SELLING OFF THE FAMILY FARM

by Jeremy Lee
With half a dozen or so elections due this 12 months one would think that the major contenders would pick up some of the key issues dominating the electorate. But the major parties are aping each other in only dealing with matters that are 'politically correct' as far as the general face of globalism is concerned. The Queensland case is a typical example.

The rort-riven Labor Party should be on the nose. But they are leading the Coalition Opposition in the polls. The Liberals and Nationals dare not tell it like it is. They won't really tackle the issues that are burning up ordinary voters - the continued loss of farms and small businesses, the despotic GST, water, continued and still growing foreign ownership, the illegal immigration fiasco, etc. They appear sympathetic on all these things without offering genuine challenges and alternatives.

A public meeting was recently held in the little country town of Yarraman in southern Queensland. It transpired that it was scheduled for the building of another detention centre for illegal immigrants. The local Federal Member, Mr, Cameron Thomson, was originally keen to claim credit for getting the project into his electorate. He can't have been watching the news; and was shocked when the public meeting strongly and bitterly opposed the project.

Why endure the intrusion into a peaceful rural community of a multinational which had already demonstrated its inability to run existing camps without burning, sex-scandals and break-outs? The suggestion that it would be "good for the local economy" was met with hoots of derision. It is known, for instance, that such detention-centre administrations fly low-grade vegetables in from interstate, plus other supplies. Camp personnel are trained and brought in from outside.

There was a lot of back-tracking and denials when the local mood was made obvious. The Federal Member has not improved his image as a result. As this issue is written two other examples of foreign intrusion are gaining news - but not the attention of politicians. The giant international grocery chain ALDI, originally based in Germany, is making a foray into Australia, prepared to price-cut its way into its own niche. Its profits will join the $100 million a day leaving Australia in profits and dividends.

The second even bigger issue is the massive new gas-find on Australia's north-west shelf, the target of a takeover by Shell. Nigel Wilson, writing in The Weekend Australian (20-21/1/2001), said: ".... foreign investment, thanks to Shell's $9 billion takeover bid for Woodside energy has become a cause celebre involving some most established of establishment figures. This week the Foreign Investment Review Board sought more time to consider the bid, which has reinvigorated an issue that caused stormy debates in the 1970s and 80s: at what point does selling off Australian-owned assets run counter to the national interest? It is an issue for which the Australian Government has no published policy ...."

Which sums it up neatly. Since when has "selling off Australian-owned assets" ever been in the national interest? Politicians carefully avoid the question as they live and breed off overseas money in one form or another. The $12 billion North West Shelf project is one of the biggest energy projects in the world. Already we export huge quantities of natural gas for as little as 4 cents per litre. The strategic implications are significant on their own.

With Australia accused of being a major greenhouse-gas polluter, our resources should be used for a concerted push towards cleaner fuel for industry and household consumer alike. We should be anxious to unhook our domestic economy from dependency on world oil prices and the sheer international and domestic tax-blackmail that goes with them. Yet politicians will avoid such issues as far as they can. Once again, any minor party that attempts to raise these crucial matters will be shunted off into political limbo by media blackout. Which is why the growing non-party move to "Buy Australian" - already beginning to hurt the multinationals - is so important. If it steers clear of the party trap it is going to produce a new unity among all Australians, which in the end will begin to shape the agenda for future elections.

THE IMPACT OF IMPORT PRICES

With the quarter-century decimation of home-grown industries and farms Australia has been living off imports for a long time, as the balance-of-payments figures and the foreign debt figures attest. We are far more vulnerable to overseas price-rises than we need be. The Australian Financial Review (23/1/2001) reported:
"Price pressures grew strongly in the December quarter with import and manufacturing input prices surging on the back of high oil prices and a low Australian dollar. Import prices jumped 15.8 percent over the past 12 months, with the December quarter bounce of 6.7 percent the largest for a decade .... Oil prices and the low dollar were the main contributors to the cost of manufacturing inputs which grew by 54.8 percent last quarter, and nearly 18 percent in the year to December .... Economists also pointed to a worrying profit squeeze for manufacturers facing growing input costs, but limited scope for price increases ...."

The only beneficiary, of course, is the Federal Government, which will take its GST without worrying whether the source is imports or not.

