'ONE STEP BACKWARDS…'

Students of Marxism-Leninist dialectics are familiar with Lenin's famous instruction that on occasions it is necessary to take one step backwards in order eventually to take many steps forward. Mr. Bernie Taft, a former joint national secretary of the Communist Party of Australia, and a member of its national executive, announced last week that the party was faced with disintegration in the near future. Mr. Taft described his resignation from the Victorian Executive of the Communist Party, along with 22 other members of the 32 strong executive, as "the end of an era". Taft said that the party was "a spent force in Australian politics with membership declining drastically in recent years".

The Communist Party of Australia is engaged in a dialectical step made necessary by a developing situation in which formal Communist parties are no longer deemed necessary for the advancement of Marxist-Leninist ideas. It is instructive to recall that when Mr. John Halfpenny, the influential Victorian Secretary of the Amalgamated Metals, Foundry and Shipwrights Union, resigned from the Communist Party, and not so long afterwards was permitted to join the Australian Labor Party, he jokingly said that he "really could not tell the difference anyhow".

Quite apart from the fact that Marxists, not members of any Communist party, have infiltrated all the political parties, not only the political parties, but the Christian Churches, the Universities and much of the educational system, have become infected with the collectivist with which Marxism Leninism promotes. We doubt if there are many members of any Marxist-Leninist party who work for the Australian Broadcasting Commission. But Marxist influence has been consistently strong in the ABC's political programmes.
It is hard to think of one of the long list of top Communist traitors in the West - Alger Hiss, Fuchs, Philby, Maclean, Burgess and many others - who was a member of a Communist party.

No doubt Mr. Bernie Taft and his Marxist associates will follow Mr. Halfpenny's lead and, at a suitable time, join the Australian Labor Party. In Victoria there will be few problems, considering the powerful influence of the Socialist Left. We have consistently stressed that the declared members of Communist parties in the English-speaking world have been merely the shock troops of a revolution being advanced in the main by the "moderate" Fabian Socialists. Not surprisingly, there are now proposals for the establishment of an alternative Socialist movement, not a political party.
Senator Gareth Evans and his fellow "democratic socialists" are the biggest threat right now to the security and rights of the Australian people, not Mr. Bernie Taft and his fellows.

Why have a Communist Party attempting to create a totalitarian State when the politicians of all parties have, for many years, been supporting programmes which lead inevitably to such a State. So far from the announcement of the break up of the Communist Party of Australia being good news, it is a red danger signal. Freedom loving Australians should carefully assess its far-reaching significance.

BILL OF RIGHTS FOR NEW ZEALAND

(Jeremy Lee reports from Taumarunui, N.Z.)
"The New Zealand Labor Party is right on target with its latest proposals, which appear to have come out of the same Socialist International stable as the A.L.P. New Zealand faces an election before the end of the year. The National Party, led by recently knighted Sir Robert Muldoon, faces the usual challenge from the Labor Party, and also from a new party, the New Zealand Party, led by a former National who is disillusioned with the Muldoon programme. Quite a sizeable minority of disaffected Nationals has defected to the NZP, as have a considerable number of former Social Credit Political League supporters. Current polls show the NZP to be attracting some 20 percent of the support, while the Social Credit League has shriveled to insignificance.
The two current Social Credit members of parliament have squandered their golden opportunity, at a time of unparalleled inflation, high taxation, and unemployment. They have simply tinkered with trivialities, and are now seen as political 'squibs'.

The Labor Party has discarded former leader Rowling in favour of the supposedly dynamic David Lange, who generally comes over like a lead balloon. But in anticipation of the election, the Labor Party has unveiled a package of proposed reforms for Parliament, which starts with a 23-member increase in the size of Parliament itself. The package was put together by the deputy leader, former Professor Geoffrey Palmer, who has written some sound criticism in past years concerning the abuse and corruption of the parliamentary system.

