SALVAGING THE REPUBLICAN DISASTER

by David Thompson
The first real week of political activity since the holiday period has been dominated by the painful realisation by republicans that it is not "in the bag", as they arrogantly predicted after the Constitutional Convention just a year ago. It has become very clear that the republican cause is in reverse, with little public interest in the issue, and even opinion polls showing plummeting support.
One of the most startling features of the polls is the fall in republican support in the younger age groups.

We can expect every effort to ensure that the drive towards the republic is "cranked up" again. This must be led by the news media, overwhelmingly republican, and now almost overwhelmingly foreign-controlled. As we previously warned, prepare for a media blitz. We will certainly see it this week with events surrounding Australia Day, and every effort made to portray republicanism as "nationalistic" and "patriotic"; For the first time in 50 years, nationalism and patriotism (under their new definitions) will become "acceptable".

The constitutional vandals, such as Turnbull, Wran, Vizard, etc., will be reinvented as "patriots".
"Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."

Every effort is now being made to salvage the republican cause to avert an impending disaster, which could see republicanism swept aside for another 20 years. In the scramble to avert disaster, no tactic is too low, including an attempt to mislead the voters. It is now being openly suggested that the referendum question be "as simple as possible" so people can "understand it". So simple, in fact, that it is downright deceptive.

Republicans are now calling on the Treasurer, Mr. Costello, to pull his weight as a declared republican, and use his influence in Cabinet. What is required of Costello is an undertaking that he will move heaven and earth in Cabinet to ensure that the referendum question consists of the vague, motherhood question along the lines of "Would you prefer to have an Australian as Head of State?" No reference to the scrapping of the Crown, no question about reserve powers, no mention of the myriad of specific constitutional changes required to achieve this smooth sleight-of-hand.

Whatever leverage is available is being bent upon the republican "dissidents" - people like Ted Mack and Phil Cleary, who cannot stomach the "pseudo-republican Turnbull model" and who demand direct election of a president. Almost every newspaper editorial in the country is urging Mack and Cleary not to split the republican vote; "let's get the republic first, and if it doesn't work, we can fix it up"!

A new group is being hastily cobbled together, "Conservatives for the republic", to give the impression that there is a deep-seated desire among "conservatives" for the republic, that has simply never been expressed previously. Just what is "conservative" about radical and even dangerous constitutional vandalism has not been explained. As yet little real pressure has been placed on the republicans by monarchists. But they know they can expect this to come in force from all quarters, and that they will have to withstand the sort of savaging that people like Bruce Ruxton are capable of.
Last week he gave them a sample: "The debate in the republican movement has degenerated into a vicious, ugly argument conducted by rabid over-educated packs of opportunists, bloodsucking bludgers, pseudo-academics, actors, television stars, sporting personalities, patrons of the arts and professional ethnic urgers of all races," he said.

The republican path ahead is still strewn with obstacles. Treasurer Costello's campaigning for the republic is more likely to be a distinct disadvantage. Here is the man who is attempting to impose the dreaded GST upon us, and next he wants a republic. In an environment where the press is deeply distrusted, an aggressive republican press campaign is certain to generate resentment.

ABORIGINAL REVOLUTION BOILING UP

In further attempts to salvage the republican charge, all non-essential baggage is to be cut away. The aboriginal industry responded with anger and dismay when informed last week that the push to re-write the Preamble to the Constitution, including recognition of aborigines as "prior occupants", was to be abandoned. It was too vulnerable to scare campaigns, and confused the issue, the republicans claimed. The activists are furious, and swear retribution.

It is unlikely that the aboriginal industry will campaign against the republic, but there are plenty of other avenues for reprisals. For example, the suggestions of boycotting the Olympics and campaigning against Australian "human rights abuses" received additional support. Perhaps the most revealing (and alarming) development is the growing determination within ATSIC to demand a referendum of aboriginal people on the question of a treaty with Australia, and the possibility of "a separate aboriginal government".
This is an issue that former Communist Geoff McDonald warned about over a decade ago. His book, "Red Over Black", became a best seller, but one of his central warnings, that the revolutionaries were aiming for a separate black state in Australia, was ridiculed. As we go to press, ATSIC Chairman Mr. Gatjil Djerrkura is expected to use Australia Day addresses to demand a treaty, and a referendum at the time of the forthcoming ATSIC elections. The question of separate aboriginal government is likely to be pushed onto the political agenda.

