CHINA: THE BEGINNING OF THE AFTERMATH

"The Chinese Government yesterday launched a chilling psychological campaign to flush out students and dissidents responsible for the pro-democracy rally in Beijing that ended in a massacre of 1,400 freedom fighters... - The Australian, June 12th

So it's back to the "traditional" Communist terror now as the people's protest has been crushed by military might. How many millions of ordinary men and women, boys and girls, have had their lives snuffed out by the forward march of Communist terror, will never be known. We expect "things" to be fairly quiet from China for a time, whilst the State terror machine "restores order". We do not need to elaborate to our readers!

As we predicted in the last issue of On Target the Chinese in Hong Kong are "feeling" the terror in Beijing, and we are satisfied, by listening to China "old-hands", people who should know, that some 10% of the Hong Kong Chinese will want to emigrate, and quickly. Many of such Chinese people would know full well that the Party apparatus in Beijing would very much like to bring them under police control for one reason or another; e.g. genuine anti-Communist activity, potential to lead an uprising against the State, vast amounts of money, property - which would almost certainly be confiscated, etc., etc.

Australia could expect to be under some sort of pressure to take say - 200,000 of these Chinese people. Equal or larger numbers will endeavour to emigrate to the United States, Canada, and elsewhere. Many will want to go to Britain; another headache for Mrs. Thatcher. This could be a headache for even Mr. Hawke as these Hong Kong Chinese want to get out now, right now.

But whoever is sitting on the Treasury benches in Canberra in the next few short years will "cop the flack" on the immigration question; and the main reason is likely to be the state of the Australian economy. Whereas, as we explained in a recent issue of On Target, we believe the Money Power is trying to avoid anything like a depression, the fact remains that our economy won't be any better, and will probably become slowly worse. Our point is that these conditions are not conducive to large-scale immigration, and should the situation become out of hand, with the onset of a severe recession, then immigration becomes dynamite for the government of the day.

Prime Minister Hawke has warned (as if we didn't know) that the events in China have thrown Sino-Australian trade into doubt. Mr. Hawke set great store by his "cultivation" of China: he was bending over backwards to woo the China leadership. No one out here (or maybe elsewhere) knows exactly what is going on in China at this very moment (apart from the terror). It can be said that the policy of setting great store by trade policies with totalitarian governments, with their evolving leadership struggles and bloodbaths, has proved to be a foolish one.

THE DIRGE FOR MACPHEE

"The blinkered, blimpish, local cabal that cut short the illustrious political career of Ian Macphee on Saturday may be feeling smug and self-satisfied this morning. As they see it through their blue-tinted spectacles, they have rid the Liberal Party of its most prominent small '1' liberal, a man of unsound views, non-conformist tendencies and disconcerting assertiveness. Editorial, The Age (Melbourne), June 12th

So laments the "Spencer Street Soviet", as The Age is referred to by the trade in Victoria. We do not share the opinion of The Age with respect to Ian Macphee, and we do not lament his departure from Australian political life. We consider Ken Aldred, who won the Deakin pre-selection, to be a far better candidate. We assert what no voices in the mass media will assert, that Ian Macphee was rejected at the grassroots by his selectors. He didn't fall foul of the Liberal Party leadership: Peacock was all for him, and the Liberal Party President, John Elliott, attempted to keep Macphee in the Party. Even Malcolm Fraser put in a plug for him, perhaps thinking himself, really, to be an Eminent Person whose opinion would carry all before it. Rather would the reverse be the case. Malcolm Fraser carries less and less weight in the Liberal Party.

Michelle Grattan of The Age says his (Macphee's) replacement on the Shadow Ministry by Senator Robert Hill is a "good one". We say it is a bad one: Robert Hill is of the same ilk as Ian Macphee. No doubt Andrew Peacock thinks he is giving the small 'ls' in the Party and in the broad electorate another Macphee "voice" - thus stemming any loss of support. If the grassroots rejected Macphee, the grassroots will reject Robert Hill. We do not feel that the Liberal leadership realises what is going on at the grassroots of Australian electoral life, and we are not going to expend our energies to educate them. The Fabian mob has a better notion of activities at the grassroots.

