives be carefully examined. What is the motive behind the Four Referendums, which the Hawke government is imposing upon the Australian electors on September 3rd? Attorney General Lionel Bowen, speaking during the second reading of the Fair Elections Bill on May 20th, said, "The four Bills that I have introduced do not involve any increase in Commonwealth power." That is a false statement.

The dominant philosophy of the Hawke Fabian government is belief in the benefits of centralised power. The fact that the Opposition parties have on occasions supported centralist policies does not invalidate the fact that the Fabians, to whom Prime Minister Hawke says he is deeply indebted, are wholeheartedly supporters of centralised planning. Every step taken by the Hawke Government is designed to advance the philosophy of centralism.

The manner in which the four referendum proposals have been brought forward, and are being presented, should of themselves arouse the suspicions of electors. It would be a most revealing exercise at the present time for electors to examine how they were completely hoodwinked at the 1967 Referendum concerning Aborigines. From its earliest beginnings in Australia, the Marxist movement had devoted itself to Aboriginal affairs. This was in keeping with Stalin's teaching on The National Question.

The Communists were in the vanguard of the movement demanding that control over Aboriginal affairs be wrested from the States and centralised under the Commonwealth. The record reveals how the Holt government, in promoting the 1967 Referendum, ostensibly only to bring the Aboriginal population within the scope of the Commonwealth census, did not understand the long term explosive implications of what was being put to the electors. But Fabian Socialist Opposition leader Gough Whitlam had a much better understanding, as did of course the Communists, who joined with the Holt government in campaigning for a YES vote.

Writing about the 1967 referendum in his authoritative work, Land Rights Birth Rights ($15 posted from all League bookshops), Peter B. English comments that "... in the light of subsequent events, the Federal Referendum held on May 27th, 1967, was destined to be regarded by many in the future as the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on an unwitting and uninformed Electorate by any Federal Government in the whole short history of Australian politics..."

Those who voted YES in 1967, and were still alive seventeen and a half years later, and who remembered what they thought they were voting for in 1967, must have been astonished to hear Prime Minister Bob Hawke making the claim in 1984 that at the 1967 Referendum "... set up by a Conservative Government, not by us... the people of Australia, by an overwhelming majority, gave the Federal Government the power to grant Land Rights to Aboriginals."

The revolutionary "land rights" movement, promoted from the beginning by the Marxists, was never mentioned at the time of the 1967 referendum. If the Hawke government's 1988 referendum proposals are not designed to further centralise power, why are they being rushed ahead by a government whose spokesmen reject the Citizens' Referendum and Recall on the grounds that referendums are too expensive? Why could they not wait until the next Federal Elections?

And why did the government rush forward with the legislation for the four referendums before the recommendations of its own Constitutional Commission had been made? The reason is obvious. The activities of the various committees of the Commission had not achieved what the government had hoped for. It had become obvious to the people that the main thrust of likely proposals was that power be further centralised, and that Big Brother become even bigger.

There was growing evidence that the Australian people were just as distrustful of centralised power today is they have been in the past. It was essential to conceal the hook of centralised power in more palatable bait. Regretfully many representatives of Local Government are already clutching eagerly at the proposal to have Local Government formally mentioned in the Federal Constitution. Local Government was never mentioned in the Federal Constitution for the simple reason that this was in essence an agreement between the self-governing States to form an association to serve their common interests The Federal Government was created by the States to serve the States.

It was the Fabians, the most prominent being Mr. Gough Whitlam, who evolved the strategy of by passing the States, and the consistent opposition of the Australian people to vote YES at referendums in favour of centralised power, by establishing direct links between the Federal and Local Governments. Direct funding was the bait successfully offered by Gough Whitlam at the 1972 Federal Elections. The bait is being presented again in a more sophisticated manner.

The very Federal government whose financial policies have brought Local Government to its present desperate state, now suggests that it can provide relief - but only if Local Government is brought within the scope of the Commonwealth. Freedom of religion, trial by jury, fair and democratic elections all sound harmless and innocuous. If that is so, then why spend millions to have a referendum?

