SALARY RISES FOR MPs

Jeremy Lee reports from Queensland
"On July 1, Federal politicians received an extra $58 a week - the second part of their total $6,000 a year pay rise, half of which was deferred until that date. This brings a backbencher's base salary -to $36,000 with the long line of perks - free travel, telephone, postage, electoral allowance, etc. etc. on top. Now, one month later, the Remuneration Tribunal is considering the next rise.
The indexation guidelines on which parliamentary salaries are based shows that M.P.s are entitled to a further rise of $86 a week, bringing a backbench salary to $40,600. The Prime Minister and Mr. Howard, who have been publicly blaming the explosion in wage demands for Australia's depression, have made representations to the Tribunal to 'water down' the increase. But the guidelines providing the 'tribunal's terms of reference are established by Parliament itself. A backbencher's salary is normally tied to the same level as Second Division officers in the Public Service, who are already $6,000 ahead of the impoverished backbenchers!

It seems Remuneration Tribunal judges are tired of being criticised for sticking to guidelines established by their Cabinet critics. Justice Terry Ludeke said (National Times, Aug 1-7): "I find it contradictory for the Commonwealth to be putting submissions in the terms I have referred to and urging upon me maximum restraint, when it is difficult to see the application of that policy to the Commonwealth's own employees."
Ludeke says that as recently as July 9, employees in the Commonwealth clerical and administration sections had been offered pay rises up to 8.9 percent. So had second division officers. This followed rises of up to 10 percent granted last October.

An editorial in The Australian (Aug. 4th) pointed out: "The cost of salaries and allowances for the Prime Minister's staff has jumped by almost 50 percent in the past year, to $759,025 a year. This includes the addition of four more people, some of who are being paid as 'consultants' so that they are not held to normal public service pay scales ... Mr. Fraser is fond of lecturing others on how they should tighten their belts. He should set an example in his own office."

It is doubtful if Mr. Fraser saw the Editorial. He was on his way to China. No doubt thousands of taxpayers will be comforted by the thought that as the good ship Australia is torpedoed by the Fraser Government's financial policies, one group of Australians - politicians and public servants - will be able to afford comfortable lifeboats.

ARE ABORIGINES SO UNLUCKY?

With so many clerics and activists pleading the cause of Australian Aborigines, few know just what benefits they currently enjoy. When the Maralinga Lands in South Australia are shortly handed over to Aborigines, 10.19 percent of Australia's land mass will have been set aside for Aboriginal people, made up as follows: 513,948 square kilometres freehold; 54,967 sq. kil. leasehold; 213,767 sq. kil. in reserves; and 691 sq. kil. in missions. This works out at 4.7 square kilometres for every full and part Aboriginal man, woman and child!

Although much of this huge area of land is barred to other Australians - in some cases with big penalties for entering all Aborigines are entitled to own property, live, work and profit in all parts of Australia. Government financial assistance for Aborigines (State and Federal) exceeds $1,500 per head, or over $6,000 for the average family of four. That's much higher than the per capita income in all the African countries recently visited by Mr. Whitlam and the radical Aboriginal delegation.

Strangely enough, the Aboriginal population seems to be climbing faster than anywhere else in the world. Census figures are as Follows:

Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders

Compare these figures with average world population growth between 1970 and 1980, which averaged 1.73% annually.

Since there is no legal definition of the vital question, "Who is an Aboriginal?" could it be that a "whole heap o' people" are climbing on a political bandwagon?

Special Issue and Project of Electors' Voice

Now on our presses is the extra special issue of Electors' Voice dealing specifically with Aboriginal Land Rights, the massive benefits being now received by Aborigines, which puts them in a privileged class of their own, AND the organised eruption of revolutionary activity planned to coincide in Australia with the Brisbane Commonwealth Games in September.

We had a call shortly before we wrote these lines, from a professional man, with many contacts in the academic world, especially in the fields of Law and Economics, who informs us that many of his professional colleagues, whom he knows to be Communists, have suddenly mysteriously left Melbourne, and have taken up temporary residence in Brisbane!

We now urge that actionists gear up for another massive distribution of this very special issue of EIectors' Voice to alert fellow Australians to the immediate peril just ahead. Place your orders immediately; and the prices are $1.50 for ten copies, $5.00 for 50, $8.00 for 100, $35.00 for 500, $60.00 for 1000 (one thousand). Order from your nearest League office.

