THE KURDISH REVOLT AND MULTICULTURAL MADNESS

by Enc D. Butler
It was the distinguished Jewish writer anti-Zionist philosopher Dr. Oscar Levy who made the profound comment that 'the ideal was the enemy of the real.' C.H. Douglas, the author of Social Credit expanded on Levy's observations by repudiating any suggestion that his financial proposals were a manifestation of any type of Utopianism, observing that there were as many types of Utopias as there were types of individuals, and that the most harmonious societies were those in which the individual members were in a position to create their own concept of Utopia.

The state of the world has dramatically demonstrated that the ideal of a multicultural society is in conflict with reality. The periodic violent protests of the Basque people in Spain are the expression of a distinct group of people who reject the concept that they are part of a unified Spanish nation. They want their own sovereign state.

A feature of an Africa allegedly "liberated" from "oppressive European colonialism" has been constant tribal conflict accompanied by mass killings. A mass media, which constantly extols the ideal of multiculturalism, presents a picture of a benign Nelson Mandella presiding over a successful non-racial South Africa, which has allegedly replaced the evil "apartheid" regime of the past. But the South Africa of Nelson Mandella is one in which murder and violence is now an every day occurrence. Enmity between the Zulus and other tribes is deeper than ever. There has been a mass exodus of Europeans. Tens of thousands of other Europeans would leave if they could find some way to take their money with them.

The problem of the millions of Kurdish people in the Middle East has long been a source of friction between the Kurds and the nations in which they reside. In one of his thought-provoking addresses, Prince Charles has drawn attention to the broken promises made to the Kurds by the Western powers at the end of the First World War. It was during this period that the idealists of the Western nations attempted to re-draw the map of the Middle East, and the Balkans. Most of the problems of these areas, including the current conflict in Yugoslavia, are a legacy of this type of idealism.

Up until the time the Australian people were afflicted with the multicultural disease, a wise immigration policy had ensured a minimum of racial and cultural friction. But the devotees of multiculturalism have deliberately or unconsciously imported into Australia problems, which previously did not exist. Anyone with the most elementary knowledge of the Kurdish question knows that irrespective of where they live the Kurds see themselves as members of a nation denied the right to form their own State, and prone to resort to violent methods to publicise their goals. The worldwide violent protests by Kurdish people has demonstrated that they are organised internationally and their actions can be described as un-Australian.

"The guilty people" in Australia are the Australian politicians who have allowed into Australia people who have brought into Australia old feuds from other parts of the world. The recent arrests of migrant fruit pickers in the Goulburn Valley, Victoria, highlights the nature of the problems associated with multiculturalism. Instead of facing the truth that it is the policies of the Federal Government which make it difficult for Australian primary producers to recruit sufficient workers for work which is hard under trying conditions, multiculturalists like Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett advocate that even more migrants be brought into the country to do the work which allegedly native born Australians will not do.

The representatives of Big Business, always looking for ways of obtaining cheaper labor, join in the chorus of a demand for a greater flow of migrants, stressing this will result in a demand for housing. Electors should make it clear to their political representatives that while they may have the greatest sympathy with the problems of the Kurds or other people, they should not be permitted to bring to Australia the problems they have not been able to solve in their own countries.

Australia's best contribution to solving the problems of the world is to demonstrate in their own country how a prosperous and harmonious society can be created. This requires the rejection of multiculturalism as a national policy.

AN AIR OF UNREALITY

by Jeremy Lee
We have drawn attention more than once to economist Terry McCrann's forecast that a moment of financial reckoning was approaching - although he didn't know where or when.
Reading most of the material in the "Business" sections of the media leads to a first impression that all is well in the economics of Australia, and that we are on the right track. We have had surveys showing confidence at a high level. This may be the position in the tight seclusion of corporate Australia. The salaries and bonuses to CEOs who have overseen more mergers, or the sacking of more workers to improve the "bottom line" are escalating with every week that passes.

Those with access to credit keep spending as though debts never have to be repaid. Politicians preoccupy themselves with interminable arguments about technical forecasting, without ever addressing the philosophy behind their maneuvers. Nations sink deeper into debt - Australia's net foreign debt is now over $230 billion ($13,000 for each man, woman and child) and rising remorselessly.

The flood of cheap imports, from cars to computers, continues to grow as the only outcome of "free trade". And our Minister for Industrial Relations hints at what he dare not spell out clearly - that there must be further cuts in the standard of living, particularly in the form of lower wages, if Australia is to become "more competitive".
(Which, presumably, would allow us to do unto other nations what they are currently doing unto us!)

