MR. WHITLAM'S "ADVISERS" ON INDEPENDENCE POLICIES

"Far more important are the appointment of 'advisers,' including old Doc. Coombs, the money man, who has made a life's work out of being an adviser - a good one, it's true. Here we have as 'personal assistant' Graham Freudenberg.. . a brilliant writer... Then as 'senior adviser' we have 26-year-old Jim Spigelman, described in the Financial Review as 'Maroubra's answer to Dr. Kissinger.' This brilliant Sydney University man devils up information for the boss and his advice is listened to. In the more formal post of 'principal private secretary' there is a truly out-standing scholar; 33-year-old Peter Wilenski who went through the universities of Sydney, Oxford and Harvard with honours all the way... being so close to the power, this professional public servant (Foreign Affairs and Treasury) will be a source of power himself." - Melbourne Observer. December, 10th.

No sooner had Mr. Whitlam established his two-man Government than he set about demonstrating that he still suffers from the immaturity he demonstrated some years ago when he threw a glass of water over Sir Paul Hasluck in the House of Representatives. And he and his advisers have clearly indicated the type of "independence" policies they favour. Symbolic of Mr. Whitlam's style of Government was his failure to fly the Australian flag on the bonnet of his car when he drove to see the Governor General. His refusal to use the Daimler that had been used by his predecessors, allegedly insisting that he should use a similar type of car to that of his Ministers, takes the equalitarian dogma to the point where it appears but a form of inverted snobbery.

The immediate decision to recommend that there be no New Year's honours from the Queen smacked of spite. We are aware that many Royal honours are given to party political hacks or to those who have literally bought them. And that it is Labor Party policy to abolish Royal honours. But many of those informed that they were to be honoured have served their nation well in non-political capacities. Surely Mr. Whitlam could have shown a little graciousness and at least allowed the 1973 New Year honour list to have remained. But like children with a new toy, Mr. Whitlam and his advisers made it clear what their style of "independence" really means.

The immediate steps to establish diplomatic relations with Red China were predictable. But why was it necessary to rush a passport to the Australian journalist, Mr. Wilfred Burchett, who, according to reports from Paris, was surprised at the speed with which Mr. Whitlam acted? Students of the International Communist conspiracy are familiar with the long record of Mr. Burchett in serving the Communist cause. Symptomatic of the double-standards of the new Federal Government was the immediate action cancelling the Australian passport of Air-Vice Marshal Harold Hawkins, a man who served Australia loyally in time of war, a man with a distinguished post-war record, and now a diplomat serving an independent Rhodesia desperately holding a frontline for the whole non-Communist world against Communist-backed pressure in Africa.

Members of the new Labor Government might be asked does the glaring contrast in the treatment of Mr. Wilfred Burchett and Air-Vice Marshal Hawkins indicate the standards their Government is going to observe. Even if there is a case for asking Air-Vice Marshal Hawkins to relinquish his Australian passport, was it necessary to be so mean and petty about it? Could he not have been advised that when it expired next August, the Australian Government would be unable to renew it? But, no, Mr. Whitlam, the man so brashly claiming he was going to be independent, made his next move, against the Rhodesian Information Centre in Sydney. The man of independence said he was going to close down this Information Centre because of the decisions of the United Nations! A strange kind of independence indeed!

Mr. Whitlam and his numerous "intellectual" admirers, both in the Universities and the media, are very strong in their opposition to censorship. Those who support firm censorship are often classified as "hillbillies" and supporters of "Police-State" methods of government. One of the early acts of the Whitlam Government was to allow a film version of that dreary piece of filth (yes, we have read it) known as Portnoy's Complaint to be screened without cuts. Presumably the factual information about Rhodesia being made available by the Rhodesian Information Centre is, in the eyes of Mr. Whitlam and his advisers, much more dangerous than Portnoy's Complaint.

