TAXATION RESEARCH

by Jeremy Lee
In March 2000 the League's monthly New Times Survey carried a leading article on "the Murphy Furphy". This described a movement which held that the Constitution, the process of federation and the laws, courts and the Australian Taxation Office, were legally invalid. The movement has continued to grow since then, producing a mountain of documentation to bolster its argument. It has even argued that, because of the legal stalemate in Australia, the United Nations should be asked to intervene, giving Australians a new Constitution and generally sorting out a mess that is beyond the capabilities of the Australian people.

In the process of this tortuous argument, the Income Tax Research movement (ITR) has offered legal advice to members who have withheld, or refused to pay, taxes on the grounds that they are invalid. It seems as though the movement has run into a dead end. Under the heading TAX BATTLE OVER AT LAST The Australian Financial Review (28/3/01) reported:
"The Institute of Taxation Research has lost its long-running battle to have Australia's tax laws declared technically invalid, following an order by the South Australian Supreme Court that the company be wound up. The court appointed a liquidator to oversee the wind-up of ITR and ordered the company to repay the legal costs of the Australian Taxation Office. ITR has spent the past few years arguing that changes to Australia's international sovereignty since 1901 meant that the laws passed by the Federal and State governments were illegal, including the laws governing income tax and the GST. During that time it launched more than 35 legal challenges on behalf of clients, none of which has been successful......"

The article went on to point out that in February the Federal Court in Brisbane ruled the ITR and NSW solicitor Wayne Levick were guilty of providing misleading advice, following action by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. While we are not supporters of the Australian Tax Office, which has made an unholy and destructive mess of the GST, the only way such things can be changed, if Australia is to avoid revolution and bloodshed, is through the parliamentary process and changes to existing legislation.

THE LABOROUR WORTHY OF HIS HIRE?

DEADLY NEW TREATY IN THE PIPELINE

The March issue of The New Times Survey carries details of a deadly new international treaty in the pipeline. The treaty, called the General Agreement on Tendering for Services (GATS), is aimed at the internationalisation and privatisation of any and all government services, including health and education. The lowest tender, no matter from what part of the world, would be compulsorily accepted. Australia has not yet ratified the treaty, but it appears some States are already jumping the gun. The Australian Financial Review (28/3/01) gave details of a new agreement between the NSW and Queensland governments to "investigate shared public and private infrastructure development and services delivery after Victoria yesterday became the first Australian state to detail a public-private partnership system.

"Guidelines released yesterday by the Victorian Treasurer, Mr. John Brumby, set out the basic characteristics of the State's new policy of partial privatisation of major projects and services, .....The system is viewed as a more politically palatable method of privatising government services in education, health, aged care and housing ...."

The smell of multinational pressure is all over these latest moves. And with shared services, under private administration, the federal system would be even more tenuous.

TALKING OF TAXES

Following a recent Bulletin article (reported in On Target last week) which pointed out that the Howard government had taken taxation to the highest level in Australian history, the Prime Minister had a long, rambling and defensive letter in the next issue (March 27th). The substance of the letter - like so many government statements these days - was that because the GST was to be handed to the States, it should not be counted as a component of Commonwealth taxation. Howard's exact words were: " ...... Your analysis is flawed in so far as it adds GST revenue to Commonwealth tax revenue in order to derive a consistent measure of the overall Commonwealth tax burden. For one, this treats the GST as exclusively a Commonwealth tax. This ignores the fact that in addition to replacing the wholesale sales tax, the GST replaces a number of State taxes and all the proceeds of the GST are remitted to the States. Adding the GST to Commonwealth tax is therefore in no way representative when making comparisons with Commonwealth revenue in earlier years......"

With respect to Mr. Howard, this is specious nonsense. Ever since federation there have been Commonwealth grants, both general and specific, to the States. There has never been any suggestion that the sum of such grants should be deducted from Commonwealth taxation figures. Why should the GST be any different? This raises another matter. In earlier times, Budget figures and statistics in the Year Book were so simple that anyone could understand them. The modern Year Book is a model of confusion. What would be useful would be a simple table laying out TOTAL taxation in Australia - Commonwealth, State and Local. This should be shown in aggregate, and also per capita. When describing Australia as a "low-tax-country" - which both Howard and Costello are still trying to maintain - we can get a picture of ALL the taxes we pay, and make an honest comparison.

