WHY IS THE AUSTRALIAN TAXATION OFFICE NOT AN ELECTION ISSUE?

by Jeremy Lee
The series of blunders and scandals besetting the ATO are now so blatant and anti-business that the whole realm of taxation and the department itself should be in the minds of every candidate of every party. The latest is a damning report from the National Audit Office which implicitly labels "INCOMPETENCE" all over the blundering colossus which has become the bane of small businesses and taxpayers throughout the nation. Over 90,000 applications are now made annually for 'private rulings'. Such a phenomenon is only possible where tax laws are so obscure that department officials themselves are uncertain what they mean. It is difficult to say whether obtaining a private ruling is a benefit or not, or whether it would be better to be left in limbo. The Tax Department can reverse its own rulings, deeming them "illegal" for up to six years after. There is no such thing as certainty for the taxpayer who conscientiously tries to meet his obligations.
The National Audit Office found that, even when "private rulings" were made, one tax officer had great difficulty in discovering what rulings fellow officers had made. Different rulings on identical situations were a natural outcome. "' ..... The lack of integration of systems and inadequate systems controls undermine certainty, fairness and consistency of treatment for taxpayers,' the office said,....." (The Australian, 18/7/01)

Commenting on the tax mess, and the current rumour that an international firm of accountants was about to be employed at a further cost of $300 million to sort it out, Adrian Tame (The Sunday Herald Sun, 22/7/01) commented: "How have we come to this? A year and several million of our taxpayer dollars ago, when some idiot on the box was burbling about unchaining our hearts, many of us truly believed we were going to be delivered from the world's most needlessly complex tax system. "Because that's what the Howard Government's promise was - a simpler, less costly and more effective tax system, which would reward the honest and penalize the rorters. "Twelve months after the introduction of the GST, four out of five businesses believe it is more complex and costly than the system it replaced - according to a Price Waterhouse Coopers survey this month. " More than 70 percent of small and medium-sized businesses surveyed had spent up to $250,000 on transferring to the new system. More than 40 percent said they would go on spending between $10,000 and $50,000 a year on GST compliance. " The company's expert, Kevin O'Rourke, pointed out there had been 1800 'fine tuning' amendments in the GST's first year, with another 1,000 in the wings; the Taxation Act had increased from 3,000 pages to 8,500; this year's TaxPack is 350 pages, up from its already cumbersome 200 pages before John Howard came to power ....."

My standard Bible has 1,250 pages. The Taxation Act, according to O'Rourke's figures, is well over six times the length of the Bible!
And this is what the Howard Government is pleased to call "simplifying" taxation in Australia!

THE ASTON BY-ELECTION

The poll-pundit witchdoctors are having a field day interpreting the results of the Aston by-election. Has Beazley done his dash? Has Howard turned the corner? Etc., etc. - we've heard it all before. The most significant result is hardly mentioned.
The Australian Financial Review (18/7/01) put it this way: " ....Recent elections show gathering public disaffection from the major parties. In Aston, the first preference vote for independents and minor parties equalled 23 percent. In Ryan, this vote was 18 percent. In the West Australian State election this number was 28 percent. In the 1998 Senate election, 24 percent ...."

The preferential system of voting masks, for a time, the bleeding away of votes from the main parties. But there comes a point where it bursts into the public consciousness. Will it be in the coming federal election? If it does, it will be in rural Australia that it is most apparent.

THE 'GANG-OF-FOUR' DOES IT AGAIN

The banks - bless their gold-braid cotton socks - have earned about $6.3 billion from fees alone last year - a 14 percent increase over the year before. The figures are from the Reserve Bank's annual survey of Bank Fees - no less. Monthly account-servicing fees have risen from $2 to $5 since 1995. Over-the-counter withdrawals have jumped from $1 to $2.75. It must be all that competition from foreign banks, which then-Treasurer Paul Keating told us would produce more competitive services.

We notice that in the latest controversy over his piggery, Paul Keating received favoured treatment from the Commonwealth Bank - before the Labor Party flogged it off, of course.

'ILLEGALS' VANISH INTO THE COMMUNITY

How do 46 escapees from the Villawood detention centre simply disappear and remain undetected? The answer is that a well-prepared ethnic organization is in place and operating to frustrate the lawful authorities.
The Australian (24/7/01) told us: " .... The 46 escapees from Villawood are already being provided with money, food and medical attention through the city's various ethnic communities, refugee activists said yesterday. The networks are so well organized the fugitives can not only keep off the streets, they can also send messages back to any relatives left behind in Villawood ...."

The whole refugee saga has become a farce that is making a mockery of any valid attempt to police Australia's borders. If this is allowed to continue it will set the scenario for an "ethnic-versus-government" confrontation with dangerous consequences that could well match Brixton, Bradford and Oldham in the UK.

