THE THUNDERBOLT HAS STRUCK

by Jeremy Lee
"When a thunderbolt strikes it is too late to consult the Book of Dates" said Confucius. The election results in Western Australia and Queensland may well have sealed the fate of the Howard/Anderson Coalition. Whatever inducements they now introduce to woo back electors will be seen to be exactly what they are - bribes which could easily have been introduced much earlier.

Only a week before the Queensland debacle Treasurer Costello was adamant that changes to the Business Activity Statement were impossible. Seven days later sweeping changes are under way. Will this be enough to appease hundreds of thousands of furious small business proprietors? It's doubtful. Most will see the previous refusal to compromise as sheer "bastardry". And if there is a 'far-too-late' reduction in petrol excise, it will simply add to the bitterness that the government could well have acted last year without reducing its anticipated revenue.

At the time of writing the Liberal Party has only two seats in Queensland - less than One Nation's three, and half the number of Independents. The National Party has less than half its previous tally and is trying to regroup. It's a case of the "walking dead". The major question now is the implications for the Federal election due before the end of the year.

It is worth recalling that the Federal Coalition did not receive any sort of mandate at the last election, least of all to introduce a Goods-and-Services Tax. The Bulletin of February 20th, which was on the news-stands just before the Queensland election, made this point:
" .... At the last Federal election in November 1998, Howard's Liberals received the lowest vote in percentage terms of any Federal Liberal Party aside from that of Billy McMahon in 1972, when Gough Whitlam swept to power. Howard's Liberals received just 33.89% of first preference votes in the House of Representatives. At the same time, the Coalition partner, the Nationals, received the lowest vote in its history: 5.29%. Kim Beazley's Labor Party got 40.1% of the primary votes, which happens to be more than the ALP received in 1990 when Bob Hawke's Labor government clung to power. "

What these figures mean is that Howard's Coalition lost a swag of votes to One Nation (which picked up 8.43% of the vote without winning a single Lower House seat) but managed to stay in government because in crucial seats, One Nation's preferences propped it up .... Since that time One Nation has been obliterated, divested of its financial base, and than resurrected. Considering this course of events its vote in Western Australia and Queensland has been remarkable. Also remarkable has been the vote for other minor parties and independents - all of which when added together bodes ill for the Federal Coalition.

Consider the figures
One Nation gained 9.55% of the vote in Western Australia, and in Queensland, 21% of the votes in the 39 seats where it stood, compared with 27% in the same seats in the last election. In the last Federal election - before the GST and the petrol price fiasco - it gained 8.43%. In the Victorian State election, 7.4% of the vote went to Independents. In Queensland, on top of the One Nation vote, 7.9% went to Independents. But another minor party did surprisingly well. Although we don't have the Green figures for WA, they scored five seats in the Upper House in that State. In Queensland the Greens, with none of the publicity which went One Nation's way, scored 7.3% of the vote. Thus, in the Queensland election, One Nation, the Greens and Independents between them took almost one-quarter of the vote.

The implications are staring both Howard and Beazley - let alone John Anderson - in the face. A new factor now confronts both State and Federal elections - the haemorrhaging of a growing percentage of votes away from the major parties. A major casualty has been the Democrats. Meg Lees' flirtation with John Howard, which allowed the GST to slip through, has exacted a high price for that party. The key to the Federal election will be the Senate. If any of the minor parties can put together credible Senate teams in each State, the first signs of a returning democracy may appear.

Queensland, with a rampant Labor Party dominating the Legislative Assembly, will rue the day it lost its Upper House - the only government in Australia without a bi-cameral system. The 'Beatty factor' played a key part in the Queensland election. Beazley would be foolish to believe that the same will apply to him. With regard to Howard, the former Liberal leader John Hewson - who met his own Waterloo over the GST - recently remarked: "Refusing to remedy mistakes is not leadership, it's dictatorship. Accepting peoples' views is not weakness, it's democracy."

