GOVERNMENT'S ANTI-TERRORISM LEGISLATION FLOUNDERING

by Jeremy Lee
At the time of writing the Howard Government is in disarray over the future of Attorney-General Darryl William's Anti-Terrorism legislation. This is not due to the cut-and-thrust of the ALP Opposition, but a significant split in the ranks of the Coalition. For the first time in a long while there is a back-bench revolt against a cabinet plutocracy. The same split is evident over the impending ratification of the International Criminal Court.

What's behind this back-bench revolt, which hasn't occurred since the attempt over a decade ago to foist an Identity Card on the Australian people? It is the result of what Prime Minister Howard described from Washington this week as "the most significant change that I have witnessed in the 29 years that I have been a member of parliament" (The Australian, 14/6/02)
He was referring to the new tendency of Australians to abandon their usual party and group loyalties, changing their support and voting intentions on the basis of specific issues. On this point Howard is right. The old divisions of Left and Right - which were always played for all they were worth by party manipulators - have largely disappeared. A new voting pattern is emerging.

On the issue of the International Criminal Court, latest developments must be bitter gall to the likes of Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who has been pushing the concept since 1996, and Darryl Williams, whose authoritarian tendencies have become more and more obvious. The Australian Financial Review (14/6/02) reported:
" ....The Liberal chairman of the House of Representatives legal and constitutional committee, Bronwyn Bishop, said ratification of the ICC statute faced near certain defeat in the Coalition party room, with over two-thirds of the back bench opposed ..... 'The highest court of appeal in Australia should be an Australian court, not a foreign court, in a foreign land, with the power to charge our brave soldiers with genocide just for doing their duty,' Mrs. Bishop said. 'These people who try to defend the ICC cannot answer our questions, and any risk to Australian sovereignty for me is too great and when in doubt, do nothing.' ...."
It's a long time since we heard a coalition politician talk in such terms.

Receiving reports from trusty minions at home, while sitting at the knees of George Bush in Washington, Prime Minister Howard came up with the most adroit of backdowns in an attempt to diffuse the revolt in his party ranks:
" .... Strong indications that the Government would reverse its policy to ratify the statute emerged on Wednesday when Prime Minister Howard said in Washington that the US had made 'a very powerful case' against the court...." (The Australian, 14/6/02)
So the Prime Minister could hear in America what he couldn't hear from the thousands in Australia who wrote in to his government!

Alexander Downer was even more disingenuous: "Long time champion of the international court, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, played down the prospect of cabinet being told to undo five years' work in support of the court, but admitted there was strong opposition within the Coalition. "'What I've always said, right from the time I became Foreign Minister, is we should not rush off and ratify treaties and conventions in secret. We should have due process, parliamentary scrutiny of conventions and treaties the Government may wish to sign, Mr. Downer said. (ibid.)

We look forward eagerly to such sentiments when the daddy-of-them-all - the GATS treaty - comes up later this year.
With regard to the "anti-terrorism" legislation, the same back-bench revolt is growing. Already, the government has promised, with Labor's support, to 'amend' the legislation. But, led by the Law Council of Australia and the Government's own committee, comes the view that there is no need for the legislation at all; all necessary legal provisions are already in place without removing existing safeguards and rights for individuals.

PEOPLES' VOICE GROWS LOUDER

The anti-terrorism legislation is due for further debate and consideration on Monday (17th). But the terms have been changed by the massive influx of letters and E-mails received by all parliamentarians. The League has been one of a number of organizations urging supporters and subscribers to make their voices heard. While we have had strong disagreements and philosophical differences with the Citizens' Electoral Council (CEC) in the past, including the organisation's attacks on the Royal Family and support for an Australian republic, we acknowledge the initiative and discernment with which they have tackled the anti-terrorism legislation.

On June 12th, a full-page advertisement initiated by the CEC appeared in The Australian under the heading:
"THE DRACONIAN 'ANTI-TERRORIST' LAWS: END THEM, DON'T AMEND THEM!"

The advertisement gave a short, succinct history of the legislation, showing its similarity to the legislation rammed through by the Nazis on February 28th, 1933, suspending civil liberties. The advertisement was signed by hundreds of former parliamentarians, councillors and community leaders, from former Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer Jim Cairns to branch and State leaders of One Nation. In other words, it confirmed that the old demarcations of Left and Rights have long since disappeared.

