COMMONSENSE BREAKS THROUGH THE MABO MADNESS

On the eve of flying off to China and Korea last week, where he hopes to persuade the Chinese and Koreans to solve Australia's domestic problems, Prime Minister Paul Keating felt it necessary to take to the airways in an attempt to placate Australians who, for various reasons, feel outraged by the High Court Mabo decision and its far reaching implications for the future of Australia. Mr. Keating was clearly shocked by his experience attempting to suggest that anti-Mabo critics were either "racists" or "bigots".

While National Party leader Tim Fischer has managed to inject a little realism into the Mabo debate, it has been one of Mr. Keating's own members, Mr. Graeme Campbell of Kalgoorlie, West Australia, who has really "taken the gloves off" in a challenge which Paul Keating cannot ignore when he returns from overseas. The Labor Member for Kalgoorlie represents a large number of Aboriginal communities inside his vast electorate. He bluntly says that Aboriginal leaders pushing for Mabo style land claims were "carpetbaggers" who did not represent the majority of the Aboriginal people. He has made his claim after a tour of his electorate stating that the Mabo issue had been hijacked for political purposes.

Campbell says after his tour, "One of the things that was graphically illustrated to me was how out of touch we are getting with Aborigines and Aboriginal aspirations. Everywhere I went in those communities, people told me they were heartily sick of ATSIC (The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission) and wanted nothing to do with it, and that they opposed Mabo. Generally they said, 'We are Australian and want nothing more than everyone else gets; we want to be in the mainstream. Aborigines are getting very angry about the people getting the most coverage on this issue, as they do not support them."

Graeme Campbell charges that the Aboriginal panel chosen to meet Prime Minister Keating to discuss Mabo were handpicked by the Prime Minister's office and did not represent the wider Aboriginal community. He does not hesitate to use the term "treason" to describe the proposal to create a separate sovereign Aboriginal nation. And he pointed out that lawyers most of them white, were among those benefiting most from the Mabo issue. He said, "When one looks at the Aboriginal industry in Australia, one looks at a $2 billion industry - but if one asks whether it has benefited Aboriginal people, one would have to be dubious."

The Rev. Cedric Jacobs, Uniting Church Minister whose parents were tribal Aboriginals, has said the same thing about the Canberra Aboriginal Affairs Department, which he has recommended should be closed down completely and the taxpayers' money allocated to Municipal Councils to control, in association with local Aboriginal groups.

Graeme Campbell echoes what Tim Fischer says, that for far too long Australians have been brainwashed into developing a guilt complex about what allegedly happened 200 years ago. "The policy of Aboriginal Affairs was designed to placate affluent, urban, white middle class guilt and to that end it has been highly successful." He is calling for an act to extinguish native title and compensation paid which would be offset against funds already paid through governments.

So convinced is Graeme Campbell of his stand that he has challenged any Aboriginal leaders prominent in the Mabo discussion to an Aboriginal only election against himself, claiming that he would "romp home". It is not anticipated that Campbell's challenge will be taken up, certainly not by those "white Aboriginal" leaders like Mansell from Tasmania. Campbell says, "Aborigines are saying to me, 'We voted for you and you represent us, so get out and tell people how we feel about this instead of letting those other people talk."
It would be interesting to know how many of Paul Keating's electors can claim to represent genuine Aborigines.

While John Hewson is far from enthusiastic about the realistic comments of his Deputy Shadow Prime Minister, Mr. Tim Fischer, he has reluctantly agreed that the National Party leader has every right to express his views on Mabo as he has. As a footnote to the Mabo discussion, it should be pointed out that the late Eddie Mabo's claim to native title was heard by a court rooted in the British tradition of law.

CHALLENGING DR. FRANK KNOPFELMACHER

We have on occasions quoted some of the more sensible things said by Dr. Frank Knopfelmacher, former Reader in Psychology at the Melbourne University. News Weekly, long associated with Australia's most distinguished lay Roman Catholic commentator, Mr. B.A. Santamaria, republished in its issue of June 19th, an article from The Advertiser, Adelaide, in which Dr. Knopfelmacher makes the blunt allegation that British historian David Irving is a "liar". Although Knopfelmacher describes himself as a "democratic Socialist" and has long claimed to be an opponent of totalitarianism, it appears that he is one of those who favours banning Irving from Australia, balancing this with his claim that representatives of the Wiesenthal Centre should not be allowed to enter either.

