EGOS AMOK

We haven't had anything so puerile since the spat between Natasha Stott-Dispoja and Meg Lees titillated the headline writers for days on end last year. Now it's Howard and Costello, Crean and Beazley - as though the personal vanities of these politicians were more important than the health, safety and prosperity of the nation.

"He who would be greatest among ye, let him be your servant," we were told 2000 years ago. There's not much evidence that anyone heeds such ideas these days. Prime Minister John Howard has decided to stay on indefinitely. He has performed his duties entirely to his own satisfaction. He is at the top of the dunghill at the moment, while Labor grovels at the bottom. If he mistakes the dunghill for a mountain of universal approval, he should remember that the only direction from his current position is down.

The idea that the world - or Australia - owes Peter Costello the top job and international status is far-fetched. For a statesman, personal ambition and aspiration should lag a long way behind the interests of those he is supposed to serve. It has been truly said that the best leader is the most reluctant, having no illusions about his own self-importance.

Some of the reporting has been bizarre. One is almost too embarrassed to read it. Take, for instance, the following, under the heading A QUIVER IN THE CORRIDORS (Australian, 4/6/03):
"Some onlookers detected a quiver in his lips and, for the briefest of moments, feared the Treasurer was about to break down and cry. In ministerial offices round the parliament, staffers yelled, "My God, he's going to resign." They were wrong. But yesterday's astonishing and emotion-charged performance, in which the Treasurer mourned the Prime Minister's decision to stay in the job, instantly changed the dynamic of the Howard Government. At 12.45pm Costello strode into a jam-packed press conference wearing a thunderous look. All over Parliament House televisions were switched to the international channel airing the Treasurer's reaction to the PM's announcement …."

Bear in mind that if the Prime Minister had to leave office tomorrow, there can be no assumption that Mr Costello would succeed him. The prime ministership is not a hereditary title - not yet, anyway. And Howard?

Paul Kelly, in another article, same issue, asked some pertinent questions:
"…. Howard, like Hawke, just loves being PM. It prompts the question: does he love it too much? Has Howard traded off a better Coalition win at the 2004 election by jeopardizing the long-term leadership transition? Has Howard from his euphoric peak misjudged how fast fortunes can change and how subsequent mistakes will cast him as a leader who stayed too long? ….."

What can we expect? There seems little doubt that Beazley will replace a kicking, incompetent Crean. Beazley is labeled a two-time loser. But people forget that victory was within his sights at the last election until the arrival of the Tampa affair gave Howard the straw he was looking for. Short of a major terrorist incident in Australia, or another war somewhere or other, the near future will force the Coalition government to face the mountain of domestic issues it has sidelined for so long.
It is a confident bet that the growing leakage away from the major parties will continue.

FOREIGN DEBT STILL CLIMBING

THE GROWING TAX SCANDAL

We pointed out in a recent On Target that the latest Federal Budget raised the total of direct and indirect taxation to approximately $10,000 per head of population, or $40,000 for the average family of four. On top of this, the States raise their own taxes. The latest Queensland budget adds an extra $5.6 billion to the Federal tax take, or just under $1,500 per head. But Queensland is not the highest taxing State. New South Wales, Victoria, West Australia, South Australia and the ACT all tax their citizens higher than Queensland. Only Tasmania and the Northern Territory have lower per capita taxes.

The per capita average State tax across Australia is $1,892. So between them Federal and State direct and indirect taxes now levy $11,890 for each man, woman and child, or about $47,000 for each four Australians. And they still have to pay their household rates, telephone charges and electricity on top, before beginning to earn a dollar for themselves. Of course, we're all expected to believe that Governments know much better than we do how best to spend our money. They cast their eyes enviously on what little we have left in our pockets. But the overall result of this welfare monopoly is a dislocated and disempowered community, many of whom have lost the art of doing things for themselves, making decisions, exercising choice and responsibility, becoming more and more susceptible to political bribes and manipulation. So more taxes are advocated to hold commissions and inquiries into the stressed behaviour of an ever-growing section of the community - suicides, drug-taking, marriage break-ups, child and spouse abuse, crime, road-rage etc.

The mechanism for collecting taxes - you know, the one Peter Costello has simplified - is a bureaucratic tyranny in its own right. The Editorial in The Australian Financial Review (5/6/03) - one of its best - included these points:
"If Treasurer Peter Costello is looking for a challenge to put his leadership claims beyond doubt, he need look no further than the 10,000 pages of tax legislation. The various tax acts are an affront to the rights of business and society, virtually impossible for many people to comply with because of their complexity, and an invitation to civil disobedience. They have tripled in size since the Howard government took office, pledging to cut red tape and simplify the tax system. ….. the effort of implementing and complying with the resulting legislative monster has reduced companies and tax practitioners to a kind of hostage syndrome where they lack the will to escape their oppressor.
In these circumstances, it may seem sadistic to urge Mr Costello, who has just had his dream of becoming prime minister pushed into the distance, to again take up the cudgels of tax reform. But it is doing him a kindness, pointing to a golden opportunity for the PM-in-waiting to show true leadership in a field in which cynicism reigns because it's all been downhill since the first generation of tax acts was consolidated into the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 …."