GM CROPS IN AUSTRALIA

Despite surveys showing widespread community concern over the use of Genetically Modified Organisms, the number of hidden GM trials is increasing day by day across Australia. The Federal Government's Office of the Gene Technology Registrar has released details of 629 crops in Australia experimenting with controversial genetic material.
Queensland's Sunday Mail (22/7/01) gave details of what is happening in the State: "Camouflage, decoys and deliberately misleading directions are being used to hide 41 genetically modified crops growing in Queensland. Many of the GM crops are surrounded by ordinary crops; the GM crops are disguised with shadecloth and guarded night and day. ...."

Crops being tested include apples, cotton, lettuce, pineapples, pawpaw, sugarcane and canola. Among those responsible for the trials are the University of Queensland and the multinationals Monsanto and Aventis. The Gene Ethics Network and other lobby groups have warned that the crops pose a potential threat to other cropping, particularly through cross-pollination.

THE BENEFITS (?) OF GLOBALISM

Australia's Treasurer Peter Costello is about to launch a campaign selling the benefits of globalisation. This will follow the allocation of $60 million to be used in Australia's schools, plugging globalism. It never seems to occur to politicians that, if a particular programme is producing benefits, they are self-evident. Launching a campaign of "persuasion" is really an admission of failure.
Ordinary Australians know whether things are better or worse. They don't need their tax money to be spent on campaigns telling them that black is white.

We have now had a quarter-century of changes heading towards de-regulation, free-trade, the level playing field, national competition, the lowering and elimination of protection for local industries, and so on. The politicians in the major parties are convinced - or dare not say otherwise - that we are all better off. The poverty, stress and suicide figures, as well as unemployment, downsizing, foreign and household debt, say otherwise. All of which is reminiscent of Squealer in George Orwell's "Animal Farm" who, as things got worse, always had the latest set of figures "proving" things were really better.

Kay O'Connell, the Manager of the Good Shepherd Youth and Family Service at St. Albans, Victoria, had a straightforward, truthful and hard-hitting letter in The Weekend Australian (14,15/7/01), replying to Mr. Abbott's suggestion that those in poverty must largely blame themselves. Her letter included these points: " .... Good Shepherd Youth and Family Service is a community based organization providing a range of services to people who are disadvantaged and living in poverty. We work daily with people who are facing extreme hardship due to circumstances beyond their control. Every day we see people who are worn down by the poverty they experience in their lives. It is a constant struggler to make ends meet .... Poverty is not a function of their individual behaviour. They have not made mistakes that have caused them to be less well off than they might otherwise be. They are simply not receiving an adequate income".

Taxing the better off to provide a welfare net for the increasing number of destitute is not, and never has been the answer. Social Credit offers the alternative.

BOSSES RIGHTS ERODED

by Antonia Feitz
Once upon a time people who employed others in their businesses could select whomever they wanted. If the owner/manager of a car yard wanted a blonde bimbo on the front desk he could advertise for a young woman and select the most buxom. These days that's discrimination and illegal. Consequently our employer must go through the motions of interviewing men and older women, but he'll still employ a bimbo if that's what he really wants. A local cake shop owner told a jobs agency that he wanted a female employee, but they wasted everybody's time sending along hapless lads who didn't stand a chance. The owner bided his time and selected a girl.
There's no doubt these sorts of busybody laws bring the law into disrepute. Why should governments concern themselves with such matters? Why shouldn't the owner of a restaurant be allowed to employ buxom young women, Koreans, redheads or midgets as his staff - if he wants a certain image?

It is highly objectionable that governments have banned this sort of discrimination. Then there's maternity leave. Employers break the law unless they offer a returning woman her old job or one of equal status. While that may work for government bureaucracies and large organisations it's simply impractical and often burdensome in small businesses, and not so small ones too. A recent survey showed that 43 percent of chief executive officers and general managers rising to 45 percent of senior managers said women on maternity leave shouldn't expect to return to their old job or one of equal status (SM, 17/7/01).

ANTI-SMALL BUSINESS FEMINISTS

by Antonia Feitz
Predictable, the Director of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, Ms. Fiona Kraut, was appalled by the survey's results. She's called for an increase in her resources so she can police smaller employers and educate all of us into politically correct attitudes about women - UN, socialist attitudes. But surely given the ill humour of the small business sector - still buckling under the tax slug - oops 'reform' - no government would dare acquiesce. It would be political suicide.

