DAVOS AGAIN

by Jeremy Lee
With last year's debacle behind them, and the WTO Seattle breakdown fresh in their memories, the world's elite are currently meeting at this year's Davos conference in Switzerland. This is how The Australian Financial Review (27/1/2000) described the gathering:
"The barricades are up. The riot police are being bused in. The internet chat rooms are buzzing. Yes, it's another global summit; this time in the Swiss Alpine village of Davos, near the Austrian border, where the world's corporate, political and intellectual elite are gathering for the next six days to discuss how to 'meet the challenge of creating responsible globality', while exchanging business cards and doing a little skiing.
The invitation-only conference for which 1,000 of the world's biggest companies pay up to $US22,000 ($34,375) in fees to attend - forum corporate sponsors or 'partners' can fork out between $US70, 000 and $US250, 000 - makes no recommendations to governments and releases no communiqués… Last year, Davos organisers banned demonstrations during the forum, but protesters, emboldened by the havoc they caused at Seattle, are unlikely to be so easily put off this time. As a result, Swiss police are being trucked in from around the country…"

Who will be there? Among those mentioned are President Clinton, the world's richest man Bill Gates, as well as Rupert Murdoch's son Lachlan, and Kerry Packer's heir James. A few Australian multi-national heads, including BHP's Paul Anderson, Southcorp's Graham Kraehe, Hugh Morgan from Western Mining, Richard Pratt of Pratt Industries, head of Telstra Ziggy Switkowski, and Fairfax CEO Fred Hilmer. Hilmer, who designed Australia's Competition Policy, will no doubt be comparing notes with Mario Monti, the European Competition Commissioner. Both Mike Moore, head of the World Trade Organisation and Nicholas Oppenheimer, from the global diamond monopoly's De Beers, will be there.

From high on the mountain at Davos some modern-day economic guru will deliver the tablets of stone for Global 2000! And all the world's people will say "Amen"!

AUSTRALIA BREAKS ANOTHER RECORD

Mergers and acquisitions in Australia during 1999 totalled $60 billion, according to Thomson Financial Securities Data. Four of the top 10 deals involved energy privatisation in Victoria and South Australia.
The Australian (27/1/2000) reported: "…On the world stage Australia was ranked first for privatisation in the utility sector and a strong second for total privatisation.
Thomson Financial says…The firm notes that Australia experienced one of the highest levels of foreign takeovers, which accounted for half of the total value. Of this $30 billion, $12 billion came from the US in 83 deals, $8 billion from the UK in 74 deals and $3.5 billion from Hong Kong in four deals…"

Over $ 1,500 for every living Australian in more foreign ownership during 1999! Our government is really excelling itself! We note that Prime Minister Howard has again raised the policy of selling the remaining 51 percent of Telstra that Australians still own. That should make him and Treasurer Costello even more popular!

THE GREAT DIVIDE IN NEW ZEALAND

A correspondent from New Zealand sent us a full-page article from The Ashburton Guardian (4/1/2000). New Zealand has had a GST for a number of years. It has not solved their problems. Extracts from the article, which drew on a report New Zealand Now from "Statistics New Zealand" said:
".... Those on highest incomes did best during reforms by successive Governments since 1983. The average real disposable income of the top 10 percent rose from $62,000 in 1982 to $82,000 in 1996, an increase of nearly a third. The poor just got poorer; with average income of the bottom 20 percent falling four percent during the same period, with the bottom 10 percent averaging an income of little more than $11,000 a year.
Middle income group ups - those with 1982 salaries between $25,000 and $30,000 - saw their income drop by 9 percent and 7 percent.
As the majority of New Zealanders earned below $30,000, most were losers in the great experiment...."

Other facts included:
* The number of violent crimes reported to police has almost doubled over the past decade. This year the British Home Office ranked New Zealand second only to South Africa, ahead of Canada, Australia and the United States, for non-fatal violent crime.
* Almost 25 percent of New Zealand children have no parent in paid work, up from 14 percent in 1986.
* In the 1996 Census 1,684,815 people said they belonged to one of New Zealand's four main churches - Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian and Methodist. That was down from 1,911,204, a drop of 11.8 percent, on the 1991 Census.
* The number of Buddhist, Hindu and Muslims doubled in the period.

