GOVERNMENT BY COMPUTER MODEL

from David Thompson
The announcement that the by-election for the Melbourne Seat of Wills, recently vacated by former Prime Minister Hawke, will be held as early as possible - April 11th - indicates a new confidence in the Labor Party. The fact that Mr. Keating's one off cash payment to families will have been delivered less than 10 days before this is undoubtedly entirely coincidental. The polls are showing that Mr. Keating's "One Nation package" has given them the tool required by Mr. Keating to peg back the initiative taken by the Opposition's "Fightback package". Our initial view of "One Nation", that it was much more of a political than economic statement is confirmed by Mr. Keating's own behaviour.

Having delivered the statement, he immediately changed the subject, and embarked upon a strident anti-British, anti-monarchy, pro-Asian course to relegate the economic debate to the inner pages of the press for as long as possible. The fact that the 'polls' have reflected a rise in the A.L.P. stocks, however, does not mean that the Keating economic package is superior to the Hewson package. It simply means that the Keating salesman is wielding his policy weapons more effectively than the Hewson salesman. That is, the abrasive, abusive and arrogant Keating apparently "outperforms" the Opposition in Parliament. Mr. Keating is regarded as "winning" the slanging match over whose computer model is the best. The truth is that neither the Keating computer model, nor the Hewson computer model can change Australia's deepening economic crisis in the long term. Neither the Opposition's "Fightback" nor the Government's "One Nation" answers a number of key questions.

INDUSTRY SACRIFICED ON GATT ALTAR
The first question that remains to be addressed is that of Australian industry. There is nothing in either Government or Opposition computer model to suggest policy changes to encourage domestic industry, or to protect it from foreign - principally Asian - cheap imports. Neither Coalition nor Labor acknowledges that manufacturing is important to Australia with hard policies.
Following the Keating statement, the director of the Australian Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers Association, Mr. Alex Grosman, was disappointed that the "high-tech" industries necessary to underwrite the 'clever country" strategy, did not receive incentives. He commented: "From its own comments, the Government appears to be resigned to Australia being primarily a commodity exporter and tourist destination. But those industries don't offer value added jobs, nor diversify the economic base."

In fact, a concentration on these industries erodes the economic base, and makes it increasingly possible to be economically self-sufficient. Industry continues to collapse. Mr. John Gowing, the young manager of Gowings, the last privately owned department store in Sydney, remarked: "Ever week another Australian manufacturer goes out. Last week it was Zeds, who made Trousers. Two months ago Leamor stopped manufacturing. We had been doing business with them for 60 years. China can supply us with pure wool jumpers for $14 - it's crazy. Australian wool is being dumped in China and putting Australian manufacturers out of business.

Both Government and Opposition take the same internationalist position on trade - that Australia must become part of the "global market", compete on a "level playing field", and comply with General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade rules, which insist the domestic industries should not be protected. Says Gossman: "A continued reliance on the process of GATT, which ignores the reality of international trade, will be to Australia's detriment if other countries don't play by the rules."

An economist from the Chamber of Manufacturers, Mr. David Gilchrist, is reported as saying of the 'level playing field', "How many times do we have to tell them there ain't none?" Again historian Geoffrey Blainey summed up the issue in a recent edition of Australian Business Monthly: "To destroy or close down too many factories as part of the alleged process of rejuvenating Australia's economy is to kill the baby on the grounds that the humidicrib needs to be rebuilt." Blainey directed attention to the second issue to which neither Government nor Opposition have provided answers in their respective computer models - the towering overseas debt.

DROWNING IN A SEA OF DEBT
In his column in The Weekend Australian (7/3/92), Mr. B.A. Santamaria points out that with the rising foreign debt, it makes little difference whether Australia meets economic destruction as a republic or a monarchy. He catalogues the sorry debt story: In 1983 after Keating's first budget, the debt stood at $23 billion. In 1984, it had risen to $27.9 billion; in 1985 to $51.2 billion; in 1986, to $75 billion; in 1987 to $82.9 billion; in 1988 to $92.8 billion; in 1989 it passed $100 billion; in 1990 to $124 billion; and the figure is now in excess of $145 billion.

Both Government and Opposition economic models are calculating future prosperity from within the straightjacket of debt finance. Neither can provide relief from the debt until they can break out of orthodoxy; only a break with computer modeling, and an honest assessment of the real world can help. Whichever model is inflicted upon an unwilling electorate, it is the taxpayer who is expected to pay the debt. And pay, and pay.