Showing how completely out of touch she is Ms. Kraut said, "There's a whole lot of ingrained attitudes that women lose their brains when they have children or aren't committed." What fem baloney! Note the feminist assumption that all employment requires intelligence and commitment. What about the hairdressers, the shop assistants, the drivers, the waitresses? Though work is pleasurable for many people because of the society of their workmates, would any rational woman 'commit' herself to K-Mart or taxi-driving? Does packing shelves or cooking hot chips require intelligence? These elites tend to forget that many people - men and women - have jobs, not careers. They work to pay their mortgages and to put food on the table for their families. And unlike career feminists who are comfortable about warehousing their babies with strangers, most women DO put their families first and want to care for their own babies.

Moreover, people establishing and running small businesses have better things to do than to worry about being politically correct. It's tough making your living in the real world. There's no comfortable regular salary, no holidays, no swanning off to conferences. Nevertheless according to the law, not to provide the same or an equal job to a woman after maternity leave is 'discrimination' and unlawful. Clearly the framers of the legislation never ran a small business.

Ordinary Australians whose skilled jobs have been exported must be incensed when they see the elites creating well-paying parasitical jobs for themselves. Feminists are particularly adept in this regard. How much money does all the bureaucratic interference in people's lives and businesses cost the country?

LETTER TO EDITOR

"Dear Sir, Last week you featured an interview with Mr. John Howard in which he claimed Government has "got the general economic settings right". The economic reality is far removed from that presented by Mr Howard. Your readers will recall that Mr. Fraser won office from Gough Whitlam in 1975. The Net Foreign Debt of our Nation then stood at 3% of our annual gross production. Fraser lost Government in 1983 and our Net Foreign Debt had risen to 13.5% of our annual gross production. So we elected Mr. Hawke and later, Paul Keating. Between them, they took our Net Foreign Debt up to 38.2% of our annual gross production.
Your readers will recall the rantings of Peter Costello in 1996 about the perilous position of our currency as it fell towards 70 cents to the US Dollar. Can we remember his Debt Bus touring the country bewailing our currency's slide under Keating? [And Howard's promise about no GST "Never, ever"???]
Today, Net Foreign Debt has climbed to 49.1% of our gross annual production and our currency sits at just over 50 cents to the US Dollar. All this in just over five years!

Or put another way, when Howard and Costello took over, the Net Foreign Debt stood at approximately $180 Billion Dollars. Today it stands at nearly $320 Billion Dollars. They've nearly doubled our debt in 5 Years! Or put another way, Net Foreign debt is rising daily at $75 Million Dollars. That's $3 Million per hour or $50,000 per minute... That is the rate at which we are going broke as a Nation.

It is nothing short of deceitful for Howard and company to claim they are sound economic managers. We would do well to study how our great grand parents delivered us a nation built with little debt nor crippling interest charges. Yet all our leaders can do is sell off our children's heritage. Witness ETSA, our seaports, Telstra, CBA, our airports, our railways, our roads, our water supply... and then have the hide to claim they are sound economic managers! May our grandchildren look back at Howard, Beasley, Costello, Keating and Co. with a sense of forgiveness.

ON-GOING SANCTIONS AGAINST IRAQ

The Western nations, originally through the British and European empires and latterly through the overwhelming power of the United States, have historically invested in other countries for the sake of their valuable natural resources. In return for exploitation of these resources and varying degrees of improvement in the life of the subject nations, the West has achieved the massive social and economic benefits that now depend on these natural resources.
Therefore heaven help those Third World and other nations that threaten to buck the system; the status quo. We saw this in the "humanitarian" campaign in the Balkans, in 1999, and the ostensible mission to protect the Albanian community Kosovo.

Now we are seeing the real motive behind the campaign; the precious mineral resources in Kosovo, have quietly fallen, illegally, into the hands of a consortium led by George Soros. Serbia, formerly the heart of the much larger Yugoslavia, is now coming under the Western economic regime of the International Monetary Fund as it is forced into the orbit of the European Community as one of the last remaining pieces of that particular mosaic. Professor Noam Chomsky points out these realities in his book Rogue States, in which he writes that the United States is no different in practice in its unilateral disregard for the authority of the United Nations than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. But only the Iraqi leader, Hussein, has been, and continues to be, demonised. Ruthless he may be even amongst non-European rulers, but he is an Arab who rules amongst his contemporaries as he may be expected to and it is no business of the Western Powers, the so-called "International Community", to call him to order on that score.

The real threat from Iraq is that to the security and supply of the oil in the Middle East that is essential to the West. Part of this situation are the draconian, hypocritical "this hurts me more than it hurts you" sanctions imposed by the United Nations - in practice with the British Governments hanging on their coat-tails - that have seen the deaths of some one million innocent Iraqi people. . . . .
from British On Target, Bulletin, June 30th, 2001.