SURPRISE! SURPRISE! EXTRADITION TREATY ON THE WAY

by Betty Luks
"The Canadian War Crimes trial, and acquittal of Hungarian-born Imre Finta will, in retrospect, be seen as an outstanding landmark in Western Civilisation's struggle to survive the challenge of those dark forces which seek to destroy the value system upon which that civilisation was founded." So Canadian barrister Douglas Christie warned us in the early 1990s. Therefore, it came as no surprise to read Senator Amanda Vanstone has confirmed (The Age, 28/1/2000), that as a result of changes to the War Crimes Act, which came into effect December 23rd last year, overseas countries could seek extradition of war crimes suspects without a clear supporting case. Not only that, but Australian and Latvian officials are working on proposals for a fast-track extradition treaty between the two countries. The changes would put in place a legal framework that would allow Latvia to seek the extradition of Mr. Kalejs at short notice.

Former Baltic-nation Australians should be pounding down the office doors of their Federal politicians at this betrayal. If they think the persecution is going to stop because they are allowing Mr. Kalejs be 'fed to the wolves', they better think again. The report from London also confirms that Russian investigators are looking into whether Mr. Kalejs committed 'war crimes' on their territory. All who fled before the approaching Russian Bear in the closing days of WW2 were considered traitors by the Soviets. For those who don't remember - or never knew - it was the Western leaders who sold out the Baltic people to the Soviets. Those who fled to the West lived in fear for many years, fearing not only revenge on their loved ones left behind, but also feared for their own lives as they observed the way Western politicians and businessmen flirted and traded with their former Soviet slave-masters.

We need to be reminded of the words of warning by the great Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
All four booklets: $5.00 posted. "A Legacy of Terror", "The West's Betrayal of Civilisation", "Words of Warning to the Western World" and "A World Split Apart".
Video: "War Crimes Threat to Christian Justice" by Barrister Douglas Christie $20.00 posted. Available from all League Book Services.

WORK TO LIVE

by Alfred King
We have long been aware that the rural community is being overdriven and overworked, constantly having to produce more, for less and less income. In the name of efficiency farmers have been exhorted by 'experts' to walk off the land to better jobs in the cities. However, it seems that even here we are not safe. A five-year survey of overtime worked in Australia by the School of Management at Perth's Curtin University has shown that longer hours are significantly related to injury and illness in the workplace.

The ABC reports that the survey reveals that the many Australian managers, professionals, plant and machine operators and trades people are working longer hours. The university's Professor Lawson Savery says some people are working up to 16 hours a day and many others are working long shifts and can be described as 'overworked conscripts'. He says the survey also found that many people are not paid fairly for the long days they put in. "You see the problem is we have created this annualised wages system and got rid of overtime and so on to put people on an annual wage. We are not really recording hours of work any more.' He concludes, "we have got to realise…(there) is a limit of the amount of time that people can actually work and be productive at work."

It is almost amusing that the government is currently spending large sums through its Workcover advertising campaign to persuade us to work shorter hours in the interests of safety, and at the same time pursues policies that oblige us to do exactly the opposite.
On the other side of the equation we have the massive long-term unemployment problem. Clearly, 'the strongest ever economy' that John Howard proudly declared to us recently, is being achieved at a terrible price. It is accepted now that Australia is dividing into two societies - the haves (employed) and the have-nots (unemployed). Furthermore, the number of have-nots must continually increase.

In order to compete in the globalised economy, we are going to have work under the same conditions as the world's most hungry and desperate people. If we are not prepared to do this then the MNCs will take the production sites elsewhere. The removal of trade barriers from our economy by the likes of the 'world's greatest treasurer' Paul Keating, has delivered massive amounts of power over our daily lives to the huge stateless corporations. Their only responsibility is to maximise profits for their shareholders; they have no responsibility at all for the welfare of Australians.

