WORKING NATION AND THE SLAVE STATE

by David Thompson
The Prime Minister's White Paper on unemployment, "Working Nation", is an expensive, artful measure designed to lay the groundwork for another A.L.P. election victory. As it deals superficially with the effects of unemployment, the white paper conceals a tacit admission that full employment is no longer possible. In fact, as Senator Evans concedes, "full employment" now means an official unemployment rate of 5%, and this is Mr. Keating's target for the year 2000. It is widely accepted that the real unemployment figures are much higher than official figures.

In reality, Mr. Keating's white paper announces the dreaded "jobs tax" that has been firmly rejected by the Government. How is the white paper to be financed? By increasing debt, through an increase in the budget deficit, which must eventually be paid for by those who still have jobs! That is, a jobs tax. The details of this are expected in the Budget, not released as we go to press.

The fate of the long promised tax cuts would seem to be sealed. An essential plank of the white paper is an extensive, and expensive, retraining programme, designed to maintain the votes of the long-term unemployed. While this may have application for the school leavers, who may begin on a training wage, the main question, which remains unanswered, is "Retrain for what?"

Much of our industry has been forced offshore, to foreign "level playing" fields. In fact, the press pre-occupation with the white paper obscured the reports of a blowout in the trade deficit for March. Financial markets again wilted, and the most damaging factor in the rise in imports was a 2% increase in consumption goods. We don't make them here any more - we import them. We also note that the bulk of the payments deficit was made up of interest and dividends being paid on foreign borrowings and foreign investment.

In an effort to deal with unemployment figures before the next election, Keating is cynically proposing to hide the unemployed in various expensive "retraining" schemes, and in the public service in the form of increased departmental staff to run the various schemes. Thus, they are no longer "unemployed" and can be removed from the welfare rolls.

Only a few economic "analysts" are asking questions about the prospects for genuine job opportunities in the face of draconian new industrial relations legislation. Mr. John Howard draws attention to this, pointing out that employers tempted to start new employees in retraining schemes will be frustrated by industrial legislation which makes it virtually impossible to sack staff. Even if a new employee's total salary is paid by the Government, he becomes a heavy liability if he turns out to be unsatisfactory.

The regional development measures, which appear generous to the "regions" with potential for development under "progressive" leadership, obviously undermine the States. The long-term effect is more centralisation, with Canberra holding the purse strings.

Other measures have merit: we note that the new parenting allowance can relieve the financial pressure on families by making it slightly more attractive for mothers to stay at home. The feminists are quite scathing about this. The measure is balanced, however, by the fact that someone else is paying for it. As with the rest of the "Working Nation" paper, economic resources are redistributed.

As C.H. Douglas wrote nearly 50 years ago, "every distributive movement which does not distribute credit is inevitably a movement for organised robbery, which the money power is delighted to support". If Mr. Keating or his advisers examined the causes of unemployment, completely different perspective might be reached.

Apart from the deliberate relocation of Australian industries to the Third World, it is obvious that the revolution in (electrical) technology has taken giant strides towards replacing repetitive human labour. If this fact is combined with the fact that all consumption is now financed either through debt, or wages and salaries distributed by industry, a glaring necessity becomes obvious. That is that some consumption must be financed independently from wages and salaries. This requires a completely different approach, unless those who do have jobs are required to sacrifice some of their incomes.

The answer is that some of Mr. Keating's impressive new debts needed to finance job creation schemes need to be issued in the form of new credits for the benefit of all consumers. As Douglas wrote in 1948, "Instead of being self-contained units, we are more and more becoming components of a function, masquerading as 'economics', but accurately described as "full employment". Five minutes consideration will convince anyone not mentally infirm that a policy of full employment means and can only mean, direction of labour. Combine that with egalitarianism, and you have the slave state - you cannot possibly have anything else.

DAVID IRVING AGAIN REFUSED A VISA

The Minister for Immigration, Mr. Bolkus, has announced that he has reconsidered British historian David Irving's application for a visa, as ordered by the Federal Court in September last year. And again the visa has been denied. Mr. Bolkus is reported as saying in the Senate that Mr. Irving did not meet the "good character" criteria, which the Minister is empowered to consider. It is also clear that Irving's deportation from Canada and his exclusion from Germany counted heavily against him.

The truth is that the Minister for Immigration has the power to block entry by anyone regarded as undesirable. Every country must exercise this option to protect itself. Irving is 'undesirable' because his views are politically incorrect. The Jewish lobby has made it quite clear to Mr. Bolkus (and Mr. Hand before him) that they will not tolerate David Irving casting any doubt upon such articles of faith as "the holocaust". Freedom of speech is more a victim in this decision than is Mr. Irving.

There is no doubt that Irving is the target of a sophisticated international campaign to isolate and destroy him. His deportation from Canada could not have been organised without high-level manipulation. Irving was prevented from voluntarily leaving Canada, under an agreement with Canadian immigration authorities. When he attempted to meet the agreed provisions of departure, he was prevented from entering the United States by extremely damaging information 'planted' on the American computers.
Upon being sent back to the Canadian authorities to "sort it out", Irving was met with the handcuffs, and subsequently deported. It may take years, and thousands of dollars, to prove such skullduggery, and clear Irving's name. In the meantime, "deportation" is used as the reason to deny him visas around the world.

PRINCE CHARLES UNDER ATTACK

The Prince of Wales is under heavy attack by the intelligentsia of the British press for his remarks about 'political correctness'. In a thoughtful address to editors of regional papers of the Newspaper Society in London last week, the Prince urged ordinary people to stand up to the intimidation of trendy dogma being peddled by "fashionable therapists". Such intimidation is undermining the fabric of British society, said the Prince.