OUR POOR POLITICIANS

The Australian (23/1/01) carried an Editorial on a survey of 72 politicians the paper is undertaking, concluding they were overworked and underpaid. It said, in part: ".... Labor frontbencher and mother Cheryl Kernot will make the point in The Australian tomorrow that everyone needs to ask themselves whether work is threatening private life. People under pressure to put family second while working longer are likely to expect the same from their representatives. It may well be that most people earning a backbencher's salary of $92,000 also regret missing family moments and get less than six hours sleep a night ..... While some MPs concede there are duds on both sides, it is no surprise that only 26 percent of those surveyed reckon better pay would attract better politicians .... MPs have to cope with every day moral and philosophical compromises. Few people agree with everything a party does. Just to join one means jettisoning ideas, beliefs and preferences .... They face constant criticism and in the end usually have to submit to the majority opinion or the ruling party elite ...."

The survey is starting at the wrong end. Putting any individual into a situation where he or she has to "jettison ideas, beliefs and preferences" is fundamentally wrong. The pay-level or the hours worked are no compensation for an evil environment. A representative owes his conscience to his electorate - not to any "party elite".

The Clerk to the Senate, Mr. Harry Evans, put his finger right on the spot in 1997. He was reported in The Australian on March 10th of that year as saying: "The real need for reform is not so much in institutions of government as in political parties .... They have become narrowly based, factionalised, undemocratic oligarchies .... controlled by too few people, closed to public view but open to manipulation and outright corruption ...."

Mr. Evans added that the current party system was breaking down parliamentary and representative government. If ever there was a time for an increased sprinkling of independents, it is now.

WHAT ARE THEY PAID?

Current parliamentary salaries, quoted by The Australian (23/1/2001) are as follows:

Basic backbencher's salary: $92,000. Plus electoral allowance $27,300 to $39,600 based on size of the electorate.
The Prime Minister earns an extra $147,000 on top of the basic salary;
the Deputy Prime Minister (John Anderson) an extra $96,600;
The Leader of the Opposition an extra $78,700;
Ministers an extra 66,700.

(The list didn't include such things as office or mobile phones - ask Peter Reith! - offices, research staff, travel and accommodation allowances, etc.)

The Superannuation entitlements are generous indeed:
. Members must contribute 11.5% of their salary for the first 18 years;
. To get a minimum pension, members must have: (a) 12 years or more of service, or (b) been re-elected three times, or (c ) retired involuntarily (e.g. for medical reasons) with eight years' service.
. For those who qualify, members receive a pension of 50% of their salary for eight years' service. For every additional year of service the pension goes up by 2.5%.
. Those who don't achieve the service criteria are allowed to take their own contributions multiplied by 2.33, as a lump sum.

The Australian's implication that politicians are underpaid would not be shared by the one-third of the Australian people living below the poverty line, or struggling to keep their business or farms afloat in the face of abysmal government in Australia.

THE CORRUPTION OF DEMOCRACY

It isn't often that the mainstream media draws attention to the corruption of true representation in Australia.
Under the heading BIG PARTIES SERVED BY FLAWED VOTE, Ian Henderson wrote in The Weekend Australian (20-21/1/2001):

" .... What we get now .....is a lower house of the federal parliament that is too often inhabited by party hacks, rendering it a backwater and irrelevant to the process of government. Only with proportional representation can we also achieve a relevant House of Representatives that reflects the modern profile of the Australian electorate, which is no longer so easily divided into left and right, conservative and non-conservative.
Several elements of the voting system contribute to the problem. But just to illustrate its results, consider these aspects of the 1998 federal poll for starters:
. 588,088 voters cast their ballots for National Party candidates - 5.3 percent of the total - and that party gained 16 of the 148 seats in the Reps.
. Almost as many voters - 569,935, or 5.1 percent - voted for Democrat candidates, but that party failed to win a single seat in the peoples' house.
. A total of 936,612 voters 8.4 percent - cast their ballots for One Nation candidates, but even that level of popular support left that party - and its supporters - unrepresented in the House of Reps.

Quirks of the way the system works? Or evidence that it is fundamentally flawed? Take your pick ...."

Compulsory preferential voting, the party system itself, and the payment of millions of tax-dollars back to parties for votes - all contribute to the loss of democracy in Australia. But they won't be changed from within the existing system. Only major issue-politics which cross artificial political divides, will change Australia for the better. This is beginning to happen.

"SILENCE THE HATEMONGERS" SAYS DANNY BEN-MOSHE

by Betty Luks
"Racist groups are angry, agitated and active", writes Danny Ben-Moshe as he calls for the silencing of such groups as the Australian League of Rights, Citizen's Electoral Council, Australian Civil Liberties Union and others through the Racial and Religious Tolerance Legislation.

