AUSTRALIA'S FUTURE AND THE BIG PICTURE

by Eric D. Butler
A statesman has been described as a political leader who seeks to preserve the independence of his nation by looking many years ahead. A politician is one who is primarily concerned with how to win the next elections, but long term planning requires that economics are subordinated to political policies. The acceptance of "inexorable" financial laws results in political policies always being at the mercy of those who control financial policy.

Years before he became Minister for Defence, Sir James Killen had a consistent record of being an advocate of a strong Australian defence system. In the last talk I had with Sir James I warned that while financial orthodoxy remained unchallenged, he could find himself subordinating defence requirements to artificial financial considerations. The time came when he found himself in the situation I had predicted. Australia's military defences had to take second place to "fighting" inflation. Once this "fight" was won it would be possible to strengthen the nation's military defence system. But the reality is that inflation can never be dealt with realistically while there is a slavish acceptance of orthodox finance economics. The best that can be offered is "controlled inflation".

The current debate about whether Mr. Bernie Fraser of the Reserve Bank has made the right or the wrong decision, about a slight reduction in interest rates, is directly related to the question of whether any stimulation of the economy will also trigger off the dreaded inflation. One financial "expert" warns that Fraser's timing is bad that "the decision in no way diminishes the urgency of reducing the budget deficit".

All proposed budget cuts can only worsen the general state of the Australian economy, and generate more social friction. Adequate military defence is not even being considered. However, John Howard the politician can be expected to make the most of the recent agreement with the U.S.A., which will see thousands of American troops beginning war games in Australia's Far North next March.

But what Australians need to understand is that the American decision is based primarily upon the long-term strategy of the American policy makers. Those policy makers have demonstrated in the past that they are only interested in Australia when this suits their own purposes, as witnessed by U.S.A. policy concerning Indonesia. Currently the U.S.A. is increasingly concerned about the expanding influence of Communist China, as are all Asian nations. But establishing American military bases in nations like Malaysia, Indonesia or Thailand, would be highly dangerous for the governments of those nations. Australia's north provides a much safer alternative - for the time being.

It is becoming increasingly difficult for the U.S.A. to maintain its bases in South Korea and Japan. It was forced to relinquish its major base in the Philippines. But a coherent American foreign policy has become progressively more difficult because of adherence to a finance economic policy, which insists that national economies can only be sustained by "fighting" for foreign markets.

Although Japan is still regarded as of major importance to American military strategy, relations with Japan have been bedeviled by mounting friction concerning trade policies. While the spectacular and much publicised economic growth of the Asian "Tigers", including China, appear to offer vast expanding foreign markets to the U.S.A., Australia and other Western industrialised nations, as time goes by those appearances will prove to be dangerous mirages. Those who insist on blindly following the mirages will find themselves sucked into deadly quick sands.

Current political unrest in Thailand, Indonesia and Papua-New Guinea must be realistically assessed by Australian policy makers concerned about the long-term survival of traditional Australia. Australia's barren foreign policy was demonstrated when Australia offered no resistance to the Indonesian take over of what is now known as West Irian. The Whitlam Government, on Gough Whitlam's own admission, virtually encouraged Indonesia to move into East Timor when the Portuguese Empire collapsed. The reality was, of course, that Australia lacked either the economic or military strength to adopt a positive foreign policy.

One of the most disastrous of Australian foreign policies was bending to the fashionable "world opinion" view that colonialism was "wicked", the result being the adoption of a dangerous myth that the hundreds of different tribes and cultures of what is known as Papua New Guinea, were not only a nation, but were ready for self government.
The continuing tragedy of Bougainville, where the people bluntly reject the view that they should be governed from Port Moresby, graphically confirms the warnings made years ago by genuine authorities on Papua-New Guinea, men like Sir Raphael Cilento.

Huge loans from the World Bank are not going to prevent the growing friction in Papua New Guinea. At some time once again Indonesia will argue that it cannot have chaos on its borders and will justify moving into Papua New Guinea as it did when it moved into East Timor.

Those who look at the Big Picture of the world scene, with an understanding of orthodox finance economics, are in the position of being able to predict in general terms that there can be no genuine peace and harmony in the world under orthodox finance economics. If Australians do not want to finish as mere pawns in a global strategy, dispensed with when they no longer serve the purposes of the Internationalists, they must move towards regaining control of their own destiny. Finance economics must be made subordinate to self-survival. American troops in the Northern Territory are no substitute for some genuine statesmanship.

