THE INTEREST IN INTEREST RATES

"The Acting Treasurer, Mr. Dawkins, yesterday ruled out any moves to raise interest rates again as two sets of new figures provided further evidence that economic activity has reached a peak." - The Australian, June 5th.

Mr. Dawkins sees himself as the Commonwealth Parliament Treasurer after Mr. Paul Keating has moved up a notch, somewhere; not necessarily in political life. Our view is that Mr. Keating isn't looking so much like the cat, which has just swallowed the canary, as he usually does. Not the super confident Treasurer we have come to observe: things are coming unstuck. The Government is taking a battering from the 17% interest rate hike, but "better that than a severe recession say the pollies. Trust us; just trust us. Sorry, we don't trust politicians.

There is a new "line", coming through now. Yes we know that Moody & Co. don't know what they are talking about (how dare they downgrade our economy?). They are knocking our country, says Bob Hawke. Shoot them. Brother Keating has assured us that his Budgets are "as tight as a drum". Everything is in place. Then why the 17% interest rates? Sorry to ask and all that. Mr. Dawkins' line now is that the Australian economy is "different" to what it was in the Fraser years, when the prevailing economic situation would have automatically produced a credit squeeze.

The "line" goes that there is now so much more foreign investment and industrial development in Australia that, somehow or other (he couldn't convince us) credit squeezes are no longer necessary to block "excessive" imports. Wobbly? You can say that again. It wouldn't have anything to do with the deregulation of banking services in Australia, would it? How much control has the Reserve Bank over foreign-based banks? We don't hear much about that. Mr. Dawkins' assertion also has it that there would be no fall in Australian living standards because the tax cuts after July 1st will atone for wage restraint and higher interest rates. We don't have the optimism of John Dawkins.

We don't anticipate immediate falls in living standards; the higher interest rates are only commencing to bite. Wait a few months until the "new" rates work through the system. Anyway, already the real estate markets are nervous and starting to slip. We don't believe that the Hawke Government is really sure of what it is doing, fiscally and monetarily: it is keeping its fingers crossed, and, for a pack of Fabians, getting as near to prayer as it is able, with a nasty election just around the corner.

CHINA

"The Gate of Heavenly Peace became a killing field as blood flowed and bodies fell on the once immaculate concrete tiles of Tienanmen Square at the weekend." - The Australian, June 5th.

Communists never give up power once it has been attained by them. Chairman Mao said that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. So they don't give up control of the guns. They don't sit down at conference tables unless and until they are in a position of great bargaining strength. Communism is a power movement. It is a mechanism to gain control over the world's peoples and resources. The Chinese Government "let the students go" as long as they dared, hoping, no doubt, that the kids in Tienanmen Square would calm down (as young people do) and stop playing games. They were a bit too enthusiastic.

Very conscious of China's international image, as the Chinese Government is, it could not let events get out of hand: it asserted its authority and in went the troops. No, it's not over yet. Who can say what the ultimate effects of the students' cry for "democracy" will be? The cry for democracy will just be suppressed, for the time being. It is interesting to observe that the Hong Kong Chinese now have the jitters as well they might. Hong Kong goes under the Chinese Flag in 1997. They are naturally wondering how they will be treated by their Big Brothers if they want to retain the democracy they have always enjoyed under the Union Jack. Some interesting spin off will develop from this fact.

Most people are still unaware that the "agreement" between Britain and China on the return of Hong Kong was forced by the British Hong Kong banks, which insisted upon all banking transactions being successfully wound up before China took political control of the Colony. These banks ran the risk of China suddenly occupying Hong Kong, militarily: Britain couldn't stop that. If that happened, what of the affairs of the British Hong Kong banks? Mrs. Thatcher took the point: rather was forced (by pressure) to take the point. We predict that the applications of Hong Kong Chinese for emigration to other countries will escalate sharply.

GREEN; GREEN; GREEN

"The Federal Environment Minister, Senator Richardson, has hinted at a possible federal accord with Green Independents to gain control of the Senate after the next federal election." - The Sun (Melbourne), June 3rd.

Our opinion at this stage is that most people, and most politicians, are misreading the "green revolution". We strongly suspect (yes, this has yet to be tested) that the strong support for the greenie independents in Tasmania is really more of a protest vote against the major political parties, than any strong suggestion of deep concern for the environment.