WEST AUSTRALIA'S STATE WEEKEND

35th Annual Seminar: Saturday, August 11th - "Globalism or Nationalism". Speakers: Jeremy Lee - "The Money Trap", Joan Torr - "A State of Fear" and Betty Luks - "The Individual's Role in a Threatened Society".
Sunday, August 12th - Australian League of Rights "Action Day". Venue for both days: Perth - Rose and Crown Hotel - Guildford - Phone: 08 9574 6042 For further inquiries and information please contact Maureen Burton, State Secretary:Phone/Fax: 08 9574 6042. After hours: 08 9574 6260

Schedule for Australian League of Rights Tour, July/August 2001 with speaker Mrs. Betty Luks, National Director:
Monday, August 6th - Bullsbrook - Helen McKenna - 08 9571 3595
Tuesday, August 7th - Moora - John Broad - 08 9654 9030
Wednesday, August 8th - Morawa - Ed Valentine - 08 9971 1175

SOUTH AUSTRALIA'S STATE WEEKEND

August 18th & 19th: Seminar: Saturday, August 18th - 10am to 5pm. "Centenary of the Federal Commonwealth". Venue: Christ Church Parish Centre, O'Halloran Hill, South Australia. Admission $12 per person.
Speakers: Wendy Scurr & Andrew McGregor, "Defence, Deceit & Terrorism at Port Arthur"; Jeremy Lee "Sovereign Money: Sovereign Australia"; Betty Luks "What is Social Credit?"; Bishop John Hepworth, "Arrangement of Power in British History".

Dinner: Saturday, August 18th, from 6.30pm "Frank Bawden Memorial Dinner" Cost: $22 per person, 3-Courses. Bar facilities are not available, please BYO alcoholic drinks.

Action Conference: Sunday, August 19th. Admission $12 - includes lunch.

Wendy Scurr & Andrew McGregor meetings - "Deceit & Terrorism at Port Arthur" - scheduled tour:
Victoria: Melbourne - 7.30pm, Friday, August 10th - Acacia Room, The Victoria Hotel, 215 Little Collins Street; Phone 03 9650 9749
Horsham: 8.00pm, Saturday, August 11th - CWA Hall, McPherson Street; Phone 03 5382 4720 or 03 5382 6400
Nhill: 2.00pm Sunday, August 12th - RSL Hall, Clarence Street; Phone 03 5391 2166
Edenhope: 8.00pm Monday, August 13th - RSL Hall, Phone 03 5586 4240

South Australia: Eudunda: 8.00pm Tuesday, August 14th - CWA Hall, Clarence Street; Phone 08 8565 6214
Pt. Pirie: Wednesday, August 15th.

SYDNEY CONSERVATIVE SPEAKERS' CLUB

BOOK NEWS

"Moribund Medicine" by Dr. Pat O'Neill, MRCS, LRCP (Hons. Cambridge): Readers of the New Times Survey will be acquainted with the writings of Dr. Pat O'Neill. In this book he expands on certain conclusions he reached after retirement, i.e., modern medicines do not hold all the answers to healing. Hippocrates carried on the tradition of letting nature heal. Today we expect new chemicals to take over from nature. Healthy changes in life-style and diet, understanding the nature of stress and how to control it, he believes are the first steps to good health. Advances in medical knowledge have ensured a better understanding of the body mechanism, but the complexity of healing methods have created an industry that thrives on new disease. The complementary use of ancient skills, such as relaxation techniques acquired through meditation cannot be discounted. Price $12.00, Posted $14.50, from Heritage Book Service, P.O. Box 6086, Lake Munmorah, NSW, 2259.

"The Story of the Commonwealth Bank" by D.J. Amos. Leading politicians scoff at the idea that low-interest creation of money is not only possible, but is part of the answer to Australia's present woes. It is important to relearn how Australia made enormous progress when 'the peoples' bank' (the original Commonwealth Bank) controlled the creation of Australia's credit. The original Common-wealth Bank was able to fund the cost of the First World War without debt to the nation and resettle returned soldiers on land grants at extremely low rates of interest. Public works, such as the East-West Railway, were funded free of debt. The insignificant 0.625% interest charged was sufficient for the bank to make a profit! This book is immensely important for Australians to help in their search for a way of lifting the yolk of usurious international debt-finance. Price $5.00, Posted $6.00

"Here We Go Again" by Doug Collins. The author of this book and the newspaper he represented were the first in North America to be fined by the Human Rights Tribunal for having 'wrong opinions'. The author refused to pay a penny and has described the tribunal as a 'kangaroo court', where the adjudicators are the judge, jury and prosecutor and a complainant may never be named! Many people pay lip service to freedom of speech, but show little fight for it, Collins does. His humorous columns, included in the book, well worth reading. Price $20.00, Posted $24.00. From all League Book Services.