PHONY BANK-BASHING

With a federal election drawing closer it is amazing to watch the major parties casting round for popular issues. Both have suddenly discovered the banks. Kim Beazley was first off the ranks with a statement including these words: "Consumers are tired of seeing record bank profits year after year while fees and charges rise and access to banking services declines ...." Labor has now produced a "Plan For Better Banking", which Alan Mitchell (AFR, 28/3/01) described as appearing "to go further in meeting the concerns of struggling voters. The ALP is offering consumers more of the benefits of competition (lower fees, greater transparency), as well as protection against the less-pleasant consequences of competition (transaction fees and the closure of uneconomic branches) and assistance normally associated with the welfare system (fee-free accounts, no-interest loans and so on)....."

Hardly were the words out of Beazley's mouth that the Coalition took up the battle against the banks like bloodhounds on the trail. There seems little doubt that the period between now and the federal election will be a case of Tweedledum and Tweedledee "agreeing to have a battle". "I'm certainly in favour of any action being taken to prevent the banks charging fees they oughtn't to charge. There is understandable criticism of what the banks have done to the community ...." said Prime Minister Howard.

One would never have believed that these two spokesmen came from parties which fought so hard to deregulate the banks. Deregulation, we were told, would "increase competition, producing lower costs and other benefits for consumers!" But it's a far cry from what is really needed - a re-discovery by Labor leader Beazley of the election pledges of his pre-war predecessor in the seat of Fremantle, John Curtin.

Standing for the September 15th, 1934, election, Curtin said: "Restrictions imposed upon the Commonwealth Bank in 1924 by the Bruce-Page Government will be removed, and the bank freed to enter into vigorous competition with the private banks to secure for the people the profits and privileges of banking which are now practically monopolised by private banking companies ...."

But then it was Paul Keating's Labor Party, in which Kim Beazley was a Cabinet Minister, which sold into private hands the bank Curtin was trying to restore. Meanwhile, 23,298 people went bankrupt in Australia last year. The numbers of bankruptcies have tripled in the last 10 years, and are still continuing to climb. What are Howard and Beazley going to do about that?

RUNNING OUT OF FRIENDS

TILTING AT WINDMILLS

NATURAL DISASTERS

BASIC FUND

INVERELL FORUM

SYDNEY'S NEXT CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP

by Antonia Feitz
A minority of liberal - i.e., unorthodox - but noisy elite Sydney Catholics are all in a tizz because their next Archbishop is going to be a real Catholic. Yes, ex-rugby player, Melbourne's Dr. George Pell, is coming to Sydney and the liberals are outraged. Why? He's 'conservative' - i.e., he upholds traditional Catholic teachings such as that abortion and homosexuality are sinful. Despite media claims that Pell refuses homosexuals holy communion, the truth is that he refuses communion to activists wearing rainbow sashes proclaiming their homosexuality. If the homosexuals didn't wear the sashes, Pell wouldn't know they were homosexuals. Clearly the homosexuals stage managed that stunt for their own media purposes.
In any case, when Pell explained the reason for his action after mass, the Cathedral congregation spontaneously burst into applause.

Former human rights commissioner Chris Sidoti, who describes himself as a Catholic, described Dr. Pell's appointment as "outrageous" and "an unmitigated disaster" (ABC, The World Today, 27/3/01). So much for Sidoti's Christian charity, let alone that most esteemed secular virtue of the politically correct crowd - tolerance. How very droll that the most venomous vitriol came from a former "human rights" commissioner! Sidoti claimed Dr. Pell's tenure would have dire effects in Sydney with priests leaving and fewer Catholics going to church on Sunday. The very opposite is true. While Pell's term in Melbourne provoked the same hostility from the Church elites, some of whom resigned their posts in protest, Church attendances and vocations actually rose in Melbourne.

Dr. Paul Collins, who recently resigned from the priesthood (most Catholics would say good riddance!), also expressed his horror at having an orthodox Catholic Archbishop in Sydney. Collins once notoriously said that logging of old growth forests was 'sinful'. If he was one of the 13 signatories to a letter to the Sydney Catholic Weekly some years ago which expressed that sentiment. I am delighted to inform readers that I publicly savaged them for their rudeness to forestry workers and their monumental ignorance of forestry. A retired forester complimented me on my demolition job. Praise indeed.

WHO IS THE BIGOT?

by Antonia Feitz
The elites regularly accuse Pauline Hanson of fostering hate and divisiveness. In doing so they merely project their own hate. Here's a classic example from Duncan Campbell, a former Australian diplomat who now comments on current affairs.

In Monday's (26/03/01) Australian he wrote: "We face a real risk of lowering the nation's political IQ if One Nation further consolidates its position ... . One Nation's assault on Australia's political intelligence and integrity was advertised in a recent comment by its figurehead ..." And so on...