NEW STEEL MILL FOR NEWCASTLE

by Jeremy Lee
The Newcastle Steel Works commenced operations during World War I. It was started by one of the then great Australian icons, BHP. Ever since it has provided for much of the nation's steel requirements in war and peace. Newcastle steel was used during the building of the transcontinental railway, financed by Australia and wholly Australian-owned.

Today BHP is a financial cot-case. Some years ago it abandoned its traditional role and became a transnational. It ventured into coal, oil and minerals, as well as building steel mills in North and South America and Asia. The Asian meltdown has hit BHP particularly hard. Oil is at one of its lowest prices ever. The world is awash with cheap steel, often from Third World mills built through western aid. BHP sold its huge coalmines in Queensland after coal came under intense pressure. Japan is still seeking further cuts to what are give-away prices of Australian coal.

Seeing the giant BHP reeling drunkenly from disaster to disaster, a number of competitors have sought to capitalise - chiefly the Smorgon family, which moved out of meat-processing a few years ago and is now building mini-steel mills, using scrap as a main feed stock. They are reckoning on a recovery in steel sooner or later, and if BHP continues on its present disastrous course, the possibility of Australia's main, historic producer no longer in the arena.

The latest news is of a joint venture in a new Newcastle stainless steel industry between Boulder Group NL and Australian Overseas Resources Ltd., each having a 40 percent stake. The Australian Financial Review (19/1/99) said: "... International bankers have already expressed interest in financing the debt portion of the project which will be about $187 million…"
In charge of marketing the products will be the German steel trader Thyssen.

EVERYBODY'S GUESSING

In two remarkable articles, written in Queensland's Courier-Mail over January 19th and 20th, economist Terry McCrann warned of an approaching financial disaster. His first article stated: "Be warned. Be seriously warned. The chances of some form of global financial catastrophe are rising rapidly. Forget about the 'Y2K problem'. We have to survive the increasingly likely 'Y1999K problem' first.... It is ... possible to see certain types of financial catastrophe tipping either the world economy or our own local economy into recession. ... It's much easier to call the increasing chances of 'some sort' of financial disaster than to detail exactly what will, and when it might, happen. There are just too many disasters-in-waiting now brewing.
They include the Brazilian meltdown and the really ominous bankruptcy of one of China's top financial houses. Plus, crucially, the crazy boom in American Internet stocks, which makes all previous 'irrational exuberance' on the share market look like prim conservatism. Any one of these - plus some other problems like Japan's continuing financial crisis - could develop into a fully-fledged catastrophe. And then who knows what might happen..."
The risks are clearly financial volatility with exchange rates and interest rates fluctuating wildly and the increasing risk of a United States stock market crash. The risks are of more Brazils, more bank losses, more Chinese collapses - maybe even the 'Chinese shoe' finally dropping, and, most ominously financial institutions going belly-up in America. ... The biggest domestic problem we (i.e. Australia) face is our exploding current account deficit (i.e. the continually-growing foreign debt). That, even with a relatively buoyant world economy it will head through $30 billion this year and next. And if the world economy stumbles...

In his second article, on January 20th, McCrann continued, under the heading
THERE'S A DISASTER WAITING TO HAPPEN, BUT WHAT... AND WHEN? He added:
"..... In our own domestic case, the better disaster analogy is probably a tidal wave. That, as 1987 showed, we would probably get a sort of warning when we woke up to news of the disaster about to hit. The other difficulty of prediction flows from precisely what's causing the concern: there are just so many potential disasters bubbling away out there. It's impossible to know which one or group might prove the one(s) to trigger the broader global spiral. Although clearly one stands out: Wall Street. …Wall Street replaying 1987, or even worse, would not only have a savage direct impact across America, but fairly obviously take us all along for the bumpy downhill ride... In highlighting what a remarkably good year we had last year, and we most seriously did, it has been overlooked how close we still came to potential disaster..."

