REFUGEE CONFUSION AND CHAOS

by Jeremy Lee
Under arrangements with New Zealand there is now no bar on New Zealanders travelling to and settling in Australia. According to The Weekend Australian (23-24/10/2000): " ....Under the travel agreement, migration from New Zealand, even of those originating in a third country is not counted against Australia's annual intake, so the influx is effectively hidden ...."
The article went on to say that of the 72,000 people who left New Zealand in the year to August, 36,821 came to Australia. 33% of those arriving in Australia were not New Zealand-born.

New Zealand has its own problem with illegal immigrants, and has recently announced an amnesty for long-term illegals, who will now be in a position to move to Australia quite legally. Meanwhile, four Indonesians were given three years jail - of which they are expected to serve 18 months - for transporting 152 Afghanis, Iraqis and Iranians to Ashmore reef at the end of last year.. Will this deter others?
The Australian (13/10/2000) reported: "Indonesian fishermen who brought a human cargo to Australia did so fully expecting to be caught and jailed, because the money they earned from one trip to Ashmore Reef was more than they could make in years of subsistence fishing at home ...."

REFUGEE DUMPING

Following our recent report of problems in Brisbane comes this from The Advertiser (Adelaide, 12/10/2000):
"Nearly 600 refugees and illegal immigrants 'dumped' in Adelaide over the past six months had placed significant strain on the city's housing and social welfare agencies, Human Services Minister Dean Brown said yesterday. " Refugees pouring into the city from detention centres at Port Hedland in WA and Woomera in South Australia had soared over the past month until 40 to 50 were arriving each week, Mr. Brown said outside Parliament ....Mr. Brown said that the States were 'sick of the cost shifting'. 'They're sick of the Federal Government sitting back and just dumping their illegal immigrants into various capital cities round Australia,' he said....."

It is quite clear that Australia has been so neutralised by quasi-human rights thinking, devised in ivory tower think-tanks which are immune to the results of their own policies, that it has "lost the plot" over the illegal immigrant crisis. It appears to be throwing its hands in the air, after washing them of any responsibility for the debacle called immigration and refugee policy.

POLITICALLY INCORRECT?

Following the Human Rights Commission line that "truth is no defence" when it comes to controversial comments on race, one wonders whether two prominent Australians will be asked to explain themselves before the non-elected "thought police".
The Australian Financial Review (6/10/2000) reported:
"The Federal Minister for Reconciliation, Mr. Philip Ruddock, yesterday was condemned by all non-government parties and two Independents for his comments on Aboriginal disadvantage. "Mr. Ruddock had been reported in two international newspapers - The Washington Post and Le Monde - as saying that one reason for Aboriginal disadvantage was their late contact with developed civilisation..."
Mr. Ruddock was supported by backbenchers in the Coalition. Funny how all the "right" and "wrong" thinking is divided on party lines!

Meanwhile, the former Governor-General, Bill Hayden, gave an equally "incorrect" speech at the University of Tasmania on October 11th. After warning of a backlash against the clumsy and divisive tactics by advocates of the Aboriginal cause, Mr. Hayden went on (The Australian, 12/10/2000): "' .... Telling non-indigenous Australians that they are the heirs and successors of, and apparently not much different from, their allegedly mass-murdering, racist, repressive ancestors of our not-so-far-back colonial past adopts the subtlety of sabre slashing,' he said. Mr. Hayden said the 'brainwave' of a treaty caused anxiety among non-indigenous people, who would never accept separate nations in which they would be foreigners. "'If there is one thing that causes non-indigenous Australians to jump as though the proverbial bunger has gone off under them, it's telling them their nation is going to be dismembered,' he said ..." Well said!

We wonder whether Bill Hayden has come across Geoff MacDonald's widely read Red Over Black, which warned of the very divisions now being pushed by some aboriginal activists?

ALL DRESSED UP AND NOWHERE TO GO

Once again the visionary free-trade aspirations of the Howard Government and its Minister for Trade Mark Vaile appear to be no more than wishful thinking. A just-concluded meeting in Chiangmai, Thailand, saw the Australian dream of a free-trade area vigorously rebuffed by leader after leader. Chief opponent was Malaysia, but that country was not alone.

The Age (Melbourne, 7/10/2000) reported: "..... Malaysian Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz did not pull any punches. Asked if she thought the proposed wider free trade area would develop, she said 'No, not from our perspective, no.'" Her negative response was echoed by the Philippines and Indonesia. Perhaps they were alerted by an analysis suggesting the agreement would boost Australia's trade by $34 billion. At whose expense?

It seems Asian nations are tired of being asked to co-operate in their own destruction. Meanwhile, the US continues to say one thing and do the opposite. South Australia's Stock Journal (12/10/2000) said: "Despite its free trade rhetoric, the US Government has confirmed that it paid a record $30 billion in assistance to its farmers in the last financial year .... The US is not alone though. An OECD report released earlier this year found agricultural trade support in all OECD countries was approaching levels not seen since the mid 1980s ...."

