THE AUSTRALIAN CRISIS AND THE LEAGUE OF RIGHTS

The growing anti-League of Rights smear campaign is being progressively stepped up, with Mr. Phillip Adams using two pages of last week's "Bulletin", now associated with "Newsweek", to pour out his venom. There was a veiled threat that Liberal leader Andrew Peacock must do more than dissociate himself from a movement that has forced the Opposition parties to at least pay some lip service on issues that the League has been campaigning for.

Adams writes, "It's not good enough for Andrew to say that he'll have nothing whatever to do with the League while conceding that they might be 'on parallel paths'. He must oppose Butler's politics of hatred, racism and paranoia. Andrew Peacock is being told he must join in the anti-League witch-hunt or else! The strategists behind the orchestrated anti-League campaign are looking ahead, not only to the coming Federal Elections and the projected referendum, but to the crisis situation, which is certain next year.

A grassroots conservative movement is already starting to take shape. This movement will be looking for some type of political expression. If the League can be destroyed as a major influence between now and the elections, it will not be of sufficient importance to influence the thrust of the conservative movement. The appointment of K.D. Gott to "monitor" the League has been followed by the report from well-known journalist Laurie Oakes that ASIO has been instructed to infiltrate the League. Commenting on this report to one Melbourne paper, Mr. Eric Butler said he found the idea of ASIO infiltrating the League as rather hilarious - and a waste of public money, if true. It is probable that the report "leaked" to Oakes was designed as part of the psycho-political warfare being directed against the League.

There is no doubt that the League of Rights is now at the centre of the developing Australian crisis. For this and other reasons we are urging that all supporters should make every effort to attend this year's National Weekend, starting with "The New Times" Dinner on Friday, September 28th. Tickets are $17 each and must be paid for in advance. The Annual Seminar will be on Saturday. This will be a tremendous event. And then on to the all day Action Seminar for all accredited actionists.

THE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN TOUR

As briefly reported in last week's issue, Mr. Eric Butler's recent tour of Western Australia finished with an ugly demonstration outside the League Seminar held at a Hay Street Hotel. The major purpose of the Western Australia tour was to highlight the far reaching constitutional implications of the land rights question, and to help prepare the foundations for coping with the crisis which must develop next year if Mr. Clyde Holding attempts to impose his national land rights programme. Mr. Butler was accompanied during the latter part of his tour by an ABC journalist sent specially from Sydney. The journalist says an in depth study of the land rights question and the League's involvement is being prepared. We will be pleasantly surprised if the ABC programme is not part of the developing national anti-League campaign.

The Rev. Cedric Jacobs showed real courage in appearing on a League platform in the face of bitter opposition. He received messages from around Australia urging him not to appear. Only police protection ensured that he entered the League Seminar safely. His most constructive proposals received comparatively little mention, if any, from the media that sensationalised the protests against Mr. Jacobs.

Before delivering his Paper, Mr. Eric Butler launched a stinging attack on sections of the media for helping to incite the ugly protests in Hay Street. This attack was, of course, not publicised. As Mr. Butler reported on his way from WA to New Zealand, "it was genuine Orwellian to feel the hate and venom of those who charge the League with fostering hate." Organisers of the Seminar declined to allow TV cameras in, insisting that only journalists could come in. However, Mr. Butler agreed to be interviewed outside the hotel on the street before the Seminar started. This concluded with demonstrators from across the street loudly abusing Mr. Butler.

Mr. Butler says that the Perth Seminar was beyond doubt one of the best ever staged by the League in Western Australia. There was a full house and some had to be turned away. The Rev. Cedric Jacobs and his charming wife Margaret attended the League Dinner in the evening and were warmly applauded as they left to attend another function. At the conclusion of the W.A. tour Mr. Butler commented, "The dogs bark but the League caravan moves on."