Power without responsibility is evil. In physical terms, Australia is the world's richest nation per capita, but this has all been stolen from us. And more. We are living under a philosophy of enslavement and death. Australia's financial credit is issued against the nation's real credit. i.e. the productive capacity of individuals. However, the individual can only gain access to his own credit under the conditions stipulated by those who hold the monopoly for its creation. That is, by borrowing it into existence on the promise that it will all be repaid with interest in the future. The borrower is servant to the lender.

More than half the population is worse than unemployed - so much activity today is useless and even destructive. Yet most of us are tied to it to get an income. All the main political parties have stated that reducing unemployed is their number one objective. All have failed miserably. In fact all have followed policies to achieve exactly the opposite result - the destruction of Australian industry and agriculture.
Why is unemployment a problem? This is a state that man has been working towards throughout history. To produce what we need to live without excessive human effort is a desirable situation - unless you are a member of the Establishment elite. Once the individual has economic freedom, he is free to decide what he is going to do with his life. Time could be spent on more creative pursuits. We could have more time and resources to actually love our neighbour, rather than delegate that responsibility to the Establishment.

Unemployment is the logical end result of man mastering certain truths. The question is: what do we do with our free time? The government cannot grasp this because their philosophy is wrong. Their policies are the product of that philosophy. Social Credit is the policy, which comes from the philosophy of freedom.

GST COUNTDOWN

by Betty Luks
We are not the only ones who have heard that the Tax Office is in a chaotic state as the understaffed workers battle to come to grips with the new GST. Adelaide journalist Samella Harris writes of the GST preparations being in a shambles (Advertiser, 26/1/2000). "This is the millennium bug of the tax world," she writes. "Charities, for instance, will be needing expert bookkeepers - well they may actually need rocket scientists. No one yet knows how the GST will be applied to charities - and the charities differ in how they raise their money and how they dispense it...I have listened to Mr. Howard's GST mate, Meg Lees, defending the taxing of charities. She says that exemption systems have not worked overseas. Dare I laugh? GSTs have not worked overseas. New Zealand is still moaning and Canada (which calls it the Gouge and Suck Tax) brags a whole new black economy."

Miss Harris believes that Mr. Howard can forget the women's vote in the future - I think the women's vote is just one section of the community that he can forget! And when the new tax comes into force she tells us, "our brave leader plans to be far away in London - where value-added-tax has crept up to 17.5 percent." But that's nothing compared to Sweden and Denmark, "they have a 25 percent rate."

LABOR SHOULD PUT ITS MONEY WHERE ITS MOUTH IS

by Betty Luks
We are led to believe the last week has been a 'nightmare week' for the Coalition Government, as Acting Prime Minister John Anderson and Financial Services Minister Joe Hockey tried to explain some of the details of the impending GST. Not to be outdone, Labor spokesman Simon Crean went about 'stalking' Joe Hockey by phoning in to talkback hosts and journalists each time Hockey 'fell through one of the tax's many trapdoors'. (The Australian, 22-23/1/2000).

Not to be outdone, enter Democrat's Meg Lees into the 'nightmare week' crying foul! It seems the GST will apply to a personal product women use, and in particular the feminist women use, and they feel quite 'put out about it'. Why do I smell a rat? Having seen first hand the way all political parties close ranks when their power bases are under threat (remember the National Decade for Women?) methinks they are positioning themselves for the backlash that will surely come when the GST is fully implemented.
Remember that the end result of the GST is more taxes not less, and you the small businessman/farmer will be made to collect it!

Labor should be challenged to come out fighting for the repeal of this intrusive, all-encompassing nightmare legislation. They have said they could not unscramble the GST but will be rolling back some particularly unfair aspects. They should be reminded that angry Canadians routed the Conservative Party that introduced the GST into their country. Out of a 100-seat majority government, the party was reduced to just two seats in parliament.

BEYOND THE REEF: KEW'S DOORSTEP

HERALD-SUN ALSO EXPRESSES 'REGRETS'