GAMES UNDERMINES EQUALITY DOGMA

by David Thompson
As technology permits any advances in physical performances to be ever more finely measured, and records are now deemed "broken" (or not) by times as fine as one hundredth of a second, every possible variable can be keenly calculated in the pursuit of sporting excellence and Olympic gold.

As the Olympic Games is scheduled to come to Sydney in the year 2000, Australians will be under increasing pressure to fund, through government subsidies, larger and yet larger amounts on maximising the chances of Australian medal success. Calculations undertaken by analytical journalists have revealed that some of the best value-for-money invested in the pursuit of Olympic success, was in the sport of shooting, not the pool or track.

In spending ever more enormous amounts of time, energy and money in the enhancement of sporting performance, one of those variables that will inevitably be subject to increasing examination is the question of genetic advantage. That is, the dreaded issue of race. This has been raised by Professor Colin Tatz, Director of the Centre for Comparative Genocide Studies at Macquarie University in Sydney. Professor Tatz (The Australian, 1/8/96) deals with the question of whether Negro athletes are genetically better endowed than other races for their particular field of success - track events. Tatz cites speculation about this question since the 1970s: "How else... could 11 percent of the United States population comprise more than 60 percent of all professional basketballers, more than 42 percent of pro-footballers, 20 percent of major league baseball players and nearly 30 percent of US. track and field teams? (The figures have risen markedly since then.)"

Professor Tatz, himself Jewish, takes the view that such speculation (or research) lends itself to expression in racist terms of the superiority or inferiority of one racial group over another. Peel off the skin, says Professor Tatz, and the "racial" characteristics disappear. And in any case, he argues, most of Afro-America has inter-bred with other racial groups since the first importation of slaves, so we are not comparing "pure" racial characteristics.

But Professor Tatz, and most others who share his views of racial equality, carefully ignore one striking aspect of the Olympics: hardly a single successful Negro swimmer has ever appeared in the pool. What is the explanation for this? If, as Tatz argues, the real determinants of black success are need, aptitude, attitude or bent, social and/or geographic environment, access to facilities, competitions, and role models, then although this apparently equips black athletes for superb performances on the track, why do the same factors not equally equip them for success in the pool? And as the golfer Jack Nicklaus has apparently noted (to Professor Tatz's disapproval) such is also the case in the game of golf.

It would appear that different racial characteristics certainly do equip different races for "unequal" performances in different environments. It would be simply vulgar to argue that the Australian Aborigine is not vastly superior in his ability to survive in extremely harsh conditions. In the same way, it is futile to argue that the sheer preponderance of Jewish people in occupations that require advanced application of abstract thought is merely a matter of chance.

Different races acknowledge the existence of these racial differences, and make allowances for them in the approach to social issues? Because it is a certainty that ignoring reality eventually brings us into conflict with reality. But no doubt this is simply glossed over as "racism".

QUALIFYING FOR A FIREARMS LICENCE

QUEENSLAND NATIONAL PARTY FIREARMS POLICY

Advertisements from 1978 editions of the regional Queensland newspaper, The South Burnett Times, outline the firearms policy of the Ahern National Party Government at the time: "Canberra's ideas on uniform gun laws come straight out of Labor policy. There is no way my government is going along with that, because the A.L.P policies are just not acceptable in Queensland. We are against the licensing of firearms and the registration of users, because it would only penalise legitimate owners - especially in the country where a gun is often an essential part of life."

This was written and authorised by Mike Ahern, Premier of Queensland, under the heading "There's no way Queensland will accept Canberra's crazy gun laws", which appears to be a direct quote from Mr. Ahern. Queenslanders are justified in asking Mr. Borbidge what has changed since 1978. Are "Canberra's crazy gun laws" no longer crazy, or was Mr. Ahern lying in 1978?

As Mr. Borbidge and his colleagues prepare to introduce the firearms legislation into the Queensland Parliament that Mr. Ahern claims came straight out of A.L.P. policy, Queensland voters, taxpayers and gun owners should be confronting their local Members of Parliament, and asking who is right, Mr. Borbidge, or Mr. Ahern!

YOUNG NATIONALS ON GUN CONTROLS

FROM THE PRESS: GUN LAWS

SHOOTING FROM THE HIP