Occasionally, someone steps back from the euphoric inferno and catches a glimpse of the fact we are not far short of crisis. The Editorial in The Australian Financial Review (18/2/99) was sobering stuff. After acknowledging the possibility that the experts may have got the worst dangers of the Y2K Millennium Bug under control (a questionable assumption to say the least), the editorial went on:
"... Perhaps the real millennium bug, in that case, is the serious threat of a collapse in the global economy... This might seem a gloomy view, but there are still major challenges, and significant obstacles, lying in the path of the world economy. The Asian crisis may have given us all a jolt, but the dangers ahead are potentially catastrophic..."

The writer went on to show that the appearance of recovery was being driven by the frenetic gambling craze on Wall Street, particularly on internet stocks (which are just beginning to tumble):
"... Buoyed by Wall Street's internet-driven hysteria, the US stock market is now in serious danger of a major meltdown. As long ago as December 1996, US Federal reserve chairman Alan Greenspan issued a warning about the 'irrational exuberance' of the US equity market. The Dow Jones index has risen by a further 43 percent since. . . Such flagrant overspending cannot go on for much longer. Sooner rather than later the bubble will burst and it will all end in tears. And if the US economy keels over, you can say goodbye to any optimism in the medium-term outlook for the rest of the global economy...

The sobering editorial concluded: "Views like these will be categorised by many as unnecessarily gloomy, but they are still food for serious thought. Silicon Valley may have inadvertently given the world the millennium bug, but Wall Street could still dish up a far less digestible year 2000 problem

. As we have stated frequently over the last nine months, the assessment is realistic. Sooner or later the bubble will burst - no longer a "South Sea" but a "Global" bubble. What then? There may well be a short period in which the whole revolutionary machinery of the world government movement is thrown into paralysis. If and when this occurs, the long-term future will very much depend on the suppressed voices, which can present sane alternatives to the thousands upon thousands who have been violated, and who finally begin the search for truth and reality.

THE MILLENNIUM BUG MORE THAN A "BLIP"

The evidence (and we've now looked at a lot of it) suggests that the Millennium 'bug" is far from under control, as the more complacent believe. Nor do we think that, behind the argument and counter-argument, the Government is nearly as sanguine as they'd like us to imagine. A major article in The Sunday Mail (Qld., 14/2/99) under the heading ARMY PLAN FOR Y2K CHAOS, included the following:
Defence forces could patrol the streets as part of a Federal Government plan to tackle civil unrest if the Year 2000 bug disrupted essential services. "Yesterday, Federal Government sources said Australia's defence forces were drafting a contingency plan for the army, air force and navy to quell any 'millennium chaos' if electricity, water and telecommunications systems failed.
Sources said Federal Cabinet would weigh up the cost on involving military personnel against the perceived benefits before any decision was made.

Speculation that Australian defence forces would be placed on alert as 2000 arrives follows confirmation from the UK and Canada that their defence forces would be involved... Last week, the Defence Minister's parliamentary secretary, Senator Abetz, said telecommunications and utilities must be regarded as being at risk... Senator Abetz said the $225 million spent to ensure Australia's defence systems were Year 2000 compliant had found Fremantle Class patrol boats had 16 major systems potentially subject to Y2Kproblems, with four F/A -18 Hornet support systems non-compliant and one still under investigation.

Use of the military defence forces in a civilian-policing role in Australia is, of course, unconstitutional. A State of Emergency would have to be declared.

So far the Federal and State Governments have been non-committal and evasive on detailed information regarding the Millennium Bug. If 10 months before the anticipated event, Federal "sources" are releasing suggestions about the possible use of the armed forces, it is well past time that a much franker and more authoritative appraisal was made by the Parliament to the Australian people on the true position.

Meanwhile, an article in The Australian Financial Review (18/2/99) revealed that a new coalition of Australia's electricity suppliers has been formed to develop a national plan in case of power-system failures caused by the "bug". It is to be called the Power Systems Security Contingency Planning Committee (PSSCPSP - heaven preserve us!) put together by the industry's peak body, the National Electricity Market Management Company (NEMMCO):
"…According to NEMMCO's spokesman, Mr. Paul Price, the working groups would be assessing and developing strategies for the next four months with the final Y2K contingency plan for keeping the power on to be finalised by mid-year. 'Work is already under way on identifying risks, failure scenarios and developing testing procedures,' he said. 'People from all sectors of the electricity industry, as well as from Telstra, are involved. As far as Year 2000 is concerned, the big ones are power and telecommunications...

Our response? WTWMGSC - we think we might get some candles!