One wonders, however, whether complexity and confusion in the tax system is not quite deliberate, providing as it does a means of intimidation and control. If not, who would those like Mr Costello who originally sought public input into ideas for simplifying the taxation system reject ideas such as the debit tax or the two-percent tax? And why doesn't a desperate Labor Party really pick up the issue of taxation?

WHERE ARE THOSE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION?

THE 'ROAD-MAP' - TO WHERE?

Bush's 'road map' for peace in the Israel-Palestinian conflict includes the dismantling of a number of illegal settlements in Palestinian territories, and the establishment of a Palestinian State by 2005. Anyone who has watched with horror the atrocities committed by both sides must hope and pray for its success. But the signs are not good. There have been too many betrayals in the past, both by Israel and the US.
Is it to be believed that Sharon is really contemplating the forced removal of hundreds of illegal settlements, which would involve a limited civil war?

The Australian (4/6/03) reported on some of the slogans now appearing in public places in Israel. One said
NO TO A PALESTINIAN STATE.
NO TO NEGOTIATIONS WITH TERRORISTS.
YES TO THE BIBLICAL LAND OF ISRAEL.

Another read
UPROOTING THE SETTLEMENTS IS TEARING ISRAEL APART.

Biblical Israel stretched from the Nile to the Euphrates in Iraq. The most militant Zionists believe all this territory is rightfully Israel's. On such intransigence world wars are created. Is the US prepared to stop funding and arming Israel until a just solution has been reached?

W.A. PASTORALISTS AND GRAZIERS WORRIED ABOUT RAIN TAX

According to Peter Trott, journalist for The West Australian newspaper, 17th May 2003, the WA State Government has been accused of secretly planning a "rainfall tax" and other charges which will hit horticulture and force up the price of fruit and vegetables. The Pastoralists and Graziers Association property rights spokesman, Craig Underwood, said he understood there were plans for a set of charges to be imposed on 1st July - including bills for farmers for water collected in their own farm dams.

Mr. Underwood called on the WA Environment Minister, Judy Edwards, to suspend all water user-pays and licence fee proposals, until her agency complied with Federal water reform requirements. He believed proposed new State taxes and controls on water were a bigger threat to rural communities than their loss of the timber industry, and is quoted as saying: "The new water charges will hit small vegetable, fruit and diary farmers hardest because they will be expected to pay the same excessive new charges of their water as the wine-growing and mining industries."

"They will," he said, "be unable to pass on these charges and the impact on their viability, and ultimately on the price of staple fruit and vegetables to city consumers, will be colossal."

Producers were promised exemption for private dam supplies: Water-dependent producers who were initially promised exemption for private dam supplies were now understood to be in line for a new "rainfall tax for water collected on their own property. Scott River Growers Group committee spokesman, Dave Wren, said many growers were concerned that the Water and Rivers Commission had excluded them from the consultative process.

THE TRUTH WILL EMERGE

by Senator Robert Byrd, United States
Senate Floor Remarks - 21st May 2003

"Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again, - -
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes in pain, - -
And dies among his worshippers."

"Truth has a way of asserting itself despite all attempts to obscure it. Distortion only serves to derail it for a time. No matter to what lengths we humans may go to obfuscate facts or delude our fellows, truth has a way of squeezing out through the cracks, eventually. But the danger is that at some point it may no longer matter. The danger is that damage is done before the truth is widely realized. The reality is that, sometimes, it is easier to ignore uncomfortable facts and go along with whatever distortion is currently in vogue.
We see a lot of this today in politics. I see a lot of it -- more than I would ever have believed -- right on this Senate Floor.

Regarding the situation in Iraq, it appears to this Senator that the American people may have been lured into accepting the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation, in violation of long-standing International law, under false premises. There is ample evidence that the horrific events of September 11 have been carefully manipulated to switch public focus from Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda who masterminded the September 11th attacks, to Saddam Hussein who did not. The run up to our invasion of Iraq featured the President and members of his cabinet invoking every frightening image they could conjure, from mushroom clouds, to buried caches of germ warfare, to drones poised to deliver germ laden death in our major cities.
We were treated to a heavy dose of overstatement concerning Saddam Hussein's direct threat to our freedoms. The tactic was guaranteed to provoke a sure reaction from a nation still suffering from a combination of post traumatic stress and justifiable anger after the attacks of 9/11. It was the exploitation of fear. It was a placebo for the anger.

