THE APEC STEP TOWARDS THE WORLD STATE

by Eric D. Butler
The basic feature of the world scene is the attempt by the most industrialised nations to solve their growing internal problems by "capturing" one another's markets. It was the genius of the author of the movement known as Social Credit, Clifford Hugh Douglas, which demonstrated that, under orthodox finance economic policies, it was impossible for developed nations to purchase their own production without recourse to mounting debt, both national and international, and becoming increasingly vulnerable to pressures from the competing nations to form themselves into "Common Markets".

While there have been shortsighted politicians who genuinely believe that it is "inevitable" that the developed nations organise themselves into bigger and bigger Common Markets, with higher living standards resulting from what is termed Free Trade, there is documented and other evidence demonstrating that there are powerful international groups who seek to exploit the defects in the finance economic system to further a long-term strategy designed to create an idealistically conceived World State.

For a number of reasons, the Anglo-Saxons have always been in the forefront of a defence against all policies of centralisation, which have threatened the liberty of the individual. At a time when the blatantly centralist policies of the Keating Federal Government are creating the spectre of secession in West Australia, it is appropriate to recall that the basic cause of the American Civil War was not slavery, but the attempt by the Southern States, peopled mainly by people of Lowland Scottish background, to exercise what they thought was their constitutional right to secede from a Union becoming increasingly oppressive.

The ultimate defence against tyranny is the right to contract out from an intolerable situation. The old British Empire, with all its defects, an association of sovereign nations, sharing a common heritage, was a major barrier to the establishment of a World Government of any kind, and was the target of international powerlusters. The establishment of the European Common Market was the first major step towards destroying that association. Now comes the concept of the Asian-Pacific Common Market, including the U.S.A. Like Bob Hawke before him, Paul Keating has enthusiastically promoted the concept, claiming that Australia's destiny is in Asia, where there are allegedly vast untapped markets. In more robust days, those advocating that Australia be absorbed into a structure like APEC would be described as traitors.

Australia has been developed by peoples of Anglo-Saxon-Celtic background, who in that development have furthered the constitutional and cultural principles of their forebears. For a number of reasons, the Australians have been well placed to provide an example of the very best of British culture to their Asian neighbours. For the reasons, which C.H. Douglas so clearly outlined, the finance economic policies being pursued by the developing Asian nations, must result in catastrophic social and ecological disasters.

Australians who wish to preserve their national soul in the turbulent days ahead should welcome any unrehearsed events which may throw the Grand Design of the internationalists off course, but not rely too much on, for example, an American election result which saw a massive electors' rebuff to internationalist Clinton. Some Republicans are making favourable comments about the possibility of the new Congress refusing to endorse the GATT Agreement and to reject Free Trade as an economic policy. But unless the Republicans come to grips with finance economic realities, they are vulnerable to the on going policy of centralisation. It is significant that only 40 percent of the American electors felt it worthwhile voting.

In the absence of genuine alternatives to what all modern American governments have imposed on the American people, there is no certainty how the Republicans may fare at the 1996 elections. The emergence of a proposed third Party might, however, divide political power and result in a rejection of APEC, and similar internationalist proposals. In the meantime Australians would be well advised to concentrate on looking after their own affairs and reject APEC and other blandishments.

U.S. ELECTIONS: LESSONS FOR AUSTRALIA

by D. Thompson
To Australians, the election process in the United States always seems to involve a certain amount of madness. But even if we might not completely understand the process, there are lessons to be learned from the results. As a nation where voting is voluntary, it is notable that only about 40 percent of those qualified to vote did so. Therefore, although the talk of a Republican landslide is borne out by the changed face of the Congress, it has been achieved by little more than 20 percent of those qualified to vote. This leaves the President, the Head of State, isolated as a Democrat President facing a hostile Republican House of Representatives and Senate.

Because Clinton is also the Chief Executive of the U.S. Government, this clearly submits the Head of State to two years of damaging inter-party brawling before the next Presidential elections in 1996. The status of the Head of State must suffer as a result. The attitude of the American voter must also suffer, which helps to explain why only 40 percent bothered to vote, and those who did perhaps voted against politicians rather than specifically against the Democrat Party.

