GORBACHEV'S NEW INITIATIVE

Nicholas Rothwell, reporting from Paris, writes that Soviet leader Gorbachev has "shocked the world's seven richest countries by saying Moscow wanted to play a full part in the international economy". Why should the leaders of the Group of Seven nations be shocked by Gorbachev supporting a policy first enunciated by Lenin: that a World State could not be created until a world economic system had been established? Both the Soviet Union and Communist China have endorsed the New International Economic Order, designed to establish a centrally planned global economy.

Even though not present at the Group of Seven conference in Paris, with another fine sense of timing for which he has become famous, the Soviet leader seized the limelight in Paris with a five-page letter he had delivered to the man hosting the conference, President Mitterand. Gorbachev made the significant statement, "We have watched the Western nations coordinate their economics, and we want to join in - it is part of the process of perestroika."

Gorbachev's latest initiative has both a short term and a long term objective: The short term objective is to gain greater Western economic aid in order to sustain the Soviet Union, while the long term objective is to dominate if possible the concentration of global power. As we have pointed out over many years, the conventional "Communism versus Capitalism" scenario has been a false one; that both the West and the East have been dominated by a power transcending nations and political labels; the International Money Power.

The will-to-power has always been the major driving force in human affairs, and that will-to-power is now emerging openly at the international level. The only effective answer to the threat of all centralised power is to decentralise it back to the individual. Traditional Christian philosophy has always rejected power as the way to reach God's Kingdom on Earth. "Practical Christianity" remains the only true alternative to what the global power men are attempting.

THE PHONY ECONOMIC DEBATE

Treasurer Paul Keating's critics inside the Labor Party have demonstrated that they are as ignorant of real economics as is Paul Keating. The best that the Keating critics can offer on the problem of high interest rates, is that those worst affected have their interest rates subsidised out of higher taxes. The critics create the impression that they believe that there is a limited amount of money in the community, and that some people can only be helped by taking money off those who presumably have too much.

The truth is that high interest rates are a major feature of Paul Keating's economic strategy, and are designed to slow down economic activity - already there is open alarm as the building industry moves towards a slump - while at the same time ensuring that the flow of foreign investment continues.

Neither Keating's critics within the Labor Party nor his Coalition Opposition critics have offered any genuine alternative to the Treasurer's programme. In essence the Opposition is saying that it could manage the same policy better than the Labor leaders. Anyone who believes that Australia would be better off with Mr. Andrew Peacock as Prime Minister, should carefully study what Peacock was saying in Perth last weekend - apart from entering into a duel of personal abuse with Prime Minister Hawke. Mr. Peacock says that Australians must become more efficient, work harder and become more "competitive" in the exporting field. But this is exactly what all developed nations are attempting to do.

Commonsense would suggest that the first priority should be a financial policy which would enable Australians to buy what they really need. Commonsense appears to be in short supply.

BRIEF COMMENTS

We trust that Irene Moss and her colleagues of the Human Rights Commission, currently investigating racial violence in Australia, carefully note what that self-appointed authority on the Australian League of Rights, the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission has to say about the League. In his featured article in The Chronicle Toowoomba (mentioned in our issue of July 7th), Commission Chairman Levy said, ". . . .there has never been any evidence that League members have perpetrated racial violence..." This statement has been brought to the attention of the Human Rights Commission together with a question why the formal submission to Irene Moss, dated March 21st, has never even been acknowledged. In the meantime we are pleased to report that The Toowoomba Chronicle, to its credit, has featured a devastating reply to the Levy article along with letters from League supporters. But as we go to press there is no suggestion that Mr. Levy is prepared to meet League National Director Eric Butler in public debate. Now isn't that strange?

Poland's Solidarity leader, Mr. Lech Walesa, is far from delighted with President George Bush's offer of economic aid, pointing out that it is minimal and that it left him "sitting on a powder keg". Walesa and Solidarity are reluctant to accept responsibility for forming a government in case it should be blamed for imposing austerity measures which the supporters of financial orthodoxy believe are essential. Poland has a foreign debt of $A51.38 billion. President Bush, the International Bankers' man, has told the Poles that sacrifice would be essential for them to face their economic problems. A major part of Poland's economic problems are the result of attempting to export food and other production in an endeavour to meet interest charges on the massive external debt. If there was an indefinite moratorium on Poland's external debt, and the Polish economy were freed from bureaucratic restrictions, the need for further austerity would soon be eliminated. The Poles are learning that freedom to cast a political vote does not of itself result in economic freedom.

Primary Industry Minister Kerin says that Japanese investment in Australia, particularly in the beef industry, should not be discouraged. Mr. Kerin says, "A restrictive policy on foreign investments would only encourage the flow of valuable capital and business to Australians competitors in the United States and New Zealand". So what? What are Japanese investors sending of any real substance to the Australian beef industry? Acceptance of the necessity for Japanese industry is a form of black magic. Fortunately this black magic was not accepted during the darkest days of the Pacific War, when Australians were fighting desperately to prevent a threatened Japanese invasion. Adequate finance was made available in Australia to make what was physically possible, financially possible. Kerin and his colleagues now tell Australians they should invite the Japanese in as part of their programme of internationalisation. In more robust times this would have been bluntly described as treason.

