THE LIBERAL PARTY REVOLUTION

The first Federal Liberal Party, established 50 years ago by R.G. Menzies and men of similar philosophical background, attempted to reflect the Federal system of government, with a decentralisation of power. The right of the States to run their own affairs was taken seriously. Unlike an authoritarian Labor Party, Liberal Party members had more opportunity to select candidates whom they believed would best serve them.

Unlike the Labor Party and its rigid discipline over individual Members, the Liberal Party tolerated a degree of dissent at both State and Federal level. But in the face of the electoral successes of the Labor Party since the victory by Whitlam in 1972, followed by the abject failures of the Fraser Government and the election of the Hawke and Keating Governments, a Federal Liberal Party without any clearly defined philosophical base, has, instead of trying to go back to its roots and supporting policies of genuine decentralisation, has created the impression that it is content to try to match the authoritarian policies of the Labor Party.

Federal leader Downer and his backers have now moved towards the Labor position where the Federal Executive can discipline State branches and revoke the pre-selection of candidates. The strongest resistance to the Downer programme for centralising power came from Western Australia and Tasmania. But, according to press reports, wavering delegates at the Albury Conference were told that the Party simply could not afford a defeat for Downer, who had publicly supported the proposals to give the Federal Executive the powers sought. This was typical psycho-political warfare.

The reality is that there is little difference now between the structures of the Labor Party and the Liberal Party. The Liberals are now even trailing behind the absurd Labor Party policy in favour of a specific quota of women politicians. Genuine representative government has got nothing to do with gender. And while the Republican strategists keep adjusting their tactics in what they see as an on-going campaign to erode support for the Constitutional Monarchy, the Liberals continue to become increasingly fragmented on the issue. Liberal leader Downer says he would not describe himself as a "staunch Monarchist".

One newspaper article carried the heading that today's Liberals were trying to get out from under the shadow of Menzies. But when it suits them, the Liberals still refer to Menzies as if he would be supporting them. The truth is that in his latter years Sir Robert Menzies did not even vote for the Party he had helped to create. This fact should be widely publicised during the coming by-election in Kooyong, where the new Liberal Party is blatantly attempting to exploit what it perceives to be the multicultural vote.

Our advice is that the Liberal Party candidate should be put last and a strong anti-multicultural vote recorded by supporting the Australians Against Further Immigration candidate. The A.A.F.I. cannot possibly win, but a strong protest vote could send a message to the Liberal Party.

THE INTEREST RATE ROLLER COASTER

What does the 'yuppie' bond market speculator on Wall Street, New York, have to do with the Australian divorce rate? Not much, at first glance, but since the deregulation of finance and banking in Australia in 1984, he probably has just as much influence on mortgage interest rates in Australia now, as the Treasurer himself.

The recent one percent rise in interest rates announced last week by the Treasurer, Mr. Willis, is allegedly designed to prevent the Australian economy going into overdrive, and 'overheating'. In plain language, the A.L.P. strategists are worried that whatever increasing economic activity is taking place as a result of easing the credit restrictions (which were effectively imposed by high interest rates) will generate an inflation rate that will damage chances of another election victory for the A.L.P. But even the Treasurer, under pressure, had to admit that higher interest rates themselves contribute to increasing inflation.

When the mortgage rate increases, the wage earner must seek an increase in his income, or suffer increasing financial pressure and family friction. The small businessman must attempt to increase the prices of his product to accommodate increased interest rates. Both contribute to rising costs; interest rates are a cost of production.

In order to minimise the political odour (and electoral damage) of rising interest rates in the mortgage belts, the Treasurer also asks the banks not to pass on the interest rate rises, but to "absorb" them. What does this mean? Two things.
First, the banks do not absorb increased costs - they pass them on. If not to mortgagees in the housing market, these increases are passed on to industry.
Second, if the Treasurer does not want the interest rate rises to be passed on to homebuyers, etc., then why increase rates at all? The truth is that Australia has lost control of financial policy, because governments have given up this responsibility to "the market". When "the market" demands rises in interests, the government (the Treasurer) gets the blame. Mr. Willis is appealing to small business and mortgagees not to blame the government - blame the banks!

There is no answer to such financial dilemmas under conventional debt economies, in which every increase in the money supply is generated as a debt to the banking system. No long-term economic recovery can take place with increased debt as the foundation. Until ways are found to increase the nation's money supply without increasing debt, the economic yo-yo of inflation or unemployment must continue. And while Australian financial policy is so heavily influenced by such factors as the New York bond market, no Australian Government can protect Australian families from the pressures of increasing housing costs. And there is no doubt that increasing financial pressure does have an impact on the divorce rate.