Mr. Ben-Moshe obviously doesn't understand what motivates freedom groups who fight for the right to think, to speak and to write on issues of concern, issues which can cover nearly all aspects of Life. He targets the League's claim of the Communist origin of the push for land rights, suggesting debate would be suppressed through the sanctions in the legislation. Methinks he would be more concerned about other material the League carries; such as the material exposing Jewish involvement in the original Bolshevik Revolution, as an example. The story of 20th century Communist tyranny in all its horror is yet to be told. Has he read Alexander Solzhenitsyn's 1969 words on Communism? "No! It will not be possible indefinitely to keep silent about Stalin's crimes or to go against the truth. There were millions of people who suffered the crimes and they demand exposure.
It would be a good idea, too, to reflect what moral effect will the silence on these crimes have on the younger generation - it will mean the corruption of still more millions."

In "The Big Idea" C.H. Douglas presents the Christian position of the relationship of the Individual to the Group and the pressures placed on the individual to conform. "There is a certain type of metaphysics, a theory, or rather statement, that animals have a 'Group' soul, and that the real test of difference between the animal kingdom and the human race is the individuality of the human soul. That is to say, the first 'duty ' of the human being is to dominate his relationship with the group soul. This means, if it means anything, that the supreme aim of evolution is differentiation, and that the determined effort to present human beings, and to treat human beings, as a collectivity, is the Sin against the Holy Ghost, for which there is no forgiveness..."

Maybe the Jewish gentleman needs a revelation of what it means for one "who loses his life but finds it." The Christian is taught that the "Kingdom of God is within", that is, 'the rule or power of God is within you', in which case, personal integrity is all-important. The Christian understands and accepts that as a natural truth or God-given absolute - together with the responsibilities and consequences of their actions. Mr. Ben-Moshe needs to understand, the freedom to think, to write, to publicly debate issues is a religious imperative for the Christian. Does he want the surrender of our souls? We cannot do it.

"RACIAL & RELIGIOUS TOLERATION LEGISLATION"

UN TREATIES AND NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY

by Antonia Feitz
Like most other people, until relatively recently I was gloriously ignorant about how the UN worked. I had no idea that with every convention or treaty negotiated by the UN and signed by national governments, a new UN committee is established to report on the progress of the implementation of the treaty by 'member states' - ie national governments.

With the UN's bureaucratic nature, committee members overwhelmingly come from the ranks of the politically correct who have an agenda to transform the world. For example, while Article 6 of CEDAW (the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) formally condemns prostitution, the CEDAW committee has directed China to legalize prostitution.
(Yes, Virginia, though incomprehensible to all decent men and women, feminists are never embarrassed by their obvious lack of logic. Yes, it is surprising they have such influence over policy-makers. Yes, it certainly is an indictment of governments that they do.)

The CEDAW committee also criticized Belarus for establishing a Mother's Day! It directed Libya to re-interpret the Koran and Kygystan to legalize lesbianism. Given the above, a reasonable person would conclude that the committee members are quite divorced from reality as experienced by most people.
It's highly likely the members of the CEDAW committee are unrepresentative feminists and lesbians. Yet that unelected Committee is telling elected national governments what to do.

While these UN committees have no power to enforce their demands, activists in the various countries use their reports to try and embarrass governments. With the help of a compliant globalist media they succeed. For example in Australia last year, the elites cringed when the Australia Immigration Minister was carpeted in Geneva like a naughty schoolboy for our alleged 'racism'. Mr. Ruddock would have done better to snub the CERD committee of unrepresentative nobodies and stay at home.

Then there was much breast-beating among the politically correct when John Howard refused to sign the Optional Protocol to CEDAW. "PM betrays women" was one headline on the reaction of Democrats' Meg Lees - she who without consulting her Party's members gave Australia the GST. I cheered.

Time to restore sovereignty
Responding to public fury at the previous Labor Government's arrogance, John Howard established a Joint Standing Committee on Treaties in 1966. The Committee's purpose is to take public comment and to allow parliamentary scrutiny of treaties BEFORE ratification. It seems the Committee members are developing a healthy sense of national sovereignty.

Many people would be very encouraged by the view of the Committee Chairman, Andrew Thomson, who said, "We ought to consider amending the Constitution to make a two-thirds majority vote of the Senate a condition to any future government ratifying a treaty. This would require bipartisan agreement as is the case under the US Constitution. A change along these lines would mean only the truly necessary treaties would ever bind us, and would put some control back in the hands of taxpayers. That's what sovereignty really means."
(quoted in Endeavour Forum Newsletter No.101, February, 2001).