It is a natural law that the bigger any organisation becomes, the greater the bureaucracy. This applies specially to government. Some incredible stories have been told of what is happening inside the vast bureaucracy spawned by the establishment of the European Economic Community. Now come stories of the "fiddles" of the members of the European Parliament. Last figures show that the 581 members of the European Parliament claimed a total of $49 million in expenses for a full year, an average of $96,000 a member. This on top of the annual salary of $50,000.

We are not, overall, the greatest admirers of Mr. Derryn Hinch, the T.V. current affairs commentator, but we must give him credit for calling a spade a spade in his journalistic comment on WorkCare in The Sun (Melbourne), July 17th. These grandiose handout schemes inevitably feed on themselves, and become morbidly swollen, before the collapse. Risking that terrible charge of "racism", Mr. Hinch comments that -"certain ethnic groups seem to have, en masse, learned how a sprained wrist or cricked neck can result on the postie dropping a cheque in the letterbox month after month". Many lawyers specialising in compensation cases used to (perhaps they still do) refer to "Mediterranean back".

Mr. Hinch comments on the "give me a buck" doctors and the factory owners who put profits before safety; but the "king-hit" is the revelation that the Chairman of Victoria's WorkCare is Mr. Ron Sackville, a barrister. Mr. Sackville is a practising barrister in SYDNEY: he doesn't live in Victoria. He flies down (at the taxpayers' expense) for the monthly board meeting, and once a fortnight for WorkCare business. He is a part-time Chairman earning $40,000 yearly. On top of that, the chauffeured limousines, the hotel charges, the airfares. Mr. Hinch says, "ask Mr. Cain" about it. It is something about which all Victorian League supporters, also, should ask Mr. John Cain, the Victorian Premier.

AUSTRALIA SHOULD HAVE LEARNED NOT TO TRUST ECONOMIC EXPERTS

GERRYMANDER AND CORRUPTION

Senator Michael Baume has this to say in his letter to The Australian, July 13th. We ask supporters to pay particular attention to the last paragraph of his letter (Upper House):
"All the expert commentators have loudly agreed with the Fitzgerald Report's conclusion that Queensland's gerrymander encourages governmental corruption by diminishing the risk of electoral defeat. "But they are curiously quiet about the fact that every other mainland State (and federal) system is far worse than Queensland on the key democratic test of the size of the vote needed by the Opposition to win government (or in. N.S.W. for the Coalition to retain it). "Despite the absence of one man one vote in Queensland, Labor would need only 51.4% of the vote to win government while the Coalition needs more than 53% in N.S.W., South Australia and Western Australia, and 52.4% federally to win 51% of the seats, thanks to unfair Labor-orientated redistributions. "So the scope for corruption, on the Fitzgerald scale, is even greater in other States, yet there has been universal ridicule of Premier Ahern' s calls for Australia-wide anti-corruption enquiries.
"The Queensland gerrymander is anti-Liberal, not anti-Labor; the Nationals prosper in Queensland not simply because the Liberals are disadvantaged, but because Labor has been such a leaderless, factionalised shambles for years (just like the Liberal Party, federally, at the present time ... O.T.), that it managed only 41.4% of the vote last time, or 45.9% on a two party basis."

"The real problem in Queensland has been the absence of an Upper House to provide a check on the power of executive government - an essential ingredient of the Westminster system, without which the Hawke Government would by now have an Australia Card, a Bill of Rights, and no Section 45D." (Section "45D" refers to the "Casual Vacancies Amendment" to the Australian Constitution, whereby a Senator who dies, resigns, etc., before the expiry of his elected term, is replaced (constitutionally) by a senator from the same political party.) We, again, draw the attention of supporters to the abolition of the Queensland Legislative Council (Upper House) in 1922. The person most responsible for this abolition, a significant move towards political centralisation, was a political/union identity by the name of Jock Garden. Garden had spent some time in Moscow, immediately after the 1917 Russian Revolution, being trained in Marxist revolutionary techniques. The Marxist poisons entered Queensland (and Australia) at that time. The abolition of Queensland's Upper House could be traced back to Jock Garden and his influence.

There is the other point of political bribery, just as bad (or worse) then, as it is now. The Queensland Legislative Councillors did vote themselves out of office, with the Upper House abolition, BUT THE PRICE WAS THEIR SALARIES FOR LIFE, They voted themselves their salaries for life! That was in 1922. This period of Australian history is little known. It is recorded in a most rare book, viz. "Up the Garden Path", by H.M. Ellis: a collector's item now. It may still be in the Queensland Parliamentary Library.

IMMIGRATION, A POLICY OF PERFIDY