They all get massive assistance - except Australian farmers, or what's left of them.

THE FUEL PRICE RACKET

A letter circulated to his constituents by Federal Member Patrick Secker, Member for Barker, attempting to defend Coalition policy on petrol pricing, made the following points:
. Since coming to office in 1996 the Coalition has not increased petrol excise and apart from the usual indexation in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) which was introduced by the Labor Government in 1983.
. The Coalition reduced excise for petrol and diesel by around 6.7 cents per litre after the introduction of GST on July 1st, 2000.
. This excise reduction, combined with the abolition of Wholesale Sales Tax and the reduction of diesel excise on transport of 24 cents/litre, together with the introduction of GST means the price of petrol need not rise as a result of the GST package.
. The ACCC found that average petrol prices fell between June 30th and July1st, 2000, with the introduction of the GST.
. The Fuel Sales Grant Scheme pays a grant of 1 or 2 cents per litre to petrol retailers in regional and remote parts of Australia. This means country motorists generally pay less fuel tax than city motorists.
. The cost of petrol falls by around 10% for business who get a GST tax input credit.

In a heavily-emphasised box Mr. Secker had added:
"HIGHER PETROL PRICES DO NOT BENEFIT THE COMMONWEALTH BECAUSE EXCISE RATES REMAIN THE SAME AND THE STATES RECEIVE ANY INCREASE IN GST REVENUE AS A RESULT OF PRICE INCREASES"
There now! Isn't that comforting? And you thought our Federal Government had stopped loving us!

However, a Royal Automobile Association (RAA) report contradicts Mr. Secker. It says: "Pre GST the Commonwealth collected excise of 44.2 cents per litre for itself and the Territories. It retained 36 cents and passed 8.2 cents to the States and Territories. " Under the new tax system the States and Territories receive the GST instead of the 8.2 cents excise. The Commonwealth now retains excise of 37.5 cents per litre (plus 0.64 indexation in August) and at a pump price of $1.00 the GST is 9.1 cents per litre instead of the 8.2 cents of the old state and territory excise.

"The Australian Tax Office set the current excise rate .... It reveals that excise going to the Federal Government on 30/6/2000 was 36 cents per litre and has since risen to 38.14 cents per litre. "

No matter how it's dressed up, if motorists were paying the same amount of tax on petrol today as they were paying on June 30th, 2000, petrol would be 3 cents per litre cheaper."

The RAA report went on to reveal another windfall gain it had received, apart from excise. It said: "The higher the world oil price the more tax the government collects under the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax. It is a tax on Bass Strait oil, which takes 40% of the difference between the production costs of oil and the selling costs. The Budget estimate is based on a price of around $US25 a barrel with estimated revenue of A$1.28 billion over the next year. The current world oil price, however, is over $US30 a barrel. "Based on a world oil price of $US30 per barrel the Government revenue from the Petroleum Rent Resource Tax will be $1.75 billion - a windfall of $470 million over budget estimates."

The RAA report concluded: "If we paid the same petrol tax as Americans, we would be paying 63 cents per litre for fuel." Surely, Mr. Secker's constituents - and a lot of other Australians - would dearly love to see his refutation of the RAA report.

CORPORATE PIRATES

by Antonia Feitz
It was reported in The Weekend Australian that highly profitable corporate giants - including Microsoft, Optus, General Motors, BHP, Ansett, Boral and Email - have stung South Australian taxpayers for packages worth more than $200,000 in industry assistance to 'encourage' them to set up in that State and provide desperately needed employment (14-15/10/2000). Various South Australian governments have spent $660 million on such industry 'assistance' over the past 10 years.

Seeing as caving in to the corporations hasn't done South Australia much good anyway, the governments would have been better off supporting and developing local small business and telling the giants to go jump. But they don't.

SA's Treasurer, Rob Lucas, said, "If other States are prepared to make offers to move companies out of South Australia, what do we do? Do we just say, 'no, we won't do it', and lose the jobs for South Australians, or do we negotiate?" Just as the corporations pit one country against another, forcing governments to introduce labour market 'flexibility' and drive down wages, so they pit Australian State governments against one another, making them bid for their business.

Of course, any premier with integrity would tell such corporations to go jump and expose their venality on TV. With the political will, States could re-establish functioning economies despite all the propaganda to the contrary. And still politicians, bureaucrats, multinational CEOs and newspaper editors profess to be puzzled as to why people loathe and detest globalisation. Because they are ideologically blind, they can't understand why people object to the emasculation of elected governments, or to the power of unelected, wealthy corporations to exact tribute from taxpayers. After all, Australia is enjoying record prosperity so they say.

