KEATING PRESSES ON TOWARDS REPUBLIC

from David Thompson
The Prime Minister's sustained attack upon the Crown and the Australian flag cannot be regarded as simply a tactical diversion from Australia's harsh economic realities. This is a calculated thrust at our cultural heritage, which was further developed in Sydney last week when Mr. Keating turned his attention to the oath of allegiance. New citizens at naturalisation ceremonies are required to pledge to be "faithful, and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen".

Mr. Keating proposed that instead of allegiance to the Crown, new citizens should "proclaim unequivocally their loyalty to Australia and the things we believe Australia stands for - including liberty, tolerance, (and) social justice...". This proposal mirrors the republican proposal to change the Oath of Allegiance for all servants of the Crown, and transfer it to "the Commonwealth of Australia under a republic". This means that allegiance is transferred from a permanent Head of State (Queen of Australia) to a non-specific entity - the Commonwealth, or "Australia".

Allegiance to the Queen clearly implies the recognition of values of the Crown, which as the Coronation Ceremony demonstrates, are essentially unchanged over a thousand years. The monarch is regarded as "the soul of the nation", a permanent unifying force. Keating suggests that new citizens proclaim loyalty to Australian values such as liberty, tolerance and social justice.
He ignores the unavoidable perception among immigrants from Eastern Europe that our War Crimes laws, which persecute elderly people for alleged crimes committed half a century ago on quite shonky evidence, have little to do with "social justice". He ignores, also, the destruction of thousands of families by Senator Lionel Murphy's Family Law Act, with the new "no-fault" divorce facility. Hardly social justice. And, of course, the Prime Minister also ignores the kangaroo courts and tribunals established under the Race Discrimination Act, where one is guilty unless he can prove his innocence. The new "anti-vilification" legislation, providing appalling new powers for a new body of bureaucratic commissars, is hardly "social justice" either. If this is Australia's "new identity" as determined by the likes of Mr. Keating, it resembles the Soviet gulags more than a country of "liberty" and "tolerance."

REMOVE THE COLONIAL EMBLEMS
In his address last Friday, Mr. Keating acknowledged that Australia was already independent, but that we should remove the colonial emblems, like the flag, and Queen on the banknotes. He was critical of the Reserve Bank for removing "the early Australian pioneer" Caroline Chisholm from the $5 note, and replacing her with the Queen. Although Chisholm had a significant role in colonial immigration, it was relatively brief. She was born an English-woman, lived most of her life there, died and was buried in England! The Queen, however is Queen of Australia, and as the nation's sovereign, her image should take priority of place on the currency. The Union Jack is the target on the flag. With what would Mr. Keating replace the most potent symbol of our heritage, political, cultural and spiritual? Within the next fortnight, the Prime Minister is due to present his policy on the flag to Cabinet. He has promised a "plebiscite vote" on the flag, but not a referendum. What does this mean? Where is the Opposition on the heritage issue? What would Dr. Hewson do? Is there any reason why a vote for the Opposition would preserve the flag and maintain the monarchy? Australians should be vigorously asking some hard questions of their "representatives".

HEADING FOR THE ECONOMIC MEAT-GRINDER
In Whyalla, South Australia, a man named Walsh, who has been unemployed for 11 years, is advertising a kidney for $15,000. He is not terminally ill - just desperate. He lives in poverty, and wants to be able to provide something better for his children. The fact that the sale of organs is illegal is irrelevant to him. Throughout Australia the number of homeless children - some of them almost babies - in urgent need of assistance has drastically increased. Last year Barnados gave help and care to over 5,000 children in N.S.W. alone, compared to 2,500 in 1990. The resources of every welfare agency are stretched to the absolute limit. The Reverend John Williamson, Director of the Anglican Home Mission Society, says that it is now not unusual for normally law abiding people to consider robbing a bank in order to maintain house payments, pay domestic debts, etc. Even armed robbery is no longer out of the question for desperate parents who believe they have no other way of providing for their families. The stark fact is that the dimensions of the finance economic crisis can no longer be ignored, or wished away by false promises of hope.

GIVE THE PEOPLE MONEY
By promising a "summit" on youth employment, the Government tacitly admits that any promises of employment for school leavers are little more than lies. It is acknowledged that the level of unemployment generally will not come down much for three years. This has begun to sink in at electorate level, resulting in a distinct sinking of morale, and such desperate measures as offering a kidney for sale it is becoming futile to demand "work" or "jobs" that aren't there.

