ROBBING THE NATION OF ITS SOUL

by Eric D. Butler
The soul of a nation is encompassed in intangibles. The question was asked a long time ago how could it profit a man if he gained the whole world and lost his soul. In today's mass society what is called success is measured by material achievements. Victoria's Jeff Kennett constantly talks in clichés about "moving with the times" and staging more equivalents of a Grand Prix. Not surprisingly, Jeff Kennett was in advertising before he went into politics.

The Victorian Premier has long been a fervent exponent of multiculturalism, which like others of his kind he insists "enriches" the nation. His latest contribution to the multicultural mania is not only to appoint a State Governor who has a long record of advocating multiculturalism, but is prepared to allow himself to be used by the Premier as a type of super salesman for investments in Victoria. Sir James Gobbo is of Italian background and after practising as a lawyer eventually became a member of the Victorian Supreme Court.

As one who has travelled extensively, I can say that I have met a number of distinguished jurists of non-English backgrounds who were fervent exponents of the values of the British heritage of Common Law and the value of Constitutional Monarchy. Sir Roy Welensky, former Prime Minister of the Central African Federation before its break up, told me at a London interview I had with him in 1963, that although he did not have one drop of British blood in his veins, his father being a Polish Jew and his mother Afrikaans, he was an enthusiastic admirer of everything British and the civilising effect it had on a nation.

There is such a thing as a distinctive British culture, which has flourished, in all parts of the old British Crown Commonwealth. Aspects of that culture still remain in parts of the U.S.A., particularly in the Deep South. There is no evidence that Sir James has absorbed much of that culture and, as revealed by Denis McCormack in his address at the Australia First Heidelberg Rally last Sunday, Sir James was actively associated with those groups seeking to undermine the traditional Australian immigration policy, a policy that while basically economic, also sought to foster a homogeneous society. The very tolerance, which we are hearing so much about from the multiculturalists, was a feature of a culture, which enabled people of non-British backgrounds to become accepted into the mainstream of the traditional way of life in Australia.

A study of the media over the Australia Day weekend provides graphic evidence of how far the technique of mass conditioning has gone to tear Australians from their cultural roots. Much of what has been said is a manifestation of how far the rot has gone. Self-styled academics utter the most shallow and absurd nonsense. We are told that the Monarchy is no longer "relevant". The Queen is a "foreigner" and we must have an Australian Head of State.

Before this type of statement is blindly accepted, it might be of advantage to have a look at the American Republican system, where the current Head of State Bill Clinton was elected in an election in which the majority did not feel it worth even voting, with Clinton fighting desperately to ensure that he does not have to face serious criminal charges. And there is the spectacle of the Speaker in Congress, a Republican, being found guilty of the most serious misconduct and heavily fined. The much-maligned members of the Royal Family look like paragons of virtue compared with what has happened in the U.S.A.

Running through the whole of the controversy concerning the Monarchy, multiculturalism and the absurd talk about "reconciliation" is a deep anti-British undertone. The "wicked" British allegedly "brutally" dispossessed the Aboriginals and are responsible for their plight. It is almost mind boggling to see Australians of part Aboriginal background wearing European-style clothes, driving modern motorcars while talking about how they have been robbed of their culture.

How Australia Day should be celebrated is a question which can only be decided by accepting a fact of history: that Captain Philips with a small group of convicts, guards and administrators, raised the British flag at Botany Bay on January 26th, 1788. The birth of what developed into a British nation in the southern seas was not perhaps a very spectacular affair compared, for example, with the American Revolution. But it was a birth, which, like the planting of a small seed, had the potential for a development into a nation with a proud record of achievements, not only material, but of the spirit.

Australia Day should not only be a birthday but a time when we recall with proper pride what has been achieved before the present era of knockers and subversives. If we are to turn our backs on everything associated with Britain, then it is only logical that the present flag should be hauled down. And then do we turn our backs on the noble English language in our frantic efforts to prove to that great abstraction called "the international community", that at last we are truly "independent".

REPUBLICAN MYOPIA ON "INDEPENDENCE"

by David Thompson
The celebration of Australia Day in 1997 seems to have been dominated by the popular wisdom that a republic "is inevitable", and that "an Australian Head of State" would complete the establishment of an international image of an "Independent Australia". For some reason this seems to be urgently necessary before the year 2000, in order to coincide with the Olympic Games. But as Prime Minister Howard correctly remarked, many republicans seem more concerned with the timing of the establishment of a possible republic than with how it will work.

Howard noted that any establishment of a republic was not an easy process, and its very nature would take time. He might have further expanded on these comments, and pointed out that the proposed republic will not achieve what many republicans are hoping. That is, a republic would not necessarily make Australia any more independent as a nation. The identity of our Head of State is almost irrelevant when considering the impact on Australian sovereignty of financial and economic matters.

The severing of Australian ties with Britain has not produced enhanced Australian sovereignty at all, but in some cases the very reverse. For example, when Australia under Prime Minister Whitlam abandoned legal appeals to the Privy Council, he also introduced the process of submitting Australia to United Nations conventions and treaties. This did far more to undermine Australian sovereignty than anything the Privy Council had ever done.

It is not the Queen (of Australia) who has pushed Australia into adopting the "free trade" dogma, and committed us to "the global market". This was done by Australian Prime Ministers - particularly the republican Keating. It was not the Queen who ran up billions of dollars of foreign debt, thus jeopardising Australian sovereignty by placing us at the mercy of groups like the International Monetary Fund. It was not the Queen who insisted that we must "privatise" Australian utilities from the Commonwealth Bank down to the council water system, but politicians who surrendered to "The Market" with hardly a protest. All this was achieved by self-serving politicians, and none of the damage will be undone by replacing Her Majesty with a president, particularly if chosen or appointed by the same set of politicians.