THE CHALLENGE FROM KALGOORLIE

Only one member of the whole sorry Parliament has dared to raise the question of the Traditional Australia in Mr. Keating's vision of the Asian connection. In a letter to the Prime Minister, one of his own backbenchers has challenged Mr. Keating to add substance to his "One Nation" rhetoric. Mr. Graham Campbell, Labor M.P. for the biggest electorate in the country, Kalgoorlie, has pointed out that multiculturalism is badly fragmenting the country, and undermines any loose talk about being 'one nation'. Campbell challenges Mr. Keating to return to traditional labor roots, and abandon the disaster of multiculturalism.

The truth is that Mr. Keating is no A.L.P. traditionalist at all, no matter how much he invokes the images of Chifley, Curtin, or even his 'mentor', former N.S.W. Premier Jack Lang. Lang was dismissed from office because he insisted, among other things, that it was more important that the Australian people could survive a depression than ensuring that the debts to international bankers be paid first. Mr. Keating is not a man from the same tradition - he is a bankers' man. There is no evidence that Dr. John Hewson is any different.

Mr. Graham Campbell's discussion paper, "Immigration and Consensus is republished in the February and March editions of "Intelligence Survey". Copies available: $2 posted. Subscription: $20 per year.

THE SOUTH AFRICAN AGONY

The referendum announced by South African Prime Minister De Klerk for March 17th asks South Africa's 3.3 million white voters to endorse his negotiated end to apartheid. But the whites are understandably uneasy about a process for which they cannot clearly see a satisfactory result. There is too much evidence from other countries in Africa of majority rule resulting in economic chaos and political totalitarianism.

Mr. De Klerk promises a "power sharing" arrangement, ignoring the experience of countries like their northern neighbour, Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia). The Rhodesians were promised a share of power under Lord Carrington's new constitution. It was a mirage, and the South Africans watch uneasily as the Zimbabwe dictatorship now resumes the land of white farmers - at a "fair price" - for Africans. Food production is dropping alarmingly. The economy is slowly disintegrating.

Australian commentators claim that lifting the 'dispossessed' African majority out of poverty into prosperity implies many years of white control, since a simple black takeover would lead to a massive flight of capital and economic chaos benefiting no one. Even if the A.N.C. and other black groups could sustain such a long-term process, the Rhodesian experience shows that instead of a dramatic flight of capital, a slow steady trickle of European finance and expertise as whites face reality is just as certain to produce the same results in the end.

For Australians to understand the magnitude of the South African problem, the equivalent of about 100 million aborigines sharing this continent with 16 million whites would roughly equate with the South African condition. The other factor militating against a gradual power transfer from white to black, is the boiling revolutionary ferment among a huge unemployed black population that is being manipulated by small hard-line groups like the radical Pan-Africanist Congress (P.A.C.) and the Azanian People's Organisation (A.Z.A.P.O.).

The carnage in the townships is a disturbing omen for the future, of tribal conflict for ultimate control, which Mr. De Klerk needs to sweep under the carpet until the referendum is held. The Internationalisation of South Africa proceeds, because an independent, stable, self-sufficient South Africa is a threat to any dreams of new world order. South Africa is nearly self-sufficient in everything. Their Achilles heel is that they insist on using the collectivist debt finance to attempt to run the economy, leaving them at the mercy of the international financial mafia, to whom the lives of people - black or white - come second to the centralisation of power.

ABORTION IN IRELAND

BRIEF COMMENTS

Mr. Brian Toohey, in his economic comment in The Sun-Herald (Melbourne), March 8th, observes that economic forecasting is an erratic business at the best of times. He says, "External shocks can suddenly demolish the most intricate (economic) model - who can guess what global upheaval might occur between now and the year 2000?"
Wait - there is more of importance. "An even more fundamental weakness is that economists can't agree on just how the economy really works." We are utterly convinced that this is correct. We are as sure as we can be that many politicians in charge of economic matters (such as Messrs. Keating, Dawkins and Willis) - really don't understand what they are doing. The politicians, business "leaders", and others who are insisting that Australia's role in the future now lies in Asia, may be, and probably are, talking nonsense.
The present era of super capitalism in the world won't last, in our view. It is breaking down presently; and the finance economic system of traditional capitalism is also breaking down. Racial realities, and economic realities throughout the industrialised world, are beginning to assert themselves, after maybe two centuries (or more) of the smothering of real history by those guilty of such falsifications.

