KEATING STATEMENT BACKFIRES

Prime Minister Hawke and Treasurer Paul Keating lost no time, following the Keating economic statement of last week, to deny that the promise of tax cuts and wage increases had anything to do with an early election. The Prime Minister said he was not in the "mode" for an early election, whatever that means. The truth is that the primary purpose of all government policies is to cling to power and privilege at all costs. It can be taken for granted that Prime Minister Hawke will call the next election just as soon as he believes he has the best chance of winning.

Opinion polls reveal that currently the Labor Party is starting to trail its opponents. And there is overwhelming evidence that the electorate has not warmed to the Keating statement, one major reason being that it ignored the burning issue of high interest rates, with a threat of still higher rates in the future. The Keating statement has been generally well received by the Government's Big Business supporters, while Bill Kelty of the Australian Council of Trade Unions can claim success for Trade Unionists. A few crumbs have been thrown to the lower income groups. But it is mathematically certain that the majority of those receiving any relief from the Hawke-Keating policy of "restraint" will find that relief short lived.

Contrary to what Treasurer Keating promised in last year's August budget, inflation has not been reduced, but now is increasing. There was not one word about inflation in the Keating statement last week, even though last August he said that inflation was "Australia's number one economic disease". It can be predicted with complete certainty that that disease is going to get worse again, which is correctly perceived by many who have made it clear that they fear any tax reduction benefits will be quickly wiped out by inflation. One T.V. poll showed that the overwhelming majority preferred interest reductions rather than fleeting tax reductions.

The state of the political situation in Australia may be judged by the fact that with a deepening economic crisis, the debt structure, both domestic and foreign increasing, the selling off of the country to the Japanese at $15,000 million a year, and interest rates at a high level, the Coalition Parties are only fractionally ahead in the polls, instead of leading by at least 10 percent. The reality is that John Howard and his colleagues have not convinced the electors that they could do any better than the Hawke-Keating team.

While agreeing that Labor Party strategists reached a new low by making special arrangements with the Murdoch papers to show the "new look" Mrs. Hazel Hawke at the same time that Mr. John Howard was making his formal parliamentary response to the Keating statement, thus pushing John Howard off the front pages, there was little or nothing in the Howard statement which warranted more than a brief mention. It is futile for John Howard to tell the Australian people what they all know, that interest rates, for example, are too high.

What does a Howard-Sinclair government propose to do? What do they propose to do about wages? Instead of addressing these and equally important issues, John Howard came out with the tired old cliché concerning the need for ''greater productivity and efficiency''. We agree that production desired by consumers should be produced as efficiently as possible, but with all the restrictions imposed upon them, Australia's producers, both primary and secondary, are easily capable of producing sufficient. The essence of the Howard theme is that Australia should become more efficient in order to compete internationally. The only problem with this theme is that every other industrialised country is being urged to try to solve its internal problems by still bigger exports. This is the road to growing international friction, as witnessed by growing concern in the U.S.A. as a result of Japan increasing its trade surplus with the U.S.A.

As we have said ad infinitum, there can be no economic, social or political stability under a financial system, which generates debt at a progressively faster rate than it can be repaid. If Prime Minister Hawke will study what his Labor hero, John Curtin, was saying before the Second World War, he will find that his predecessor was stressing that the real cost of production is met as production takes place, and that there should be no debt. We will gladly supply Mr. Hawke with John Curtin's statements if he is interested. The war crisis prevented John Curtin from doing what he knew was possible, but at least he made finance the servant during the war, and introduced the Consumer Price Discount system which gave Australia five years without inflation.

John Howard's predecessors voted for Consumer Discounts. There is no evidence at present that any of the major parties are going to face the basic financial issue. Debates about "privatising" and "de-regulation" obscure the basic issue. And so Australians are subjected to an on going phony debate, the emphasis being on creating images" and publicity gimmicks rather than on substance.

As the situation stands at the present, in spite of continuing tensions inside the Coalition Parties, Prime Minister Bob Hawke is unlikely to call for an early election. In the meantime the growing electoral disillusionment with all the major parties is resulting in steady growing support for the concept of the Initiative, Referendum and Recall which, if operating would enable electors, if they so desire, to have a real say in their own affairs.

RE-WRITING RED CROSS HISTORY

The Australian of March 7th carried a story headed, "HOLOCAUST HAUNTS GUILTY RED CROSS". Written by Robert Fisk and published in The Times, London, the article starts with the assertion that "The International Red Cross has been forced into a damning revaluation of its responses to the Holocaust". Fisk's story concerns the publication of what is described as an "officially inspired" History of The International Red Cross during World War II, by Professor Jean Claude Favez.

Fisk writes "Jewish historians and American politicians have long accused the Geneva-based I.C.R.C. of doing little or nothing to help the Jews of Europe during the war". We wait with interest evaluation of Favez's book by those historians who have long since ceased to believe in the Holocaust Hoax. There is little doubt that present day officials of the International Red Cross have become politicised and far from politically neutral, as witnessed by the I.R.C's. current anti-South African stance.

Irrespective of what Professor Favez has written or any manifestations of guilt by today's I.R.C. officials, the indisputable fact remains that in 1948, three years after the end of the Second World War, at a time when the Holocaust Hoax was first being propagated, when the Nazis could not possibly intimidate anyone, the I.R.C. published a massive three volume history of its activities during the Second World War. There is not one reference to the alleged gassing of millions of Jews, which the officials of the I.R.C. would have known about if true. The 1948 I.R.C. report has been a major stumbling block for the Holocaust Hoaxers and it appears that they are now making a serious attempt to remove it.

As documented by Douglas Reed in his great classic, The Controversy of Zion, Jewish Communists played a major role in running Nazi concentration camps. Professor Butz's meticulously documented work, The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century, remains unanswered, while it is pretended that the Leuchter Report does not exist. Zionist propagandists and their dupes, including the "Christian Zionists", have been attempting to produce their own version of history for years. But the Truth keeps breaking through.

"The Controversy of Zion", $20.00 posted. "The Hoax of the 20th Century", $20.00 posted. "The Leuchter Report", $6.00 posted from all League Bookshops. Also, "The Zionist Factor", by Ivor Benson, $16.00 posted; "Jewish Power in the West"/"Who Rules in the U.S.S.R.?" and "The Zionist Connection II", by Dr. Alfred Lilienthal. Zionist Power in the West and particularly in the U.S.A., Begin, Carter, Nixon, Kissinger, what were they up to? A ripper. Price $30.00 posted. All League Bookshops.

BRIEF COMMENTS

As we predicted, the Victorian Labor Party won the vital Greensborough by-election primarily as a result of the follies of the Liberal Party. With everything in its favour, the Liberal primary vote dropped. It is misleading to talk about the drop in the Labor vote, the reduction being little more than the normal 4 percent swing against governments at by-elections. The electors showed their loss of confidence in both Labor and Liberal by a big 16 percent vote for the Democrats. The Victorian Liberals not only need a new leader, but new and more realistic policies.

The National Party attempted to make the Gwydir by-election (N.S.W.) an anti-League of Rights campaign, stressing that the Gwydir Movement had endorsed the Citizens' Initiative and Referendum, as does the League of Rights, and that a lot of League literature had been circulated in the electorate. We observed that it would be a political miracle if either of the two Independents endorsed by the Gwydir movement won in one of the strongest National Party electorates in Australia. An extremely nervous National Party candidate won with a reduced majority. Between them the two Independents polled an impressive 28,000 votes, a most encouraging result.

FROM HANSARD