ANGRY DEBATE OVER NEW BOOK ON RACE

Over the years, many books have been written on the matter of racial differences. Differing aspects of racial characteristics have been compared, and studies concerning brain sizes and intelligence quotient have been published. But since the Second World War, even strictly scientific studies of this kind have become increasingly unpopular under the developing dogmas of political correctness.
However, the recent publication in the United States of The Bell Curve by Richard Hermstein and Charles Murray, which is an academic study of the relationship between I.Q., class and race in the U.S.A., has the American press practically foaming at the mouth. The book argues that intelligence determines success in almost every aspect of life, and is largely genetic.

The authors are academics; before his death recently Hermstein was a psychologist, and Murray is a political scientist. The major point at issue is that the authors argue that American blacks have a consistently lower I.Q. than whites, Asians or Jews, and that this could account for their economic and social status.

Irrespective of the niceties of political correctness, the fact is that racial differences exist. This must translate into differing capacities to perform certain functions in which the human indulges. For example, few would argue that the Negro is a superb athlete, and given the opportunity, can dominate track events. But what accounts for the fact that there is not a single swimming record held by any black athlete? Does this mean that blacks are superior sprinters, but inferior swimmers? Why the dearth of black swimmers? But most of all, is science permitted to study such questions? The answer, at the moment, is no. Ten years ago, Clive Harper, Professor of Neuropathology at Sydney University, was studying differences between Aboriginal and Caucasian brains. He had to desist because funding became unavailable, and it was difficult to have the results published.

Scientific research has increasingly become the tool of political preference, rather than uncovering new information that could help solve social problems. Under new racial vilification legislation, it may become illegal to study such matters.

BRIEF COMMENTS

As the Federal Liberal Party celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Party launched by Sir Robert Menzies and his colleagues 50 years ago, Prime Minister Paul Keating has felt it necessary to attempt to belittle the achievements of Menzies. Menzies made a number of mistakes, but he sought to represent a value system far removed from that represented by Paul Keating. At the end of his long public career, Menzies did not have enough money to buy himself a home. Business supporters had "to pass the hat" to assist him. The man who seeks to denigrate him, Paul Keating, is currently assessed as one of the wealthiest men in Australia. His fellow "comrade", Bob Hawke, whom he managed to displace with the aid of self-confessed liars like former Senator Richardson, is also doing well financially. Keating and Hawke reflect the new breed of Socialists. One of their outstanding features is a sickening vulgarity.

In his attempt to answer Keating's anti-Menzies attacks, Federal Liberal leader Alexander Downer demonstrates that he is trying "to have two bob each way". It is true, as Downer says in an article in The Age of October 29th, that agriculture lost its dominance with a greater expansion in Australian manufacturing. This expansion was the result of a deliberate policy of protection for Australian secondary industries. It is bending history for Downer to draw attention to the decline in the manufacturing sector under the Labor Party without mentioning that the Liberal Party has been campaigning for years for a further reduction in protection of Australian industry.
Alexander Downer has been prominent among Liberals advocating the internationalisation of the Australian economy. Downer makes the comment that it was a Liberal Government, which abolished the "White Australia" policy "when the fact that it was Labor that defended it for decades..." The Labor Party which supported a restricted non-European immigration policy that of Curtin and Chifley, was a very different Labor Party from that of Hawke and Keating. We challenge Alexander Downer to provide any evidence to suggest that Sir Robert Menzies advocated or supported a change to an immigration policy, which helped to give Australia a long period of social stability.

THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT REVOLUTION

As we go to press, the future of local government hangs in the balance, with the "first National General Assembly of Local Government" convening in Canberra this weekend (November 6th-9th). This national conference, promoted by the Australian Local Government Association and the Office of Local Government in Canberra, is to consist of municipal representatives from all councils around the Nation.

The objective: to regionalise the nation, by eliminating local councils, the States and the Senate, so as to govern with something like 80 regions in a new relationship with a powerful central government.

Narrabri Councillor Bevan O'Regan, who has campaigned against this proposal, writes in his campaign newsletter From the Parish Pump: "I believe the fact that Australia, in adopting the United Nations International Union of Local Authorities treaty, engenders the connotations needed to call this a general assembly' similar to the U.N. Security Council..."