Since the war's end, every subsequent revelation which has seemed to refute the previous dire claims of the Bush Administration has been brushed aside. Instead of addressing the contradictory evidence, the White House deftly changes the subject. No weapons of mass destruction have yet turned up, but we are told that they will in time. Perhaps they yet will. But, our costly and destructive bunker busting attack on Iraq seems to have proven, in the main, precisely the opposite of what we were told was the urgent reason to go in.

It seems also to have, for the present, verified the assertions of Hans Blix and the inspection team he led, which President Bush and company so derided. As Blix always said, a lot of time will be needed to find such weapons, if they do, indeed, exist. Meanwhile Bin Laden is still on the loose and Saddam Hussein has come up missing.

The Administration assured the U.S. public and the world, over and over again, that an attack was necessary to protect our people and the world from terrorism. It assiduously worked to alarm the public and blur the faces of Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden until they virtually became one. What has become painfully clear in the aftermath of war is that Iraq was no immediate threat to the U.S. Ravaged by years of sanctions, Iraq did not even lift an airplane against us. Iraq's threatening death-dealing fleet of unmanned drones about which we heard so much morphed into one prototype made of plywood and string. Their missiles proved to be outdated and of limited range. Their army was quickly overwhelmed by our technology and our well trained troops.

Presently our loyal military personnel continue their mission of diligently searching for WMD. They have so far turned up only fertilizer, vacuum cleaners, conventional weapons, and the occasional buried swimming pool. They are misused on such a mission and they continue to be at grave risk. But, the Bush team's extensive hype of WMD in Iraq as justification for a pre-emptive invasion has become more than embarrassing. It has raised serious questions about prevarication and the reckless use of power.
Were our troops needlessly put at risk?
Were countless Iraqi civilians killed and maimed when war was not really necessary?
Was the American public deliberately misled?
Was the world?

What makes me cringe even more is the continued claim that we are "liberators." The facts don't seem to support the label we have so euphemistically attached to ourselves. True, we have unseated a brutal, despicable despot, but "liberation" implies the follow up of freedom, self-determination and a better life for the common people. In fact, if the situation in Iraq is the result of "liberation," we may have set the cause of freedom back 200 years.

Despite our high-blown claims of a better life for the Iraqi people, water is scarce, and often foul, electricity is a sometime thing, food is in short supply, hospitals are stacked with the wounded and maimed, historic treasures of the region and of the Iraqi people have been looted, and nuclear material may have been disseminated to heaven knows where, while U.S. troops, on orders, looked on and guarded the oil supply.

Meanwhile, lucrative contracts to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure and refurbish its oil industry are awarded to Administration cronies, without benefit of competitive bidding, and the U.S. steadfastly resists offers of U.N. assistance to participate. Is there any wonder that the real motives of the U.S. government are the subject of worldwide speculation and mistrust? And in what may be the most damaging development, the U.S. appears to be pushing off Iraq's clamour for self-government. Jay Garner has been summarily replaced, and it is becoming all too clear that the smiling face of the U.S. as liberator is quickly assuming the scowl of an occupier.

The image of the boot on the throat has replaced the beckoning hand of freedom. Chaos and rioting only exacerbate that image, as U.S. soldiers try to sustain order in a land ravaged by poverty and disease. "Regime change" in Iraq has so far meant anarchy, curbed only by an occupying military force and a U.S. administrative presence that is evasive about if and when it intends to depart.

Democracy and Freedom cannot be force fed at the point of an occupier's gun. To think otherwise is folly. One has to stop and ponder. How could we have been so impossibly naive? How could we expect to easily plant a clone of U.S. culture, values, and government in a country so riven with religious, territorial, and tribal rivalries, so suspicious of U.S. motives, and so at odds with the galloping materialism which drives the western-style economies?

As so many warned this Administration before it launched its misguided war on Iraq, there is evidence that our crack down in Iraq is likely to convince 1,000 new Bin Ladens to plan other horrors of the type we have seen in the past several days. Instead of damaging the terrorists, we have given them new fuel for their fury. We did not complete our mission in Afghanistan because we were so eager to attack Iraq. Now it appears that Al Queda is back with a vengeance. We have returned to orange alert in the U.S., and we may well have destabilized the Mideast region, a region we have never fully understood. We have alienated friends around the globe with our dissembling and our haughty insistence on punishing former friends who may not see things quite our way.
The path of diplomacy and reason have gone out the window to be replaced by force, unilateralism, and punishment for transgressions.

