AUSTRALIA'S WHEAT AND THE SINGLE DESK POLICY

by Patrick O'Shea
It is interesting that the Australian wheat growers have at last had the opportunity to publicly express their support for the Australian Wheat Board (AWB) single desk marketing structure - albeit in a roundabout way. Meaning of course that this whole serious business of AWB's monopoly role in exporting wheat is the big question. After the Cole Enquiry, AWB's monopoly was withdrawn, and for the time being, limited licences were granted to other parties to export grain.

Effectively, the essential aspects of this debate have now been openly discussed throughout Australia by wheat growers. From Central Queensland to Victoria, from New South Wales through to West Australia the opportunity was given for all growers to attend forums to air opinions for or against AWB's future role.

Twenty community consulation meetings
The forums were conducted through twenty Wheat Exporting Marketing Consultation Community meetings, ably chaired by John Ralph, an experienced corporate businessman. John Ralph and his group will pass on a summary of all deliberations to the federal government Minister Mr. McGauran.
Perhaps the pundits were a little surprised what a majority of farmers had to say at these meetings. Starting with Central Queensland, sentiments were actually expressed that the single desk selling system was a much-needed bulwark which provided security and protection for farmers. That is not to say concerns weren't raised about the past conduct of AWB management.

Points were made about perceived AWB conflicts of interest. Some of these were put forward in very strong terms. For instance, with such a massive corporate structure as AWB is now, with large and diverse interests outside of grain marketing, it has great responsibilities to its shareholders.
An outsider may say all this could be confusing. On the one hand maximising profits for shareholders. And, on the other hand fixing charges and fees in grain receivals and storage and overall management, these costs are recovered from the farmers' pools. How best can all this be handled?

We were told: 'We now no longer live in a perfect world'.
We were told often enough that Australia must move with the times. 'Competition in everything' became the big catch cry. Competition must rule. Monopolies must be challenged and changed. And so the Federal Competition Policy evolved.

However, there have been scant suggestions or thoughts about why the AWB statutory pooling system for selling Australia's wheat was set up in the first place. It was established to protect farmers and induce stability and maximise income. Grain traders were perceived to be having too much sway on what farmers received for their grain and farmers were very unhappy.

§ So, are there acceptable answers and can they be implemented?
§ Also, what are those wheatgrowers saying who sell their entire crop on the domestic market?

Dealing with the first point:
A division of AWB focussed solely on marketing and exporting grain is the answer, with its capacity to hedge, seek out markets and use all its intellectual experience to keep the Australian wheat industry a front line trader. Moreover, transparency to justify its operating costs.

The second point:
Surprisingly, there is an endorsement coming from growers that sell only to domestic markets. Many have intimated they would not be unhappy if a token levy or toll was put on all wheat sales within Australia.
This would be in recognition that the single desk does play a crucial role in marketing Australia's wheat crop and the levy would assist financially all the functions needed to maintain a viable single desk marketing structure.

AND NOW FOR THE GOOD NEWS

by Ian Wilson LL.B:
Often in these periodicals we report much 'bad news'. Here is some good news. The South Australian Equal Opportunity (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2006 has been dropped by the SA Labor Government. In a nutshell, this Bill, through its clause 61, threatened freedom of speech like never before. It extended Victoria's Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 to new levels.

Even 'vilifying' professions, like lawyers and academics could have led to one being flung into irons; see www.willyouvisitmeinprison.com Freedom of speech would have stopped overnight.
Fortunately Christians rose to the occasion and forced the otherwise useless Liberals to take a stand against the Bill.

As Family First and the drug reformer Independent Ann Bressington opposed the Bill, Labor will now put the Bill on ice and try again when they think the good people of South Australia are sleeping. As the RSL motto goes: "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance".

Good work everybody - a real victory for freedom! Don't go back to sleep!

CATHOLIC CHURCH CONFRONTS BLAIR

In the United Kingdom, the Equality Law, which condemns discrimination against homosexuals in the provision of goods and services will come into force next April 1st.

On 23 January, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, archbishop of Westminster and primate of the Catholic Church in England and Wales sent a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair, and all the members of his government, urging them not to enforce the laws for Catholic Adoption Agencies.

For "to oblige our agencies in law to consider adoption applications from homosexual couples as potential adoptive parents would require them to act against the principles of Catholic teaching," and it would then be an "unreasonable, unnecessary and unjust discrimination against Catholics" which would condemn these agencies to act against their own consciences.
Indeed, continued the cardinal, "It would be an unnecessary tragedy if legislation forced the closure of these [Catholic] adoption services."
These agencies represent one third of the voluntary adoption sector in the country.

Archbishop Mario Conti, Vice-President of the Scottish Bishops Conference also wrote to the Prime Minister giving his full support to Cardinal Murphy O'Connor.