THE MEDIA PARTY

With a few exceptions, the media has not covered itself with glory in the Queensland and WA elections. Neither did the polls. The sort of myopic and jaundiced views among many journalists was evident in an article headed AS GOOD AS IT GETS FOR REGIONAL AUSTRALIA by Alan Mitchell (Australian Financial Review, 19/2/01):
"Unfortunately for regional Australia and the National Party, this is as about good as it gets.... The only hope for improvement is glacial progress made at the World Trade Organisation, which Pauline Hanson and her supporters seem to think is a threat to Australian interests. "Rural producers' terms of trade will continue their long-term decline. Farmers will have to keep raising productivity. Small inland towns will continue to shrink under the pressure of rising farm labour productivity, technological change, and the drift of the population to a few major inland cities and the coast. And regional Australia - like the rest of the nation - will have to respond to the unrelenting pressures of international competition. That's what the rationalisation of government services has largely been about. It's what competition policy is about. Everyone has to get more efficient."

How does one contend with such thinking? Behind this view that "efficiency" has replaced "free choice" is the belief that the only purpose for the human being is economic production. But Alan Mitchell's scenario sums up what faces Australia. And the National Party which claims to represent both past and future casualties, cannot muster the fortitude to challenge and expose it for what it is - the demise of a free, decentralised and democratic nation.

THE AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR

Last November the Australian dollar hit an all-time low of US50.70 cents. Since then it has climbed by five cents before dropping again to the current level of between 52 and 53 cents. Why? The Australian Financial Review (Weekend, 17-18/2/01) told us:
"....The resumption of the $A decline is likely to generate concerns at the Reserve Bank. On Thursday, it said in its monthly bulletin that it had intervened in the foreign exchange market to support the dollar for the fifth month running during January. At the same time, daily turnover of the $A in foreign exchange markets was declining. This was partly due to general disinterest in Australia as an investment destination ...."

So we've been "propping up the dollar" by buying it on foreign exchange markets with our reserves. No nation can continue to do that for too long.

THE MULTINATIONAL TAKEOVER OF WORLD TRADE

The startling fact that United States corporations are selling twice as much overseas through their foreign subsidiaries as from exports has been revealed in the latest statistics from the International Trade Commission. The reason, according to the report is because the US had spent almost $US1 trillion ($A1.8 trillion) by 1998 acquiring foreign businesses, mostly in other industrialised nations. Sales by US-owned foreign affiliates topped $US1.9 trillion by 1997 while exports from home-based corporations were less than half that amount. A lot of the trade was between the parent corporations and their foreign affiliates.

The AFR (16/2/01) said: " ....In 1997, exports from US parents to their foreign affiliates totalled 23.8 percent of all US exports, worth more than $US220 billion ..... The ITC report says US firms invest abroad mainly due to better market access, lower labour costs and better access to resources or to a labour force with a particular skill."

None of this altered the fact that in the year 2000 the US trade deficit was a record $US415 billion.

SPREADING THE GLOBAL MESSAGE

Apparently shaken by the world-wide opposition to globalisation, the government fears we are not getting the message. The Age (Victoria, 7/2/01) reported: "... after the rowdy S11 protest last September, the Federal Government has launched a public awareness program to tell schoolchildren that free trade and globalisation are the keys to Australia's economic prosperity. Trade Minister Mark Vaile and World Trade Organisation chief Mike Moore yesterday launched a two-year program to educate children on the benefits of free trade. The campaign, designed by Austrade and the Department of Foreign Affairs, will be part of a $60 million program to counter the anger directed at global free trade institutions. Mr. Moore, a former New Zealand Labor leader, said most people were ignorant of the WTO's role, blaming it for the world's economic woes."

Somehow, the article omitted to tell us that Mike Moore is a member of the Fabian Society, a member of "Parliamentarians for Global Action" and the author of a book entitled "The Pacific Parliament", which forecast a Pacific Union along the lines of the European Union. The fact that a man with such a background has joined forces with a National Party Minister speaks volumes for the complete loss of direction in Australia's so-called 'conservative' forces. Sixty million dollars' worth of brainwashing - of our children, with our money!

GLOBAL ELITES WANT TO INFLICT MORE PAIN

by Antonia Feitz
It is become increasingly obvious to everybody other than politicians and tame journalists that the current economic system isn't working.
A clarification: the current economic system is working very well for banks, financiers, hedge funds, etc., but it isn't working for the world's people. Even the World Bank agrees that many people are going backwards. Its 1999 World Development Indicators reported that the number of Russians living in poverty has leapt from 2 million to 66 million in the past decade (The Australian, 28/4/99).