Indeed it does. Perhaps lobbying for this change would be a worthwhile campaign this year. The campaign would have to include educating people about the extent of the problem. To save our country we need to do more than just complain. Actions do speak louder than words and time is running out. The emerging International Criminal Court is supposed to concern itself with wars and genocide and suchlike, but the key word is "supposed". Just like all the other UN treaties it will be abused by feminist and homosexual activists.

The EF Newsletter reported that the ICC Statute's language is vague and capable of expanding to cover conduct well beyond what normal people think are war crimes and crimes against humanity. It's a typical tactic of the activists. The really worrying thing is that the Court's jurisdiction covers all persons on earth, whether or not their country has ratified the Statute. Up until now, while various UN treaties have demanded radical children's rights and universal abortion on demand they have had no power to enforce them. But it's possible that the new Court will extend its power to force countries to change their laws to protect the globalists' spurious 'rights'.

EXPORTS: WHERE DOES THE TRUTH LIE?

News Weekly, December 2000, carried a thought-provoking article written by Colin Teese. Quoting from a paper entitled On the Unimportance of Exports to Australian Agriculture by Mark McGovern from the Queensland University of Technology School of Business, he states that McGovern accuses conventional analysts of Australian agriculture of failing to understand and therefore mislead those involved in making policy and conducting commerce in agriculture.
"Contrary to orthodox belief," writes Teese, "most of our agricultural output is sold on the domestic market and we are making agricultural policy (both domestic and international) as if the opposite were true."

That is certainly not the opinion of farmer's groups as witnessed by the statement of the NSW's Farmer's Association president, John Cobb (Farmers dare to dream on world stage - Weekly Times ,unsure of date, possibly September 2000): "... Australian farmers rely on export markets for about 80 percent of our income, which means we have to compete and win against the best of the world..."

Not so, says McGovern, the figures for 1993-4 show it was $23.5 billion at the farm gate and exports were $5 billion. Total raw and processed agricultural output is worth about $39 billion on the domestic market and exports account for another $16 billion.

Referring to McGovern, Teese writes, "the chances of significantly increasing the $16 billion of exports are small and yet our international and domestic economic policy - which is apparently aimed at linking increased exports with the deregulation of the domestic market - makes no sense." (It makes no sense to those who can't - or won't - see the bigger picture! Ed.)

As Teese rightly asserts, "In effect, policy makers are in the process of opening the doors to our $55 billion market for domestic food and fibre products to the entire world, with little or no ability to manage the consequences."

SYDNEY CONSERVATIVE SPEAKERS' CLUB 2001

BOOKS

"Help Yourself to Health by Dr. Ziema McDonnell": This book is a real gem. It was described by the father of one of our readers (a retired medical doctor) as one of the best books for the layman to understand the human body that he had read in his 55 years of medical practice. Great praise indeed! It explains many of the biological functions in such simple terms. It explains the importance of a clean and healthy blood system - and what you can do to ensure this. Much, much more for the reader. Special price: $25 retail, $30 posted.

"The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression": This rather comprehensive pricey book is selling well, but there are still stocks left. Columnist Paul Johnson (UK), wrote: "While our most fashionable intellectual ... lectures on Oasis and the Spice Girls, the French intelligentsia is locked in a passionate battle on one of the biggest unanswered questions of the century: Why have the communists been allowed to get away with mass-murder on a colossal scale?" He reminds the reader of the thousands of Nazis who have been tried and punished for their crimes and of the push in the western world to bring old men to trial for alleged crimes that happened 50 years or more ago - and yet, when it comes to the crimes of Communism the 'civilised' world maintains an almost total silence!
Johnson declares the book is, "a monument to truth in an unjust world." But now the silence has been broken by the appearance in Paris of this vast 840-page book, prepared by a six-man team of French historians who have delved into recently opened archives in the former Soviet bloc to reveal the full horror of Communism around the world: terrorism, torture, famine, mass deportations and massacres. Astonishing in the sheer detail it amasses, this book is the first comprehensive attempt to catalogue and analyse the crimes of Communism over 70 years. As the death toll mounts into the multi-millions, the authors systematically show how and why, wherever the ideology of Communism was established, it quickly led to crime, terror and repression. Excellent value at $93.00, $100.00 posted.