CAN WE TRUST THOSE "ASIAN TIGERS"

by Eric D. Butler
As Australians and New Zealanders have been told for many years, ever since the end of World War II, that they have an "Asian destiny", as a New Year dawns it is perhaps appropriate to recall one piece of advice by the famous Chinese sage Confucius, who said that it was no use running even harder if you are already on the wrong road. Western nations, including the U.S.A., have been on the wrong road for most of this violent century.

The great Roman Civilisation took hundreds of years to die. Western Civilisation reached its peak at the dawn of the present century. All the signs indicate that it will be dead by the end of the century. The guns had hardly stopped smoking from the first major disaster of what has become an increasingly violent century, when the genius C.H. Douglas, a product of the best of Western Civilisation, predicted that unless there was a change to the finance economic policies which were the basic cause of the First World War, Western Civilisation was faced with one convulsion after another as it went the same way as the Roman Civilisation.

He demonstrated that it was mathematically impossible to operate an economic system with social stability if a system of debt finance was continued in an attempt to provide "full employment" and "growth". Continuous monetary inflation was inevitable.

Consider the state of the world today. The business section of The Australian of January 13th carries the headline, U.S. INFLATION JITTERS TO RESTRAIN TRADING. The article which followed states,
"Warnings about an overheating U.S. economy and the inflation demon will ensure local financial markets have a jittery start to this week when they open this morning".

The disasters, which have convulsed Western nations, are certain to be repeated as the Asian nations follow the same policies. The first "Asian Tiger" was Japan, resurrected after a disastrous military defeat by the very nation that defeated it. American technology was freely made available, and financed by International Finance. The programme helped to sustain the American economy.

For a period the hardworking and disciplined Japanese were regarded as a great economic success story. But to sustain their programme, the Japanese had to develop a massive export programme. This inevitably brought them into a growing trade conflict with the U.S.A.

A headline in The Age business section of January 13th reads, JITTER OVER U.S. AND JAPAN. There is fear that the state of the American economy seriously threatens the massive Japanese investments in the U.S.A. The Japanese economic success story has suffered a bad setback in recent months with desperate measures being taken in an attempt to lift the Japanese economy out of depression conditions.

The Australian of January 8th headlines an interview between ex-Japanese Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa and Greg Sheridan, TOKYO TEETERS INTO A CALM BEFORE THE STORM.

The writer predicted years ago that if the Japanese continued running harder on the road they were on, there would be increasing convulsions ahead. People who should have known better kept holding Japan up as the economic success story Australians should seek to emulate.

The second "Asian Tiger" to emerge, also financed by International Finance, was South Korea. It was assisted also with Western and Japanese technology. There was yet another "economic miracle". But as was inevitable, the restrictive financial policies, which the Koreans imposed in an attempt to prevent excessive inflation, have resulted in the current industrial unrest with police using tear gas in an attempt to force workers to accept government policies. The reality is that at present every "Asian Tiger" is in trouble as it tries to run harder on a disaster road.

The biggest "Asian Tiger", China, originally also financed by International Finance and supported by imported technology, much of it from Japan and South Korea as well as Western nations, is increasingly regarded with apprehension by fellow Asian nations. The Chinese are geared to the same philosophy of "export or perish" as other "tigers" are aware that China is rapidly building one of the world's biggest military forces.

Harmony between the "Asian Tigers" is an impossibility while they adhere to the very policies, which have ruined Western nations and brought them into conflict with one another. If Australia had any statesmen instead of shallow shortsighted party politicians, they would be taking careful note of what is happening, and likely to happen in Asia, and make every attempt to ensure that Australia develops complete economic independence.

Instead of reducing expenditure on defence, as the Howard Government is doing as part of its "cost saving" exercises, Australia's defence capacity should increase, this helping to stimulate the nation's industrial base. Instead of trying to compete with "Asian Tigers", which are protecting their own industries with adequate measures, Australia should be doing likewise, always making it clear that it was willing to engage in trading programmes, which were mutually beneficial.
Australia is earning no respect in Asia by falling over backwards to reduce the protection of Australian industries.