The Report also said financial inequality has increased and identified 34 developing countries where the top 20 percent of the population rake in over half the national income, and the bottom 20 percent get just five percent. Now the greedy elites are concerned that it's becoming more difficult for Asian leaders to make "economically painful and unpopular decisions" (The Australian, 9/2/01). This begs the question: why should they? Why should they risk exacerbating racial tensions to please greedy investors?

Brought to breaking point by harsh IMF prescriptions, the Indonesians savagely turned on the ethnic Chinese. The same would have happened in Malaysia had not Dr. Mahathir told the IMF to jump in the lake. Western bankers are irritated that Malaysia has slowed down its privatisation programme, that the new Thai government doesn't want to sell its banks to foreigners, and that Indonesia has put curbs on the free movement of capital to make it difficult for speculators to attack the rupiah. In short, they're irritated that these countries are showing a bit of independence.

An economist in Barclay's Capital, the investment division of Britain's Barclays Bank, sniffed that any re-regulation in Indonesia would be counter productive as that country requires "a more stable investment climate, not fresh uncertainty". And the managing director of a London investment advisory company parroted the old line that the Asian countries failure to 'reform' - i.e., cede control of - their financial systems was the root cause of the currency crisis in 1997. Hardly anybody believes that one any more.

It was the greed of the speculators in a financial system that is screaming out for some regulation. Dr. Mahathir is urging the Asian countries to unite against the predatory capitalism being imposed by the West. He said, "The idea that the market knows best is promoted by those who dominate the market and want their financial strength to determine what is best for themselves." Quite so! Bunkum is easily recognised.

GEORGE SOROS ON GLOBAL CAPITAL

by Antonia Feitz
Billionaire financier George Soros is scornful of the economic sacred cow that markets are self-sustaining and that market excesses will correct themselves provided governments or regulators don't interfere. In an article in The Atlantic Monthly he listed five major defects of global capitalism. ("Towards a global open society", Atlantic Monthly, 1/98)

1. Benefits are unequal. Capital is better off than labour because capital is mobile. Financial capital is better off than industrial capital. Even though multinationals enjoy flexibility in transfer pricing and can exert clout in investment decisions, they can't compete with the international portfolio investors. Consequently capital is attracted to the financial centres. It's not a productive use of capital.

2. Financial markets are unstable and notorious for boom-bust cycles. The instability can cause serious economic and social dislocation. Markets can't correct themselves because they tend to overreact.

3. Competition is reduced. Soros: "The goal of competitors is to prevail, not to preserve competition in the market place." Hence there is a tendency to monopolies and oligarchies. Soros is adamant that the only way to constrain the tendency is through regulation.

4. Capital can avoid tax while labour can't. Consequently the state's capacity to provide for the welfare of its citizens has been impaired. Soros noted Rodrik's observation that globalisation increases the demands on the state to provide social insurance while reducing its ability to do so. He fears the resulting social conflict will lead to protectionism and perhaps a 1930s-style break-down in the capitalist system.

5. Markets have no human values, reducing everything - including people - to commodities. But all societies need shared values for social cohesion. Soros: "We can have a market economy but we cannot have a market society."

Again echoing Rodrik: Soros said society needs institutions to serve such goods as political freedom and social justice. Such institutions only exist at the national level. Unless a global society develops alongside the global economy, global capitalism won't survive. By global society he doesn't mean a global state, but diverse nations sharing the values of the open society. The previous global capitalism was held together by the imperial powers. If the new one is to survive "it must satisfy the needs and aspirations of its participants".

I wonder if Howard and Costello, Beazley and his mob would call George Soros a Luddite, an ignoramus, a spouter of Hansonomics, and an economic troglodyte for uttering such heresies? The increasing social unrest that Australian politicians stupidly dismiss as resentment and envy is occurring precisely because globalisation is NOT satisfying the needs and aspirations of people. A society where singles in their twenties earn six figure salaries while fathers of families are thrown out of work due to deliberate economic policy is an unjust society.

