INTEREST RATES – ON THE WAY UP

by Jeremy Lee
Concerned about inflation, which has been with us ever since the Howard government came to office – and, of course, before – the Reserve Bank has started the traditional process of increasing interest rates to 'dampen' demand. In other words, by making it more costly to borrow, people will resist the urge to spend so much, thus 'restraining' the inflationary trend.

There are a lot of errors in this view. Firstly, that it is demand that drives up prices. This may once have been the case in the old 'scarcity-economy' days. When producers could not produce enough to meet demand, competition for a limited number of goods drove price-competition upwards. Today's price rises, on the other hand, are driven by cost increases largely stemming from debt-and-interest. Producers make no greater profits than before the price increases; in fact, in all but the most monopolistic corporations, they are continually shaving profit margins. It would be useful, although we'll never see it, if we had figures alongside the CPI index showing the level of percentage profits made by Australian industries. They would show a steady squeeze on our farming, manufacturing and ancillary industries that would embarrass politicians, bankers and economists who continue to use the outdated notion that increasing interest rates is a way to make the economy 'better' in inflationary cycles.

MANY WILL BE HURT
If, as many are predicting, we are going to have a series of small interest increases, resulting in a rise of 1% to 1.5% by Christmas, there is going to be an awful lot of pain in Australia. The very short boom in farm prices is over. Cattle prices are well down on a few weeks ago. Federal Minister Wilson Tuckey is right in saying interest rate increases will be disastrous for wheat farmers. The cane industry is facing the most disastrous situation since the Great Depression. World sugar prices have fallen by 40% – from US8 cents to US5 cents.
The world, we're told, is facing a glut, although there are millions who have yet to taste it. The industry that was worth $1.7 billion five years ago is currently worth about $1 billion. The majority of cane farmers carry big debts. Just when they need some sort of relief one man in the Reserve Bank makes a decision that adds to their debt-service costs "to check inflation". But the process is never questioned. And home-owners? A one percent plus rise by Christmas is going to create another spate of bankruptcies, foreclosures, family break-ups and general misery. Who benefits? Well, the banks of course, already struggling like the rest of us ....

INDEPENDENT FORUM CONFIRMS IGNORED CRISIS

I have just attended the two-day Queensland Independent Forum in Mackay which confirmed in no uncertain terms what many rural dwellers know: that the combination of environmental laws, including those over water, are now a deadly threat to freehold property rights. Farmers who have managed their properties well for many years now find themselves facing a battery of inspectors demanding everything from protection of native grasses to placing land within 50 metres of waterways in a 'non-use' category, to horrendous fines for cutting down a tree (even though the land-owner may have planted it in the first place).

With all these restrictions come a battery of regulations and licence fees. Questions raised by this zealous and usually uninformed 'big brother' approach are fundamental to ancient rights and freedoms. Why should farmers be forced to pay rates on land which they can no longer use and over which they have no control? What are the rights that go with freehold title-deeds? Does any government bureaucrat, armed with the latest in the seemingly unstoppable array of regulations, have the right to enter private property without a warrant, or even notice?
This is not a problem simply confined to one area. It is a nation-wide attack on property rights.

The Australian Financial Review (8/5/02) reported: "According to a survey of state farmers' organisations recently collated by the National Farmers' Federation .... they are symptomatic of what the NFF rates as the biggest issue facing Australian farmers: the erosion of property rights without compensation. "'I see this as one of the biggest issues for farmers for the next 10 to 20 years,'" says NFF president Ian Donges. 'I sense society is going to demand some major environmental reform and outcomes in this country and we have got to put a line in the sand....The fundamental approach at the moment seems to be based on command and control, and I would argue that's not a very effective way of doing it.'...."

