THE COLLAPSING NEW WORLD ORDER

According to the economic soothsayers, the world is doomed unless the major industrialised nations of the world can agree to the free trade proposals being advanced through the current General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) negotiations. December 15th is the deadline. It is stated that unless the GATT proposals are agreed to, the world will be shattered by a growing trade war, with the major nations forming blocs behind tariff and other protective walls.

Already, of course, these blocs are forming, with the European Common Market, the Clinton Administration attempting to force the development of the North American Free Trade Agreement, to encompass the USA, Canada and Mexico, while now the first steps are being attempted to create an Asian Common Market, a concept enthusiastically endorsed by Australia's Prime Minister Mr. Paul Keating.

The most astonishing aspect of the grandiose programme to establish Free Trade on a global basis, is that the first major step towards the much publicised New World Order, the attempted creation of some type of United States of Europe, is experiencing major internal conflict at the very moment it is being claimed that with the Maastricht Treaty, it has taken a major step forward. Every day brings reports of a growing fear throughout Europe that Germany will once again be used as the tool of a centralised power destroying the sovereignty of the member States of the EEC. Anti-German feeling is growing throughout France.

There is little doubt that the Canadian Conservative Party's support for the North American Free Trade Agreement was a major factor in its recent crushing electoral defeat, while in the USA President Clinton is faced with the formidable task of persuading Congress to agree to the NAFTA. Mounting opposition comes from right across the political spectrum. President Clinton is hoping that the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in Seattle will provide a last minute boost for the GATT trade talks, this in turn assisting him to persuade Americans to accept the view that the North American Free Trade Agreement is part of an on going global programme of expanding Free Trade.

But not only are the French peasants bitterly refusing to be sacrificed as part of the global programme, but right around the world there is growing resistance from groups who see their future threatened. Japanese rice growers are resorting to the same type of violent tactics as their French counterparts. The state of the Japanese economy grows worse by the day. Japanese car manufacturers are resorting to amalgamations in an attempt to grapple with debt problems. Unemployment is at a record post Second World War high, as it is in Western Europe and the USA. However, in the face of the disasters their own policies have produced, the authors insist that in the Free Trade of their project New World Order, world prosperity will develop.

As C.H. Douglas demonstrated over 70 years ago, every industrialised nation is faced with the problem of how to distribute all its production when it distributes inadequate purchasing power. Debt finance is only a temporary opiate, which does not remove the basic problem. "Rationalising" domestic industries destroys smaller industries, but does not increase purchasing power. Organising nations into Common Markets does not overcome the lack of total purchasing power. No type of a World State can be created because of growing social disintegration inside every nation. A permanent high unemployment rate is the certain breeding ground for revolution. This is what threatens the world today. Only a correction to the current debt financial policy can avoid growing disasters. Every step towards more attempted centralisation possesses the seeds of ultimate collapse.

BRIEF COMMENTS

As we go to press, the New Zealand election results have not been finalised, but the overall result is quite clear: New Zealand electors have overwhelmingly rejected "economic rationalism". Approximately one-third of the New Zealand electors voted for the minor parties. Even if the Bolger Nationalists survive with a slim majority (which is far from certain) there are three of its members who have crossed the floor before and who promise to do so again if policies are introduced they do not like. Even more interesting than the election results are the reactions of the gurus of internationalism who have been loud in their charges that the New Zealand electors have made a disastrous decision. These charges suggest that in fact the New Zealand electors have made a very sound decision, one, which Australian electors well might heed.

Once again Professor Geoffrey Blainey has served Australia well by highlighting the far reaching and revolutionary implications of the High Court's Mabo decision. Pointing out that while he had always been an advocate of land rights, the difficult question was not whether to award land, but how much to award and on what terms. Professor Blainey has suggested that Australians are being rushed into new legislation concerning Aboriginal land rights without assessing what have been the results of the extensive land rights already granted to Australians of Aboriginal background. In his book, Healing a Divided Nation, the Rev. Cedric Jacobs, both of whose parents were tribal Aborigines, argues that only private ownership of land would make it possible for Australians of Aboriginal background to make genuine advancements.

Russian leader Boris Yeltsin is no saint, but reality demands that the West attempts to help prop him up, if this is possible, because of the alternatives, which threaten. The media generally have made little reference to the views of nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinosky, who ran third in the 1991 Russian Presidential election, polling more than six million votes. Asked during the presidential election how he proposed to feed his vast nation, he replied, "Very simply. I'll move the troops, about 1.5 million strong, into the former GDR, rattle my nuclear sabers, and they'll give me everything." Zhirinosky said that if necessary nuclear weapons could be used against Western capital. Desperate conditions in Russia are resulting in growing support for Zhirinosky. The only other alternative to Yeltsin is the centre right group, "the whites", with whom the great Solzhenitsyn is identified. In a recent French TV interview, Solzhenitsyn said, "Green shoots are pushing up again through the waste. There is hope." But he says that when he returns to Russia next year, "I may be prevented from speaking on television, because the members of the nomenclature whose hands are blood stained, are still there."

CAN THE FEDERATION SURVIVE?

The former Chief Justice of the High Court, Sir Harry Gibbs, has confirmed, in a public address, that the Australian federation is in very serious trouble. He said that claims by Aborigines and Torres Strait islanders for sovereignty over huge areas of Australia meant the prospect of the dissolution of the federation was greatly increased.

Delivering the 16th Annual Sir Robert Menzies Lecture at Monash University in Melbourne, Sir Harry warned that the prospect of a State composed only of indigenous people over which some other power ''could gain influence'' could be disastrous for the future of Australia.