I read most recently with amazement our harsh castigation of Turkey, our long-time friend and strategic ally. It is astonishing that our government is berating the new Turkish government for conducting its affairs in accordance with its own Constitution and its democratic institutions. Indeed, we may have sparked a new international arms race as countries move ahead to develop WMD as a last ditch attempt to ward off a possible pre-emptive strike from a newly belligerent U.S. which claims the right to hit where it wants. In fact, there is little to constrain this President. Congress, in what will go down in history as its most unfortunate act, handed away its power to declare war for the foreseeable future and empowered this President to wage war at will.

As if that were not bad enough, members of Congress are reluctant to ask questions which are begging to be asked.
How long will we occupy Iraq?
We have already heard disputes on the numbers of troops which will be needed to retain order. What is the truth?
How costly will the occupation and rebuilding be? No one has given a straight answer.
How will we afford this long-term massive commitment, fight terrorism at home, address a serious crisis in domestic healthcare, afford behemoth military spending and give away billions in tax cuts amidst a deficit which has climbed to over $340 billion for this year alone? If the President's tax cut passes it will be $400 billion.

We cower in the shadows while false statements proliferate. We accept soft answers and shaky explanations because to demand the truth is hard, or unpopular, or may be politically costly. But, I contend that, through it all, the people know. The American people unfortunately are used to political shading, spin, and the usual chicanery they hear from public officials. They patiently tolerate it up to a point. But there is a line. It may seem to be drawn in invisible ink for a time, but eventually it will appear in dark colors, tinged with anger. When it comes to shedding American blood - - when it comes to wreaking havoc on civilians, on innocent men, women, and children, callous dissembling is not acceptable. Nothing is worth that kind of lie - - not oil, not revenge, not re-election, not somebody's grand pipedream of a democratic domino theory. And mark my words, the calculated intimidation which we see so often of late by the "powers that be" will only keep the loyal opposition quiet for just so long. Because eventually, like it always does, the truth will emerge. And when it does, this house of cards, built of deceit, will fall."

THE PARTIES 'THANK YOU' - ONE AND ALL

Alex Mitchell, the state political editor of the Sun-Herald (25th May 2003) has blown the lid off the political parties' outrageous rorting of taxpayers' money for their electioneering campaigns, the subject of which, he claims the state MPs refuse to publicly discuss. The ALP will walk away from the last NSW elections with an extra $4,705,982 - courtesy of the ignorant taxpayers. (Oh! That the poor and needy should have their snouts in such a trough! Come to think of it, not just the poor and needy. What about the 'ground into the dust' worker-taxpayers!)
The Greens, who now have three MPs in the state's Upper House will receive $656,978 for the record 8.2 per cent primary vote they collected, plus a further $298,110 for its candidates - all of whom failed to get elected, but who scored more than 4 per cent in their primary vote in 84 electorates.
But just in case you think the Liberals financed their campaign out of their own pockets, think again!
Even Fred Nile's Group 'lined up' for their share.

There is also a little known "Political Education Fund" (PEF) says Alex Mitchell, which has been helping to prop-up the state's major parties for the past ten years. Since the annual PEF payments were introduced in 1993, the ALP has received $6,457,558, the Liberals $4,635,194 and the Nationals $1,570,188. The minor parties also put their hands out for their share of the loot: Democrats $547,742, the Greens $419,184 and the Christian Democrats (Fred Nile's Group) $222,366. The money is used by parties to finance their administration, office management and staff. Over the next four years, the ALP is entitled to a big rise in its pay-out, which is fifty cents for every primary vote. Mr. Mitchell says Neville Wran introduced the PEF scheme for political parties in 1981, claiming at the time "political parties are the very foundation of parliamentary democracy" and argued that they deserved public financial support.
Now why on earth would such people ever want to disgorge power to the electors, thereby giving them more say and control over their own lives and destinies, by introducing such mechanisms as Citizen's Initiated Referenda?

South Australians take note: The above rorting is all the more reason why the mechanism of CIR in the political process is needed. Peter Lewis MP, the Independent pushing for the right of South Australians to have more say and control in the political decision-making process is quoted as saying "It's piffle that we have to leave the big decisions to Parliament. It's our society and if we believe there are ways of making it more civilised we should talk about it. It's all about the relationship between the People and the Parliament."

BETTY LUKS FOR QUEENSLAND

SYDNEY CONSERVATIVE SPEAKERS' CLUB

WEST AUSTRALIA STATE WEEKEND

The West Australian State Weekend will be held Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th of August. Make a note in your diaries NOW.

BOOKS: "The Great Harlot" by Peter Lock, "Social Credit" by C.H. Douglas, "Human Ecology & Social Credit" by Michael Lane, "C.H. Douglas" by Anthony Cooney. All books available from League Book Services.

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