The article went on to say that deputy PM John Anderson had also highlighted the issue in an address to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) Outlook conference, proposing a number of much-needed safeguards for owners, including adequate compensation wherever reforms were deemed necessary. But he ended in the usual lame-duck fashion by saying it was a State responsibility"

Anderson's address identified the two major stumbling blocks to the resolution of this extraordinarily sensitive issue: defining and valuing farmers' property rights in the first place, then determining who pays when they are taken away for the common good ...." Compensation must be paid if a farmer's title-deeds are taken away. But what is the position if restrictions are imposed while a farmer still has the title-deeds? This is the classic old Fabian tactic of dividing ownership and control – leave the title deeds with the owner, but remove his rights to make any decisions on how the land must be used.

The FREE Association in Mackay has done some sterling work on this question, and is emphatic that many regulations and supposed right of entry by government officials are against the natural rights that go with freehold title. It urges farmers to order officials off their property unless they have a magistrate's warrant, treating them as common trespassers. Ultimately, freehold title must be defined and confirmed by Australia's High Court, as it has in the past. Some of the personal tragedies, describing what bureaucracy has done to individuals, recounted at the Mackay Forum, were horrendous.

ANTI-TERRORISM BILLS UNDER SPOTLIGHT

It is quite clear that the Howard government has been shocked by the widespread opposition to its package of anti-terrorism bills. Howard has publicly stated that he has no wish to remove traditional rights. Attorney-General Darryl Williams, on the other hand, seems implacably determined to press on with his draconian package. If the swell of anger gets louder, the government will back off.

A major article in The Advertiser (Adelaide, 26/4/02) said: "Innocent people such as aid workers, fund donors, striking workers and protesters risk being caught up in the Federal Government's proposed tough new anti-terrorism laws. They could face mandatory life jail sentences. In a submission to a Senate committee, the Law Council of Australia said the government's proposed legislation was so excessive it was an affront to basic human rights and the rule of law....., If passed, the laws would sidestep longstanding legal protections of personal liberty, freedom from arbitrary arrest, the right to a fair trial, arbitrary invasions of privacy, freedom of expression, the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of association ...."

Twelve days later The Australian Financial Review (9/5/02) reported: "The Federal Government last night came under renewed pressure to water down its contentious anti-terrorism measures, following a strong criticism of draft legislation by a cross-party committee. In a bipartisan defiance of the Government, Liberal, Democrat and Labor Senators called for a narrower definition of terrorist activity and changes to ensure humanitarian aid could not inadvertently be considered an act of treason. The committee, chaired by NSW Liberal Senator Marise Payne, also criticised plans to allow the Attorney-General to ban groups considered a threat to Australian security...."

The hundreds of Australians who have expressed their concerns by letter and submission should be heartened by results so far. But this is not the time to relax. Every letter of reinforcement will help convince the Government and the bureaucrats they are on notice.

TAX AND THE YARRA

Chief Engineer J.A. Snee, of the good ship MV CSL Yarra (the ship that is going to re-register under a Bahamas flag so it can sack its Australian crew and hire Ukrainians), has written to The Australian (7/5/02). His point should give pause for thought: ".... The issue is not globalisation or competition, or work practices – it's about tax. The Federal Government's shipping policies actively discriminate against Australian registered ships in favour of foreign-flagged ships, to the tune of around $1.8 million per ship per year. Our seafarers could not overcome that tax burden if we worked for nothing.
For the business community
These policies don't just discriminate against Australia's seafarers, but also against ship owners, ship management companies, road transport and the rail network. If you can make a sound case for minimising the cost of transport, the same case should apply to Australian ships. If you tax us, tax them. If you don't tax them, don't tax us."

CSL is exploiting the Government's discrimination for perfectly sound commercial reasons. The real villain here is the Government. There is no level playing field when Australians have a $1.8 million a year millstone round their necks that the 'competition' does not. But then, apparently, Foreign Minister Downer is in favour of foreign workers doing Australian work. Do you detect the faint whiff of the fast-approaching GATS treaty?

