THE BIG SQUEEZE IS TAKING SHAPE

In the past a straightforward credit squeeze was applied in an attempt to "control" inflation. But today credit squeezes are applied indirectly through the manipulation of interest rates. Treasurer Paul Keating has, with the backing of the Central Bank, insisted that high interest rates were essential to "cool" an "overheated" economy. The senior economist with the Hong Kong Bank Australia Ltd., Mr. Mark Tierney, indirectly reveals that the reality of the credit squeeze is being masked by the current techniques, with an appeal for "openness", with the Reserve Bank setting interest rates directly. At present the Reserve Bank indirectly controls credit policy by the purchase and sale of Commonwealth Government securities, this affecting the availability of cash to the credit markets.

Tierney observes, "Unlike the foreign exchange market, where Reserve Bank intervention is more obvious, open market operations are conducted under a veil of secrecy which is designed to keep markets guessing until a change of monetary policy is well established."

Irrespective of the type of gobbledegook being used to describe what is happening, the reality has been clearly described by Maxwell Newton in New York. His report in The Australian of January 17th carries the headline, CENTRAL BANKS' CREDIT SQUEEZE SETS OFF GLOBAL SHAKE-OUT. Interest rates have been increased in every major country, including Japan and Germany.

A headline in The Australian of January 22nd reads JAPAN TREADS FINE LINE TO AVOID A CRASH. The global credit squeeze is designed to create the conditions in which it is hoped that the merging of the world's economies can be accelerated, with special attention being directed towards the Soviet Union. Reports from The Trilateral Commission indicate that every effort is being made to advance The Big Idea. As Western and Japanese economies are "cooled", the way is cleared for greater economic integration with the Soviet.

Treasurer Keating may not understand the contribution he is making towards advancing the Big Idea, but the Government's support for the credit squeeze is having its effect. Business optimism has slumped badly. Housing industry leaders predict a bleak future. A steady stream of primary producers leave their farms under bank orders. Unfortunately it is all happening as we have been consistently predicting. But as the pressure grows, so does the awakening of the Australian people. The League of Rights is now entering the most vital role in its history, offering advice and expertise based on years of experience.

THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD

Mr. Peter Fisher, National Party Member for the Mallee, Victoria, provides yet another example of the appalling ignorance of politicians who claim to be anti-Socialists. In a letter to The Wimmera Mail Times of January 19th, Mr. Fisher claims that there is nothing to fear from the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, and obviously will, along with most of his colleagues, be supporting the adoption of the convention. Mr. Fisher does not explain why a Common Law country like Australia, with Christian values still accepted by the majority of people, will benefit its children by adopting a Convention agreed to at the United Nations by a number of nations which have little respect for the rights of people, still less children.

The underlying philosophy of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child is blatantly humanistic and undermines the Christian tradition of parental duties. A spokesman for The Human Rights Commission, Mr. Brian Burdekin, claims that the Convention "does not attempt to tell parents how to raise their children or to impose new obligations on families. It does tell governments what they ought to do to fulfill their responsibilities". But as pointed out by Melbourne barrister, J.K. Bowen, the Commission itself has, since being formed in 1981, "engaged in activities which many Australians believe are indicative of deeply entrenched intolerance and bias. The Commission has promoted values and ideologies that are out of step with many Australians".

By adopting the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Federal Government would open the way for further bureaucratic interference in traditional family life. All Christians should oppose the proposed ratification of the Convention, challenging their political representatives to give any good reason why they are not capable of a responsible and caring attitude towards their children without some U.N. Convention.

A detailed examination of the issue is provided by N.S.W. State League Director, Mr. David Thompson, in the November 1989, issue of The Intelligence Survey. $1.00 posted, from Box 1052J, G.P.O., Melbourne, 3001.

BRIEF COMMENTS

One of the most shattering aspects of the anti-Communist revolution sweeping Eastern Europe is the revelation that Communist dictators like Ceaucescu lived in revolting opulence while their victims suffered near starvation. Social dogma has taught that under a free enterprise economy the few grow progressively richer and oppress the majority, while under Socialism there would be "equality". While we readily agree that the new rich of the non-Communist countries are generally shallow and vulgar, not even the worst of them match the Communist dictators.

The latest Morgan Public Opinion Poll tends to confirm the Australian political analysis by League National Director in last week's On Target. The poll suggests that the Hawke Government is likely to win a Federal election with a reduced majority. The poll reveals that the National Party is one of the Coalition's major liabilities, with a major slump in electoral support, particularly in Queensland. But the poll also reveals that there is a marked shift of support away from the major parties to either the Democrats or Independents. This should make it possible to ensure that the next Senate will see a further division of power with the capacity to act as a check on whichever government is in office.

Should Mr. Andrew Peacock manage to win government by default, he will be haunted by his statement of last week that interest rates would fall almost immediately after the election of a Coalition Government. Mr. Peacock says that he expected financial markets to respond on interest rates as soon as a Coalition government began implementing its "deregulatory policies". How naive can Mr. Peacock be! We recall how he and his colleagues welcomed the de-regulation of the banking system, permitting foreign banks to establish themselves in Australia, would result in more competition and lower interest rates. Exactly the opposite has taken place.

Prime Minister Hawke is attempting to distance himself from his "mate", Mr. Alan Bond, claiming that he has never been particularly close to people like Bond, and has certainly not been influenced by them. But what about Sir Peter Abeles, whom Brian Toohey of Eye magazine claims has phone discussions with the Prime Minister on the average of two or three times a day. John Pilger, for whom we do not have a very high opinion as an historian, claims in his latest book, The Secret Country, that Sir Peter Abeles has said, "Bob and I dream dreams together". Abeles gave one of Hawke's daughters a new car for her 17th birthday and later provided her with a public relations job with Ansett Airways. Media comment concerning Ansett generally manages to suppress the fact that media mogul Rupert Murdoch is the joint owner of the Airways.

