MR. JEREMY LEE, NATIONAL SECRETARY OF THE INSTITUTE OF ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY, REPORTS

THE NATIONAL ESTATE
One of the seeds planted by Evatt and Coombs, and watered by Whitlam during those three hectic years, is beginning to bear an ugly and bitter fruit. This is the Heritage Commission, which, under the guise of protecting the "national estate", is making devastating inroads on private property. It was in 1975 - Whitlam's last year - which the Australian Heritage Commission Act was passed. H.C. (Nuggett) Coombs was the mastermind. But before it went through a great deal of preliminary work had been done on the States. Their cooperation was needed.

Large areas of Australia were listed. Buildings, homesteads, parklands and farming areas were listed, shire-by-shire and council-by-council throughout Australia. The Australian (April 4, 1978) came out with a five-page spread, giving details of listings in every Shire and Council in Australia. The South Australian Government, under Don Dunstan, was first to pick up the Coombs Heritage concept. It was even more enthusiastic than the Federal A.L.P. As a result, South Australian landholders began to wake up to a huge and bewildering array of conditions, restrictions and future projections, many of which severely compromised their assets and their title deeds.

A Heritage Act was prepared in West Australia - under the supposedly anti-socialist Court government -, which was horrifying. It went so far as to require the listing of peoples' personal possessions - even to family photographs and heirlooms, which might have 'historic value'. Once listed, the individual could be fined for any damage to his own property!
Luckily, there was an outraged reaction, led by a section of the Progress Party, which finally forced drastic amendments.

The Wran Government in New South Wales has entered the fray with a vengeance. Large areas of the State are being set aside for future parklands and national parks - much of it good farming land. Round these, "buffer zones" are being created, which might in turn become future parklands. Those living in these areas can neither develop nor sell - except to the Commission.
Having thrown a bomb into the rural communities, Wran is turning his attention to the cities. The whole of the foreshore of Sydney Harbour is to be taken over. Homeowners will not be allowed to build, add extensions or sell to other buyers.
The Liberal-Country Party did fight the N.S.W. Act at the end of 1977, when Wran forced it through. But they did nothing to rally the public.

"The Countryman"- the Country Party paper - had no articles exposing the real nature of the threat. Not one booklet has been prepared by the Party machine. The N.S.W. Opposition is now like a political Mother Hubbard, wringing her hands at the emptiness of her own cupboard. It is just a shell of a free enterprise party. The public is just waking up - as the first landowners are ruthlessly hit. A huge meeting at Deepwater - addressed by a panel of speakers including Chas. Pinwill - might yet be the start of a reaction, which can generate an effective campaign.

NINETY-TWO ASSOCIATION HITS OUT

A body formed in 1972, with the objective of defending Section 92 of the Constitution, which allows free trade between the States, has come out fighting. Led by the founding Secretary of the Queensland Graingrowers' Association, Bill Jauncey, the Ninety-Two Association is generating a lot of steam over the recent High Court decision in the Wheat Industry.
In a hard hitting pamphlet, used at an increasing number of meetings in the wheat belt and other areas, it is stressed that other sectors will be vitally affected by the High Court decision - wool particularly, but also mining.

The Ninety-Two Association believes the lone wheat grower, Colin Uerbegang, who has issued a writ against the Wheat Board, which will go back to the High Court, deserves strong support from all sectors. But they also stress that much more must be done to warn the States of the grave dangers to their sovereignty as a result of the High Court decision.
It is a poor situation where individuals are forced into legal action because the States won't face their responsibilities.

Primary produces may well get a jolt when considering the following statement: "...We require, firstly, a state grain monopoly, i.e. the absolute prohibition of all private trade in grain, the compulsory delivery of all surplus grain to the state at a fixed price, the absolute prohibition of all hoarding and concealment of surplus grain no matter by whom...."
It was not made by Ian Sinclair, Sir Lesley Price or Mr. Don Eather (although they have made strikingly similar statements). It was written by Lenin in 1918, in a letter to the Workers of Petrograd (Selected Works, Vol. II).

PRINCE PHILIP CALLS FOR ETHICAL AND MORAL STANDARDS

From the Feb. 1979 issue of the English journal, "Housewives Today", which supports the policy of the British Housewives' League, we are pleased to reproduce extracts from a speech by H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh broadcast during 1977-78 in the Platform Towards 2000 series of addresses. The broadcasts were made from Glasgow.
"After stating the difficulties of predicting the state of the nation twenty-five years hence, Prince Philip said that attitudes in general tend to be coloured by the point from which a view is taken. Governments and academic economists tend to be concerned with the figures of unemployment and official job creation schemes, whereas employers are concerned with wealth creation for the benefit of those involved; investors, managers and the workforce. But, on the other hand, the unscrupulous pursuit of ambition and self-interest, whether by individuals or groups for whatever purpose, without any restraint, has always ended in disaster.

H.R.H. continued: 'The only completely certain restraint is self-control, based on the voluntary acceptance of certain moral and ethical standards and principles, and this has been a country in which individuals have been inspired by, or to put it another way, have had their behaviour modified by the Christian Ethic. If there is one thing, which can be predicted with any certainty, it is that if we abandon the Christian doctrine of loving our neighbour, and the personal responsibility of each individual for his actions, we shall most certainly revert to a state of jungle warfare. 'Hate will replace love, and the gang will terrorize the individual, and violence will take the place of reason, and expediency will be the only criterion for decisions.'

