NEW ZEALAND FACES THE CRUNCH

Mr. Eric Butler reports on his current visit to New Zealand
If the rest of the world except for New Zealand sank beneath the sea tomorrow, the New Zealand people being left with nowhere to export, would be faced with the following reality: they would not need to work as hard as they do now in order to provide themselves with an abundance of every type of food. New Zealand farmers are some of the most efficient in the world. New Zealand waters team with fish, with fishermen at present complaining about a huge glut.
New Zealanders would be able to house themselves in the most comfortable fashion, as they have an abundance of all types of building materials and the skills to use it. True, there would be no oil, but there would be an abundance of energy. New Zealand has vast quantities of coal and almost unlimited water for hydroelectric schemes. Blessed with a temperate climate and some of the most beautiful scenery in the world, New Zealanders could enjoy a type of life, which large numbers of people pay to obtain when they seek to get away from the increasing "rat race" of modern industrialised societies. They would, of course, have to change their financial rules to enable them to live in what could be a garden of Eden in the South Pacific.

However, the rest of the world is not going to go away, and therefore New Zealanders should be able to exchange with great benefit those surpluses they can so easily produce in exchange for surpluses from other countries. But instead of adopting this sensible policy, New Zealanders are now in the rapidly tightening vice of of escalating inflation, debt and crushing taxation. It is nearly 18 months since I visited New Zealand last, and comparisons graphically show me how rapidly New Zealand is sliding down a slope which ultimately must lead to an open revolutionary situation.

The Muldoon Government' s latest contribution towards finance economic madness is to increase the price of milk by 50% and the price of electric power by 42%. Not surprisingly, it is now estimated that the inflation rate in New Zealand will soar past 12 per cent in the next few months. Some believe the inflation rate will reach 17%. Rate increases are such that hard-pressed ratepayers are starting to talk in terms of direct revolt. Prime Minister Muldoon, an accountant by profession, adds fuel to the growing revolutionary spirit by urging wage earners to practise "restraint".

One result of the deteriorating situation is that New Zealand workers are leaving the country in growing numbers. The total population is declining. As with the Fraser Government in Australia, the Muldoon Government is being forced to provide an increasing budget deficit in order to prevent an immediate major economic collapse. It is also pawning the nation's natural assets to international financiers. Up until January, the Muldoon Government had borrowed $330 million since the elections late last year. It has been borrowing at the rate of $6 million dollars a day!

Not surprisingly, as the 1979 Budget approaches, there is talk of further increases in the tax burden, with the dreaded Value Added Tax being suggested by some. One can feel the growing uneasiness wherever one moves. "We are facing a major national crunch" is a view I have heard expressed by many. Those who know their New Zealand history will recall that in the middle of the Great Depression, in 1935, New Zealanders sent a thrill of hope around a desperate world when they elected a Government pledged to make the credit system the servant of the individual. As a youth I had a special interest in the man who headed that Government, Mr. Michael Savige, as, like myself, he had been born in the "Ned Kelly country, at Benalla, North-East Victoria. But the Savige Government never fulfilled its promises, being subverted along the path to a Social Welfare State while electors failed to exert the necessary pressure to ensure that the power of the credit monopoly was broken.
Labor Treasurer Walter Nash was just as amenable to the policies of the international financial groups as is Nationalist Prime Minister Muldoon.

Where New Zealanders previously failed, they could now succeed, providing they learn the lessons of past mistakes. If they can escape the entanglements of the New International Economic Order, which Foreign Minister Talboys endorses, and grasp the opportunity of the deepening crisis, New Zealanders could send out a message of hope to the rest of the world. It is certain that the regeneration of a sick Civilisation is going to start in the smaller and more decentralisted political units.

THE R.S.L. FIRMS STAND ON SOUTHERN AFRICA

"The Returned Services League yesterday criticised Department of Foreign Affairs African policies." - The Age, (Melbourne) March 10th.

In these pages very recently we quoted from the column of Mr. Douglas Wilkie, the eminent current affairs journalist of The Sun (Melbourne). Mr. Wilkie observed that the foreign policy of Mr. Andrew Peacock, and the Department of Foreign Affairs towards Southern Africa was in tatters. Mr. Wilkie instanced the rebuff to Australia by the Leader of S.W.A.P.O. (South West Africa People's Organisation) - a Communist led terrorist movement, who stated that Australian servicemen would be fired on by his forces if they did anything to displease the leadership of S.W.A.P.O. Mr. Peacock has been foreshadowing the despatch of some 300 - 400 personnel of Australian Army Engineers to Namibia (South West Africa) to assist in a United Nations "peacekeeping" operation.
The rebuff and threat by the S.W.A.P.O. leadership is the "reward" Australia has earned for years of toadying to the Third World. Pretty bitter stuff - but true.

The great Solzhenitsyn observed in his magnificent address at Harvard University (U.S.A.) last year (1978) that the truth is almost always bitter and unpleasant! Now Mr. Bill Keys, the National President of the R.S.L. is adding the weight of his most influential organisation to the opposition, which is slowly mounting to Australia's foolish policies towards Southern Africa. He told the Joint Foreign Affairs and Defence Sub-Committee on Southern Africa that the Department of Foreign Affairs was slavishly following United Nations policies, which were naive and simplistic. He added that the Department had double standards in its African policies and suggested that many African countries had less civil rights than South Africa. Mr. Keys stated that the Department of Foreign Affairs should be looking at what was in Australia's interests, but was not doing so: . . "they are trying to be good fellows in the eyes of the people who have the majority of the votes in the United Nations".

It appears that our Department has no other policy towards Southern Africa other than the present one which has palpably failed. The more we toady to the United Nations, and the Third World, the more we shall be kicked in the teeth. No one respects obsequiousness and servility, the more especially when these are unnecessary. These prompt the contempt they deserve. Neither the Kremlin nor Peking ever crawl. They have power and authority - and they use them. The Communists have a contempt for authorities who do not employ the power they possess in the pursuit of policy.

FROM BRITISH ON TARGET (Feb. 24th, 1979)

Vigilia Reports on the Looting of the West:
"James Crossbow's article appeared nearly three years ago, exposing the grand design to loot the West by taxation, inflation, bogus loans and commodity agreements (New International Economic Order!) and give the proceeds to the Third and Communist worlds. The big One World financiers and industrialists were shown to be behind the plan. The present principal driving force of the conspirators is the Trilateral Commission.

Recently a pro Third World magazine, I.C.D.A. News, in its June 30th, 1978 issue, reported another of the Commission's plans to loot us of 54 billion dollars to pay for Asian agricultural development. What is of interest is that the magazine asks who benefits. It comments: - 'There is no doubt that many of the multi-national companies in the Trilateral Commission will reap benefits from supplying much of the machinery, fertilizers, and agricultural machinery needed for the scheme.'
It continues: - 'The major question mark over the entire scheme is whether it can be of any real value to the poor in Asia....' Before readers jump to the conclusion... 'well at least we are benefiting, not them' - let them reflect that we are taxed into the ground to pay for this, and that at the end of the day the profits of the big concerns feed loss making trade with Russia and Eastern Europe." (end of British On Target item.)