BRIEF COMMENTS

Listening to the Sunday morning session of A.B.C. radio, "From the British Weeklies", we were startled to hear a most penetrating report on the military action between Israel and the P.L.O. in Lebanon. We normally are not impressed with the views of "The Economist" (U.K.), but this time "The Economist" was spot on, in our view. The report was to the effect that to fully understand the Zionists, and their objectives, and Mr. Menachein Begin, and those like him, one had to have a thorough grasp of the Old Testament!
Two things, said the report, motivate the philosophy and actions of the Israelis of the Zionist State: they are 1). The Old Testament, and 2). Insecurity.
We can do no better than quote from a review of the book - "The Controversy of Zion", by the late Douglas Reed:
"Many will find that the real issue which set up violent antagonism between the Founder of Christianity and the Pharisees has been made clear with quotations from Biblical and Talmudic sources, reinforced with others supplied by Jewish scholars, both ancient and modern. "Religious information and interpretation acquire an extra dimension of interest when set in proper relationship with historical developments from before the Babylonian captivity until modern times. For Reed shows once again how news of contemporary political happenings, which many people have given up trying to understand, can render insecurity intelligible when presented in the total historical content to which they belong.
"Much of the revisionist history to be found in modern conservative literature, like that dealing with the Alger Hiss trial, the persecution of Senator Joseph McCarthy, the Yalta Agreement, the Nuremburg Trials, the Morgenthau Plan etc., has been amplified and illuminated and fitted into the grand mosaic of more than 2,000 (two thousand) years of human striving and suffering."
The Reed book - "The Controversy of Zion" takes on behind the Jewish mind, clearly providing the basis for a glaring understanding of current events, particularly in the Middle East.
As regards insecurity: this is clear enough, we feel. Insecurity feeds aggression and desperation, and such insecurity exacerbates the mania of the ex-terrorist, Menachem Begin. The price of "The Controversy of Zion", by Douglas Reed, is $15.50 posted, from all League offices.

Incidentally, veteran current affairs columnist, Douglas Wilkie, in The Sun (Melbourne) August 9th, also makes reference to the Old Testament, thus indicating that he, also, "knows the score". Mr. Wilkie observes in his column that probably the best that can be expected from the Beirut horror is that the Palestinian moderates may be able to take over from the P.L.O. hardliners, and that the former may be ready to negotiate with Israel. He thinks that the fighting will continue for a while. Then, he observes: "Much must depend on how soon Mr. Begin's Old Testament wrath (our emphasis) can be finally translated into magnanimity if not by Begin himself, by some younger Israeli leader less obsessed by memories of another 'Final Solution'.

Former Labor frontbencher, Mr. Fred Daly, in his column in Sunday Press (Melbourne) August 8th, spills a few more beans about C .H.0.G.M., which (with tongue in cheek) he maintains stand for "Colossal Holiday On Government Money). It cost the taxpayers $18 million, only 50% over the estimate of $12 million. The beer, spirits, wine and food, in Melbourne alone, cost $165,000, and "the mind boggles at the cost of providing security for our lucky guests." With us, he laments - "nobody seems to remember much about the biggest show of the year." Melbournians, particularly motorists, will not quickly forget the considerable inconvenience to which citizens were put to make way for Malcolm Fraser's Farce. Doctors driving to their patients, and women about to give birth, were delayed by the various security restrictions imposed at the time. Mr. Daly makes his final point well: "For a Prime Minister who talks of austerity, Malcolm Fraser certainly lets his head go when there is a chance to lead the parade......"

Heritage At Stake
The following letter was published in The Australian under the above heading, over the name of a "Dan O'Donnell, of Stafford Heights, Queensland:
"On Monday, July 26th, the seventh 'national consultation' on multiculturalism and Australian citizenship was held in Brisbane. The venue for this important consultation with ordinary citizens was the university of Queensland, NOT the City Hall, the people's temple in the heart of Brisbane. "What a remarkable meeting, yet with so little media coverage!
It was the ugliest meeting I have ever attended, the mood portending the disastrous consequences likely to ensue from the Government's intention to bludgeon the nation into mute acceptance of this radically new social and cultural philosophy.
"What clearly emerged from the Brisbane format, the agenda identical in all States, is that rather than desiring democratic grassroots input, the Government is engaged in a sham charade of seeking public opinion. The major decisions, which will radically transform this nation, have obviously already been made.
"Two federal politicians, the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, and his Opposition spokesman, displayed the most amazing of unanimity in the face of virulent and implacable antagonism to the inexcusable abrogation of democratic rights. "Why not submit the proposals on multiculturalism, Australian citizenship, a new flag, and republicanism to a referendum?" they were repeatedly asked by the handful of native-born Anglo-Saxon Celtic citizens present. "No way!" was the determined and unanimous reply of both politicians. "The Minister even asserted that if citizens did not like what the Government was doing they could vote for Labor, or the National Party, or the Democrats. "But it will do you no good", he added. "Every political party is committed to multiculturalism".
"He could well be right, but what about the heritage of the bulk of citizens who were born in this country, who fought for this country, and who have spent their working lives in this country? Are they to be denied their democratic right to declare at a referendum their wishes concerning their cultural and religious preference, their strong opposition to tampering with the historic flag of this nation, and their commitment to constitutional monarchy rather than banana republicanism?"