But whole governments are being sucked in. Both The Age and The Sun, Melbourne morning dailies, carry an eight-page supplement, paid for by the Cain Victorian "Labor" Government, on Greenhouse Action. It seems to us that the major parties have convinced themselves that they have to "go green" to survive, electorally. One party must now convince the electors that it is more green than the opposing party. This has been brought about by the observed drift of support away from major political parties to independents, whom many see as all green.
If they are all greenly independent, in Tasmania, then they are not really independents at all: they are under the influence of Dr. Bob Brown and his green movement.

No doubt, Mr. Gray, the Tasmanian Premier, is watching the situation very closely indeed, and observes that very many trade union members in the timber industries are not nearly as green as Dr. Bob Brown thinks. (If it's "green" or "jobs", then they'll settle for jobs.) His future "defeat" on the floor of the Tasmanian House of Assembly must not be accepted as a foregone conclusion. Even if this happens, there is the possible (we think, probable) scenario of another election (many liberals could return to the Party), and/or an independent defection, or two. Who can be sure, now?

Greenhouse Treaty Bid
The Sunday Times (W.A.) carries an item of news which we did not notice in the Eastern press. The United Nations environmental agency has voted to seek an international treaty to control the Greenhouse effect. Readers read in the previous issue of On Target that there is now a Climate Institute, based in Washington, D.C., U.S.A., which is a brainwashing mill to churn out propaganda on behalf of the Greenhouse effect, and Ozone layer effects.

WHO FINANCES THE CLIMATE INSTITUTE?

Its President was in Australia recently to address a meeting of the Fabian Society near Melbourne. There's Big Money behind all this. Green for danger! The news item, mentioned above, runs: "Alarmed by recent findings, the United Nations Environment Program governing council agreed at its annual meeting in Nairobi to aim for a climate change treaty within 3 years…. "The U.N.E.P. council also agreed to draft by 1992 a separate treaty committing governments to prevent the extinction of animal and plant species…."

Make no mistake
Senator Graham Richardson, and/or Senator Chris Puplick, will both be utterly delighted to sign this Declaration or Convention, as it will be known, on behalf of their respective governments. A Fabian "Labor" government, or a green Coalition Government will ratify this convention. Either government will use the external affairs power to frame green legislation to roll the States. They have said so. Yes, yes, yes, we must have a "national approach". And it's all based on a fraud - as was the Oil Crisis of a decade ago.

AUSTRALIAN BUREAU OF STATISTICS 'WORRIED' BY ANTI-SURVEY DRIVE

"The Bureau of Statistics fears that a campaign by a federal Queensland Liberal backbencher, Mr. Don Cameron, against a health survey could frustrate years of preparatory work." - The Age (Melbourne), June 3rd.

In recent issues we have given details of the Bureau's Household Expenditure Survey. The rightful hostility by ordinary Australians to the privacy invading Household Expenditure Survey is spilling over onto this Health Survey, which will require (under threat of a fine of $100.00 a day for refusal to comply) details of the sex lives of Australians. These fascists are going quite mad. If they get away with these surveys (above) - there will be no stopping them.

CONSERVATIONISTS HAVE EXAGGERATED THE RISK

From The Age (Melbourne), May 30th, from Dr. Phillip Law, Director of the Australian Antarctic Division, 1949-1966:
"Conservationists have reiterated, ad nauseum, John Kirkwood's statement (22/5) that Antarctica's wildlife is concentrated on the 2% of exposed rock and that this is where the mining will occur. "This simplistic argument needs further examination. Antarctica has an area of about 12 million square kilometres. The rocky 2% of this is 240,000 square kilometres, which is a pretty large expanse of country (a little bigger than the area of Victoria).

"How many mines are likely to be developed in Antarctica? First, find ore bodies large and rich enough to be mined (none have so far been found; second, seek access (this will not be easy, if they are inland); third, find a suitable port for shipping out the ores (the most difficult requirement). "The probability is that the number of mines that can be economically established will range from zero to 4 or 6 at most. Distributed over an area as large as Victoria? "Further, there is very little chance of finding ore bodies on coastal outcrops of rocks. These, being the most accessible, are those that have been so far most thoroughly examined by geologists. If ore bodies are found inland, there will be no fauna there to be disturbed all Antarctic wildlife exists only on the coasts of Antarctica.

"Certainly, an established port and settlement would disturb something, but on the scale of Antarctica the overall effect would be negligible like saying the port of Darwin has affected the environment of South Australia, Victoria or Tasmania. "I am not particularly in favour of mining in Antarctica. I just believe that scarce world resources may make it inevitable. If the inevitable occurs, the reality will not be as bad as the conservationist zealots would have us believe…"

WHY THE BANKS ARE LAUGHING

SOME WRONG THINKING ON OZONE

THE OZONE FRAUD