ALL ABOARD THE GREEN BANDWAGON

Perversion has long been regarded as one of the most deadly evils. Many a good cause has, over man's long history, been taken over by power groups and diverted to serve their purposes. Large numbers of people have, under the impact of skilful propaganda, become instant converts to the environmental cause. It has become almost the "in" thing to express fears about alleged holes in the ozone layer, and much else. Prime Minister Hawke and his minders have been quick to seize on to the "green cause", realising that this offers them perhaps their only chance of surviving the next Federal elections. They could be proved right.

A careful reading of Mr. Hawke's statement, claimed by the P.R. men as the most comprehensive environmental statement the world has ever heard, reveals that for a relatively small financial outlay, many sections of the community will receive something. Needless to say, the radical "greenies" quickly responded by complaining that Mr. Hawke had not gone nearly far enough. But Mr. Hawke and his advisers are pragmatic power politicians whose primary concern is how to win the next Federal Elections. As a publicity exercise, the Hawke exercise was, with the aid of the media, brilliantly carried through, with the appointment of the centralist former Governor General, Sir Ninian Stephen, as Australia's first Ambassador for the Environment, a political masterpiece. Both the Australian Democrats and the Opposition parties welcomed the appointment of Sir Ninian.

Underlying the comments of Mr. Hawke, Senator Richardson, and others, was the hint that the States would be expected to cooperate in any Commonwealth environmental projects - or else! Mr. Hawke recalled the Franklin River case while in one interview Sir Ninian mentioned the expanded powers of the Commonwealth as a result of international agreements made under the External Powers. The environmental issue is going to be increasingly used to expand centralised powers.

Prime Minister Hawke's claims on the environment will be seen in time as empty as his famous promise that no Australian children would be living in poverty by the year 1990. At the very moment that Mr. Hawke is threatening to have another weep, this time for the environment, his Government's financial policies of high interest rates and heavy taxation are driving increasing numbers of good Australians out of their homes, making it increasingly difficult for young Australians to acquire their own homes, while many Australian farmers give up because they cannot meet the savage increase in interest rates.

During the same week that he was basking in the publicity concerning his environmental exercise, the Prime Minister was telling Australians "There was evidence that the economy was beginning to slow down to acceptable levels". Mr. Hawke did not define what were "acceptable levels". It is certainly true that there is a fall in the rate of house building. Neither the "world's greatest Treasurer", Paul Keating, or other "expert" economists, have been able to explain why it is necessary to cripple the building industry because of the balance of payments situation. They do not explain how the inflation rate can be reduced by increasing financial costs through higher interest rates.

While it is true that there is enormous amount of physical pollution in Australia, much of it the result of unrealistic financial policies, there is a much more dangerous form of pollution, that of young minds, currently filled with unnecessary fears about the future. The young have been increasingly torn away from a value system, which has in the past provided clear direction and stability. Why are increasing numbers of the young taking their own lives? The dominant economic philosophy of growth for the sake of growth, and the debt system used to attempt to sustain that philosophy, makes genuine conservation well nigh impossible.

Over the years the League has run Seminars on conservation, drawing attention to the fact that debt finance, along with inflation, results in bad farming practices and tips across the nation filled with the end result of built-in obsolescence. At the 1987 League Annual Seminar in Queensland, Pastor Mel Grieger demonstrated how the debt system made it impossible for farmers to practise sound husbandry. The Pastor cryptically commented, "It is easier to flog the soil than to flog the banks."
But it is government, which should be flogged; it is constitutionally responsible for financial policy. Until Prime Minister Hawke addresses himself to this subject, his alleged concern about the environment must be regarded as yet another example of blatant political gimmickry.

BRIEF COMMENTS

In conventional party political terms, Queensland Premier Mike Ahern may have made his smartest political move to date. While it will not save his party from being forced back into coalition with the Liberals - assuming that Labor does not back his decision to ask the electors by referendum to give his Government an extra six months in office, this permitting time for an examination of the electoral boundaries, puts him in a no lose situation. If the electors decline to give him the extra time, then he will go to the polls on present electoral boundaries, those which Mr. Fitzgerald, Q.C., found are not only perceived to be unfair, but the source of the much publicised Queensland corruption. Bearing in the mind the current low electoral standing of the Ahern Government, and the opposition of the Labor and Liberal parties, it is highly probable that the referendum will be defeated, resulting in an election later in the year on present boundaries. As we have already said, bearing in mind the geography and population dispersal in Queensland, the current Queensland electoral boundaries compare favourably with those in other States. When the independent Commission is established by the next Queensland government, to examine the electoral boundaries issue, the League of Rights will seek to make a formal submission outlining some basic principles which the party politicians appear to have never heard about. The League will argue for the restoration of the Queensland Upper House, elected on different franchise than the lower house.

A report by the Morgan polling organisation confirms the views we have expressed for some time: there is deep disenchantment with both the major political parties. The report, commissioned by the Liberal Party, says, "The people are really hurting and moving away from Labor across the $22,000 to $45,000 income range." But not all these electors are moving to the Liberals, but to the smaller parties and Independents. Present electoral boundaries tend to favour Labor with the result that, failing any further loss of support by the Hawke Government, it could conceivably be re-elected on the preferences of the "greenie" vote. Thus the great significance of the Hawke strategy on the environment. The Opposition is not perceived as being likely to do much better than the Hawke Government. But the Senate could be further divided with the election of a few genuine Independents pledged to back the Swiss constitutional system.