There's a lot in McCrann's policy-beliefs that we don't share. Only some Australians had a good year in 1998 - by no means all. Many suffered grievously. Nor do we believe the way out of this disaster can be achieved by Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan's decisions about interest rates and credit restrictions.

The League of Rights has always stressed that there is no physical reason for Australia to suffer catastrophe. To the contrary, it is providentially equipped to provide all its citizens with food, clothing and shelter of the highest standard. It has no reason to be a debtor-nation. It has more than enough raw materials and commodities at its disposal to provide all Australians with a high quality of life, peace and happiness. What it needs is leaders who start from an understanding of this physical reality, prepared to reject foreign "snake-oil" which leads us onto false, disastrous paths. But McCrann's analysis of the potential disaster is correct.

SIR HUMPHREY FIDDLING... WHILE AUSTRALIA BURNS

The Australian Financial Review (19/1/99) reported: "The Federal Government's top public servants could receive pay rises of up to $30,000 in March, as a result of a Remuneration Tribunal recommendation yesterday. The proposal brings the salary of the most senior Commonwealth departmental heads - the secretaries of the departments of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Defence and Treasury - to $276,000... a further 10 to 12 percent pay increase will also be paid in March 2000…"

Politicians' salaries are, of course, also decided by the Remuneration Tribunal. Whether this means that politicians receive an automatic pay rise the article did not say.

PHRASING THE QUESTION

The referendum on the issue of Australia becoming a republic is expected in November. As in opinion polling, much can be done to determine the answer one receives by the way the question is framed. Clever question phrasing often deliberately skews the results of a survey or poll in the direction required by the operator. In order to get the result they want, the republicans now propose to influence the way the question for a referendum on the republic is phrased. There is plenty of room for deliberate deception, and plenty also for complete misunderstanding in the referendum question.

It is proposed by the republicans as a matter of strategy, to attempt to deceive the electorate by concentrating on the issue of the citizenship of Australia's Head of State. Why have a foreign woman from the other side of the world as Head of State? In view of the fact that, since Australia's historical, cultural and political roots are British, there is nothing wrong with this at all. Until the Australia Act was passed in 1984, Australians were regarded as "British" as well. The Head of State was "one of our own", and of course, still is. If the republicans demand an Australian citizen as Head of State, the simplest and safest answer is to propose an Act of Parliament conferring formal Australian citizenship upon the Queen.

The dilemma for republicans is that if the question is seen to be dishonestly phrased they obviously have something to hide, leading to a "no" vote based upon that suspicion. In addition to this, if there is any suggestion that the referendum question may not provide the legal basis for wholesale constitutional change, it is quite certain that there will be a High Court challenge to the result. The issue is by no means straightforward. The Bill for the referendum, including the question (or questions) to be asked, must be passed by Parliament Members of Parliament should be advised that the referendum question must deal with the specific constitutional changes required (even if there are 85 of them) or be rejected by the Parliament.

CASE AGAINST "YOUR RIGHTS" DROPPED

Last year we reported that the ABC has mounted a court case to prevent the distribution of the annual civil rights handbook, "Your Rights 1998" published by John Bennett of the Australian Civil Liberties Union. In his book, Bennett was highly critical of the ABC's handling of the Pauline Hanson issue, which obviously embarrassed and infuriated the ABC. The threat of legal action was greeted by a strong chorus of objection from the more evenhanded in the print press including ABC commentator Terry Lane. Lane said that in this case, "the large ABC thinks it can get away with squashing the small Mr. Bennett". John Bennett, however, is not one to retreat easily. In November he embarked upon a letter-writing campaign, protesting the ABC's action to every Member of Federal Parliament. He described the ABC's tactics as "an appalling threat to the freedom of speech in Australia".