The Anglicans Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Church, as well as John Sentamu, Archbishop of York gave their support to the Catholic Church by making the same request to Tony Blair: "In legislating to protect and promote the rights of particular groups the government is faced with the delicate but important challenge of not thereby creating the conditions within which others feel their rights to have been ignored or sacrificed, or in which the dictates of personal conscience are put at risk."

Tony Blair's 'politically correct' response:
"I support the right of homosexuals to present adoption applications like any other couple. This is the reason why religious adoption agencies providing services for which they receive public funds cannot be exempted from the dispositions preventing discrimination," answered Tony Blair in a communiqué dated January 29.
However, during a transition period of 20 months these agencies may recommend other agencies to homosexual couples.

Archbishop Murphy O'Connor said he was "deeply disappointed" by the Prime Minister's decision not to grant an exemption to Catholic agencies.
Source: <https://www.dici.org/actualite.php?cat=2>

A RELATED MATTER

THE STATE CAN'T SET YOU FREE!

Roger Scruton philosopher, political activist and businessman, wrote of this situation in "The State Can't Set You Free", The Spectator 16 October 2004. He was detailing how the Human Rights Act threatened the ancient liberties of the British people.

"The Human Rights Act has seemed to many to be an innocent adaptation of principles already contained within our common law, and indeed affirmed by Statute once before, in the Bill of Rights of 1689. Seen in this way, the Act is no more than an affirmation of an ancient principle of our jurisdiction, which is that the law exists to protect the individual from oppression, whether that oppression be exerted by criminals, by neighbours or by those in authority.

But this vision of the matter overlooks a profound distinction between common law and civilian jurisdictions, and between the English presumption that you are free until the law forbids you and the Continental presumption that you are free only if the law explicitly says so."

Socialist Planning and Statist Theories of Law:
"Under the influence of socialist planning and statist theories of the law another idea of rights was imported into modern systems of justice - the idea of rights not as freedoms but as claims. My right to something in this view, is not a freedom that others must respect, but a claim that they must fulfil. Of course, rights in contract and tort (civil wrong…ed) are like this, but that is because they arise from positive relations between people - relations which create those rights from raw stuff of human action, but which do not create them universally, for the very reason that they arise from the history of the particular case."

A large and dangerous assumption:
"To suppose that there are 'natural' and therefore 'human' rights which are also claims against others is to make a large and dangerous assumption, one that would not have been upheld by Locke or Kant or the founding fathers of the American Constitution. To think of human rights in this way is to fill the world with vague and unfulfillable obligations, and therefore with vast and irresoluble conflicts."

The modern idea of the 'rights of man' came to the fore in the French Revolution, and Justice came to be administered by Revolutionary Tribunals (today's Equal Opportunity Commissions? …ed) which denied the accused the right to counsel, and which punished people for offences defined in the same vague and philosophical language which could be interpreted to mean anything that the prosecutor desired.

Scruton wisely observed:
"By removing justice from the courts and vesting it in a philosophical doctrine, the revolutionaries had removed all rights from the people and transferred them to those who expounded the doctrine - the self-appointed philosophers who made themselves kings."

The basis of Common Law:
*"Men hold their lives on a lease from God, not from the State. God did not make man to lord it over his fellows… and the desire to rule over our equals is an intolerable lust of the soul…"

If we concede that the State has these powers over us - we have already conceded the State is our master. We are not free at all! Eric Butler was fond of reminding his listeners: "What the State grants today the State can take away tomorrow!"

wyvmip continues:
"These freedoms allow Australians to speak without fear of being punished for expressing their opinions. While it is necessary to balance freedom of expression with the restrictions necessary to prevent or punish expression which is actually harmful, such as child pornography, that balance should be weighted - so as to promote the truth."

What I am leading up to is this:
The folk at wyvmip need to grasp the fact that if they have a right to freedom of speech, then so do those whose opinions they may not necessarily agree with - and I am thinking particularly of the Historical Revisionists.
Are the folk at wyvmip aware a man named Ernst Zundel is now languishing in a German prison for questioning some of the Holocaust claims?
What about David Irving's thirteenth month incarceration in an Austrian gaol?

Bringing it closer to home:
They may not have agreed with Tasmania's Mrs Olga Scully's actions but could they not see Mrs Scully has the same rights to freedom of speech as they have? Would they have visited her if she had been imprisoned?
South Australian Dr. Fredrick Toben was imprisoned in Germany for being a 'holocaust denier'. Where were they when Olga Scully and Fredrick Toben were fighting for their right to freely express themselves? 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do unto them' should also apply to Historical Revisionists.
The right to freely express our views belongs to us all.

Promotion of Truth yes - but Truth no longer a Defence:
Wyvmip wrote: "The promotion of truth has been recognised as a worthy aim in the Defamation Act 2005 (SA), which provides that a truthful (or substantially truthful) statement will not give rise to liability for defamation. However, the EO Bill would seriously change all of this. As you read this paper you will become aware that, very soon, we would have to be extremely careful with what we can say (or write) in public. We would be constrained in a way never thought possible in South Australia, to the point that even if we do say something that is true that someone takes offence to, in the new legal territory we enter, truth is no longer a defence."