Knopfelmacher has opposed the war crime trials, charging that "The (War Crime) trials have become an industry who didn't suffer in the war and who are gaining financial benefits from it now," and then claimed that "They make it possible for people like Irving to survive." This is insulting nonsense. David Irving had established his reputation as an outstanding authority on World War II, starting with his best seller, The Destruction of Dresden, in 1963. The orchestrated international campaign against Irving only started when it became clear that he had moved from a position of having an open mind on the subject of the mass gassing of Jews to where he now is, a firm disbeliever in the mass gassing allegations. He gives his reasons for his views, which are based on both forensic and historical evidence.

It is not good enough for Dr. Knopfelmacher to continue reiterating that the whole of his family, Czechoslovakian Jews, disappeared during World War II. Large numbers of other families disappeared in the barbaric World War II. Over 100,000, many of them refugees fleeing westwards to escape the advancing Red Army, were incinerated in one night in Dresden. Jews do not have a monopoly on suffering. Knopfelmacher's charge against Irving does him no credit. But if he is so confident of his allegation that Irving is a liar, we would suggest that he advocates that Irving be granted a visa to enter Australia and then debate Irving in public.

Zionist spokesmen offer the cowardly excuse that any public debate with Irving would merely give him the status of a responsible writer. It is strange that some of the biggest publishing houses in the world have published Irving's works, his Goebbels Diaries now to be released by Macmillan.

THE CHURCH AND THE CROWN

Any sensible comment on the monarchy from an authoritative churchman has been slow in emerging, irrespective of the Christian basis for monarchy. Last week the outspoken Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, Reverend Peter Hollingworth, offered a strong defence of the constitutional monarchy and questioned the Prime Minister's motives for a proposal that risks serious divisions in Australia.

In an interview with The Chronicle in Toowoomba, which was later reported in The Australian (18/6/93), Hollingworth is quoted as saying: "... that the greatest concern in the republican push was the destabilising effect it could have on the nation. "Some States will vote for it while others, will not, so it would divide the country." … The constitutional monarchy had served Australia well and the nation had benefited from having a stable government, a peaceful society and a clear and workable separation of powers. "I take very seriously the views on republicanism of ... Sir Harry Gibbs and agree with him on many thorny issues surrounding the debate," he told The Chronicle. "Not the least of these is the undue amount of power such move would invest in the hands of a president."

It should be noted that there is not unanimous support in the ALP for a move to a republic. Quite apart from grassroots division, the Parliamentary wing of the Party is not fully republican, as demonstrated by the Member for Kalgoorlie, Graeme Campbell. A firm critic of the Prime Minister, Campbell suggests that republicanism is being perverted by multiculturalists: "The multiculturalists want Australia to become a republic because they're trying to do away with all those planks of Anglo-Celtic culture which are embodied in our Australian culture," he said. "What we should be doing in this country if we truly want to be an independent nation is to have a vote on multiculturalism. Are we going to survive? Because we'll only survive as a united nation, not as a host of tribes."

GREINER WARNS LIBERALS

ANTI-VILIFICATION THREAT

According to The Australian Jewish News of June 11th, the Federal Attorney General's Department has revealed that a series of public consultations on the proposed Racial Anti Vilification legislation had revealed that "an overwhelming majority" opposed the legislation. Zionist pressure has been consistently applied to both State and the Federal Government to have this type of legislation implemented. The Federal Labor Government moved to introduce the anti-vilification legislation last December, but it was removed from the parliamentary notice paper when Parliament was dissolved for the Federal elections.

The Jewish News reports "According to the Attorney General's office, Mr. Lavarch is considering reintroducing a racial vilification bill during the budget session of Federal Parliament which begins on August 17th. Having succumbed to Zionist pressure to ban British historian David Irving from entering Australia, it would be surprising if the Labor Government with new trendy Attorney General Lavarch did not attempt to implement racial anti-vilification legislation.

But what will the Opposition do? Before the Federal Elections they urged that the legislation should not transgress "the important fundamental right of free speech". But the same Opposition endorsed the Labor Government's assault on that "fundamental" right in the case of David Irving. It is imperative that as much electoral pressure as possible be applied to Opposition members, requesting not only that they oppose the anti-vilification proposal, but that they are genuine in their support of freedom of speech by demanding that David Irving be immediately granted a visa to visit Australia.