One of the most sickening aspects of the attitudes of many Socialist "intellectuals" is that their much-vaunted tolerance and concern for freedom does not extend to those who hold opposite political and other views. Mr. Whitlam makes much of the UN Article 19 of the UN. Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including freedom to receive and impart information through any media regardless of frontiers. Mr. Whitlam seeks to deprive Australians of the freedom to learn about Rhodesia. And the manner in which he has sought to ride roughshod over the Askin Government in N.S.W. is a chilling warning of what might happen in the future. Sir Robert Askin said that while he knew nothing about the activities of The Rhodesian Information Centre, he was a "bit suspicious" about the effort to close it down.

Sir Robert went on: "There will be efforts to close down other organisations eventually." Which brings us to an arrogant, insulting and ominous editorial in the Melbourne Zionist journal, The Australian Jewish News, of December 8th. The relevant portion of this editorial reads: "State Labor policy expressed in the N.S.W. Parliament on November 21 clears up the deepest area of concern calling for condemnation, investigation and action on the League of Rights or front organisations of 'un-Australian nature. In this, too, the incoming federal leadership will be able to express attitude and effectiveness."

The N.S.W. Labor policy was expressed in a resolution which the Deputy Leader of the State Opposition. Mr. S. D. Einfeld attempted to move. In part the proposed resolution read, that the House "considers that in the best interests of the State, the activities of the League of Rights should be thoroughly investigated and action taken to ensure that people are made fully aware of the menace posed to the rights and liberties of all citizens by this organisation." When Mr. Einfeld was firmly "gagged" in the N.S.W. Legislative Assembly, one of his colleagues, Mrs. Margaret Davis, raised the question of the League of Rights in the Legislative Council, forcing the Minister in charge of the Council, Mr. J. B. Fuller, to make a groveling statement in which he said that the Liberal and Country parties were doing "their utmost to ensure that the policies of the League do not play any part in the policies either of the Liberal Party or the Country Party in N.S.W. or in the Commonwealth."
The League of Rights is still awaiting a reply to a letter to Mr. Fuller, asking him which League policies were rejected by the Liberal and Country parties.

When the Rhodesian information Centre was broken into early this year, and documents stolen and later published in Mr. Gordon Barton's sewer journal, Nation Review, and in The Age, Melbourne, one well-known columnist for The Australian Jewish News warmly applauded what had happened. Mr. Whitlam used this disgraceful affair in an attempt to have the Rhodesian Information Centre closed at the time. Mr. Whitlam's "Dr. Kissinger", Mr. Jim Spigelman, is a member of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies. If Zionist spokesmen are going to ally themselves with the policies of the Whitlam Government, then they are going to create a situation which could react against the best interests of the whole Jewish community, a community which has for some time been conditioned with the most incredible nonsense about the "rising threat" of "anti-Semitism" and "neo-Nazism" from The Australian League of Rights. This nonsense is even more baseless than that published in the Communist press, and other papers like The Age, about the Ustashi.

It will be constructive to note whether Mr. Lionel Murphy, as Labor Attorney-General, will be able to provide any concrete evidence to support the allegations of Dr. Jim Cairns and other Labor spokesmen, that there is a dreadful Ustashi criminal under-ground in Australia! It should be recorded that Nation Review of December 9-15, boasts that Mr. Whitlam could not be invoking his foreign affairs power against The Rhodesian Information Centre without the documents published by Nation Review and The Age. Needless to say, the documents are not correctly described as "stolen documents." Even if the boast is not completely true, it does indicate the attitudes of those with-it Australians who produce journals like Nation Review.

These are the people warmly applauding Whitlam's pro-Peking, anti-Southern African policies. They could not contain their delight when Mr. Whitlam instructed the Australian delegate at the United Nations to vote in favour of a General Assembly resolution calling for the total rupture of rail, sea, air, postal and radio communication with Rhodesia and the imposition of sanctions on South Africa and Portugal because of their refusal to observe the existing boycott. Not even the new Labor Government in New Zealand was prepared to go this far.