In demanding taxpayer-funded "assistance", and threatening to pack up and go if they don't receive it, these corporations are no better than crude stand-over merchants. As they have no regard for Australia other than its profit-generating potential, they have no regard for the Australian people. They are alien parasites. They should be ashamed of themselves, but they undoubtedly think exploitation of taxpayers is savvy business. Tyrants always do.

A TRAGIC REVERSAL: MADELEINE ALBRIGHT'S VIEW OF REALITY

by Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, Secretary-General, MIFTA HPLC Member, Jerusalem

In her interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" (Sunday, 8/10/2000), US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright represented the epitome of the wilful blindness, moral vacuum, human insensitivity, political cynicism, and strategic ignorance that have characterized the US handling of the Arab-Israeli "peace process" and the Palestinian Question in particular.

When asked about the US abstention on the UN Security Council's Resolution 1233 deploring the [anonymous] "provocation carried out at Al-Haram Al-Sharif in Jerusalem on 28 September 2000" and condemning [also anonymous] "acts of violence, especially the excessive use of force against Palestinians," Albright immediately waxed apologetic. She was defensive not about diluting the text of the resolution and eliminating any explicit reference to Israel's culpability, not about abstaining when the US should have cast an affirmative vote in condemnation of the horrific and tragic loss of Palestinian lives (mainly children), and not about American passivity before the very visible crimes against humanity that are being committed by Israel with impunity and arrogance. Rather, Madam Albright expressed contrition at not casting a VETO on this hesitant, apologetic and inadequate expression by the international community of minimal recognition of Palestinian humanity and suffering.
Why? Because the US wants to "safeguard" its role as an "even-handed peace broker."

To the Palestinians, this came as a complete surprise since the US has never been even-handed or fair or even remotely human in its brokerage of the peace process. Given the chance to atone, however modestly, for such double standards and bias, the US once again insists on failing the test of moral integrity and humanity. Worse yet, Madam Albright (and with a straight face) declares in a cold and deliberate tone that the Palestinians have "placed Israel under siege". I immediately assumed that she had confused her nouns, and that she had inadvertently given the converse version of reality.

In the next breath, however, and with the same dead pan, expressionless, emotionless, glazed look, Madam Albright repeated: "Those Palestinian rock throwers have placed Israel under siege," adding that the Israeli army is defending itself. At the risk of tediousness and redundancy, it is appropriate to remind Madam Albright of a few basic facts that may have escaped her notice: It is Israel that is the belligerent occupant of Palestine (and not the other way around). Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles are surrounding Palestinian villages, camps and cities (and not the other way around). Israeli (American made) apache gun ships are firing Lau and other missiles at Palestinian protestors and homes (and not the other way around). It is Israel that is confiscating Palestinian land and importing Jewish settlers to set up illegal armed settlements in the heart of Palestinian territory (and not the other way around).

The settlers on the rampage in the West Bank are Israelis terrorizing Palestinians in their own homes (and not the other way around). The homes that are being demolished at the hands of the Israelis are Palestinian homes (and not the other way around). The armed soldiers and Special Forces at checkpoints throughout Palestine are Israeli (and not the other way around). The more than a hundred murdered civilians and thousands of injured are all Palestinians being shot by Israeli occupation troops (and not the other way around). It is Israel that has closed down the Palestinian airport at Gaza thereby preventing badly needed medical supplies from reaching the Palestinians (and not the other way around).
The crossing points to and from Palestine as well as entrances and exits to and from all Palestinian inhabited areas are manned and controlled by Israeli soldiers who have completely prevented all freedom of movement (and not the other way around).

To state the obvious once again, Madam Albright, Israel is committing atrocities against the Palestinians with total impunity, and yet you maintain "Israel is besieged". To add insult to injury, you admonish the Palestinian leadership for not ordering their people to "stop the violence", as though you're entirely oblivious of the fact that all it takes is an order from Barak to his "disciplined" occupation army to stop killing Palestinians.

No, we will not lie down and die in silence, even to accommodate you, Madam Albright, for cold-blooded murder is not a phenomenon we condone. May I suggest that the siege is in the minds of American officials and apologists for Israel who wilfully persist in blaming the victim, in finding a false symmetry between occupier and occupied, in adopting a double standard on the value of human lives and rights while totally dehumanising the Palestinians, in treating Israel as a country above the law and Palestinians as a people not worthy of the protection of the law, in manipulating and inventing a peace process that would accommodate such a racist and stereotypical version of reality rather than a reality of justice and evenhandedness, and in evading and distorting moral responsibility towards the Palestinian victims rather than celebrating the violence of the oppressor.

Granted, Madam Albright, Milosovic is a war criminal (despite the fact that his army did not massacre the Serb opposition that brought about his downfall), but what about Ariel Sharon and even your good friend Ehud Barak. Whose blood is dripping from their hands?