Apart from illustrating the widespread opposition to the legislation from right across the political spectrum, the advertisement prompted a major article by Dennis Shanahan in The Australian two days later. While conceding the disappearance of Left and Right, Shanahan attempted (and failed) to pour scorn on the signatories:
".... If Tommy the Toucan had been at the top of the list instead of former deputy prime minister Cairns, there couldn't have been more fruit loops in this packet ..." In the time-honoured fashion of establishment journalism he brought in both the CEC and the League of Rights in the vanguard of "fruit-loops".

Readers, one supposes, were expected to react with horror! But, the indiscriminate use the smear is also fading as a weapon. Even while the accusation of "conspiratorialism" is bandied about, leaders like President Bush point to their own versions of "conspiracy" to justify their power-plays. More Australians are looking past smears towards issues. Of course there are still important differences. But by concentrating on those areas where there are agreements, rampant political opportunism is occasionally pegged back.

WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS?

The days of new and old parties are going. So are the days of big rallies. The era of "consensus politics" are beginning to appear. Right and Left veterans are gradually being lured from their bunkers, are meeting each other, and are even working together where they can. Younger Australians spurn the old-style seminars, preferring to pick up their information in action groups, workshops and even coffee-clubs. There's little talk about philosophy, but a lot about action. As usual, the internet is the new "hub". Sooner or later this new development is going to result in a more mature version of "voters' unions", which approach elections with a new form of "enterprise bargaining". Candidates for office will have to negotiate and make commitments well before election day. Voters, sooner than party officials, will decide policies.

If the Howard Government is forced to back down over the International Criminal Court and Darryl Williams "Anti-Terrorist laws", this will be a tacit admission that 'people-power' still counts, and that the removal of the democratic process by globalism is not a fait accomplis. Building on this, the infamous GATS agreement, brainchild of the World Trade Organisation, which Australia is scheduled to ratify by November, can also be defeated.

NOW IS THE TIME FOR INTENSIFIED ACTION

HOWARD IN AMERICA

PROPAGANDA SCAM

It appears the widely-publicized story of Jose Padilla, arrested in the US for allegedly planning the launch of a 'dirty bomb' is largely fictional. Padilla is being held in a South Carolina military jail as a "military combatant", which means he can be held indefinitely without trial. European papers are reporting that there is no evidence to support the charges. The Australian (13/6/02) reported:
"British and European security officials have expressed scepticism about the US Government's claims that an alleged al-Qa'ida supporter was preparing to launch a 'dirty-bomb' radio-active attack ..."

Newspaper articles claimed the Bush administration admitted lack of any evidence. What was it all about, then? Just an attempt to keep the jitters alive in American society?

INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT ABOUT-FACE?

Mr. Howard has cooled on the idea of Australia setting up an arm of the International Criminal Court, according to a Sydney Morning Herald report; "Cabinet split as Howard cools on international court", 13/6/02.

Why the 'cooling off'? It is revealed, "After a White House briefing, Mr. Howard became aware he and the Australian forces might be prosecuted by the ICC"; if the Court "became stacked with anti-US judges who would prosecute its forces involved in anti-terrorist and peace-keeping missions."

The article continues, "Deep divisions have emerged within the Federal Government over its backing for a new international court to try war criminals with the Prime Minister saying that United States arguments against it were 'very powerful'." While there could be quite a few anti-US judges who would like to have George Bush Jnr. (and George Snr. for that matter) before them on charges of war crimes. Methinks there are very powerful arguments against the setting up of the court in Australia in John Howard's case. What a thought! You mean there is a chance we might yet see little Johnny alongside Bush - and Milosevic?

MUGABE SAYS WHITES 2nd OR 3rd CLASS CITIZENS

by Antonia Feitz - https://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_570000.html

If 'racism' really is so evil and even criminal why is black racism so meekly accepted by the mainstream Western media? Why have Western journalists failed to condemn Robert Mugabe's 'racism' for telling Zimbabwean schoolchildren: "The soil that we walk is ours - every grain is ours. The white man is here as a second citizen: you are number one. He is number two or three. That must be taught to our children."

Do Western elites think Mugabe is right to say that black Zimbabweans are superior to white Zimbabweans? If they do why don't they openly admit it thus confessing that they are 'racists' too? If Western elites agree with Mugabe that Africa should belong to Africans not Europeans why isn't that idea condemned as 'racist'? After all whites have lived in southern Africa for three centuries and many whites in southern Africa regard themselves as 'Africans'.

Though very few people know the facts, some three hundred years ago the whites arrived in South Africa and the taller blacks migrated south almost simultaneously to fight it out and supplant the indigenous bushmen (pygmies). The whites won. An interesting question: if the self-styled elites of the Western media support the idea that Africa should belong to black Africans why don't they understand the ever increasingly expressed desire of Europeans to live in a white Europe as manifested in the rise of so-called 'extremist' parties? Portugal is just the latest country to limit immigration to those who are capable of integrating themselves into Portuguese society. Along with Denmark, Italy and even France, Portugal has recognised that multiculturalism is bunkum.