Within two hours of the letters being received by the Parliamentarians, the ABC had called off its threat to destroy the booklet in the courts.
Copies of "Your Rights 1998" are available from League book services, $5.00 per copy, or $6.50 posted.

IMMIGRATION NOTES

The claim that Asian migration to Australia is not as high as feared by most Australians, has shown to be hollow. It is well known that the numbers of Asian migrants have risen steadily, and overtook the numbers of arrivals from the British Isles in 1984. This trend has continued, and during the past 15 years, the numbers of migrants from Britain and southern Europe averaged 28,133 per year. The Asian-born intake, however, averaged 48,103 people per year. Originally the Australian Government had required that for every non-British born migrant entering Australia, the intake should comprise 10 British-born migrants. This requirement was established in the late 1940s, but quickly subverted.

In the post-war period, migrants born in North Africa and Asia comprised 24.3% of net migrants. The trend towards more non-British migrants is also exaggerated by another aspect, previously largely overlooked. This is the rate of departure of migrants who, for whatever reason, decide not to remain in Australia. The departure rate for European and British-born migrants is around 28 percent, while the departure rate for Asian-born migrants is much lower, at about 11 percent.
This research was conducted by retired demographer Dr. Charles Price in his recent work
"Net Settler Migration to Australia by Birthplace, 1947-98".

THE EXPLODING DEBT SPLURGE

Were reported at the end of last year on the massive growth in personal debt in Australia. If anything it is going even faster.
Under the heading AUSSIES SPLURGE ON CREDIT, The Courier-Mail (Qld., 19/1/99) reported in its front-page leading article:
"Personal debt has soared as Australians spend record amounts on their credit cards. New figures show almost $10 billion is being spent on credit cards each month... Reserve Bank figures show personal debt has climbed to a record $65 billion. But the figures were compiled before the peak Christmas period, leaving Australia on track for an even higher debt bill at the start of this year.
"The RBA January Bulletin showed banks had lent $238 billion to Australians - with home loans accounting for $143 billion. Any slowing of the Australian economy, with the inevitable rise in interest rates, will produce a social disaster even worse than the one of the moment. Mortgages on home loans, for example, now average just on $8,000 for every living person in Australia!
(That's an average $32,000 for a father, mother and two children.)
There must be a minority of Australians who have paid off and own their own homes. What of the rest?

A 2 percent increase in interest rates would add a further $5 billion onto overheads in Australia - enough to tip a further minority into catastrophe and social disaster. One imagines our politicians and public service "fat-cats" would not notice, so long as "the fundamentals" in statistics were "comfortable".

MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS CONTINUE

During 1998 continued mergers and acquisitions worth $51.2 billion took place in Australia - an increase on the $43.8 billion the previous year. The Australian Financial Review commented: "..... Overseas buyers accounted for more than 46 percent of transactions by value, in a year in which cross-border activity worldwide reached unprecedented levels and in which Australia, despite its relatively small size, was the fourth most active M & A market. The level of activity could be even greater in 1999..."

A small number of brokers managed the takeovers, headed by Warburg, Dillon Read. Second in the list was Goldman Sachs, under the dynamic leadership of its republican Australian director, Malcolm Turnbull.

SUCCESS OF THE RELENTLESS LETTER-WRITER

While some are easily discouraged by rejection of their efforts by editors of letters-to-the-editor pages of newspapers, others simply see it as a further challenge to be overcome. One such relentless letter-writer is Ron Fischer of Talbot in Victoria, who continues to have incisive letters published all over Australia. If he is rejected in one place, he simply moves to the next newspaper. It takes more than simply sheer perseverance, however. It also takes more than being well informed.