From an international perspective, the feverish growth of the "Asian Tigers" merely increases global instability as the international power groups desperately try to make the unworkable work by progressively centralising power on a global scale. There are speculations that Russia and China may seek to build a closer alliance in an attempt to curb what is perceived to be the expansion of American imperialism. The Russian situation merely adds to the growing global tensions.

It is no secret that a "reformed" Soviet Union has been taken over by the former Communist operators, now known as Social Democrats. The last Russian elections were a gigantic fraud, with the International Bankers openly insisting that another "reformed" Communist, Yeltsin, must be re-elected. Adequate finance was provided to achieve the required result. The International Bankers, through their numerous stooges, have been looting Russia of vast natural resources. Not surprisingly the oppressed Russians are becoming increasingly restive.

As the world moves towards the end of the century, it is much more dangerously unstable than ever before. Australia's biggest problems are internal, and it can only come to grips with these by breaking free from nonsense about its "Asian destiny".

The headlines read that Treasurer Costello's "Budget forecasts start to look shaky". What is new? The Howard Government can only preside over increasing social unrest as it clings to the myth that the solution to Australia's problems can only be found in Asia. It was said a long time ago about the eyes of the fool being on the ends of the earth.

One of the first basic requirements are economic policies, which provide Australia's young with some faith in the future. Unless this is achieved, Australia could be faced with the type of social unrest now sweeping every nation, including the much-publicised "Asian Tigers".

FISCHER BLUNDERS ON REPUBLIC

by David Thompson
The most charitable assessment of Acting Prime Minister Tim Fischer's holiday statement on the National Party's "fall-back" position on a republic is that it was a massive blunder. A less charitable assessment is that Mr. Fischer is "feeling the water" for a betrayal of the Monarchy by the Nationals. He must have known that in a holiday period, when "hard news" is a little scarce, when he was Acting Prime Minister during the Queen's New Year's honours period, his statement would receive the most widespread coverage, and considerable sympathetic attention from the republicans.

Mr. Fischer continues to weaken the leadership of the National Party with statements such as that on the republic. His stocks are already low following his capitulation on the question of firearms, where the Liberals, particularly Mr. Howard, were seen to be leading the Nationals by the nose. Rather than seek a politically acceptable compromise position on the Monarchy, Fischer could have made a considerable virtue of standing his ground on the issue.

In an environment where the Liberals become less and less of a "conservative" political party, and more and more likely to betray the Monarchy (many have done so already) the National Party needs a viable issue on which to distinguish itself thoroughly from the Liberals. Why bother to exist otherwise? Support for the Crown is the perfect issue for the nationals to stake their claim to a reason for existence.

If the question of abandoning the Monarchy ever does come to a constitutional referendum, Fischer knows full well that constitutional referenda are notoriously difficult to win. He also knows that such referenda are very much easier to win when there is "bipartisan" political support for the measure proposed. That is, when all major political parties declare support for a constitutional change, there is every chance of it being passed by a majority of people in a majority of States. However, where one major party campaigns vigorously against a new change, the chances of it being accepted are diminished.

By even contemplating abandoning the Crown, Fischer makes considerable concessions to the republican cause. The practical shortcomings of Fischer's proposal, that the Chief Justice of the High Court should be responsible for appointing the Governor General as Head of State, cast Fischer in an even more difficult light. Is he simply casting about for any alternative simply for the sake of having an alternative? Such a "minimalist" suggestion risks the charge that Fischer is prepared to politicise the office of Chief Justice. But perhaps more importantly, he ignores the clamour from the majority of those who would be prepared to abandon the Crown for a democratic selection process for choosing a head of state. If he is prepared to ignore this, then why not scorn the call for a republic completely?

The National Party would generate much more respect, and probably political support, if they made it clear that they are prepared to defy political correctness and support the Crown as a matter of conviction, because they know it is a better system of government. If the Nationals were prepared to go to the trenches for something of enduring value, they may yet be able to re-establish themselves, rather than simply an unnecessary appendage of the Liberal Party.