Truth is no defence already under racial and religious vilification legislation in Australia! Historical Revisionists world wide are already caught in its nightmarish grip - choosing to go to prison rather than acknowledge they do not have the right to freely express their considered views on history.

We can hope the day will come when Christian leaders see the need to rally the troops to fight for the right of all Australians to freedom of speech and expression.

*Christian Philosophy in the Common Law" by Richard O'Sullivan KC. Photocopy available for $9.00 posted from P.O. Box 27 Happy Valley SA 5159

ANOTHER NAPOLEON?

by Betty Luks:
Talking about the French Revolution. In the 'Foreword' section of The Australian Magazine, 17-18/2/07, Liberal - up and coming up - Malcolm Turnbull was interviewed by Douglas Aiton.

Photographed for the occasion, his stance reminded me of another politician who saw himself as an emperor. Former lawyer and Goldman Sachs banker, Malcolm Turnbull, needed to bend right arm at elbow and place right hand on chest in front opening of jacket for us to have got the full picture.

And the reference to banker takes us back to Edward 1's substitution of Italian bankers for Jewish moneylenders. ("History in English Words," by Owen Barfield).

Some snippets from the interview:
§ Thanks to his business success (= a self-made man) he is possibly the wealthiest member of federal Parliament.

§ Yes, money was very important to him. 'Financial independence gives you freedom… you can't do things unless you have a bit of brass.' (Brass = a working man's turn of phrase - identifying himself with 'the common working man'?).

§ Was senior prefect at Sydney Grammar School. (It) 'wasn't a school for going around engaging in imperial jingoism. Bible study was non-sectarian. And there was a large proportion of Jewish boys…" (In every case he wants to present himself as 'of the people'. = no class, race, or creed 'discrimination' here!)

§ The reason he got involved with the Liberals? 'Didn't and doesn't believe socialism is the answer'. But firmly believes that 'politics is increasingly about management, (= financial, political and economic management Malcolm?) people and vision.'

Just like Napoleon of Animal Farm?
Malcolm considers himself a small-l liberal. 'The things that are important' - to him are - ' individual freedom and egalitarianism'. Just like the animals in "Animal Farm" Malcolm?
At first there were Seven Commandments for all the animals on 'Animal Farm'. Over the years these commandments mysteriously disappeared - as Napoleon worked his way to the top-pig position - till only one was left.

It read: "All animals are equal - but some animals are more equal than others."

AMERICAN 'DEMOCRACY' SPAWNS GLOBAL EMPIRE

Author Chalmers Johnson writes it is time Americans woke up to the fact:

"With more than 2,500,000 U.S. personnel serving across the planet and military bases spread across each continent, it's time to face up to the fact that our American democracy has spawned a global empire.

There are 737 U.S. Military Bases across the world which he insists equals Global Empire. Source: democracyinaction.org

THE DARK SIDE OF ALI?

by James Reed
When I first saw the title on the front page mask of The Australian I thought : how puny.
The inside article by Matthew Syed (117/1/07 p.12) comments on how the conservative US establishment has claimed Muhammad Ali as an all-American hero and man of peace.

Is this the same Ali that called White people "blue-eyed devils", that was an activist in the civil rights movement and anti-Vietnam movements and who was buddies with dictators like Idi Amin?

Is this the same Ali who changed his name from "Clay" and who was devoted to the radical Islamism of the Nation of Islam?

Or the Ali that preached the virtues of sexual abstinence whilst being promiscuous?

Yes, Syed says, it is. But Syed says, the cause to which Ali put his dimes has failed: "The 2000 Census was unequivocal regarding the enduring concentration of poverty, drug abuse and criminality among Black Americans.

Is it any wonder that liberal intellectuals discern the rancid whiff of tokenism in the accolades that continue to rain down on the former champion?"

THE ILLUSIONS OF RESEARCH

by Brian Simpson
Much research in the humanities and social sciences is funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC). David Martin Jones and Carl Ungerer ("In an Idealist World," The Weekend Australian 21-22/10/06 p.29) have made remarks similar to the criticisms which both myself and James Reed have made: namely that much of this "research" is useless.

Academics, Jones and Ungerer put it like this:
"The ARC delivers outcomes of surprisingly limited value… For the process is not really about discovery. Instead, it's about establishing and rewarding disciplinary orthodoxies that control research agendas and inhibit rather than facilitate robust academic debate."

These academics go on to point out that much of ARC funded "research" on terrorism essentially is along the line that terrorism is all our fault. This research thus pushes the line that Islam is not a threat to the West.

The academics conclude: "The Australian Government should have no doubt that the structure of rewards for academic research excellence and preferment is in the process of installing an idealist orthodoxy whose ultimate intention is radically pacifist, anti-enlightenment and anti-state." I am not surprised.