AN AUSTRALIAN REVOLUTION UNDER WAY

The big vote for Independents at the recent N.S.W. Municipal Elections provided further confirmation of the growing evidence that there is a revolt against party politics right throughout Australia. With the opinion polls showing that Prime Minister Hawke has, with the support of Dr. John Hewson's obsession with the introduction of a consumption tax, started to narrow the previous massive lead for the Coalition parties, it is not surprising that a number of political commentators are starting to discuss the possibility of Independents holding the balance of power in the next Federal Parliament.

In an article in The Australian of September 23rd, three former Senators, Michael Macklin (Democrat), Chris Puplick (Liberal) and John Black (Labor) argue that there is a "De facto revolution of the Independent minded voter", arguing that electors have started to learn that it is possible for them to exercise some sanctions over governments. They write, "It seems voters have figured out that our Lower Houses of Parliament are simply electors colleges to choose the premiers and the prime minister and from which leaders effectively choose their Cabinets. As a result, the voters have begun to limit their leaders' powers by electing Lower House Members who reflect their wishes more closely than the party machines."

The three former Senators visualise a scenario in which the balance of power after the next Federal elections is held by a small number of Independents, and Dr. John Hewson being forced to negotiate with Ted Mack and other Independents on such controversial issues as union reform and the consumption tax, in the same way that N.S.W. Premier Nick Griener is being forced to negotiate with the Independents in the N.S.W. Parliament.

Our own view is that unless the unexpected happens, the next Federal Elections will be much closer than many anticipate. The possibility of a small group of Independents in the Federal Parliament holding the balance of power after the next elections, should be encouraged as widely as possible, countering the false argument that a vote for an Independent is a wasted vote. The rights of the individual are much more likely to be protected when there is a balance of political power.

IMPLICATIONS OF THE INCREDIBLE MALCOLM ROSS CASE

In our last issue we referred to the Malcolm Ross case in Canada, where a young school teacher has been deprived of his teaching position and his income because he published, outside his school activities, a number of books which were a defence of traditional Christianity against what the author claimed was a type of anti-Christian Jewish conspiracy. Canada is, like Australia, a Common Law country, and the Ross case should be a warning to Australians who smugly claim, "But that could never happen in Australia".

Before they adopt this complacent view, they might reflect on the recent aggressive action by a prominent Zionist leader, Mr. Mark Leibler, who has complained to the headmaster of the Brighton (Victoria) Church of England Grammar School about teaching, which it is claimed, helps to foster "anti-semitism". The teaching concerns the New Testament story of the stoning of Stephen, regarded as a saint by the Anglican Church. Mark Leibler is in essence demanding that the New Testament be revised. We will return to this issue later.

Malcolm Ross never took his Christian views into the classroom. His school board regarded him as an exemplary teacher. But under Zionist pressure the New Brunswick government began attacking and harassing the Moncton teacher. The Zionists demanded that he be removed from his teaching position. The Government was faced with the problem that Ross could not be charged with any crime, as he had not committed any offence under the Criminal Code. And so the so-called Human Rights Commission was involved. Late last year it set up a one-man board in the person of a New Brunswick law professor Brian Bruce. We are indebted to our Canadian contemporary, On Target (September 2nd), for the following:

Some More Free To Speak Than Others
The news media, true to form, has consistently been biased and hostile to Malcolm Ross. After all, who wants hostile 'minority' spokesmen on their backs! However, even the Calgary Herald under the above caption, published the following article by Parker Barss Donham in its September 4th issue. (Donham is a Canadian correspondent for Readers' Digest):

BOULARDARIE, N.S. There was a time when efforts to remove controversial books and unconventional teachers from the classroom provoked spirited objection from groups committed to civil liberties. To judge from the Malcolm Ross case, devotion to free speech seems to be flagging, even among those who ought to be in the business of defending it. "Ross taught language and math to Grades 7, 8 and 9 at Magnetic Hill Junior High School in Moncton, N.B. In his spare time, he wrote and published books proclaiming the Holocaust to be a myth and postulating the existence of a Jewish conspiracy to undermine Christianity.
"According to the evidence available, Ross kept his views out of the classroom, where he was said to be an exemplary teacher. "This offers a vital distinction from the case of former Eckville teacher James Keegstra. "Nevertheless, last week the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission ordered the Moncton School Board to suspend Ross without pay for 18 months, and to fire him outright if he continues to publish or broadcast his anti-Semitic views. The commission barred Ross from returning to the classroom, but said the board could find him an administrative post once his suspension expires.