While there is little that we didn't previously know in Sir Harry's address, it is highly significant that a former senior, most conservative chief justice of the High Court should publicly warn of such matters. So far, it has only been "extremists" like the League of Rights that have referred to the matter of Aboriginal sovereignty. Although Sir Harry appears to have been careful not to say so, this position of the federation has largely been produced by the judgments of the High Court - mainly since he left it - like the Mabo judgment.

THE CONSTITUTION UNDERMINED

Speaking on "Federalism in Australia", Sir Harry Gibbs has also confirmed that the Constitution has been so badly eroded that the Commonwealth can virtually do as it likes, and the States have lost all legal independence. Referring to the external affairs power, he said: "The States are no longer autonomous within any area of legislative power; potentially the Executive Government of the Commonwealth, by entering into a treaty, can give the Commonwealth Parliament power to legislate in any field. The Commonwealth can thus not only impair the legal autonomy of the States in any area apparently left to them by the Commonwealth, it can completely annihilate such power. There will be no legislative power, which can be said to be beyond all possible argument outside the Commonwealth power. The consequences of this simply mean that there are no legal limits to the power of the Commonwealth; the elected dictatorship is complete.

Sir Harry concluded: "There are still practical limits caused by the political influence of States and the force of public opinion. Federalism in Australia at present therefore appears to have a political rather than a legal basis."

Clearly the Constitution needs reforming on the question of the external affairs power, but Sir Harry is pessimistic about the prospect of this. The only obvious answer is to find ways for the electorate to recapture the initiative to impose its sovereignty through referendum.

MABO AND RECONCILIATION

Any public figure seeking to comment on the Mabo/Aboriginal issue at present runs enormous risks from the new political "thought-police". The immediate reason for this is the Prime Minister's determination to rain his Mabo legislation through the Parliament quickly. No opposition will be brooked. One journalist commented: "Seldom has political correctness been established so quickly or violently as it has been on Mabo. Anybody disagreeing with the Prime Minister's policy even before it is formed, is reviled by him." Professor Blainey is a recent witness to this.

The truth is that Mr. Keating's Mabo legislation is doomed before it is introduced if it is designed to address the question of reconciliation. There is even deep division about "Mabo" among the Aborigines, and abrasive jealousies among the "Aboriginal industry": Paul Coe of the radical NSW Aboriginal Legal Service, and Charles Perkins have both condemned the spokesmen for the Aborigines for an "apparent conspiracy" to negotiate away the "rights" of other Aborigines. They reject the proposed legislation in total, because they have not been consulted. "We have 95% of Aboriginal people, whose rights are going to be destroyed, who haven't been consulted and who have not consented to anyone else speaking for them," they said.

The problem goes much deeper than this. The Keating attempt at reconciliation is doomed because the High Court's Mabo decision itself is fatally flawed. It is politically unacceptable to say so, but this is the case. It has been neatly summed up by columnist Padraic McGuinness in The Weekend Australia, in which he used robust language:
"To put it bluntly, a majority of the High Court in the Mabo case simply did not know what they were talking about... What does appear from this judgment is that some of the judges, at least, are convinced of a view of the history of white settlement in Australia which has been established mainly by propagandist historians desperately re-writing the past in order to gain control of the present..."

As Professor Blainey has pointed out, the basis for the Court's judgment - white hegemony - is historically perverted. The perception that the propagandists have "won" in the High Court, and are now prepared to resort to abuse to silence objections and prevent any discussion. This is no basis for reconciliation, but for further divisions and resentments. The best Mr. Keating can hope to do is to paper over the cracks with his legislation. The problem could be left to fester until, suppressed and swept under the legislative carpet, it simply explodes. All Australians will be the losers.

FREEDOM OF HISTORY AT RISK

TERRY McCRANN ON MABO

THIS MAY BE POINTER

A CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY

from The Office of the Governor-General by the late Sir Paul Hasluck (former Governor General of Australia)

In a constitutional monarchy, the acts done by the monarch in the name of the monarch are done in accordance with the Constitution, and on the advice of Ministers, not by the self-will of the monarch. One great difference between a constitutional monarchy and the presidential system as understood in such a nation as the United States of America is that while a President, being elected from time to time, is also the head of a political party, the Queen is above party, and outside politics.

Both a Queen and a President have to act according to the Constitution, but the Queen has no other obligations to any other source of power or influence, nor does she owe her position to the support of any group or party. Another difference is that, while a presidential head of state is directly and personally involved in political controversy, the Crown, being outside politics, attracts the same loyalty from all subjects all the time and stands for those matters on which the nation is undivided. Perhaps this is best expressed by the convention that the party or parties out of office are referred to as Her Majesty's Opposition, just as those in office are referred to as her Majesty's Government.

It is also expressed by the fact that persons who take oaths of office, whether as Ministers, judges, members of parliament, public servants, sailors, soldiers, and airmen or citizens undertaking public duties, pledge their loyalty to the Queen, that is to someone who stands for the whole nation. They do not pledge themselves just to serve the government of the day; they pledge themselves to serve the Queen, who stands for the whole nation.

Political parties may rise or fall but the duty to the nation remains and there is no need to change all office holders every time a ministry changes. "These facts are seen as advantages over the presidential system."

A Parliamentary Democracy

In a parliamentary democracy, parliaments are formed as the result of elections in which all the adult citizens take part. The Government is formed by the party, which has the support of a majority of members in the popular House of Parliament, and the Ministers are responsible to Parliament - that is they have to gain and keep the support of Parliament for what they do. Combining the ideas of a constitutional monarchy and of a parliamentary democracy, we have as head of state a Queen, who is herself above party and outside politics. The actions of government done in her name are done by Ministers or on the advice of Ministers who have the support of a majority in Parliament. We have a people who express their will at elections and, as a result of those elections, they decide who shall be ministers who advise the Queen or who act in the name of the Queen..."