DUKE OF EDINBURGH ON FIREARMS

Comments by Prince Phillip in a radio interview on the question of firearms before Christmas were condemned by the press as being offensive, and led to an apology on the Duke's behalf. However, little attention was given by the press to three surveys which were taken after the Duke's comments were aired, which showed strong agreement with his views.

Prince Phillip had said, "If a cricketer for instance, suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, which he could do very easily - I mean, are we going to ban cricket bats?" The results of the surveys were dismissed by the press as being "rigged by the gun lobby", with little apparent concession to the unlikelihood of all three surveys being rigged.

On the available evidence, it would appear that the British press has campaigned very strongly for the banning of as many firearms as possible in the U.K. This would reflect the Australian experience where, almost without exception, the press united in support of Mr. Howard's firearms restrictions, or even more draconian firearms bans.

It is interesting to note that in Australia the statistics suggest that rather than minimise the number of firearms in the community, the new restrictions are leading to better firearms sales than ever. Gun retailers report that many of those who are handing in firearms are using their compensation payments to replace old, worn firearms with new weapons.

IMMIGRATION POLICY SUBVERTED

Cabinet documents declassified after 30 years confirm that the Australian immigration policy was changed by subversion, rather than by conscious intention. The 1966 papers record the decisions of the Holt Cabinet in a period when immigration policy began to shift from the "White Australia" policy, to a less restricted policy.
Under Immigration Minister Sir Hubert Opperman, Cabinet was urged to lift some of the restrictions to non-European immigrants. Opperman had asked Sir Robert Menzies' Cabinet for similar changes only a few years previously, and been rejected.

The Opperman submission said, in part: "Australia's restricted immigration policy with respect to the admission of non-Europeans for residence is based on the need to maintain a predominantly and socially homogenous population… the fundamental soundness of a policy directed towards social homogeneity is not in question." (Emphasis ours)

Indeed, the reason why Cabinet was adamant that the objective of homogeneity was to be maintained was stressed in Parliament after the changes were announced: public opinion would not have tolerated any such change. It is clear, in the absence of any firm indication that public opinion has changed since then, that the immigration policy was subverted. It appears that Cabinet was influenced by a strongly worded note from a deputy secretary of the Prime Minister's Department, Sir Peter Lawler, who urged that non-European immigrants be "kept to an absolute minimum".

The Cabinet note of the decision for a relaxation of the immigrant criteria says: "The Cabinet wished it to be clear... that the basic principles of Australia's immigration policy are not in question, and that no reduction of those principles in any policy sense is intended. It follows that the changes now approved should not be the means of giving rise to new admissions of non-Europeans in large numbers."

Why, then, did the immigration policy unravel as seriously as it has? Having begun to retreat on the question of a restricted immigration policy, politicians (particularly Coalition politicians after Menzies) found it impossible to draw a halt to that retreat.

Sir Hubert Opperman is recorded as proposing that the admission of non-Europeans "as immigrants in limited numbers would depend upon their ability to integrate into the community, their general suitability for settlement…" etc. (All emphasis added).

Those who have studied the Cabinet documents concede that it is obvious that non-Europeans were not being accorded the same entry status as Europeans. But non-European migrants were to be accepted according to the Minister's discretion. In retrospect, this was a major mistake, as successive Ministers were drawn into damaging debates concerning the merits of some of their exclusions, until it became impossible to exclude almost anyone on any basis.

Even Opperman seemed to concede that it was unlikely that administrative difficulties or controversy in certain cases could be avoided. All such controversies were skillfully exploited by such groups as the Immigration Reform Association, until the Whitlam administration was able to formalise what had become a defacto "open-door" immigration policy.

For a more complete picture of the subversion of the Australian immigration policy, obtain a copy of the tape The Grand Plan: Asianisation of Australia, by Denis McCormack, researcher for Australia First. $6.00 posted from all League book services.

MALCOLM FRASER AND AN UNPUBLISHED LETTER

The Australian, Rupert Murdoch's national daily, of December 18th, carried an extraordinary article "How Extremists Can Be Countered", by former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. Fraser said that the League of Rights' leaders were "skilled tacticians" and he was afraid that they might manipulate a Hanson minority in the Senate.