Business confidence has plunged to a 4-year low IN JAPAN. We observed some 2-3 years ago that Japan would eventually sink into recession, or worse. It's the recession "Japan had to have"! The Central Bank of Japan won't loosen monetary policy, and the business world there is shivering. Nissan is calling some of its "legions of capital" home. Other huge Japanese mega companies will follow suit, we believe. Yes, the politicians, the estate agents, the economists may then cease their silly babblings.

BETRAYAL OF THE BRITISH HERITAGE

The next British general election, which is expected to be in April, provides the first substantial electoral test for Prime Minister Major since he ousted Mrs. Thatcher last year. In the long, unofficial election campaign being waged now, however, the key issue of the European Community has not yet become an election issue, simply because both the major parties are prepared to betray Britain's future.
Mrs. Thatcher herself remains a potent factor, and if a debate on Europe does surface during the campaign it could expose deep divisions within the ranks of the Conservative Party.

While Mr. Keating sneers that Britain has abandoned Australia and New Zealand by entering the European Community, this is not a "British" decision. It is a decision forced upon them by their political leaders. The only referendum on the European issue was in 1972, when Britons were asked whether they supported Britain's entry to the European Economic Community for trade advantages. They voted "yes", without being told that this started a gradual process that ends in 1993 with Britain virtually stripped of crown, Parliament, flag and sovereignty.

The truth is that already Britain has ceded significant powers to Brussels. Andrew Clark reported from London for The Sun-Herald (8/3/92): "Like the other 12 legislatures of the European Community, the (British) Mother of parliaments still oversees the passing of bills to collect taxes, and spend money. But in many other areas - company law, foreign relations, trade policy, transport regulation, etc. - Westminister's sovereignty has been critically compromised by Brussels. Much of the British Parliament's time is spent franking decisions made by the E.C's. Council of Ministers in secret meetings in Brussels. At the same time, much of the modern political debate around the world centres on economic issues.

The British Government's real ability to maneuver in this area is narrowing each day as a coherent Community-wide structure begins to emerge. "For the past 18 months Britain has been a member of the German dominated European Monetary System. This means sterling is lashed to the fortunes of the deutschmark, restricting the British Government's ability to manipulate interest rates, make radical budget alterations or even raise or lower taxes. This (taxes) is a key election issue."

The real issues, which should be at the forefront of the election debate, are proposals for increased powers for the European Parliament, economic and monetary union, and expansion of the European Community. But the British have been steadily maneuvered into a desperate economic position in which it is argued, "the future of Britain lies in Europe". Such a refrain should sound familiar to Australians.
Mr. Keating's argument that "the future of Australia lies in Asia" should be seen for what it really is: the process of stripping Australia of a British heritage, and replacing our sovereignty with a 'regional' commitment to an Asian grouping.

Only time can demonstrate for Australians, as it has for other peoples, that Prince Charles is right: "For us all, roots are important: roots in our landscape and local communities; roots in our cultural and literary heritage; roots in our philosophical and spiritual traditions Hanging on to our cultural roots is one way of preserving (our) identities, and Indeed, the stability of our civilisations..."

If Australians are ever offered a clear choice between the Keating and the Prince Charles philosophies, we are confident that Charles' appeal to our heritage would receive massive loyalty. Such a demonstration must be made to Mr. Keating.

COULD BRITAIN HAVE DONE MORE IN THE WAR?

from The Australian, 4/3
"Paul Keating's vitriolic attack on Great Britain for its attitude towards Singapore in 1942 (ten years before Keating was born) stems from ignorance or bigotry or both. "He apparently is not aware that at the time of the Singapore crisis, Britain had been at war against Nazi Germany for some 2 years. In that time, with the help of the Dominions, she had fought in Europe, endured the agony of Dunkirk, won the Battle of Britain, fought bitter campaigns in the Mediterranean, the Middle East and North Africa. Her losses in land, sea, and air battles were tremendous.

"When Japan entered the war the situation in the Middle East was precariously balanced, with Rommel within striking distance of Cairo and the Suez Canal. "The dilemma facing Churchill and his War Cabinet would be unknown to modern politicians such as Paul Keating. Should he split his very thin resources and send reinforcements to Singapore or should he put all the effort into defeating Hitler first and then tackling Japan?

"Had Britain diverted massive forces to the Far East, it could well have lost the war against Hitler, an event which would have posed a serious threat to Australia's future and lengthened the war against Japan. Ultimately, both were defeated, albeit at a terrible price in human suffering for all the participants. It is a gross distortion of history for Paul Keating to claim with great knowledge and authority that Great Britain deserted Australia in the face of the Japanese threat of invasion." (Rupert Goodman [Rat of Tobruk], St. Lucia, Qld.)