Granted, Madam Albright, "the people have spoken" in Yugoslavia, so why don't you listen when the Palestinian people cry out for justice? As a woman, a mother and grandmother, you surely understand the pain of children and their parents when they get hurt; what about the agony of senseless and brutal murder being visited on Palestinian children?

May I suggest, Madam Albright, that before you go on television before the whole world to pontificate on issues Palestinian that you start by examining the facts, and then start to examine your own conscience.

From: The communications department of the Anglican Communion Office, London.
(Dr. Hanan Ashrawi is an Anglican-Christian) MIDDLE EAST - October 13th, 2000.

ON ISRAEL, PALESTINE, AND CYNICS

by Doug Collins (Canada)
About 25 years ago, when I was the editor of the op-ed page at the Vancouver Sun, I wrote a half-page article on good terrorists and bad terrorists, meaning the Israelis and the Palestinians. And so that there should be no mistake about it I ran pictures of good Menachem Begin and bad Yasser Arafat. Begin, who was to become the Israeli prime minister, was on a fund-raising tour of Canada and the US and had been described even by some Jewish sources as a "Judeo-Nazi," he having been one of the most ruthless terrorists of all. Among other things he was responsible for the blowing up of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem and the massacre at Deir Yassin, in which a couple of hundred old men, women and children were killed and stuffed down wells.
The article inspired many letters, most of them hostile.

One person who became very excited was Rabbi Marvin Hier, then living in Vancouver and now dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles. At the time, however, the Sun had a publisher who refused to retreat before the onslaught. Today, it would be miraculous if the Sun rose with such a piece in its beams, the chairman of Pacific Press being David Radler, who is Jewish, and most of the Hollinger/Southam Press having been taken over by Izzy Asper, who is also Jewish. Asper now controls 13 major metropolitan dailies in Canada, plus 136 other daily and community papers, and has a 50 percent interest in the Hollinger flagship, The National Post.

The reporting on the current Middle East crisis has been about as one-sided as possible, and no outlet has been more one-sided than the Post. In many ways it is not a bad newspaper. But even though the Israelis may be using gunships against the Palestinians, and even though they have killed 100 of them, including children, the Post's support of Israel could not be more complete. Could it be that its editors have an eye on Izzy, or that he has an eye on them? Perish the thought!

In one issue there were several pictures of Palestinians mobbing Israelis. In another, there was a photo of a Palestinian "using a bow and arrow against Israeli forces", and in another we saw a Palestinian with blood on his hands. Well, when you are desperate for negative news, blood on the hands and bows and arrows are better than nothing. Strangely enough, however, there were no pictures of Israeli aircraft bombing the Palestinians.

It was much the same in the Vancouver dailies. The Province (also under Radler/Asper control) excelled itself with its front page of Friday, October 13th, the whole of which was taken up by the headline, "Howling mobs butcher captive Israelis", and the sub-text told us that two Israelis had been killed. Perhaps they got that from their close relative, The Post, which proclaimed, "Lynch mob devours two Israeli soldiers". Two? Very regrettable. All deaths by violence are regrettable. No man is an island, as the man said. But - forgive me - where were the scare headlines when 2,000 Palestinians were killed in the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps? Or when more than 17,000 civilians were killed in the early 1980s during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon?

In the Middle East, butchering seems to be OK provided it is done by the right people. According to Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for the London Independent, who was reviewing the current crisis, 106 Palestinians were wiped out by Israeli gunners in 1996. Did that ever make any news here? Whatever, it would be a frosty Friday when a Canadian paper ran a headline stating, "106 Palestinians butchered by Israelis".

Consider, too, that the Palestinians were robbed of their country by terrorism, which helped to persuade the British to give up their mandate, and by Harry Truman's decision to push for the creation of Israel against the advice of his own State Department. Jewish-American support was more important than American interests, which according to then Secretary of State George Marshall lay with the Arabs. It has been the same ever since.

When the USS. Liberty was attacked by the Israeli air force, with 36 American deaths, Lyndon Johnson did nothing about it and it soon disappeared from news. Just a mistake, you know. Now, presidential candidates Gore and Bush outdo each other in grovelling to Israel. Bill Clinton, meanwhile, has stacked the State Department with Jews, beginning with Madeleine Albright, but pretends to be neutral. In New York, Hillary stumps daily for Israel. It's all a bit like sending a cardinal to negotiate with the Pope.

The Palestinians are supposed to forget that Israel is an American dependency to the tune of billions of dollars a year, that the US supplies it with its best weapons, and that American policies in the Middle East are dictated by you-know-who.
Never mind. They still have their sticks, stones, and bows and arrows. It's enough to make a fellow become a cynic.

From THE COLLINS COLUMN, Monday, October 16th, 2000

ADELAIDE CONSERVATIVE SPEAKERS' CLUB