CORRECTION

BRIEF COMMENTS

We were not surprised to read only recently that the Soviet Union warned President Reagan that no one was entitled to question the outcome of the 1945 Yalta Agreement; the basis of the post war division of Europe. Des Griffin, writing in The Fourth Reich of the Rich (p.102) has this to say of Yalta: "The most important result of World War 2 was engineered at the infamous Yalta Conference which took place early in February, 1945. At this meeting the first step of Lenin's plan for the conquest of the world finally became a reality. All of Eastern Europe was handed over to the Communists. Eleven sovereign nations were delivered into slavery by the stroke of a pen - the pen of our President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, with the traitor Alger Hiss at his side…"

The relevant experts in the field of Education claim that one million Australians have literacy problems. This comes from the Australian Council for Adult Literacy. Our own assessment is this is not an exaggeration. What did interest us is the assertion (which has the ring of truth about it) that illiteracy (and no doubt lack of numeracy) are connected with family problems and family breakdown. The observation by Dr. Audrey Grant, of Melbourne's La Trobe University impresses us: "Children with traumatic family backgrounds became preoccupied with their problems and stopped learning at school. They blocked everything off." However, the foregoing is only part of the overall crisis in Education.
In her recent formidable publication - Chaos in the Classroom - the author, Mrs. J.M. Wallis, incorporates (with the author's permission) the essay, "The Religion of Revolution". The author of this essay is Rousas J. Rushdoony, and we can well understand why Mrs. Wallis chose this to "round off" nine previous chapters of shattering research. Rushdoony is a Christian philosopher and educator, and reveals that what we call the "crisis in education" has religious origins; and decidedly anti-Christian origins. They are, in our view, Satanic, fostering disintegration and leading to a general leveling down of the individual's ability and capacity to succeed and excel in any area of learning. There are, and will be those who escape from and overcome the impediments and hindrances of this "New" education, by their own intelligence and determination to succeed: the majority will suffer to varying extents. Chaos In the Classroom is a "must" for all supporters, and especially those with children at school. The price is $18.00 posted, and worth double that. Available from all League bookshops.

The dreaded League of Rights is now quite a talking point with the media political columnists. Now the League is indirectly responsible for the statement by the Queensland President of the National Party, Sir Robert Sparkes, that sporting contacts with South Africa be re-established. Mr. Peter Rees, the Canberra correspondent for The Sun (Melbourne) has it that: "It showed in brilliant clarity just how strongly the Nationals have lurched to the right and the influence which the extremist League of Rights is now exerting through the Party's branch structure which it has infiltrated." If Mr. Rees does his homework more carefully he will discover that Sir Robert Sparkes is on record, on more than one occasion, of berating the League of Rights. Even the Gippsland Times & Maffra Spectator is giving the League of Rights a good old shake. In its Editorial of 3/7/84 it goes on with the usual drivel about "what the League stands for". Whilst on this, we urge actionists to demand from these newspapers some specific examples of League policies.

ARCHBISHOP PENMAN MISQUOTED

FREE SPEECH AT STAKE

The following letter, from Mr. John Bennett, President, Australian Civil Liberties Union, was published in The Australian, August 13th:
"Your editorial (1.8.84) criticising McCarthyist tactics used against critics of immigration and land rights policies is most welcome. McCarthyist guilt by association tactics used against Professor Geoffrey Blainey because of his views on immigration are particularly regrettable. "All that Professor Blainey has done is to point out that Australia's immigration policy is supported by only three in ten Australians, that many of the Asian immigrants are coming from Asian countries, such as Vietnam, where multi-racialism has failed, and that Australia could experience racial problems similar to those occurring in the U.K., U.S.A., Sri Lanka, and Vietnam.
"His reasoned arguments have often been met with hysterical abuse, including allegations that he and the majority of Australians who object to the high level of Asian immigration are 'racists'. "This allegation is false, since most people objecting to the Asianisation of Australia are not claiming that Asians are inferior, but merely that racial groups, including Asians, prefer their own kind. "Because of this preference, Vietnam is trying to force out ethnic Chinese; Malaysia, Indonesia and Japan will not accept people (mainly ethnic Chinese) from Vietnam as permanent residents; and Asian countries will generally not accept Australians, especially white Australians, as citizens.
"The attempt to prevent such a distinguished historian as Professor Blainey from making these points and to stifle a full debate on immigration is a serious threat to freedom of speech and civil liberties."