Some of his proposals are sound - the introduction of the Committee system into the N.Z. situation, and a provision that three months must elapse between the introduction of a Bill into Parliament and its final passage. Without an Upper House to review legislation, such a move is a partial step to providing the electorate with a little more time for appraisal than it has had in the past.

These reasonable proposals, however, are more than outweighed by the promise of a Bill of Rights, based on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which New Zealand has ratified. It will therefore be much the same sort of monstrosity which Lionel Murphy, firstly, and now Senator Gareth Evans have been so eager to foist on Australia.

It will be interesting to see whether any of Labor's opponents have the courage to grasp the "internationalist nettle" in combating the socialist programme - or whether they will stifle any criticism of the United Nation sacred cow, which Muldoon himself has fed for so long.

THE FADING 'ECONOMIC RECOVERY'

Following the discovery that there is a wide gap between Prime Minister Hawke's public relations performance in Japan and realities concerning the Japanese attitude towards Australian beef exports, it is not surprising to read "The Australian" headline, "HAWKE'S CHINA TRADE PROSPECTS FADE".
The relatively small stimulus to the Australian economy has been the result partly of new credits relating to increased rural production, mostly grain, and the building industry. But most sectors of the rural economy are extremely vulnerable to the international situation, as witnessed by the dramatic and shattering collapse of Australia's sugar industry. World sugar prices have dropped by half in the six months because of large surpluses. There could be worse to come if European Economic Community sugar exports continue to be subsidised.

We have warned that the "get bigger" philosophy is no solution for Australian primary producers caught in the cost price squeeze. Genuine solutions require a drastic reduction in financial costs, including interest payments, all determined by government financial policies. Primarily for the record, and for the benefit of those who wish to heed the type of realistic advice which has been proved consistently right over a long period of time, we state once again that the much-publicised international recovery starting with the U.S.A. is much like Mr. Hawke's rhetoric, empty of substance.

The increase in American economic activity during last year and early this year was primarily the result of an increase in the rate of credit creation. As we predicted, the inevitable result of this policy was rising inflation. And so the headline, "INFLATIONARY TIMES AHEAD FOR FLOURISHING GOLD FUNDS", merely reflects that with the return of what one correspondent terms "inflationary thinking", more Americans are investing in gold as a "hedge".

The only answer of the "experts" to inflation is to cut back the rate of credit creation and impose more restraints in the form of higher taxes and higher interest rates. And so, in the gobbledygook language of the witch doctors of financial black magic, "overheating" fears in the U.S.A. are easing as growth slows. So much for the American "recovery". But Mr. Hawke and his Minister for Finance, Mr. Paul Keating, still persist in painting a glowing picture of a "recovery" which makes 1985 look like the dawn of a new golden age. Those who believe such predictions are going to be shocked by realities.

While the prevailing "recovery" is depending to a great extent upon the debt drug in the form of a deficit that will certainly be higher than that projected by Mr. Keating, generally overlooked is the enormous international deficit of $40 billion. Interest payments on that astronomical debt are one-third the size of the national output. If the Hawke government is going to attempt to produce a recovery based upon an escalation of both internal and external debt, the end result is going to be greater disasters for the Australian people. If the debts are further expanded, then more high inflation with its destructive impact is as certain as the sunrise.

There is no genuine salvation for anyone inside the framework of present finance economic policies, which can only be changed when enough electors insist that changes take place. In the meantime, realists will dismiss the Hawke confidence trickery and adopt a most conservative attitude towards their own affairs.