While the financial pages of the media report some of the more spectacular business failures, they make no reference to the growing number of small businesses collapsing under the Hawke-Keating policy. One of the results of this policy is a growing polarisation of society, with the rich getting richer while the rest of the community becomes poorer. 200 of the richest businessmen in Australia have increased their wealth from $5 billion to $24 billion under the Hawke Government. Fabian Bob Hawke still has plenty of rich "mates" to help out at the coming elections.

FROM 'OVERSEAS TRADING' JANUARY 1990

"…Yet while it may be true that the old order changeth who can say with certainty how best to handle the sudden consumer fallout already evident? Even as member states of the Warsaw Pact are falling over themselves to embrace their own peculiar versions of Capitalism, European Community leaders convened a hasty summit to prepare a suitable response. Doubtless there will be many such talks in the months to come, formal and informal, with Western analysts struggling to come to terms with United Europe's new-found economic largesse.

"The immediate problem is to invent a meaningful equation to consider the wider implications of the new economic order - to make sense of a dramatically expanded European Community thrust upon them well before the end of the 1992 deadline upon which international big business has placed such great store.

"'The collapse of the East German system...makes the prospect of new East-West trade links greater than ever before', is how Alan Smith, an international trade expert at the University of London, was quoted recently. "'The Communists are trying to join our economic order,' said Philip Hanson, Professor of Soviet Economics at the University of Birmingham. 'But,' he cautioned, 'the East Bloc nations are all developing at different speeds and integration could be messy. "As a first step towards rationalising the prospect of a united European economy, if not a united Europe, it seems obvious that convertability of the Russian rouble and other East Bloc currencies are in the vanguard of economic reform. "Soviet monetary authorities have signalled they intend this month to introduce a new single exchange rate for Russian enterprises. It is likely to amount to a 50% devaluation of the official rate of the rouble. As in Australia the aim is to discourage imports while encouraging exports. There is talk, also, of tying the rouble to the gold standard to make Soviet currency fully convertible, as wise economists will probably endeavour to do to their currencies in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, and even Bulgaria.

"It seems likely the Soviet Union - after South Africa the second largest producer of gold in the world - will determine the value of its official reserves, then take the level of local currency in circulation and declare the value of that money equivalent to the value of its gold stocks. "While it is difficult to predict at what pace the various Communist monetary systems will integrate with their Capitalist counterparts, be in no doubt that the 1990s will be a decade of European currency reform with the West German mark about to surge. "Some analysts have already predicted the economic import of momentous events of recent weeks will see the emergence of West Germany as the powerhouse of the region as it forges ever stronger economic ties with its Eastern neighbour. Such firm bonding will undoubtedly cement Europe's role as an economic super power, alongside the United States and the East Asian region, led by Japan.

"So how does Australia fit into the grander scheme of things? Conventional wisdom has it that any country that fails to go with the strength faces economic isolation from which there will be no recovery.

Our Comment
The author of this article, Marshall Wilson, thus far paints a picture, which is accurate in our view. His views on the role of Australia in the "new economic order" are no doubt the "conventional wisdom" of International Finance, with which he is apparently in agreement, as an orthodox political economic "thinker". The League is in utter disagreement concerning our future role: the most simple statement we can make is that we wish to preserve our heritage as an Anglo-Celtic people: language, customs, government-the lot!
If the European peoples really understood what is going on in the Halls of Power in the world, we don't doubt that their reactions would be much the same as ours.

We continue with Marshall Wilson's article, which only further confirms the role set down for Australia by the internationalists:
".... It seems prudent for Australia to examine its options, as the timely Garnaut Report suggests, with every likelihood our reliance on traditional trading partners Britain and the United States will be sacrificed to the greater cause of looking after our own long-term interests. "And make no mistake Asia is the gateway to success. Which is why the Government's recent Asia-Pacific Forum talks were of inestimable value as a preliminary to mapping out a firm region of economic cooperation. Greater emphasis on foreign language studies to better prepare us for the region and more cohesive business indoctrination programme would go a long way to ensure Australia's future in a region already gearing to make the Pacific Century a reality.
"If Dr. Ross Garnaut's work 'Australia and the Northeast Asian Ascendancy' is right, then Australia's destiny is firmly aligned to near neighbours where an estimated $20 Billion a year is waiting to be picked up in exports to China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. A share of that through greater trade liberalisation and deregulation would ensure a golden era for this country, some would say in the nick of time."

Our Comment
Dr. Ross Garnaut, an economic centralist closely connected with the pursuit of the Multi-Function Polis in Australia, is WRONG. The Garnaut Report pre-supposes the continuance and further economic development of the several Asian "powerhouses". We are as sure as we can be that the economies of such "powerhouses" are fragile, indeed. For starters, a likely collapse of property values in Japan would blow the Japanese economy to smithereens. We know that liquidity is being drained from the Western economies by new and subtle methods and that the rank and file consumer of the West is being progressively stripped of loose purchasing power, which would buy the production of the Asian powerhouses.

The Marshall Wilson article ends:
"History is indeed in the making. As in Europe, Australia stands to gain much by making the right choices of her own volition, instead of having them unconditionally thrust upon her."

Our Comment
Yes, this is right, but we are sure that the "right" choices for Australia are not those, which the author of the above article has in mind.