Along with insulting the one million of his fellow Australians who voted for One Nation in 1998, Duncan Campbell went on to write the most blatant historical revisionism. For example, he accused One Nation of breaking with Australia's traditions by "playing the man and not the ball." Excuse ME, Mr. Campbell, but everybody knows it was the major parties who started playing the woman not the ball. Then Campbell said that One Nation "abnegates the democratic commitment to a loyal Opposition offering an alternative government". What tripe. The only reason for One Nation's existence is that it's been many years since Australians have enjoyed the luxury of a "loyal Opposition". Choosing between Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber isn't much of a choice and certainly doesn't produce any change in policies.

One Nation only exists because Australia has suffered at least 18 years of a one party state! Even the elites have admitted it, though in polysyllabled euphemisms such as the "democratic experiment in elite bipartisanship". Campbell also accused One Nation of being "predatory" and of playing a "manipulative, spoiling role". This is classic psychological projection: the major parties are the "predatory" ones who play a "manipulative, spoiling role" in Australia's political system. Who can forget how global economist David Hale seriously suggested on ABC TV that the Coalition and the Labor Party should form a COALITION to defeat One Nation in the 1998 election, if that's what it would take to defeat it. He didn't even blush! One Nation just wanted to play the game under the existing rules. Talk about propaganda and revisionism!

DUNCAN CAMPBELL'S VIEWS

by Antonia Feitz
Duncan Campbell is a dyed-in-the-wool globalist who loathes patriotism. At a Question Time in Sydney chaired by the ABC's Maxine McKew he said, "the best morality, if not the only morality, is multilateral. The morality of the United Nations, of the Commonwealth, of the Red Cross, of various non-governmental aid organisations, and so forth." (https://www.uniya.org.au/syd_16.htm)

It's not. The best morality is that of a free and virtuous citizenry in an independent nation such as the Australian and the US Founders envisaged, the one globalists are doing their very best to destroy. Naturally he's all for self-determination rights of "the first Australians". It's crazy isn't it: Aborigines should enjoy self-determination, but Australians and other nationals are derided for wanting the same thing. For Campbell, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is "very likely the main moral document of the last century" - but that Treaty's Article 2 (7) - which guaranteed national sovereignty - he described as "infamous" and as "no more and no less than a quarantining of domestic violence". The steady breakdown of sovereign rights that's been going on for about thirty years now within the multilateral framework is "encouraging". Given his views, no wonder he froths at the mouth at the thought of Pauline Hanson. May she continue to enrage him because his views are repugnant to all patriotic Australians.

Post Script
For reference, here is Article 2 (7):

"Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any states or shall require the members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII."
Chapter VII concerns itself with "Action with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace and Acts of Aggression".

So how come the UN grossly interferes in the domestic affairs of countries in areas such as marriage, parenthood, homosexuality, education, water, the environment, religion ....

Duncan Campbell - preferences, and racial discrimination
Astonishingly, Duncan Campbell had the hide to talk about One Nation's "predatory second preferences" (Australian, 26/3/01). In yet another example of historical revisionism, Campbell seems to have conveniently forgotten that it was the major parties who re-booted that particular dirty little game by preferencing each other - supposedly political rivals - over One Nation as advised by the unelected, globalist nosey-parker, David Hale.

Campbell expressed horror at Pauline Hanson's "invitation to racial discrimination" in her maiden speech. What a hypocrite! As a diplomat, he was more than aware that most Australians know that racial discrimination is the norm in Asia. Is he on record as ever publicly objecting to it? No, he's not!
Despite the tyranny of political correctness, there's nothing wrong with racial discrimination at the immigration level. All nations should be allowed to protect their cultures from being eroded by the influx of too many foreigners. Did diplomat Duncan ever publicly condemn, say, Japan's 'racism'? Can he excuse the international deafening silence about Japanese 'racism'? No, he can't. Any nation's policy of racial discrimination with regard to immigration has little if anything to do with notions of the superiority or inferiority of different groups, as the politically correct crowd claim. Rather, such policies merely reflect the deep-seated desire of most people to prefer their own. Birds of a feather do flock together whether the globalists like it or not.

We see the tragic results of enforced multiculturalism all around the globe. There's ethnic/racial/cultural strife all over Africa as well as Indonesia and the Philippines. And that's apart from the Balkans, Fiji, the Solomons and Papua New Guinea. And what about Britain? And Europe? And Australia? If the UN genuinely values diversity, why don't they respect it? Why do they champion so-called indigenous peoples' rights but despise those of the nationals of those countries? Canada and Australia spring to mind.