MEDIA MANIPULATION OF THE QUEEN

One of the speakers at last weekend's N.S.W. State Dinner observed that there was nothing new about the concept of the Monarchy heeding requests for constitutional changes; that the Australian Federal Constitution, created as a result of people of all the Sovereign States voting for the Constitution, was readily agreed to by Queen Victoria. This was part of an organic development of an historic process, which has been taking place over more than a thousand years. It is unthinkable that the Queen would in any way be promoting the concept of an Australian Republic without a clear and overwhelming request by the Australian people that they want to abolish the Constitution, which her predecessor had endorsed.

Sometimes the victim of bad advice, and beset by family and other problems, Queen Elizabeth has given loyal and distinguished service. It is not without significance that even the former British colonies who became Republics have voluntarily accepted the Queen as head of what is loosely called the Commonwealth. They see some value in accepting the symbol of an historic development, which cannot be disputed.

Paul Keating blatantly attempts to deny history. He is attempting to use his media friends to misrepresent the Queen. This was attempted after his visit to see the Queen at Balmoral. Even more blatant have been the headlines and comment from Cyprus.

QUEEN UNDERSTANDS REPUBLICAN MOVES, SAYS P.M., reads one headline. Then follows the story which starts, "The Queen has made it clear that she could understand and accommodate Australia moving to a Republic, the Prime Minister, Mr. Keating, said yesterday."

We are sure that Her Majesty well understands that the Australian people, not Paul Keating, will decide whether or not they wish to become a Republic.

Another headline read, QUEEN BOOSTS REPUBLIC AGENDA, followed by the comment, "Prime Minister Paul Keating has seen his republican agenda boosted sky high by the Queen's effective seal of approval. Mr. Keating met again with the Queen yesterday and declared minutes later that the Queen understood and accepted the changes which were occurring."

Hopefully, Her Majesty's advisers are carefully noting that Australian public opinion polls are increasingly showing that the majority of Australians do not support the Keating Republic agenda.

WHAT GRAEME CAMPBELL SAID

The following are extracts from the highly significant, and revealing, article in the Melbourne Herald Sun referred to by David Thompson

"The Prime Minister, Mr. Paul Keating, is responsible for the debacle over Mabo, and I find it curious he was lauded by the press for the result. It is even more curious that he received a standing ovation from caucus, as many of my colleagues know the truth. Standing ovations are not good for megalomania and it was for his own good that I did not applaud the Prime Minister." ….. "I am a great advocate of social justice. I simply say that Mabo is not the mechanism for applying it. The Aboriginal industry in Australia receives $2 billion a year - $1.25 billion from the Commonwealth and about $780,000 from the States. There are 240,000 people of Aboriginal descent. On this basis, each man, woman and child receives about $7,500. If you accept five as being an average for the Aboriginal family, then every two or three years that Aboriginal family should receive enough money to buy a completely new house. Quite clearly, the money is not getting to Aboriginal people and Aboriginal people are aware of this."….. "It's been put to me (by Aboriginal communities) that this legislation will pit black against black and black against white when the Aboriginal communities believe we should all be working together"… "It should be clearly understood that what we are confronted with is not the result of the High Court judgment, but the fact that the Government has gone far beyond that judgment. The problem had its genesis at the Prime Minister's Redfern speech last year, a speech that is lauded by some as a landmark in social justice. This is absolute nonsense. The speech was a speech by a man ignorant of the subject who fell back on outpourings of guilt, a guilt that is largely historically unjustified.... I might also add the speech delivered to the white tribes at Redfern was singularly inappropriate for the great mass of Aboriginal people."

Following his historic address to the National Seminar of the League of Rights and now his open challenge to Prime Minister Paul Keating, it is clear that Graeme Campbell has emerged as a major catalyst in the rapid unfolding of the Australian political drama, which is going to produce a new political situation. His address to the Melbourne League of Rights Seminar is compulsive reading at the present time and has been republished in the October issue of The Intelligence Survey, copies of which are available from the League, Box 1052J, G.P.O., Melbourne - $2 posted. Quotes can be given for bulk supplies.

MABO DEAL BETRAYS AUSTRALIANS

by David Thompson
The High Court made its judgment and we now have the chance of legislating away the fiction of terra nullius and basing our national social policy with Aboriginal and Islander people on a truth rather than a lie." - Paul Keating (The Australian, 20/10/93).

The Prime Minister's "historic deal" on the Mabo issue has been hailed as a breakthrough that will lay the groundwork for long-term reconciliation between Aborigines and other Australians. This ignores a number of factors, including the fact that Mabo legislation is yet to be framed and passed through the Senate. But the most startling aspect of the whole Mabo compromise is that it mostly consists of an exercise in re-writing Australian history, at which Mr. Keating has become unashamedly adept.

The Prime Minister, together with a compliant press, has been able to establish the new, politically correct, proposition that the whole of Australian settlement was based upon "the fiction of terra nullius", in which "terra nullius" means that Australia as "unoccupied" at the time of European settlement. Terra nullius was thus postulated as a grossly racist doctrine, which established that so insignificant were Aboriginal interests that the indigenous people were regarded as not even existing! This is a serious misrepresentation of the truth.

The truth is that the doctrine of "terra nullius" has been misrepresented. When Australia was settled, terra nullius meant that the inhabited territories were acquired by settlement and occupation, as the inhabitants were not organised in a society that was united in a form that provided a structure for political action. That is, as Mr. Hugh Morgan, Managing Director of Western Mining, has pointed out, the inhabitants were of such a primitive state of development, that no treaty with them was possible. This condition was quite different to that in North America, or New Zealand, where treaties were possible, and were in fact established.