For his own unfashionable views, Prince Charles has often borne the brunt of criticism from the theorists. It has only improved his "image" among ordinary people, who readily identify with much of the straight commonsense. The fact that the Prince regularly returns to the "firing line" with sensible but unfashionable views is a tribute to his courage.

"The intimidation is palpable. Any questioning, in a perfectly polite way, of the current fashions, usually elicits a vitriolic response whether it is a wish to teach people the basic principles of English grammar or suggesting that in certain circumstances it may be necessary and sensible to administer a smack to your child ... There is perhaps an inherent danger from those who love to parade a kind of dogmatic arrogance without listening to the views of 'ordinary people'. All around us we see the evidence of the short-lived theories and fashions, which can undermine our individuality, undermine our confidence the Prince is reported to have said.

DEBT: THE NEW SOUTH AFRICAN CURSE

"Free at last" is the euphoric refrain surging out of South Africa after the all-race elections which catapulted Nelson Mandela from a convicted terrorist that not even Amnesty International would champion, to President of the economic powerhouse of Africa. But majority rule does not guarantee freedom, as we have commented before.

We note that Zulu Chief Buthelezi warns of "majority rule", saying that the new Government, based upon a unitary, centrist system is a recipe for friction. He continues to propose a federation, in which different ethnic groups could exercise limited autonomy.

The greatest new challenge to South Africa, however, will initially be economic. International sanctions have produced an environment where South Africa maximised its import substitution, and strove for self-sufficiency, even converting coal to oil supplies. It has the lowest ratio of foreign debt of any developing country. Within the conventional economic rules, this is a stable economy with a much more positive balance of trade than Australia over the last decade.

We will predict that the introduction of the debt economy by the I.M.F. and the international banking houses will destroy all this. Debt repayment burdens will prove to be a greater burden than apartheid ever was. "

ON TARGET IS READ BY THE CRITICS

Critics of the League, as we have occasionally pointed out before, take careful note of what we do or say. This is a backhanded type of compliment; they have some regard for the impact of ideas. Sheer weight of numbers may temporarily influence current fashions, but the discipline of reality opens the door for new ideas.

Occasionally On Target is quoted in the press - usually in a derogatory way. The latest derogatory comment comes from Marion Groves, columnist for the Sunday Herald-Sun (8/5/94) who completely misrepresents the League in a venomous piece about Australians Against Further Immigration. She implies that the League supports the processing of illegal refugees to blood and bone in a disused meat works! A suggestion we treat with the contempt it deserves.

WHY A FREEZE ON DEMOCRACY CAN'T BE JUSTIFIED

from The Age (Melbourne), May 2nd
The Victorian Council for Civil Liberties has sought to ensure that local governments in Victoria discharge their important functions and obligations in a manner that respects the rights and liberties of their constituents. "It is ironic, therefore, that the State (Vic. O.T.) Government, through its proposed amalgamations for municipal districts, intends to threaten the very basis of citizens' rights and liberties - that is, their participation in the management of their affairs through democratically elected representatives.

"Concern ought to be raised about any legislation, regulation or practice, which prevents people from criticising the decisions of any level of government, be it federal, state or local. "Similarly, the implementation of any procedures that may lead to an abuse of power by office-bearers or prevent ordinary citizens from exercising their right to democratic participation in local communities must be contested. "Therefore, the Local Government Board's recommendation to appoint unelected commissioners to facilitate the transition of the proposed local government amalgamations, without specific guidelines for the election of democratically appointed councillors, is of serious concern.

"Local governments constitute the third layer in Australia's democratic system of government. Though traditionally they have focused their attention on the three R's - rates, rubbish, and roads - local governments do serve an important function in the representation of small, yet diverse, communities across residential, commercial, industrial, recreational and rural sectors. "To this end, the participation of individuals in 'local politics' and their access to local representatives has been essential to the management of issues of particular local concern within the larger context of state and federal politics.

"Local councils have addressed the needs of their communities in very different ways and the results cannot be measured solely by rate levels or the numbers of staff employed at the local level or councillors elected. Local governments have adequately served communities and citizens in the past and ought to continue to do so in the future. "The direction of the communities must be decided not by self-appointed commissioners accountable to the Minister of Local Government but by representatives of the residents and ratepayers of those municipalities. "The Minister for Local Government would do well to consider the needs of the residents and ratepayers of local communities and ensure that democratic representation remains intact during the proposed transitional arrangements for the proposed council amalgamations.

"Though changes to municipal arrangements will provide a period of uncertainty for the communities involved, the freezing of democratically elected institutions and the appointment of commissioners for unspecified periods of time cannot be justified." (Alan H. Goldberg, Q.C., President, Victorian Council for Civil Liberties.

FILM UNFAIR TO GERMANS

from Daily-Telegraph-Mirror (Sydney), April 18th
Most of the rave reviews of Schindler's List (DTM, 23/3) which scooped the Oscar prizes claimed it was a true story. "However, the film is a docudrama based on a work of fiction which won the Booker Prize for fiction. "The various, often bizarre, allegations in the film directed, for instance, against the Nazi commandant Goeth have never been tested in the way allegations against alleged war criminals such as John Demjanjuk or Ivan Polyukhovic were tested.

"One effect of the more than 100 films from Hollywood since 1945 about the suffering of the Jews in W.W. II is to incite hatred against people of German extraction, of whom there are about 500,000 in Australia. "Why does Hollywood produce no docudramas about the forced removal of Germans (ethnic 'cleansing') with great loss of life from Poland and Czechoslovakia after the war, and no docudramas about atrocities of Shabra and Hebron? "To what extent was the claim by the Malaysians that the film was propaganda justified?" (Geoff Muirden, Secretary, Australian Civil Liberties Union)