EU ENLARGEMENT VITAL TO DEFEAT 'FAR-RIGHT' SURGE SAYS STRAW

Can we detect a note of panic in Britain's Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw's, plea for "the European Union to step up its search for support of enlargement in order to fend off the rise of Europe's far-right"? The Times, 7/6/02. "We have to redouble our efforts to generate popular support for enlargement," Straw told The Times. "An enlarged EU should be a buttress against extremism. The stock in trade of the far-right down the ages has been xenophobia, the generation of fear and hatred of people who are not 'like us'," said Straw.

Obviously Mr. Straw does not see himself as 'like his own race and from his own culture'! Mr. Straw is quite certain those who feel alienated by the mainstream parties' platform on multiculturalism and illegal immigration are quite wrong. "As usual their analysis and prescriptions are wrong," he insists. "If they are seriously worried about crime and illegal immigration then the way to deal with that is through enlargement, not opposing it. The way to heighten fears is to block enlargement." How are crime and illegal immigration dealt with by 'enlargement'? Not one word of just how crime and illegal immigration problems are resolved by enlarging the borders. You do not solve a problem by enlarging its borders. You look to isolate the cause.

"If we want to deliver economic prosperity, a cleaner environment and safer streets for our citizens then we should embrace enlargement, not postpone it," pontificated Straw. Oh! really Mr. Straw? The pedigree of 'an enlarged EU' (in fact an 'enlarged world order') with the promise of social benefits to all can be traced back to the opening session at Bretton Woods where Henry Morgenthau, then US secretary of the Treasury and president of the conference set forth the plan the mainline parties are still following.
The Utopia of a New World Order - which doesn't work.

HAND GUN PHOBIA

MURDOCH AGAINST EU'S SINGLE CURRENCY FOR BRITAIN

Now this is a turn-up. Media baron Rupert Murdoch has told his British newspapers he is against Britain joining the single currency of the European Union. Independent.co.uk, June 12th, 2002. His comments, made during an interview with the Financial Times, will make uncomfortable reading for the Prime Minister Tony Blair. Taking a side-swipe at France and perceived Continental bureaucracy, Mr. Murdoch said he had a single message he would like his British papers to send in the event of a referendum, "Vote no."
He continued: "Europe is made up of so many diverse cultures and histories that to slam it all together with a government of French bureaucrats answerable to nobody ... I cannot see anything but benefit by waiting."

The article does reveal Mr. Murdoch's attitude to work
He would be content to see the Chancellor Gordon Brown become the next Prime Minister. Why?. "He is a very deep Calvinist who believes in the duty of people to work and I approve of that very strongly," Mr. Murdoch said.

REFUSAL TO SERVE IN WEST BANK BRINGS PRISON SENTENCE

BACK TO BASICS

More often than not, On Target readers are served up a diet of grim news as it relates to the deteriorating world situation. Thirty years ago, maybe 20 years ago, OT readers could measure, or compare, what was happening against the remnant of a culture, a history and moral standards of a people; a social traced back thousands of years.

It has been the goal of the League of Rights to keep the light of that knowledge alive; and that is still the goal! The League has continually stated that the basic truths concerning man living in society have been discovered over man's long history and that those who refuse to heed and obey those truths are doomed to go on repeating the same mistakes. Readers and actionists have been encouraged to challenge those who ignored or consciously worked against those truths.

What do we do about it?
When constantly confronted with these social evils, it is easy to become so obsessed with fighting the evil, the darkness, that we lose sight of the real thing that was perverted. After all, evil is the twisting, the perversion, of good; it is not the absence of good. Our task is still to clarify the situation, to identify the good being perverted; and to promote the good. That is why the body of knowledge known as Social Credit is of such importance. "Oh!" you exclaim, "I don't understand 'social credit' - it's all too hard." Gentle reader, if you will not discipline yourself to understand the truths presented in this body of teaching, neither will you have any long-term answers to the problems which confront us.

The further one studies Social Credit the more certain one becomes, there really isn't anything new under the sun! But please don't remain frozen in your attitudes when changed circumstances demand we all look anew at the world around us. You are not asked to be an expert outside your own realm of understanding. You are already an expert - you live with the effects of the policies imposed upon you and your family and your community.