The danger of such a national conference is that large councils (and already amalgamated regions) are likely to accept centralist proposals that smaller, more representative councils would reject. Smaller councils are unlikely to send delegates to Canberra, seeing this as another expensive 'junket' that they can't afford. And, of course, those small Victorian councils already amalgamated no longer exist to send a delegate.

The entire regionalisation programme should be strenuously opposed; it is entirely unconstitutional, and any relationship between local government and the Commonwealth has now been twice rejected (in 1974 and 1988) at referenda proposing constitutional change. We refer actionists to Intelligence Survey for October, which begins with an excellent article on local government ($2.00 posted from our Melbourne office).

From the Parish Pump, Mr. Bevan O'Regan's campaign newsletter: "Moema", Narrabri, N.S.W., 2390. Subscription is $50.00, and is highly recommended.

NO FIDDLING WITH THE CONSTITUTION

from The Australian, October 2 1st
Professor Detmold's constitutional theory (The New Citizen, The Weekend Australian, Focus, 15-16/10) is unorthodox. "He argues that rights such as equality are part of our constitution for reasons of political morality ('the conditions of community and citizenship'), whatever our written Constitution actually provides. Very few constitutional lawyers would agree with this. In Australia, constitutional law is not political philosophy.

"The High Court's recent constitutional decisions which Detmold discusses are not based on his theory. They purport to follow from orthodox methods of constitutional interpretation, but in fact do not. That is why Detmold is right to say that the court has 'created' new constitutional law.

"Section 128 of the Constitution says, 'This Constitution shall not be altered except in the following manner', and then provides for a national referendum. It is therefore unlawful for the Constitution to be altered by any other means, even by the High Court. This applies to the adoption of a Bill of Rights.

"There are good arguments both for and against such a change, which the electorate must ultimately weigh up. Even if philosophers can prove what 'the conditions of community and citizenship are', it is for the community and not the High Court to decide what constitutional arrangements best meet those conditions.

CULTURAL ENGINEERING

from The Australian, October 26th
The peculiar cultural engineering equivocation currently seeping out from Canberra causes me to recall an occasion when I was in Bucharest, shortly before the overthrow of the Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu regime in Rumania. "My visit coincided with the birthday celebrations of the Rumanian 'Conductor'. "The then socialist government controlled television to the extent that broadcasts were limited to two hours a day. These two hours consisted of politically correct choirs, opera singers, writers and poets inanely chanting the praises of the Epoch Ceausescu. "All the arts in Rumania were culturally engineered and supervised by government departments. "Prominent artists and actors were given privileges and grants by the ruling party in return for their support of the Government.

"My research visits to the national gallery in Bucharest were barren. The Directorship of the gallery, blind supporters of the regime, had organised a prosaic exhibition of portraits of Nicolae Ceausescu. "The paintings were grotesquely amateurish propaganda items intended to extol the invisible merits of the dictator. Most of the National Library was closed because the windows overlooked the square where the Ceausecus were to mingle with the approved coterie of ethnic folk dancers gathered from various regions of Rumania.

"My subsequent visits to other East European socialist countries told an almost identical story, but perhaps with less emphasis on the controlling political family. "I was reminded that politically inspired cultural engineering surfaced during the reign of Louis XIV, continued through much of the nineteenth century in France where, through successive repressive regimes, the State-controlled Academies brooked little opposition from free thinkers in the arts.

"Such intolerance was taken up with gusto by the Marxist regime in Russia, and subsequently, the National Socialists in Germany, Mussolini in Italy, Franco in Spain, Salazar in Portugal, and - following World War II - all the socialist dictatorships of Europe. "None of these leaders and their regimes initially put their programs into operation without the support of prominent figures in the arts. "As these forms of government continued in power, artistic standards withered away to be replaced by pernicious propaganda geared to prop up intellectually bereft leaders, too often also culturally undereducated. "An inevitable decline was brought about by politically motivated contributors in the arts who naively sought to ally themselves with extreme nationalism. "A paranoid reaction to historical and exterior trends resulted in a perverse inward-looking syndrome and set up a train of events which ultimately brought about a self-orchestrated decay.

"In order to placate functionaries controlling the finance and in order to gain access to funds, the abandonment of true personal beliefs for politically correct 'isms' saw the recipients themselves become as debased professionally as the morally bankrupt regimes they served." (P.R. Monks, Art Historian, Townsville, Qld.)