KEY HOPEFUL FOR MOORE'S SEAT FORCED OUT

A key candidate in the Liberal Party preselection ballot to replace former defence minister John Moore is likely to be forced out of the race. Michael Johnson has dual British-Australian citizenship. Nine candidates have nominated to contest the Brisbane-based seat of Ryan, expected to become vacant tomorrow, when Mr. Moore officially announces his retirement. The pre-selection has already been rocked by claims of branch-stacking, and today, it has been confirmed that Mr. Johnson has dual citizenship, a problem that constitutionally barred One Nation's Heather Hill from taking up a Senate position. Liberal State Director Graham Jaeschke says that on the advice of a QC he will recommend that Mr. Johnson not be allowed to contest the ballot. "You feel sorry for him. He should be a bit embarrassed because this is an issue as a barrister he should have been aware of," Mr. Jaeschke said. "It's not the responsibility of the Liberal Party to make sure candidates for pre-selection are eligible. That's up to them."

Neil Baird comments
The interesting thing here is that the candidate who was opposed had dual Australian/British nationality, but was of Asian Origin. The Liberals claim that this is not racist excluding him from contesting the pre-selection on the ground that he is ineligible to stand as a Federal Candidate. This is an erroneous reading of the constitution. I have previously renounced my UK citizenship to enable me to run as a Federal candidate, which I have now done twice, once in 1996 as an Independent and again in 1998 for PHON. All the constitution requires is at the time of nomination to the local AEC returning officer (by the close of nominations) you hold only Australian Nationality or have taken irrevocable steps to renounce your dual nationality. (In reality unless you have a serious chance of getting elected you don't even have to renounce even then.)

In this case the seat is controlled by the Liberals and there would be a very strong chance that whoever got pre-selected would win the seat in the forthcoming Federal Election, so the person should renounce his/her citizenship, which is where Heather Hill stuffed up, because she didn't. The time between the calling of the election and the close of nominations is two weeks and the likelihood of an election being called between now and July 1st is not very strong. The time taken to start the proceedings with the British Embassy in Canberra is around 48 hours at the most, when given that you pay the fee (around $120), fill in the specific form, forward your passport to them etc., they in turn will issue to the person a letter stating that the process has irrevocably commenced.

From the moment that letter is received by a candidate, then to all intents and purposes, including S43 of the Australian Constitution, they no longer have dual citizenship, as they no longer enjoy the rights and privileges that go along with citizenship. The point is that the Liberal Party on racial grounds saw fit to disqualify a perfectly acceptable candidate from the Pre-selection. So much for racial equality. The rest is bunkum.

PUBLIC CONSULTATION - RACIAL AND RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE BILL

MPs MUST BE TARGETED ON RACIAL VILIFICATION LEGISLATION

Below are the details of the three Independents in the Lower House in Victoria. Don't forget the Liberals in the Upper House - pressure must be applied to them. All hands are needed (are you playing your part?) in a concerted letter-writing campaign - along with the submissions.
Write to:
Ms. Susan Davies, MP, Independent 1 Murray Street, Wonthaggi, 3995 (P0 Box 406, Wonthaggi, 3995) Tel: 5672 3799 Fax: 5672 3794 Pager: 016 370 040 E-mail: susan.davies@parliament.vic.gov. au
Craig Ingram, MP, Independent 143 Main Street, Bairnsdale, 3875 (P0 Box 443, Bairnsdale, 3875) Tel: 51523491 Fax: 5152 2023 E-mail: craig.ingram@parliament.vic.gov.au
Russell Savage, MP, Independent 170 Eighth Street, Mildura, 3500 (P0 Box 1385, Mildura, 3502) Tel: 5023 3798 Fax: 5021 2430 E-mail: russell.savage@parliament,vic.gov.au Internet: http://www2.ozland.net.au/savage/

League Submission posted on League website: Those who have access to the Internet can access a copy of the League Submission sent to Premier Steve Bracks' Committee. Our Website address is https://alor.org/

QUEENSLAND BOOK MAILING SERVICES

SYDNEY CONSERVATIVE SPEAKERS' CLUB 2001

ADELAIDE CONSERVATIVE SPEAKERS' CLUB

2001 INVERELL FORUM COMING UP - March 23rd-26th