If the United States is the leading example of a successful republic, would Australia wish to abandon the Monarchy to follow this shining example? Even those who aspire to an Australian republic cannot agree on the dilemma about the selection process for a Head of State-President. Popular election, or appointment by say, a two-thirds majority of Parliament? The truth is that neither option can give us a Head of State above the corrupting process of party politics. Is it any wonder that there is strong support for the monarchy in the U.S.A.?

Only the hereditary monarch is truly above party politics, and if the process of installing a President of the U.S.A. (inauguration) is compared to the process of installing the hereditary monarch (the Christian church service of holy communion) only the culturally and spiritually barren could prefer the inauguration.

INITIATIVE AND REFERENDA IN THE U.S.A.

It should not be forgotten that the midterm Congressional elections in the United States are also accompanied by voting for other offices, like governors of States, judges, etc. And with this is the opportunity for the electorate to force votes on burning issues to which politicians or governments give no satisfactory expression.

In California, Proposition 187 has caused uproar, because it attempts to deal with the problem of illegal immigrants from Mexico. This problem has been lightly glossed over by political parties, although with increasing discomfort in recent years. The Los Angeles riots are still fresh enough in the minds of most to give a genuine 'edge' to the illegal immigrant problem. With something like 2 million illegal Mexican immigrants, feelings ran high enough to initiate a referendum on the issue - Proposition 187. An amazing 60 percent of votes cast for Proposition 187 saw the initiative adopted, and ensured immediate court challenges to have it overturned.

The outrage of liberal America to this result has been muted, because it is clear that the referendum simply gives expression to a general feeling in the United States. The referendum results require that public servants refuse services to those suspected of being illegal immigrants, and report them to the authorities. The opponents of Proposition 187 have called it a "racist witch-hunt", but this didn't prevent 60 percent of Californian voters from supporting it.

THE MULTICULTURAL FALLOUT IN AUSTRALIA

In Australia the combined policies of high immigration and forced multiculturalism are building the same sort of pressures as in the United States. In order to attempt to reduce the "racist" friction, such things as "racial hatred" legislation is being introduced, which will force every Australian to think twice before expressing his views on the problem. While conceding that it is not possible to legislate to change social attitudes, the A.L.P. is attempting to do just that, arguing that the racial hatred legislation will not actually be used to prosecute, but to "educate" the community on the new politically correct standards.

Archbishop Peter Hollingworth, of Brisbane, last week warned about multiculturalism emphasising difference, to the exclusion of what we hold in common. "I believe that issue needs to be challenged vigorously, on the grounds that if we fail to articulate a commonly agreed set of goals and directions, we are likely to move down a path towards further fragmentation and social disintegration," he said.

THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE MINORITY

The greatest pressure for racial vilification legislation is not coming from "mainstream" Australia, but from minority groups - the professional ethnic lobbies. For example, the Liberal Party dilemma over the Lavarch legislation comes about because of strong pressure from Mr. Victor Rebikoff, of the Federation of Ethnic Communities' Councils, and Mr. Mark Leibler, of the Ethnic Coalition of Australia. These gentlemen bluntly demand that the Coalition agree upon a 'bipartisan' approach to the racial hatred bill.

The N.S.W. Liberal Party is particularly sensitive about the racial hatred legislation, and has been pressuring Downer on the issue, because the N.S.W. elections must be held by April next year, and there are up to 2 million voters in N.S.W. whose first language is not English. Thus the Liberals find themselves the victims of their own inaction: when they could have opposed institutionalised multiculturalism, creating enclaves of ethnic tribes to whom the A.L.P. now panders, they did not do so. Instead of integrating alien migrants into the Australian mainstream, we have created a nation of tribes, which can destroy traditional Australia.