A Mareeba Actionist (Qld.) writes to us on the matter of Cape Tribulation, Bloomfield Road, the building of which is enraging the so-called environmentalists, most of whom are phony: but there are some protestors who are sincere and genuine.
"The farcical Cape Tribulation-Bloomfield Road dispute is now warming up with the battle lines distinctly drawn. State and Federal Labor are joining forces and are determined to stop the Road, and the arguments put forward against this small section of road are puerile and fictitious. In today's newspaper they have misrepresented the length of the road as 30 km. whereas it is barely 18 km. It is not so much misrepresentation as downright lying to gain more adherents. The bulk of the protestors, call them conservationists, environmentalists, or whatever you like; they are principally composed of the usual Rentamob who make their presence felt (obnoxiously) in all other demonstrations, and are principally non-ratepayers and non-taxpayers, whilst living on the public bounty - aided by certain honorariums doled out to them by the Federal Government ($40,000 no strings grant to the Wilderness Preservation Society), the Drug Mafia of the big cities who see their sources of supply threatened; and the Pine Forests interests in FOUR States, which have enormous quantities of timber coming to maturity, and which wish to stop ALL rainforest activities, including the logging of Rainforest areas - to consolidate their monopoly of the timber trade in Australia.
"On top of that, anything certain factions can do to discredit the Petersen Government in the political arena, they will do.
This short section of (very necessary) road has created more divisions in the populace than any other comparable confrontation in recent history. The maddening feature of it all is that the whole thing is so pointless, and there is quite a wide spectrum of the populace which has been taken in by the lying propaganda of the Great Unwashed Rainforest Rabble. Of the 18 Km overall length of the section in dispute, only the first 4-5 Km is through Rainforest; the rest being through Sclerophyll Forest, principally of the Bloodwood species, and associated types with grass understorey; not Rainforest and useless for any other purpose. Worse still, all the rainforest, which will be destroyed, has already been cleared. Their wild claims that soil erosion will destroy coral reefs - also will not stand up under close scrutiny....."
Newspapers, which claim to be impartial in their coverage of events, only pay lip service to this concept. They will print only what suits their own policy. So far Mr. Hawke has not come into the Tribulation Road issue, but as usual he will only come into the deal when all the groundwork has been done. At the same time I am not sure that he isn't somewhat reluctant to enter the arena with Sir Johannes, because there is a fear niggling in the back of his mind that he could possibly 'come second'….
"Should they (the "greenies") by some odd chance, be successful in stopping the Road, their activities will not cease there, and they will transfer to some other project such as the great Burdekin Dam, which is now in process of construction; and upon completion will be of inestimable value to the rural scene in North Queensland...."

Late Information
More on the Cape Tribulation Road. Before the area was proclaimed a National Park, the Douglas Shire Council was approached on the establishment of the Park, and they agreed to it being proclaimed - conditional on the Shire being allowed to complete the Road, which had first been opened up as a 4WD track in 1968; their actions therefore are in all respects perfectly legal. There can be no question of it being not done according to correct procedure. The anti-Road lobby tries to influence people into the belief that there is something irregular about the way the Council is doing things. The Road is fully backed up by the Queensland Minister for Local Government, as well as the Queensland Government; but vetoed, of course, by the Queensland Opposition....
"The position now is that the Government is hampered for Finance, and the Hawke Government refuses to grant any funds for the work, not even under the Bi-Centennial Roads Fund Grant. This refusal is not just simple cussedness, because the underlying intention of the Hawke Government is to stop the Road..."