BRIEF COMMENT

SAVE VICTORIA COMMITTEE

The Honary Secretary of the "Save Victoria Committee" (Mr.T.Rogers) sent the following letter to the Editor of the "Weekly Times", and this was published in a recent issue of this most influential rural journal, which is published in Melbourne;
"The Save Victoria committee believes the State Cabinet Secretary, Dr. Coghill's comments (W.T. 29/2) regarding Aboriginal Land Claims legislation cannot go without challenge to their inaccuracies. "The Committee disputes that the Bill exempts Municipal land from claim, as stated by Dr. Coghill. "The proposed Bill allows claim to:
(a) Crown Land reserved under Section 4 of the Crown Lands Act, State Forests, and National Parks.
(b) land vested in any Minister of the Crown or in the Housing Commission, S.E.C., Gas & Fuel Corporation, or the M.M.B.W. and
(c) land vested in any other authority that is declared by the Governor in Council to be public land.

"According to the Department of Crown Land and Survey (1981/82) Annual Report this amounts to 8,696,317 hectares; over one third of Victoria. The Bill allows any group of seven or more aboriginals - or part descendants of - to make a claim. The 1981 Census shows this group in Victoria numbering 6,057 (Hansard, 1983; p.74). "All claims will be heard by a one person Tribunal (clause 3 (2) who will be appointed by the Governor in Council (Clause 3 (3a); and the Tribunal in assessing claims shall not be bound by the rules of evidence (Clause 11a) and may inform itself in a manner as it thinks fit (Clause 11b).
The final arbiter of the Tribunal's recommendations SHALL NOT be the assembled members of Parliament, but instead shall be the Governor in Council (Clause 13 (1)).

"The Save Victoria Committee notes with concern, land rights legislation dovetailing in with long term Communist policy on aborigines as stated in the 'Workers Weekly' (24.9.31) which proposed: 'the handing over to aborigines of large tracts of watered and fertile country, with towns, seaports, railways, roads, etc., to become one or more independent states or republics. The handing back to aborigines of all Central, Northern, and North West Australia to enable aborigines to develop their native pursuits. These aboriginal republics to be independent of Australia or other foreign powers. To have the right to make treaties with foreign powers, including Australia; establish their own army, governments, industries, and in every way be independent of imperialism.' "Under the Bill, water catchment areas, fertile grazing leases, sections of towns, seaports, railways, roads, schools, as well as aerodromes, showgrounds, racecourses, churches, etc. will be available for claim; and the Senate last year (1983) accepted the concept of a treaty (Makarrata) between the aboriginal people and the Australian Government in a Report named '200 Years Later', complied by the Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs.

"Sovereign nation status does not rely only on Parliament's approval. International law can decide this. The concept of sovereignty for aboriginals as a nation was rejected in 1889 by the Privy Council in the case Cooper v. Stuart, and again in 1979 in Coe v. Commonwealth. "Both cases failed because the Courts accepted the Government's argument that under International Law, Australia was a 'settled colony' and the aborigines were not a 'conquered people', and did not constitute a sovereign nation with an identifiable government. "This ruling is open for challenge, as the present Commonwealth Government now states that Australia was taken by conquest - not by settlement (The Age, Melbourne, 23/11/ 83).

"The Save Victoria Committee believes a preview of coming events emerges with the actions of the Federal Minister of Aboriginal Affairs in notifying Northern Territory pastoralists to hand over some of their land to aboriginal communities, or the Government will resolve the matter itself.

N.T.News, (17.9.83) and The Bulletin (6.3. 84) reports on the secret 'National Aboriginal Land Rights Legislation: Discussion Paper, which proposes a total freeze on usage of land claimable by aborigines, fines and imprisonment for people who enter aboriginal land; and Regional Land Councils, protected by legislation from State Government jurisdiction.

"Land Rights subversion has been the subject matter of two books, RED OVER BLACK, and THE EVIDENCE, written by a former, highly trained, Communist, Geoff McDonald. "The Save Victoria Committee believes that the silence of Dr. Coghill concerning Mr. McDonald's documentation contrasts strongly with Dr. Coghill's attacks on the Committee who deny it is a 'front' for any organisation, including the Australian League of Rights. However, the Committee acknowledges and appreciates the support and research material this organisation provided, when asked.
On behalf of the Save Victoria Committee, etc.