During the Great Depression of the thirties, created by the same kind of people responsible for the present depression, expressing the same kind of moral judgments still being expressed, one of Australia's greatest essayists, Professor Walter Murdoch, wrote an article which was widely distributed throughout Australia. The title was "GIVE THE PEOPLE MONEY". A monetary reformer, Professor Murdoch had made the point that desperate people don't want "jobs" or more "work", they simply want to be able to establish a reasonable standard of living in a nation of abundance. The abundance is even more evident today than ever.

Any such suggestion today, however, that a just distribution of new credits to the individual, enabling actual or potential production to be distributed, is most likely to be met with the ritualistic moralising that prevails: "There is no such thing as a free lunch", "Something for nothing is immoral", "We must work harder, and increase productivity", "Australia's future depends upon being more competitive, and exporting". The suggestion that a great flood of exported production - if we can find any country to take it - should take precedence over the provision of the basics for desperate Australian families must be some kind of sacrilege. This is the tyranny of orthodox finance, in direct conflict with the Doctrine of Unearned Grace.

RURAL CRISIS DEEPENING
With over 50% of N.S.W. being formally declared drought affected, and further areas applying for this classification, the rural crisis deepens by the day. It is increasingly obvious that only "unorthodox" financial action can save a large proportion of rural Australia. The debts are simply unpayable, as Morris West has observed. There is a clear choice facing Australians. Either their leaders must be forced to confront the "black magic" of orthodox finance, admitting that it is destroying the nation, or adopt more realistic policies -which have been used before - or continue to disaster. The present course of false hope, in which it is implied that a "new world order" or "GATT" will save us, is more transparently ridiculous every day. Under either Keating or Hewson, Australia is headed for the great economic meat grinder. THE GREAT HOPE IS THAT ALTERNATIVES CLEARLY EXIST.

Essential reading: "The Breakdown of the Employment System", by C.H. Douglas, $2. "A Matter of Life or Debt", by Eric de Mare, $7.50. "Democratising Money" by Chas Pinwill, $5 posted.

BRIEF COMMENTS

One reviewer of Andrew Morton's gutter work on Princess Diana suggests that if the allegations were true the Princess should be awarded a Hollywood Oscar for one of the greatest acting performances of all time. The reviewer wrote: "We read about repeated suicide attempts, chronic attacks of bulimia and anorexia nervosa, depression, a loveless marriage, an unsupportive and critical husband and the 'other woman'. "If Diana has managed to fit in all the psychotherapy, counselling, treatments for depression and suicide attempts - and still emerge almost daily, lovely, healthy, and unruffled, then shouldn't Hollywood bestow on her an honorary Oscar for being the greatest actress of all time.

A press headline reads: 'Tokyo Set to Prime Economy', with a following story which starts, 'The Japanese Government is preparing to announce soon a one off spending package worth up to $60 billion to boost the sagging economy and restore stability ... to the Tokyo stock market. The Japanese Government has been forced to admit that it has to inject a massive supply of new money, which will have to be created, into an economy which has badly collapsed. But the $60 billion will almost certainly be added to the already massive internal Japanese debt, this in turn will generate inflation and more problems. It is now estimated that the Australian June deficit will reach a "perilous" $11 billion; but even this further expansion of money supply is having little real effect on the depressed economy. There's nothing "perilous" about creating more money for financial deficits. What is perilous is the manner in which it is created - as an interest bearing debt - and distributed. What is required is a distribution of debt-free money directly to individuals, and so without inflation.

South Africa - the wheel of "world opinion" (what the "world" is thinking re South Africa seems to have turned full circle): According to Herald-Sun's Editorial (Melbourne, June 29th) the "world" must act with extreme caution to the deteriorating situation in South Africa, which any fool could have seen coming months ago, as the Government strained itself to appease the African National Congress. Even our chatterbox Foreign Minister, Gareth Evans, is holding back on the reintroduction of Australian sporting contacts and sanctions, and that's a change! What is going on? Why is "world opinion" almost suddenly modifying its anti-South Africa hysteria? This "line" has been taken by many other organs of "world opinion". We don't know, yet. We had to pinch ourselves as we read this from the Melbourne Editorial (above): "The de Klerk Government responded positively to international pressure against apartheid. This time it is the blacks who must put their house in order. So far their behaviour does not hold much hope of a peaceful transition to majority rule". Are the international wheelers and dealers discovering that they cannot predict the reactions of the black Africans, let alone control them? We well recall the classic work of the American, Lothrop Stoddard (The Rising Tide of Colour), at the turn of this century: he forecast racial wars at the close of the 20th Century.

LAW ENSHRINES RULE OF HUMANISM

HOLD SUPER GRAVY TRAIN