AUSTRALIA'S MENTAL HEALTH

by Graham Strachan – taken from Neil Baird's website
On the socialist side of globalisation, the side we're not supposed to know about, UNESCO documents make it clear that the plan is to eliminate conflict in the global village by having everybody believe the same things and have the same set of values. This Orwellian goal is to be achieved by mass social conditioning of the type proposed by behavioural psychologist Professor B.F. Skinner in his book "Beyond Freedom and Dignity", a standard text in educational faculties. The mass conditioning is to be disguised by nice sounding language that portrays it as 'optimising the mental health' of populations, 'helping' people adapt to society and 'cope' with life's little problems (like permanent unpopular government).

The globalists have moved cautiously on this agenda to date because of its obvious totalitarian overtones, but after 9/11 it's open slather. All that is needed to get this programme up and running is a country to use as a human laboratory, someone gullible enough to implement the programme, and a group which can't object to use as guineas pigs.

Howard 'chief scientist' for Australia's globalisation
Finding the country is no problem. As The Australian newspaper's international editor, Paul Kelly, wrote on November 4th, 1998,:
"....Australia [is] one of the world's leading laboratories for the study of the impact of globalisation, with John Howard....in his role as chief scientist.

Finding the laboratory technician gullible enough to implement the programme was no problem either – Australia's Amanda Vanstone. And the guinea pigs that can't object because they are in need of assistance are Australia's unemployed – not just dole bludgers, but anybody who finds themselves temporarily out of work as a result of global corporate downsizing, which could mean any of us. The laboratory, in which the experimental animals are referred to as 'customers', is to be Centrelink, the privatised government employment service. Batteries of psychologists (400) are being recruited, Centrelink 'customers' are to be psychologically tested and evaluated, and anybody not meeting the government required standards will be obliged to undergo treatment, with a personal case manager assigned to them to plan and co-ordinate their ongoing 'mental health' programme.

You don't believe this could happen in Australia? See the Sunday Telegraph, April 28th, 2002, "Mental test for jobless", by Simon Kearney. You don't believe this has anything to do with UNESCO's Orwellian mass social conditioning programme?
Read my article "Targeting the Helpless: using the unemployed to introduce the UNESCO mental 'health' agenda" at www.grahamstrachan.com

SENATOR ASKS HOWARD GOVERNMENT TO 'PLEASE EXPLAIN'

Queensland's Senator Len Harris (One Nation) is warning Australians they had better take a good hard look at what the GATS Treaty (General Agreement on Trade in Services) means in terms of our economic and political future. Historically, writes Senator Harris, international trade agreements focused on promoting trade on goods by lowering tariff barriers between countries. This changed dramatically when GATS came into being. Trade rules now reach into every aspect of our lives.

Regular negotiations
The first round began on January 1st, 2000. Negotiations have progressed steadily to date. With each round, protection for Australian services are progressively whittled away.

Permanent Commitment
Once a commitment is made, GATS becomes a one-way street and there is no turning back. The agreement creates legally binding and enforceable obligations backed up by trade sanctions.

Schedule of commitments
If a country puts a service on its schedule of commitments, then the service is subject to 'market access' rules, which apply to its entire territory or any regional subdivision.
These rules forbid
1. Any limit on the number of service suppliers.
2. Any economic needs test.
3. Any requirement that a service shall be supplied through a joint venture with a local supplier.
4. Any limit on the participation of foreign capital.

Once activated these rules mean that foreign corporations would be entitled to receive national treatment. (Remember the MAI?). This could restrict government's ability to ensure that local people benefit from foreign investment and trade in services also affect the government's ability to selectively support certain local companies. For example; a local government may have a system for garbage collection which is quite adequate, but cannot prevent a foreign corporation from coming and offering the same service and cannot require any kind of partnership with the local supplier.

YOUR POLITICIAN NEEDS TO BE ASKED

Am I to understand that under the GATS – All services must go out to international tender? By 'all services' we mean the following: Education, hospitals, water supplies, electricity supplies, garbage collection, prisons, policing, armed services, bus and rail services, social security and pensions, road and rail maintenance, airlines, taxis, ferries, flying doctor, mail, libraries, banking.