URGENT ACTION ON REFERENDUM FUNDING

We have always suspected (and feared) that the chances of an Australian republic were greater under a Coalition Government than even an ALP Government in Canberra. This suspicion appears to be borne out with the allocation of public funding to the two forces who will campaign for and against the republic. Our information is that the Prime Minister has appointed two committees to plan and run media campaigns in the final three to four weeks of the campaign and has allocated each $7.5 million.

The republican committee, understandably, consists exclusively of republicans. But the monarchist committee appears to include a number of republicans who have vowed to campaign against the model that was adopted by the Constitutional Convention. They are former Independent MP Ted Mack, and former Brisbane Mayor, Clem Jones, who favour a directly elected president and bitterly reject the president being chosen by a majority of Parliament.

It is bad enough that monarchists must share their campaign funds with republicans with whom they are forced to share a (temporary) alliance, but the greatest injustice is that the Monarchist League is left completely unrepresented on the 'monarchist' funding committee. The Australian Monarchist League, which has never compromised its position on The Crown, was the third largest group to be elected to the Constitutional Convention but have been totally excluded from the YES Committee although the Prime Minister has seen fit to include on it two (direct election) republicans. This would appear to be a complete travesty, and requires urgent action.

We suggest that actionists immediately contact as many Coalition MPs and Senators as possible, and take them to task for this oversight. Can this gross injustice be corrected? Those who wish to assist the Monarchist League with an E-mail protest. contact pben@arrakis.com.au

KNOCKOUT BLOW TO SOUTH AUSTRALIAN RATEPAYERS

The following are some of the proposed changes to be introduced to the Local Government Act and have been extracted from the Local Government Act Review 1998 by a Ratepayers' Group. Obtain a copy of the Act from The Office of Local Government, Level 1, Riverside Centre, North Terrace, Adelaide. Phone (08) 8207 0600.

According to the Ratepayers' Group the following are just some of the proposed changes:
Chapter 3: Constitution of Councils: Boundary Adjustment Panel and Reform Proposals.
· Sect. 18 (2) Members of the Panel are to become exempt from civil liability and cannot be held accountable.
· Sect. 19 (8) & 20: Provisions allow for unlimited growth of the Panel as a bureaucracy.
· Sect. 34 (1): The entire contents of Chapter 3 are deemed "not subject to any form of judicial review or challenge ". Powers of this kind are unacceptably wide.

Chapter 4: The Council as a body corporate:
· Sect. 39 (1): "No civil liability attaches to a member of a council for an honest act or omission in the exercise... of the duties under this or other acts." Ratepayers are left with the liability.
· Sect. 48: A council may now enter into a commercial activity or establish a business (subsidiary). Ministerial approval is not required if the cost of the enterprise is under $4m. Or 20% of its annual revenue. These are huge sums of ratepayers' funds to spend without any form of accountability.

Chapter 5: Div. 2: Register of Interests:
· Sect. 72 (2): If a council sets up a subsidiary, its board members are not required to declare interests.

The South Australian Minister for Local Government is The Honourable Mark Brindal MP, and he can be contacted through Parliament House, North Terrace, Adelaide, 5000.

ANOTHER "SUMMIT"

We admit we were less than thrilled with the following "brief', which appeared in The Australian Financial Review on February 18th:
"The deputy leader of the National Party, Mr. John Anderson, plans to bring together business and community leaders later this year to work on new ideas and directions for the bush. He announced the summit yesterday in a speech to the National Press Club, in which he highlighted problems confronting rural communities as their basic infrastructure disappears."

It's not just a question of shutting the stable door... We need a new stable, and a new horse!

BENDIGO BANK INCREASE PROFIT

The Bendigo Bank has successfully moved into a field the "gang-of-four" has vacated - the provision of banking services to small communities, particularly in rural areas. Interim profits have grown by 26 percent - from $6.69 million to $8.49 million. Deposits grew by 17 percent to $362 million.

The Australian (16/2/99) reported: "...Bendigo Bank managing director Rob Hunt said the first half results did not show the revenue effect of the new community bank facilities, which would start to flow in this half.... The community bank concept involves townspeople putting up $250,000 to start a branch, with the operation prudentially backed by Bendigo. Mr. Hunt said the bank had established six community banks and 20 were expected to be operating by June 30.
The first community bank - with outlets in the Victorian towns of Minyip and Rupanyup - were 'close to generating their own profit,' Mr. Hunt said..."

Which simply goes to show that the major banks have not vacated smaller communities because they were unprofitable. The "pickings" were simply not big enough, and the service too much trouble.