The greatest threat to Australian sovereignty is the financial powers who bestride the global marketplace, and Australia's ability to defy the dictates of "The Market" is being eroded every day by political decisions. The World Trade Organisation has far more influence over which Australian industries will survive than does the Queen, and perhaps even more influence than our own political "representatives". The proposition that an Australian president could sack a government using the same constitutional powers available to the Queen's Australian representative is a ludicrous argument for disposing of the monarchy. If anything, the republicans want an "Australian" Head of State for commercial purposes, rather than constitutional, cultural or ceremonial purposes.

For example, the former diplomat Richard Woolcott writes: "Importantly, an Australian president would also be an authentic advocate of Australia's commercial interests overseas in a manner in which the Queen of England, as our Head of State, and even the Governor General cannot at present achieve... "(Weekend Australian, 25/1/97).

If the Governor General cannot achieve this function, then by what logic does Woolcott suggest that a "president" could do so? Has it ever been suggested that the "Queen of England" is involved in promoting Britain's commercial interests overseas? Does Woolcott suggest that the Queen spends her time flogging British investment opportunities, or touting for trading advantages for Britain when she travels overseas? It is a ludicrous and demeaning suggestion, yet it is on this level that Woolcott and many other republicans seek to re-mould the Australian identity for the 21st century.

CLINTON SEEKS VICTORY OVER CULTURAL CONFLICT

In an inauguration speech dripping with platitudes, and ideas culled from dozens of previous residential inauguration addresses, President Clinton nevertheless managed to address himself to one of the central issues facing the United States. Clinton offered no answers to the racial and cultural friction tearing the United States apart, but he did identify it.

He said: "Our greatest responsibility is to embrace a new spirit of community for a new century. The challenge of our past remains the challenge of our future: Will we be one nation, one people, with one common destiny - or not? Will we all come together or come apart? The divide of race has been America's constant curse. Each new wave of immigrants gives new targets to old prejudices. Prejudice and contempt, cloaked in the pretence of religious or political conviction, are no different. They have nearly destroyed us in the past. They plague us still…"

Clinton commits the common cardinal mistake of dismissing "religious and political convictions" as merely masking the vices of prejudice and contempt. His refusal to take those religious and political differences seriously, presumably together with other differences like that of race and culture, leads Clinton and other small "1" liberals to the view that such differences must be at best glossed over, and at worst legally suppressed in order to force a harmonious society.
His answer, rather than recognise reality and work within it, seems to be to defy reality, and attempt to suppress the results. The small "1" liberals in Australia insist that the same course can be successful.

Rather than craft an immigration policy to reflect the reality that different racial and cultural backgrounds produce widely varying aspirations, Australian policy-makers seek to force those with serious differences to live together in harmony. In fact, the Liberal Party before the last election promised to spend millions of (taxpayers) dollars on an "educational" campaign to eliminate intolerance. How is it that such starry-eyed idealists cannot see that such a propaganda campaign will even further fan the smoldering embers of resentment?

Radio broadcaster Phillip Adams echoed Clinton's line last week when addressing an Australia Day lunch in Hong Kong. Adams accused Sydney radio hosts Alan Jones and John Laws of training racists, and cultivating "lunatics" as listeners. Adams observes the resentment resulting from an open-door immigration policy, and blames the victims who seek to express some of that resentment in one of the few forums open to the not-particularly-politically-correct.

President Clinton notes that each wave of immigrants into the U.S. simply aggravates their problems of cultural conflict. He is virtually conceding that an open-door immigration policy is part of the problem. But rather than deal with the problem, he seeks to suppress the results with a form of pseudo-morality that pleads for evermore "tolerance" from the victims.

It is almost certain that the answer to Clinton's question, "will we come together, or come apart?" is already decided. History is crystallised policy, and the policy of ignoring reality will produce the disaster the idealist hopes to avoid. The United States will blow apart if its leaders continue to attempt to suppress the results of cultural friction. It is a lesson that Australia can still learn, if we are willing to do so.

COMPULSORY VACCINATIONS ON THE AGENDA

The horror generated by the current rise in infant deaths from contagious diseases like whooping cough has generated fresh demands for compulsory vaccination of all children. Little research is available to back up the case for compulsion, even if it is more than a matter of simple freedom of choice. For example, the (relatively minor) outbreak of whooping cough is automatically blamed on children who have not been vaccinated.
But this ignores a number of questions. Where is the virus coming from? Could it be that recently vaccinated children are infecting others, particularly babies? Have those who contract the disease themselves been immunised, or is it only infecting those who have not been immunised? Such statistics are either not kept, or not available.

It has been suggested that instead of compulsory vaccination, perhaps incentives might be offered. One incentive was for vouchers to fast-food outlets like McDonald's. Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of diet and the immune system should be horrified by such a suggestion. To offer parents junk food for children whose immune systems are under strain from vaccination is just as bad as compulsory vaccination.

Little research is available on the link between the incidence of contagious childhood diseases and the quality of diet. Existing evidence suggests that the original drop in infections coincided with the gradual improvement of diet. If the quality of the diets of Australian children is now actually falling, then it would not be surprising that the incidence of contagious disease is rising again. The widespread use of artificial fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides may also be contributing to the deterioration of Australia's food quality. The incidence of asthma and a wide range of allergies has been casually attributed to this problem.
Whatever the truth, open and honest research is essential before compulsory immunisation is forced on Australian children. We recommend a study of the following books and booklets.

'VACCINATION- One Hundred Years of Orthodox Research'

'Vaccination A Cruel Deception'

FROM THE PRESS