"With no apparent sense of irony, Brian Bruce, the University of New Brunswick law professor who led the inquiry into the case, ruled that Ross' writings made his dismissal necessary in order to ensure 'a discrimination free environment'. "Ross plans to seek judicial review of the decision, but he needn't look to his union for help. The co-president of the New Brunswick Teachers' Federation, Joe Breen, declared fatuously that the decision has 'no negative impact on the general freedom of speech of teachers in this province'.

"Far from condemning efforts to punish Ross for his unconventional views, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association quietly endorsed the campaign against him a year ago. In a letter to the school board, Alan Borovy, the association's general counsel, wrote that 'there must be exceptions to (the) proposition that employees need not be accountable to their employers for their extra curricular activity'. "'Teachers exercise enormous power over vulnerable youngsters,' Borovy wrote. 'Parents and pupils are entitled to have confidence that the teachers will treat them fairly. The more extreme the expression of ethnic prejudice is, the less people from the target groups can be expected to trust the fairness of the teacher concerned'.

"As to the fact that the three children whose father's complaint led to the inquiry had never been taught by Ross, nor met him, nor even attended the school where he taught, 'it should not matter', Borovy said.

"This is an Orwellian spectacle: a government 'human rights' tribunal, egged on by the nation's most prominent 'civil liberties' organisation, ordering the dismissal of a teacher for views he expressed outside school. "The C.C.L.A. is on a slippery slope here. Will it now endorse the view put forth in testimony by the complainant parent, that people who oppose official bilingualism, or who belong to single-sex organisations like the Elks Club and the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire, should be forbidden to teach?

"In the present climate, of course, no one seriously expects such sweeping tests of political correctness to be applied. But that's only because the Elks Club membership isn't far enough from the mainstream to generate widespread opprobrium….. "But the remedy of false speech ought to be corrective speech, not suppression of disagreeable speakers.

"If a climate of ethnic prejudice or tension exists in Moncton schools, the board should implement programs that foster tolerance and understanding. It should not undertake to punish those with aberrant views. "No one wants to defend anti-Semites and bigots. But free speech is meaningless if it only protects obnoxious, objectionable thought in the words of the American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., 'not free thought for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought that we hate.'"

TRADITIONAL AUSTRALIA CAN BE SAVED!

The collapse of Communism does not mean that the totalitarian threat has ended. As the League of Rights has correctly pointed out, Communism was from the beginning but one of the creatures of those international forces of subversion seeking to undermine Western Civilisation. That undermining process has gone much further than some people realise. The Fabian movement is but the respectable face of the same conspiracy out of which Communism grew.
So far from the world now entering a period of peace and stability, it has entered a new phase of unrest, evidence which can be read every day. The League of Rights is the only movement which has consistently, and courageously, drawn attention to the real nature of the conspiracy against Christian Civilisation, the centralisation of power through the manipulation of the debt system: this a type of black magic. The Fabians and their spiritual allies now announce that the time has come for Australia to shed its basic heritage, including institutions like the Crown. The Federal Constitution is under continuing attack.

The League has, thanks to the dedicated backing of its supporters, built up a unique movement. Last year it carried through an in-depth planned programme. It met all its obligations. It owes no money, even though its reserves are small. It has no grandiose salary and expense accounts. The critical situation demands that the League move towards a new and major offensive on the heritage front. It is essential that today's young Australians are told of their priceless heritage. Adequate educational material must be provided.

The League has material on the drawing board. But it must have adequate finance. This year's Basic Fund target has been set at $70,000. Yes, we know that times are hard, and we have explained why. But if we are to save traditional Australia, we must make the effort. There has been an initial inspiring response to the 1991-92 Basic Fund, but a massive effort is now required. Please send your contribution to P.O. Box 1052J, G.P.O., Melbourne, 3001.

PEOPLE GIVE - BUT THEY ALSO TAKE AWAY