In a recent On Target Jeremy Lee wrote: "The result is an impassable chasm between the providence of God, which has provided abundance for all, and the whims of 'The Lords of Poverty', who seek universal serfdom for all in their new global order. Their ambitions may be greater than their ability and resources, great as they are. Anarchy, war and famine are more likely than slavery and obedience. It doesn't seem long before we will find out."

British On Target wrote along similar lines: "The global economy is now effectively harnessed to the United States dollar. In the spiralling, spinning and precarious inverted 'cone' of this debt-driven economic model the "International Community" (euphemism for World Government...ed) cannot afford to - dare not - allow economic 'growth' to be impeded for fear of collapse. Nor can it lose control over those natural resources vital to this precarious economy - its very way of Godless, materialistic life. No one knows how or when the inevitable, ultimate global economic implosion will occur..."

We put it to you
How can a Society which is sinking through irredeemable debt to destruction, make a fresh start if it denies redemption and the difference between right and wrong? What is not seen as wrong cannot be put right. Of course the task is not going to be easy! We know that the larger the Society, the greater the inertia and the harder it is to get change, especially when the corruption is so great at the top! But does that mean we simply wallow in our own self-pity; lamenting "Woe is us!" We at the League of Rights do not think so.

It appears that such changes must come 'from the bottom up'.
It begins with the individual, that is, you, me - and whomsoever will join with us.

INTRODUCING SOCIAL CREDIT SERIES

This little series is proving of value to those who have set aside the time and made the effort to study at their own pace. Others have joined in home-study fellowships. What the series cannot do for the reader is: instil the determination to make the effort; strengthen the resolve to understand the concepts; come to the realization of knowing and understanding the truths.

Social Credit is not just 'monetary reform' as too many believe, and it is certainly not a cult based on the writings of C.H. Douglas. It is the resolution of the wholly artificial left/right 'conflict' raging in the world: a conflict deliberately intended to lead on to a world tyranny.

In the introduction, the reader is advised not to "attempt to review individual Social Credit proposals in the light of present-day political, economic and financial orthodoxy, as that is counter-productive. Each theme exists within the framework of an alternative economic theory and social philosophy". A social philosophy, which, if applied, would lead to freedom not to tyranny.

Effort is needed
However, potential students must understand it will take mental effort on their part to grasp, to come to the realization of, the truths of social credit. Philologist, Owen Barfield, in "History in English Words" explained how important was the process of thinking and reasoning whereby "a vague feeling, with much intellectual effort, is turned into clear thought."
"In the common words we use every day the souls of past races, the thoughts and feelings of individual men stand around us, not dead, but frozen into their attitudes like the courtiers in the garden of the Sleeping beauty. The more common a word is and the simpler its meaning, the bolder very likely is the original thought which it contains and the more intense the intellectual or poetic effort which went into its making.

Thus, the word quality is used by most educated people every day of their lives, yet in order that we should have this simple word Plato had to make the tremendous effort (it is one of the most exhausting which man is called on to exert) of turning a vague feeling into a clear thought.

Financial adviser, Grant Bird, speaking of the plight of the dispossessed farmers, made the observation (CSC Adelaide): They know they have been 'had' (by the banks, the system) but they don't know 'how'."
Quite. But neither would they make the effort to understand how the systems are so weighted against them! They were quite content to put their trust in the very groups who sold them out.

"Introducing Social Credit" series:
Part 1: "What is Social Credit?";
Part 2: Economics; Three Allied Activities;
Part 3: Constitutions/Governments/Politics.

Available from all League Book Services. Single copy $6.50 posted within Australia..

TAPES

TOOWOOMBA SEMINAR - "The Unnecessary Tragedy"
NOW AVAILABLE: Speakers were:
Mrs. Anita Clark, White Wreath Association, "Action Against Suicide";
Mr. Derek Tuffield, Lifeline Darling Downs & SW Queensland, "Role of Lifeline Support Groups";
Mrs. Betty Luks, Australian League of Rights, "What About the Common Good?";
Mr. David Blair, Toowoomba City Care Inc. "There is Hope!".
Sunday: Mr. Ray Smyth, Editor "It's Time" newspaper, "Queensland's Constitution: Is it Legal?";
Mr. Selwyn Johnston, Convenor Queensland No Republic, "Queensland's New Constitution - the truth & the myths".

Tape list and order form available from CVA TAPES, PO Box 987, Inverell, NSW, 2360.
Fax: (02) 6723 2364. E-mail: rnb@northnet.com.au

LAUNCESTON CONSERVATIVE SPEAKERS' CLUB

SYDNEY CONSERVATIVE SPEAKERS' CLUB