PARTY POLITICS

BRIEF COMMENTS

The HawkKeating Government is feeling the hot blast of protest from the electorate over the savage 17% interest rates. In spite of the fact that Brother Keating has insisted that taxation exemption on savings account interest is "not on", Mr. Hawke is wobbling: his Government is now "considering" the issue. What marvelous things politicians can achieve when they feel the heat of the electoral blowtorch! We well recall that Brother Keating, a matter of days before, the March 1983 election, which propelled him into the Treasurership, insisted that deregulation of the banking system, was not a goer. After some three weeks on the High Mountain in Washington and New York, etc., he came back to Australia a New Boy. Guess what? Deregulation of the banking system in Australia was just what Australia needed. No country is now an island, you know. And marvelous benefits would accrue to Australians because of the competition, which the overseas banks will force on Australia's banking scene. Well, what about the present 17% interest rates? Well, sorry about that, but better that than the plunge of the dollar, a severe recession, et. al.

We read (The Age, June 12th) that the Kremlin chieftains are considering the elimination of a third of the Soviet Government ministries, and that the remainder decentralise power among the nation's 15 republics. No doubt this is what Mr. Gorbachev wants: he knows he must streamline the Soviet's hideous bureaucracy before he can begin to bring some efficiency into the system. It might alleviate ethnic unrest, also.

CAN THE LEOPARD CHANGE HIS SPOTS?

From the Editorial of New Life (June 8th). New Life is a weekly Christian newspaper, published in Melbourne.
"The blood in Tiananmen Square is hardly dry as these words are being written. When will we ever learn what is the true nature of Godless, inhuman communism? "Words are inadequate to express our revulsion at the depth of wickedness displayed by the communist regime in China in the last few days. Their actions are beyond cowardice, beyond inhumanity, beyond tyranny.

They raise a number of questions in our minds:
* will the nations now treat China in the same way as they treat South Africa, or is there something special about a communist regime, which merits nothing more than a brief show of hollow rhetoric?
* for that matter, will the World Council of Churches treat China in the same way as it treats South Africa?
* will Hong Kong still be handed over to the communist regime to await whatever fate befalls it?
* can Taiwan continue to be left out in the cold?
* what will happen to the Christians of China, given that since AD64 Christians have usually been the first whipping posts for a government in trouble?

"If there is anything good to come out of this tragic event it might just be the realisation that cosmetic change is meaningless. The reality of communism never changes, and its Godlessness is matched only by its inhumanity. .."

THE BUNYIP BULLETIN

One of the many new newspapers mushrooming up all over Australia. The Bunyip Bulletin is published out of Lithgow, N.S.W. (street address is 176 Main Street, Lithgow, N.S.W., 2790). Postal address: P.O. Box 395, Lithgow, N.S.W., 2790. Telephone: (063) 52366/ 52 3682. Mr. W.J. Baylebridge is the Editor. - Some of the articles are really excellent. One of the excellent articles is from the pen of Doug Jensen, the author of "A Conspiracy Called Conservation". We quote from his article in The Bunyip Bulletin (June, 1989), viz. "The Enemy Within":
"The Illusion of Wilderness
I seriously question the concept of 'wilderness', untouched by man, which has been so disastrously adopted in Australia from the United States of America. It is a false concept, a fantasy of make believe by people who have been reared in the urban environment, cut off from their own history and heritage, and who lost their roots in the soil of the country and who, somehow, imagine that they can find their soul in wilderness.
"The dream of wilderness which exalts native animals above the family of man has been built in to an obscene cult of ANIMISM - for people to find their soul in natural things, instead of humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God and understanding the correct relationship between man and his Creator.
"One has only to examine the wastelands created in most national parks - all in the name of preserving our priceless heritage to gather a picture of the extent of the destruction being perpetrated; witness the various T.V. channels any day or night of the week and see some animal or other being eulogised and man vilified and God denied.

Synonymous With Communism
Conservation which insists on the confiscation of privately owned lands into national parks is synonymous with communism. And governments - socialist and so-called non-socialist alike - are funding this idiotic nonsense with hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars of taxpayers' money; fashioning laws to use national parks, buffer zones, planning restrictions, conservation, etc., as a big stick to belt the Australian people into submission and subvert our nation to the goal of democratic socialism, and, ultimately, to the international dictatorship of communism. "The Australian Labor Party makes no bones about this objective, laying down that: '…. environment policies should reinforce Labor's commitment to democratic socialism'.

The Fabian Socialist Harold Laski (of the same school as the A.L.P. socialists) has stated that: 'British Socialists and Russian Communists are merely following two distinct roads to the same objective…' "It is repugnant to free men and women - who at great personal sacrifice, endured the perils and dangers of war to preserve our freedom and liberty - to now find that our deadliest enemy is right here, at home, in Australia, posing under the name of conservation..."

Subscription rates for The Bunyip Bulletin are 6 months/$15.00 -1 year/$25.00. Other new newspapers which come to our desk are The Citizen, and the Indi Forum. There are others.

CONSERVATION: BUT WHO PAYS THE PRICE?