As the League of Rights will be revealing, these apparently simple proposals have far reaching implications for Australia. But the masterminds behind these proposals also trust that these proposals will enable the Hawke Government to achieve a major breakthrough in weakening the independence of the Senate. There are many who see some merit (we don't) in having four-year Federal parliaments, and there would be no basic constitutional change if four-year terms were adopted. But when the same proposal is applied to the Senate, the basic concept of the Senate as a States House of Review, a check on the House of Representatives, is undermined.

It should not be forgotten that the Fraser Government conducted a referendum designed to weaken the independence of the Senate. The Fraser Government, Opposition leader Gough Whitlam, and the whole Marxist movement joined in an unholy alliance to campaign for a YES vote. Fortunately the campaign spearheaded by the League of Rights and other anti-centralist groups was successful. We are hopeful that the instincts of the people of the smaller States Tasmania, Queensland, and Western Australia, will ensure that the Fabian strategy does not succeed on September 3rd. But we must warn that there is a tough fight ahead to hold the line against a deadly centralist thrust.

BRIEF COMMENTS

N.S.W. Liberal Senator Peter Baume, the Zionist Jew who made a vicious contribution to the attack on the League of Rights in the Senate on April 27th, did not vote on any of the Bills concerning the Hawke government's referendum proposals. He refuses to support the official Opposition stand against the referendums and to date has declined to define his position. Senate Baume has been a strong supporter of the Hawke government's War Crime legislation, and generally has adopted a small '1' liberal approach on basic issues. No one should be surprised about this: Senator Baume is a product of his philosophy.

Readers of On Target and other League journals will be astonished to learn that "In what appears to be a new offensive against the Australian Jewish community, the extreme right wing League of Rights has unleashed a volley of anti-Semitic propaganda. Although the Australian League of Rights has been the worst and most virulent anti-Semitic body in Australia over the past 50 years, in recent weeks it has descended to new levels of race hatred and hostility to the Jewish people." The Australian Jewish News of June 10th attributes these unfactual and absurd comments to Mr. Isi Leibler, leading Zionist Jew. As a Christian based organisation, the League of Rights naturally rejects any type of "race hatred". So far from being hostile to the "Jewish people", we have the greatest sympathy with people who are treated as a collectivity by those who claim to speak for them. Even allowing for Leibler's well-known paranoia about the League, he does appear to indicate his main concern: the League is opposing the holding of War Crime Trials in Australia. Leibler is quoted as saying, "Most of the current upsurge of hostility is due to the pending war crime legislation in Australia and the possibility of fair trials for accused war criminals living in our midst." While the League, along with many others, says that the proposed "trials" are anti-Christian and contrary to the traditions of the Common Law, its main activity for months has been devoted to the constitutional issue.

Behind all the hoop-la concerning the recent Reagan-Gorbachev summit, where allegedly Reagan's great charm was just too much for the dedicated Marxist-Leninist, the real activity was taking place: the working out of increasing trade deals and joint economic ventures between East and West. US Secretary of Commerce Verity was in Moscow early in March promoting closer trade and other links. Verity was previously an executive committee member of the US-USSR Trade and Economic Council. Verity met secretly with Gorbachev late last year when trade proposals to the value of $10 billion were discussed. Irrespective of who wins the American Presidential contest, the International Bankers are determined to continue pressing for closer economic links between the soviet and the USA. George Bush appears to be favoured by David Rockefeller's Trilateralists, but Dukakis would not oppose the internationalists. Only a growing grassroots movement can save the USA.

Professor Geoffrey Blainey continues to grow into an authentic Australian prophet. Once again Professor Blainey has warned of the perils of multiculturalism. Addressing the 1988 Heritage Society in Melbourne last weekend, Blainey made the telling point that the discovery in Fiji of large arms caches allegedly en route from India to Fijian Indian groups hostile to the new government, highlighted the security risk of allowing the formation of large ethnic ghettos. Professor Blainey should be showered with a flood of letters congratulating him on his outstanding services towards creating a stable and cohesive nation. He can be addressed at the Melbourne University.

Watch for a coming new smear campaign against the League of Rights. A TV programme is currently being prepared. The "investigators" have been active.