Mr. Whitlam and his advisers also told the South African Government "racially selected sporting teams cannot tour Australia". They went further and showed further striking evidence of immaturity and pettiness by telling South Africa that neither could their teams pass through Australia to other countries. If enforced, this policy would mean that the South African rugby team could not even sit in their plane refueling on their way through to New Zealand next year. Mr. Whitlam, Mr. Spigelman, Mr. Wilenski and company should be told to start growing up.

Commenting on the Whitlam anti-South African policy, golfing star Gary Player said that he was "sick and tired of ignorant politicians." He told newsmen to tell Mr. Whitlam, who has never even visited Rhodesia or South Africa that "there is not one country on Earth where more non-whites take part in golf tournaments than in South Africa." But Mr. Whitlam and his advisers are, in spite of their talk about independence such slaves of their own ideological fantasies that they are blind to truth.

It is obviously of no use trying to tell Mr. Whitlam that Southern Africa is a major strategic barrier against Communist expansion. Mr. Whitlam and associates are so independent that they reject all talk about the continuing Communist menace to freedom. Their new independence policy is one, which permitted the Chinese Communist criminal Chou En-Lai to dictate that diplomatic relations with Australia could not be established until Mr. Whitlam had made it clear that Australia was severing connections with Taiwan. It does not seem to matter to Mr. Whitlam that Taiwan has been consistently friendly to Australia and has developed a trading relationship with Australia which has proved much more reliable than that with Red China.

There is no reason at all for Mr. Whitlam's policy of non-recognition of Taiwan. Recognition of a State does not normally depend upon listing boundaries. East Pakistan, now known as Bangladesh, is still claimed by Pakistan as its territory. Has Mr. Whitlam forgotten that he strongly supported recognition of Bangladesh? Australia recognises both Pakistan and Bangladesh. In spite of the fact that Australia recognises a West Germany that claims that Germany is one nation consisting of West and East Germany, Mr. Whitlam will have no difficulty in recognising East Germany. Why then not recognise Taiwan?

Because Mr. Whitlam's "independence" is a myth, he is prepared to do the kow-tow to Peking. It is not surprising that the Hanoi newspaper, Nhan Dan, warmly welcomed the Whitlam victory at Canberra. Australia is now rushing rapidly towards its moment of truth. Mr. Bob Hawke is urging that Mr. Whitlam precipitate a double dissolution as quickly as possible in order that the ALP can also control the Senate. If Mr. Whitlam is foolish enough to heed this type of advice, he may find that the electoral gains made on December 2nd start to disappear. Already there is a low-key muttering.

Many electors voted against the Liberal-Country Party coalition primarily for the purpose of attempting to force the Liberal and the Country Party back to deserted principles. Others voted for the ALP because they look for some effective action against inflation. Inflation and associated problems are growing rapidly.

In their spate of activities, Mr. Whitlam and his advisers have as yet made no realistic suggestions about how they are going to deal with this basic question. But when a decision is made, no real independence will be displayed. It will be the straight Marxist programme of price and profit controls. At this stage the genuine anti-Socialists may be prepared to listen to what The League of Rights has to offer.

THE BOOK OF THE MOMENT

ON TARGET BULLETIN

The Operation of the Finance-Economic System

The following excellent outline of how the present finance-economic system operates is provided in a "Report on Post-War Reconstruction Policies" issued by the Vancouver (Canada) Board of Trade in 1943.

"In order to assess the merits or otherwise of the manner in which our present monetary system operates it is necessary to consider its place and function within the national economy. For instance, reference has been made earlier to the primary function of the monetary system as being 'an economic voting system'; and while this may be readily conceded its full significance cannot be appreciated unless this comparatively novel concept is related to the accepted ideas of finance...how can the production of. . . . goods be organized under a system which will give the individual the greatest possible scope for freely associating with others in the common effort; how will a correct accounting be kept of the goods produced, and how will their distribution on an equitable basis be organized?