Multicultural Sri Lanka moves towards another crisis. The Sri Lanka government says that it has had enough of the Indian peacekeeping force. The Tamils are now divided as to whether they want the Indian troops to stay or not. Tamil groups who want the Indians to stay, claim that the Tamils would be massacred by Sri Lankan forces if the Indians left. Once again we ask: Can the supporters of multiculturalism point to any country in the world where it is a success? It is not even a success in Belgium where the two distinct cultural groups are constantly in a state of friction.

The Age (Melbourne) Editorial, July 24th, has characteristically rushed to the side of Mr. Gorbachev, now wrestling with the intricacies of "Glasnost" and "Perestroika". The Age is commonly referred to, in the industry, as the "Spencer Street Soviet". Its offices are in Spencer Street, Melbourne. We are told by the editorialist "Western governments should be sympathetic to Moscow's problems and ensure speedy delivery of whatever it needs to recover its poise. It is in no one's interests for the positive process of political and economic change now under way in the Soviet Union to be undermined. Perhaps fatally, by the lack of a few foodstuffs..."

More in this veinland a reference to "the problems of nationalism" ... a bad thing nationalism. One shouldn't be nationalistic! We well know that the huge bureaucratic monster that is the Soviet Union is near to a state of economic and administrative collapse due to its sheer weight of inefficiency. It has been propped up by the West since as early as 1919: for proof read "National Suicide" by Dr. Antony Sutton, who itemises the material aid given to the Soviets by the West since those early years. We do not consider it an exaggeration to assert that the Soviet Union can now only be saved by huge contributions of Western aid. Lenin was convinced that the West would do this: to keep the financial systems of the West functioning (Lenin understood this well), ever-expanding markets for Western production must be guaranteed. Notice that President Bush is now assuring the world that untold billions of dollars will be spent in shooting the most highly sophisticated "exports" towards Mars. No relief for homeless Americans; hungry Americans - but shoot $Billions into space! President Bush is but a tool of International Finance: that's why he was "selected" as the next President 2-3 years ago.

NOW AVARICE VERSUS AUSTERITY

The Australian, July 20th, carries these two featured letters

from James Daniel of Armadale (Vic.),
"I observe with alarm the $4.8 billion bid by John Elliott to buy out Elders IXL. "At a time when our foreign debt gallops at a rate of $l.5-$2 Billion a month and we were told by the soon to retire Bob Johnston of the Reserve Bank that each Australian owed $5,000 to overseas creditors, what is the economic justification for this latest example of self-aggrandisement by one of our corporate luminaries? "Let us be accurate about where our foreign debt lies: not with the majority of Australians who have exercised wage restraint for most of this decade and can ill afford to add to our debt, but a small minority within the corporate sector that has indulged in the shuffle of the corporate pack known as the 'takeover'. "Such people have displayed all the sobriety of gamblers in Las Vegas. How much will this latest takeover act add to our current account deficit, how much more will we be plunged into debt?
"Wage and salary earners, people struggling to meet mortgage payments, with home loan rates now reaching 18%, live the most disciplined lives, their working life is an investment for the future of their families, yet we hear incessant calls from the most indulgent people in the community for further 'tightening of the belt, shedding of fat!'. "Cast aside the rhetoric disguised as economic argument, the calls are for public austerity and even greater private avarice. The private sector's contribution to our gross overseas debt has risen from $15.090 Billion in June 1982 to $67.546 Billion in March 1989, a stunning achievement, yet the debtors want to go even further into debt! "Business commentators fawn over the dexterity of takeover merchants who have been raised to the status of folk heroes, but do they ask what do these takeovers add to our economy, how many jobs are created, how much desperately needed income is earned? "The heroes of our society are the contributors, the producers who gain and live in anonymity. "If we do not soon reassess our role models and goals, in the near future all Australians will indeed have to bid farewell 'the lucky country'."

from Cybil Roach, of Rozelle, N.S.W
"G.O. Gutman (Letters 5/7) cynically overlooks real human costs in disclaiming the current economic crisis. It is more than passing shortages and wartime, serious as they are, that people are confronted with now. "As Michael Godrey (Letters 30/6) aptly put it, our whole social fabric is being degraded by the demands upon people to consume more and more as if that were the only reason for existence. "There is scarcely a social problem of today that cannot be related somehow to an economic cause. Drug abuse, street violence, crimes to obtain property, irreverence for the rule of law, family break up, and some. These are the signs of a society that is grossly disillusioned, one in which its youth sees no hope, one of disorientation. "Eighteen percent on home loans, the alarming national debt - these are only part of the serious malaise of a society that has allowed its people to be subjugated to the economic process. "This is indeed a crisis, G.O. Gutman, one that has gone beyond the mere economic calculations that you try to placate us with. It seriously involves the integrity of our present and future existence."

GOVERNMENTS BETRAYED BY TRUST