The letters themselves are crafted with a skill that improves his chances of publication. It is a skill derived of keen observation and long experience. The following is a recent example of the art, published in the Ballarat Courier late last year:

"Dear Sir, "Australia is selling off the farm paddock by paddock (business by business). Adding to all that has gone before, in the last couple of months the Stawell woollen mills and the Horsham foundry have been bought by overseas interests. Now the Ballarat railway workshops have the 'FOR SALE' notice out (The 'Courier' November 28). The Member for Ballarat West (Mr. Jenkins) is apparently happy to announce that a 'large international railway company' is interested. What odds that this, or another 'multinational, will be the ultimate purchaser?
"When we consider our current account deficit these asset sales are a credit. That is, they have the effect of reducing that deficit, yet we are still running a deficit of $10 billion a year, effectively masking the true deficit. What happens when we have no more assets to sell?
"How is it that multinationals can buy these businesses at a price that would be unviable to an Australian company? Multinationals pay little or no tax in this country, but our homegrown companies must factor in the taxation element to the price they offer. Get these behemoths to pay their rightful taxes and the rationale for the GST would fade.
"However, any rumblings about repealing the Double Taxation Act (19S3) could trigger a flight of this footloose capital. The threat of such flight is sufficient to see that no government is now likely to put its people ahead of these giants.
"Sir, we are being played for suckers! "Yours truly, "Ron Fischer."

CAPTURING THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY

One of the issues overlooked in the monarchy/ republican debate, is that of the subversion of the Head of State. It is not only extremely difficult to subvert a monarch, but in our own system, not very much point, since the monarch does not exercise direct political power. However, the election of a president, as in the United States, offers the possibility of subversion.

There is no doubt that former US Presidents have been subverted from time to time. President Truman is the classic example. All Presidents of the United States are subject to influences such as that of the Council on Foreign Relations, whose support is crucial in being elected in the first place. But it is not impossible that an American President could be completely corrupted by the influence of immense wealth. Armand Hammer derived much of his immense wealth from Occidental Petroleum, and is now known to have bribed and suborned elected representatives at all levels of the American administration over a period of 50 years. Richard Nixon's political undoing was Watergate, but it is not widely understood that behind the Watergate fiasco, was Armand Hammer and immense amounts of cash.

A large part of Hammer's fortune was derived from a close relationship with the Soviet Union. Kremlin papers reveal that Hammer was a lifelong agent of influence for the Soviets, and rewarded with business opportunities, like that of establishing the first pencil factory near Moscow. However, during the Cold War, trade with the Soviets became more difficult for Hammer. In order to acquire credits from the EximBank to trade with the Soviets, Hammer prevailed upon Nixon to change the American approach to confer Most Favoured Nation Status upon the Soviets. At the height of the Cold War, this was no small achievement, and would have succeeded had not Nixon been disgraced by Watergate.

The truth is that Armand Hammer was quite capable of "owning" a string of American politicians as well as subverting the Presidency. Neil Lyndon, ghostwriter of Hammond's memoirs and Hammer employee, reveals that Vice President Al Gore's father was "owned" by Armand Hammer. Throughout a career of bribery and corruption, Hammer had completely captured Gore Snr., and kept him financially throughout most of his political career as a Congressman and later Senator from Tennessee. As a result of Gore Snr. being "in Hammer's back pocket" the Gore family depended upon Hammer largesse, which was abundantly forthcoming. Hammer's relationship with Gore Jnr. simply followed the same pattern of that with his father.

The image of the squeaky-clean (if dull and wooden) Vice-President Al Gore is far from the truth. The truth is that Al Gore's father committed Gore Jnr. to a corrupt relationship with the immensely wealthy Hammer, which Hammer was already exploiting before his death. If Hammer had lived another 10 years, and Clinton was impeached by the US Senate President Al Gore would belong, lock, stock and barrel, to the communist Armand Hammer, one of the most corrupt influences on American politics ever.

The profound and long-standing relationship between the Gore family and Armand Hammer has never been revealed or properly investigated. Americans are facing the prospect of Al Gore as the Democrat candidate for President after Clinton's term expires (or impeachment intervenes). Gore may yet gain the Presidency, yet another President with a background of profound corruption.

The election of the Head of State often results in an increase in corruption, a problem not faced by monarchies, where God selects the Head of State by birth. Australians might reflect on this issue when confronted by the republican demand for a president rather than a monarch.