Advisory National Director Eric Butler submitted the following letter to The Australian on December 18th. It was resubmitted the following week. After a conversation with the editor responsible for The Australian section in which Fraser's article appeared, National Director David Thompson submitted a short article for publication. The Australian has ignored both Eric Butler's letter and David Thompson's article. For the record, the following is the text of Eric Butler's letter:

"Sir, "Malcolm Fraser appears to be suffering from a nightmare concerning the Australian League of Rights ('How extremists can be countered', 18/12). "He paints a scenario of the League of Rights manipulating a Pauline Hanson minority with the balance of power in the Senate. He writes, 'It is not therefore the simple exposure of Hanson's views that we need to examine but the policies and attitudes long and consistently expressed by the League of Rights.' Unfortunately Mr. Fraser does not outline those policies.
"For the record, no League of Rights official has made any attempt to meet Pauline Hanson or to offer her any advice. As a service movement, the League generally does not offer advice unless it is requested. The League's views are expressed through its journals, which are freely available to those who wish to subscribe.
"Broadly speaking the League agrees with the views and policies as outlined by Pauline Hanson in her maiden parliamentary address and believes that it is the national interest that it should be distributed as widely as possible. I have no idea what Pauline Hanson's political agenda may be. But the establishment of a new political movement to contest Senate seats at the next elections would require a sophisticated organisation and large sums of money. In keeping with its long established policy, the League will assess all new parties or groups of political candidates on their merits and policies.
"In response to Malcolm Fraser's claim that Robert Menzies 'advised me not to have anything to do with the League of Rights because it was an extreme right-wing group with attitudes on race similar to right-wing parties in Europe'. I find this a strange claim as the strongly pro-British immigration policy of the League of Rights was a reflection of Menzies' own views. Several members of the first Menzies Cabinet, following the 1949 elections, including the Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Fadden and Minister for Defence Townley, were friends of mine. I had discussed with Fadden the famous 1949 election policy 'To put the shillings back into the pound' by restoring the consumer price discounts used with such success during and after the Second World War.
"Malcolm Fraser may recall that he discussed this question during a lengthy luncheon meeting he had with me with mutual Victorian Western District friends when he was planning to take control of the Liberal Party from Sir Billy Snedden. Presumably he had forgotten the alleged Menzies warning when he was seeking political support!
"As the League of Rights supports the preservation and strengthening of the Federal system of government, with the maximum decentralisation of power, and the natural right of the Australian people to have an effective say in the composition of its nation, how can it be logically described as 'extremist'. Genuine freedom requires the right to discriminate." - Eric Bulter

FISCHER'S RIGHT ROYAL BETRAYAL

Remaining National Party supporters should consider writing to Party leader Tim Fischer, and pointing out that he should declare his hand on the question of the Monarchy. His statement that the Chief Justice of the High Court could replace the Governor General in the event of Australians deciding that they preferred a republic was either a serious tactical blunder, or a signal that the Nationals under his leadership would be quite prepared to turn their coats if there could be political capital in supporting a republic.

Shooters have still not forgotten Fischer's betrayal of their interests on the question of nationwide firearms legislation, particularly his suggestion while in Washington that unless shooters settled for the Howard ultimatum on firearms, the Commonwealth might push through even more savage legislation.

As yet the Nationals have not felt the full wrath of the electorate on the shooting issue, particularly in Queensland, where the State National Party could suffer seriously. Yet another betrayal of conservative interests on the magnitude of the Monarchy would see the Nationals cease to exist as a conservative force.

PHILLIP ADAMS ON DAVID IRVING

In an extraordinary Weekend Australian (4/1/97) television review column, Phillip Adams has suggested that Australians should read David Irving's book Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich. In a column headed "Let's not put a gag on history", Adams notes that he expects to be condemned, "not for the first time" as an Irving apologist. Adams notes that he is "one of the few Australians who has been allowed to meet and talk with him" (Irving), which is a clear reference to the latest refusal by the Coalition of a visa for Irving to come to Australia.
Adams, however, does attempt to "cover" himself a little, by claiming that Irving has argued that "the Holocaust is some sort of political mirage", which Irving has never done. In fact, for all his virtuous claim to supporting freedom of speech, even Adams misrepresents Irving's views, and falsifies the historical record concerning Irving's stated position on "the Holocaust".