The climax of H.R.H.'s address was as follows:- 'An English judge, Lord Morelton, speaking fifty years ago, put it this way:- 'to my mind the real greatness of a nation, its true civilisation, is measured by the extent to which a nation trusts its citizens, and its existence and area testify to the way they behave in response to that trust. Mere obedience to law does not measure the greatness of a nation.... The true test is the extent to which individuals can be trusted to obey self imposed law.'

H.R.H. continued:- 'Therefore any remotely objective estimate of what life is actually going to be like in the year 2000, as opposed to mere prophecies of doom, depend to a very large extent on the assessment of the ethical, moral and spiritual values which people are likely to adopt. And history shows only too clearly how easy it is for practical circumstances and human attitudes to react with each other to produce wholly irrational and unpredictable situations.'

BILL HAYDEN TROTS OUT THE 'BILL OF RIGHTS' MAGIC BOX AGAIN

Mr. Bill Hayden, Leader of the Federal Parliamentary Opposition, must be feeling that the fruits of future office are ripening! Ex-Senator Lionel Murphy (now Justice Lionel Murphy of the High Court of Australia) had a go at this slippery Bill of Rights trick in 1973, and failed. We have little doubt that Mr. Hayden's proposed "Bill of Rights" will differ very little from ex-Senator Murphy's "try on".

Mr. Hayden has been making noises about an "overwhelming case" for his "Bill of Rights" over the past few days, and there's something behind it: we do admit to being incredibly suspicious! We can do no better than quote from a 1973 League brochure - "Senator Murphy's Fraudulent 'Human Rights' Bill":
"Under the guise of protecting Australians' rights and freedoms successfully-protected until now through the division of power, and common law rights, upheld by an independent judiciary, the Human Rights Bill seeks to expand enormously the power of the Commonwealth at the expense of the States, and the individual. It is an attempt to violate the Federal Constitution by the use of the External Affairs power. Clause 5 of the Human Rights Bill 'binds Australia and each State'. If implemented, Federal officials will be able to force the States to the pattern of law established by the Commonwealth. The implications are explosive."

From Hansard: Representatives: Feb. 28th. Mr. A. Jarman (Deakin-Vic.)

...."Major disasters for the Western World have occurred in rapid succession on the international scene - in the Horn of Africa, in the Middle East, and in the past few weeks in Indo-China. But all of these events surely pale into insignificance when compared with the dormant disaster which is Jimmy Carter in Washington. As one commentator, Creighton Burns, remarked at the weekend, for Jimmy Carter it is a world out of control. Carter is in the position of heading the most powerful nation in the world, but he seems incapable of taking any concrete initiatives of any sort to deal with the problems facing the Western World. This latter day Nero continues to fiddle and fumble.

He took enormous kudos and credit for the Camp David talks between Begin and Sadat, but the record shows that it was the behind-the-scenes manipulation of Israeli and Egyptian intelligence services which led to the address by Sadat to the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset.
"The only concrete result from the Camp David talks is that Sadat and Begin are still talking, but they were doing that anyway before the Camp David talks. Other than that, no concrete results have been achieved.

On all fronts we have seen the Soviet Union take the initiative:
in Indo-China with the Vietnamese in Kampuchea, with the Cubans in Africa, and in Iran where the Leftist forces helped set the stage for the toppling of the pro-Western Shah. Iran, which once produced one tenth of the world's supply of oil, some six million barrels per day, now produces only 700,000 barrels per day. If Iran becomes a precedent for the rest of the Middle East, the Western World could be virtually starved of oil supplies, or if not starved, at least put on a subsistence diet which could well cripple the West's industries and make it impotent.
It should be noted that one of the first acts of the new Iranian Government was to break off relations with Israel and ban supplies to Israel and South Africa. What will this do to enhance stability in the already volatile Middle East arena? What will be the effect on the policies of South Africa?

Turning to Africa, President Carter seems to believe that with a United Nations peace-keeping force going into Namibia, the West has had a victory. It must be a very dubious victory indeed. The question facing the West is whether the situation created by President Carter's initiatives in Namibia will result in a stable situation. I believe there are very grave doubts that this will occur. We have already witnessed in Angola the take-over of a Soviet oriented Government, with the assistance of would be Cuban mercenaries, armed and supplied by the Soviet Union. Will Namibia be next?

In Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, we have seen the Carter Administration, together with the British Socialist Government, reject the moderate multiracial interim governments of Bishop Muzorewa, the Rev. Sithole, Chief Chirau and Mr. Ian Smith. The Carter Administration prefers to continue dialogue with the Communist backed, so-called Patriotic Front of Nkomo and Mugabe, who refuse to face the people at elections, and who want to seize power by force, and only by force. The Carter Administration has refused to take part in the supervision or even observation of the elections to be held in Zimbabwe in March. If Rhodesia follows Angola and Mozambique into the Communist camp, it will only be a matter of time before the whole of Southern Africa, with all its vast wealth and potential, is alienated to the West ….