There is an enormous difference between "solving the ethnic problem" and avoiding the problem altogether. It could have been avoided in Australia with an intelligent immigration policy that made "Australians" first out of all migrants. Now it must be "solved" somehow, and while political parties refuse to act under the cover of "bipartisanship" it may require the facility of referendums initiated by the voters themselves. Racial hatred legislation will intensify the friction and the resentment.

OUR OUEEN

from The Australian, 10/11
Whether Paul Keating deliberately chose the fifth of November to fire yet another verbal rocket at the Queen, only he knows. Last Saturday he made an important speech in Melbourne, opening the new ABC headquarters at Southbank. He spoke about Australia's cultural growth and achievements. We are doing well, he said - 'by the way, we're borrowing the monarch of another country while we're at it!'

"He is wrong. Our Queen is not a foreign queen. Her title, Queen of Australia, was given to her by an Act of our own Parliament. She is just as much an Australian as the Prime Minister's wife or any other of our many citizens born overseas." (Jim Ramsay, Canterbury, Victoria)

COERCIVE LAWS WILL ONLY HELP TO PROMOTE RACISM

from The Age (Melbourne), 11/11
The 'racial vilification act' is a totally unnecessary piece of legislation introduced into a society that already has become litigious and over regulated. Such legislation threatens one of the basic tenets of democracy that is 'freedom of speech'. If you destroy freedom of speech, you destroy a democracy. "Australia is a tolerant society that is remarkably free of racial tension. Such a law is sending out a strong message that we are a nation of bigots and racists who require thought policing through criminal sanctions.

"Coercive laws are not required in a country that enjoys a level of racial harmony, which is the envy of many other countries with racially diverse populations. If anything, the racial vilification laws will do more to promote racism through driving it underground. Very few instances of assault, murder and property damage have resulted from racial disharmony and we already have adequate laws to deal with these problems. The proposed legislation is too vague in its definition and such statements as 'incitement to racial hatred' would be difficult to enshrine in law and can only be interpreted subjectively.

"Apart from criminal sanctions this law creates opportunities for defamation suits. For too long, defamation laws have been a powerful inhibitor of the freedom of speech and the dissemination of information relating to issues of public concern. Defamation laws have been exploited by people seeking easy money and the level of compensation payments are often out of proportion to the level of damage suffered when one compares the payout figures for permanent physical disabilities arising from accidents.

"No doubt, the racial vilification laws have been designed to specifically inhibit debate and discussion on sensitive issues like immigration, which is yet another example of influential minority groups setting the agenda on matters that are of concern to the wider community. "This is a potent argument for abandoning the policy of multiculturalism and replacing it with a policy of integration. Under a policy of integration, ethnic groups will be treated no differently from the mainstream community, which would facilitate the development of a more cohesive society with a stronger sense of national identity.

"Over the years, I have observed the steady and incremental erosion of personal freedom in Australian society and the racial vilification laws are just another step back into the dark ages of repression.
(Angela Walker, Candidate of Kooyong by-election, Australians Against Further Immigration)

A SACRIFICE SQUANDERED

from The Age (Melbourne), 11/11
On this Armistice Day, we remember those who served in all wars at the request of our governments. "These men and women served to retain the lifestyle and freedoms that our society held dear. So selfless was their serving, that many gave their lives for this country, their mates and the Australian sense of a 'fair go'.
"In remembering these wonderful and heroic people, I fear much of what they held dear has been eroded by those very governments whom they supported and obeyed in years gone by.

"Would these Australian heroes have fought and died for the social engineering laws we have today - the attacks on freedom of speech, the change to laws of morality, the 'wasting' of youthful talent, the behaviour of our parliaments, the killing off of our farmers, the ruling of the country by minorities and self-interests, and the general erosion of common sense? "Most important of all, would they have fought and died for the current erosion of a true representative democracy that we now have to endure? I believe most living veterans are crestfallen at the road this country is taking.

"Those who have passed on would turn in their graves on seeing the very things they fought for being deliberately ignored and denigrated by a system of politics that presides over the destruction of the values they believed were the very soul of Australia. My heart goes out to them and their long-suffering relatives." (Bruce Chapman, Canberra)