It might be noted that Adams- perhaps unconsciously - "positions" himself in the scheme of things by referring to the holocaust in the present tense ("is") rather than the past tense ("was").

Despite several rather tortuous disclaimers, Adams offers Irving credit for his work as an historian, writing, "only fools would deny that his first book, The Destruction of Dresden, didn't lead to closer scrutiny of one of Churchill's stranger decisions. Nobody knows the German archives better than Irving…" Adams then reiterates his opposition to banning Irving from visiting Australia, and condemned the decision of St. Martin's Press to withdraw from its contract to publish Goebbels.

Adams sets himself up, perhaps consciously, for a broadside from Zionist thought-police when he deals with the Goebbels book. He wrote, "The new book on Goebbels is an indispensable text for anyone wanting to understand Nazism." He accepts Irving's thesis that Goebbels was the Third Reich's most virulent anti-Semite, an epithet so far universally reserved for Hitler as the ultimate in evil.

VOTERS VETO PETITION FOR QUEENSLAND PARLIAMENT

Independent Member for Gladstone Liz Cunningham will present a Petition from 35,000 Queenslanders to the next session of State Parliament seeking the introduction of Voters' Veto into the Queensland Constitution. Organiser of the Petition, Mrs. Dawn Brown of Ingham, said signatures had come from all parts of the State. The limiting factor had been reaching people. With no structured organisation behind the collection of signatures, there had nevertheless been an enthusiastic response wherever volunteers had contacted the public.

Voters' veto, the major part of a programme called Citizens' Initiative and Referendum, would allow Queenslanders to veto existing or proposed State or Local Government laws and regulations. Under the process, a required number of signatures on a petition about an existing or proposed law would force the Government, or the Local Authority concerned, to hold a referendum and be bound by the result.

Mrs. Brown said letters and phone calls from all over Queensland showed wide dissatisfaction with Government decisions and regulations. Many were disturbed by the endless process of bureaucratic intrusion into privacy and the difficult maze of restrictions facing families, producers, businesses and workers. The costs were, in many cases, exorbitant. Local Authorities were becoming unpaid administrators for central planners hopelessly out of touch with local communities.

Mrs. Brown claimed many now felt extra checks and balances on governments, in the hands of the community, were necessary. Many social issues - immigration, firearms legislation, multiculturalism, globalism, economic rationalism, law and order, taxation and many others - showed a widening gulf between community aspirations and government programmes. She said the only safeguard in a free society was the assurance that government truly represented the will of the people. Voters' Veto was a mechanism well tried in other parts of the world to place a check on irresponsible government.

In a Press Statement Mrs. Brown said a number of Government leaders had indicated their personal support for the right of citizens to hold binding referendums. In 1994 a nationwide Conference had been held in Canberra's old Parliament House, under the auspices of current Industrial Relations Minister Peter Reith. Speakers had included Queensland Police Minister Russell Cooper and Federal Member Bill Taylor - who was a signatory to the current Petition. Mr. Cooper had given strong support to the idea of binding citizens' referendums, and claimed the whole parliamentary wing of the National Party had at one stage endorsed the idea. "But at that time the Nationals were in opposition," Mrs. Brown said. "Will they stick by their principles now they are in government?"

Mrs. Brown said the presentation of the 35,000 signatures to Parliament did not mean the end of the project. "The vast majority of Queenslanders have not heard of the Petition, and have not had a chance to add their endorsement. We will continue to collect signatures as the news spreads, and make additional presentations to Parliament."

Those wanting information or involvement in the Voters' Veto Petition should contact
Mrs. Dawn Brown, M/S 154, Ingham, 4850 (Phone/Fax [077] 774 105).