THE EFFECT OF THE NEW LEGISLATION

The basis of the new legislation appears to be a section of the Racial Discrimination Act, which allows "positive discrimination" towards Aborigines. That is, a form of affirmative action in favour of Aboriginal interests is being employed. The real effect of Mr. Keating's proposed legislation will be to isolate the Aboriginal people as a separate entity. That is, they are no longer simply Australians, but are set aside as a distinctive group within Australia.

Further, as some of the black activists have gleefully noted, "the Aborigines" are set aside as a group with which white Australia must negotiate. This is not a basis for constructive social policy, far less any form of 'reconciliation'. The formal, legal establishment of a "black Australia" and a "white Australia" also establishes a basis for the pursuit of the radical "Aboriginal" agenda of separate sovereign nationhood. Those who claim leadership of the Aboriginal people, like Mr. Michael Mansell, Secretary of the Provisional Aboriginal Government of Australia, will derive comfort from this Mabo compromise.

WHAT OF THE ABORIGINAL PEOPLE?

The Mabo negotiations have been carried out with Aboriginal "representatives" who claim leadership of the Aboriginal people. However, many rural Aboriginal groups reject such "representation", especially when it involves setting Aborigines apart from other Australians. In a major article published in The Herald-Sun (25/10/93) entitled "OUR MABO DEBACLE", Mr. Graeme Campbell, Member for Kalgoorlie, disputes the "success" of his Prime Minister's Mabo deal. Campbell argues that the new legislation will set black against black, as fighting between Aborigines over who is entitled to represent them, and who is entitled to parcels of "Aboriginal" land. The truth is that the genuine Aboriginal people have been used to further a revolutionary programme, which should now begin to emerge.

GIVE CREDIT WHERE IT'S DUE

from The Australian, October 22nd
Over the past couple of months, the two Green Senators from Western Australia have been subjected to much media abuse. At this time of their triumph, I should record some facts about them for their critics who shall remain nameless.
"In your attempted denigration of them, you commentators have described Christabel Chamarette as 'an appointed senator', while Dee Margetts is described as 'representing 5.5 percent of the Western Australian Senate vote and elected only on Labor Party preferences'. "On March 24, 1990, Jo Valentine was elected as a Green Senator. She resigned her seat in January 1992. In a quota preferential electoral system, the question arises as to how vacancies should be filled. Under the original such system, Hare-Clark in Tasmania, the quota of first preference votes electing the original person are recounted for second preference. If that were done in respect of the quota of votes which had elected Valentine, there is no doubt the second W.A. Green candidate of 1990, Christabel Bridge, would have been elected. "However, because the Senate is the State's house, such vacancies are filled by choice of the State Parliament. In March 1992, they chose the same Christabel Bridge who had, in the interim, reverted to her maiden name of Chamarette. "You can call her an 'appointed senator' if you like technically that is correct. However, I insist on the spirit of these things. Chamarette is an elected senator from Western Australia.

"At the Senate election on March 13, 1993, Dee Margetts polled 53,211 first preference votes in W.A. While it is true the vote was 5.5% of the total formal vote of 975,772, it is not true she was elected on Labor Party preferences. "The 1993 Western Australian Senate vote was exceptionally good for the Liberals, who easily won three seats compared with only two for Labor. The contest for the sixth place appeared to be between the fourth Liberal (Maurice Brockwell) and the third Labor candidate (Mark Bishop). At the critical stage of the count, however, Bishop (A.L.P.) had 94,687 votes, Brockwell (Liberal) had 80,554, Margetts (Green) had 58,398, and Jean Jenkins (Democrat) 44,948. The exclusion of Jenkins saw Margetts gain enough Democrat preferences to overtake Brockwell, who was then excluded. In the final count Margetts had 170,661 votes, Bishop 107,827. "Margetts did not need Labor preferences - she defeated Labor on the preferences of excluded Democrat and Liberal candidates." (Malcolm Mackerras, Campbell, A.C.T.)

SOLUTIONS INSTEAD OF SANCTIMONY

from The Australian, October 25th
It is amazing how uninformed the supposed elite of our community can be. "I refer to the petition in the Letter to Editors section (14/10) calling upon the Government to proceed with caution in relation to the Mabo issue. "The statement that 'the decision will have an extremely limited effect on existing titles and land management' is wrong and is typical of Eastern States residents expressing their points of view on this issue. "The land management debate is the central cause of dispute, certainly in Western Australia, and at threat is the very basis of State sovereignty over land management.

"The confusion to the debate is the incorporation of social justice and the reconciliation process. Issues, which are not the basis of the High Court decision, as your writers infer. "It is all very well to request 'justice and equity' but what solutions were suggested by the paternalism of your contributors? None. "Do they reflect upon the importance of land, title security for investment into Australia? If they do, how do they propose supplying it? "Do they understand that title provided after 1975 is at risk of losing security - how will they solve this?

"The easiest solution for the bourgeois elite is to take the high ground and criticise those who are seeking solutions. "It goes without saying that Australia is a broad diverse large country and the centralisation of social consciousness does not lie in Sydney or Melbourne but can be seen everywhere, even in Derby, but it seems ignorance of reality can. "Instead of providing a wishful perspective to the Mabo debate perhaps your contributors should provide solutions that solve this complex issue for all those parties concerned." (Marie Vernon, Duncraig, W.A.)