Does 'any service supplied to the public' mean, included in the list are: Government services such as taxation, register of births, deaths and marriages, land title registration.

Does this mean, in truth, in effect: All will have to go out to public tender across the world and the lowest tender must be accepted to supply the service?

THE THIRD WAY

We are hearing references to Tony Blair's 'Third Way', as though he has changed his basic socialist beliefs and is looking for another direction. Some Australian Labor personalities are using the same terminology. Don't be fooled by it.

Pat Harrington "The Third Way: An answer to Blair" warns us Blair continues to identify with the labour cause but his policies are Fabian Socialist. Tony Blair: "The democratic impulse needs to be strengthened by finding new ways to enable citizens to share the decision-making that affects them. For too long, a false antithesis has been claimed between 'representative' and 'direct' democracy. The truth is that in a mature society representatives will make better decisions if they take full account of popular opinion and encourage public debate on the big decisions affecting people's lives."

There can be two objections to this statement:
• Direct democracy means that people have direct control, and this isn't what Blair proposes.
• He refers to popular opinion as if media conglomerates were somehow outside the loop; a strange viewpoint from someone who has proved so adept to doing deals with them.

Direct democracy should be: Representatives are bound to act on the will of the people expressed in a referendum.

WILSON TUCKEY SEES 'THE LIGHT'

What a discovery for him! What a revelation! He has seen the light, but methinks it is the 'illumination' of the New World Order, not the 'light' of conversion to the Christian religion! That great 'iron-bar' stalwart of the Liberal party Wilson Tuckey, has floated the idea of transferring the Federal Government's 'money flow' for such as policing and education from State Governments to Local Governments. He is putting forward ideas which reveal he has experienced a dramatic conversion from the traditional policies of the Liberals to policies that have a long pedigree - a pedigree that leads right back to Socialism/Communism.

Any older 'new Australian' could tell Tuckey that what he is proposing is the 'sovietisation' of Australia. Getting rid of the States, and the setting up of regional areas with the power and control of them centralized in Canberra. 'Good ol' Joe Stalin's tactics would be a good study for illuminated 'Iron bar' Wilson. Of course in the illuminated light of the push for the New World Order, the power and control will not reside in Canberra – at least not for long.

The League of Rights was born (1946) out of the 1944 war-time referendum "Vote No" campaign. Labor's Dr. Evatt's objective was to change the Federal Constitution in order to centralize more power in Canberra – of course it was only a wartime 'emergency measure'. The people said, NO! There was a time when Liberals saw their philosophy as contrary to Socialism, as the advert in the Sunday Mail, April 3rd, 1965, illustrates: "By joining the LCL (Liberal Country League) you will be fighting Socialism and preserving freedom of choice." The Liberal 'light' has certainly faded into a murky grey threatening 'presence'.

AUSTRALIANS MUST BE 'BORN AGAIN'

by Betty Luks
Australians must come to grips with what is happening to them. In the light of the above articles it can sadly be predicted we will slip further and further into the mire, if there is not a 'national awakening'. The term 'to be born again' contains the meaning of 'doing an about face' in your thinking and understanding. Australians must come to an understanding of what made their nation such a great place to be in and live in. And then fight to retain it.

To do that, they need to look again at their roots, which includes the Christian Faith: Not the 'touchy-touchy-feel-good' emotionalism which is now pumped out of many of the organized religious institutions,* "but the religion which aims to 'bind back to reality' or 'express in practical terms', in the current world, especially the world of politics and economics, those beliefs about the nature of God and man and the Universe which constitute the Christian Faith, as delivered to us from our forefathers, and not as altered and perverted to suit current politics or economics, which stem from a non-Christian source".

* Further reading: "What is Social Credit", by Geoffrey Dobbs; "Essential Christian Heritage" by Eric D. Butler.
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