EMISSIONS TRADING SCHEME

from David Flint’s Opinion Column:
The debate over an emissions trading scheme is dominating the Australian Parliament to an even greater extent than in other countries, including the US. If the same bill is rejected twice by the Senate, it could trigger a double dissolution. If the Senate again rejects the same bill, it may be presented to a joint sitting of both houses. If it passes that it will be presented to the Governor-General for Royal Assent.

But even then the government may not be able to put in place an ETS if it does not control a majority in the Senate. This demonstrates the importance of the upper house in our constitutional system.

As Glenn Milne reports in The Sunday Telegraph of 8 August “ETS disillusion and dissolution,” although the government’s ETS framework is based in law, “its real mechanics - what makes it actually work - are based on a myriad of regulation, particularly the most contentious aspects regarding protections for export and job-exposed sectors such as the coal industry.”

According to Harry Evans, the retiring Clerk of the Senate, the Prime Minister could find himself in a situation similar to that of Prime Minister Bob Hawke after the double dissolution in 1987. He prepared to call a joint sitting to pass the Australia Card legislation but in a dramatic day in the Parliament that stunned Hawke and his senior ministers, opposition leader John Howard revealed the Australia Card legislation had a fatal flaw, declaring it ``dead - stone dead''.

“Howard's charge rested on the fact that the ID card legislation required the start-up date for the card to be set by "regulation''. Regardless of any joint sitting of Parliament passing the legislation, this meant the anti-Labor Senate still had the power to strike down the regulation that would be needed to bring the card into law,” says Glenn Milne. The government gave in.

...the legislative framework...
From Federation, as in most Westminster systems, legislation has provided either house may disallow regulations. The current legislation is the Legislative Instruments Act, 2003.

According to a Senate briefing paper, the legislation works in the following way:-
As soon as practicable after making a legislative instrument, the maker must lodge the instrument and its explanatory material with the Attorney-General’s Department for registration – instruments are not enforceable unless they are registered;
• the Department must arrange for the instrument to be tabled in each House within 6 sitting days of being registered;
• instruments that operate retrospectively to disadvantage any person (other than the Commonwealth) are of no effect;
• within 15 sitting days after tabling a senator or member of the House of Representatives [but in practice usually the former] may give notice of a motion to disallow the instrument (in whole or in part);
• if the motion is agreed to, the instrument is disallowed and it then ceases to have effect; if a notice of motion to disallow the instrument has not been resolved or withdrawn within 15 sitting days after having been given, the instrument is deemed to have been disallowed and it ceases to have effect;
• disallowance has the effect of repealing the instrument – if the instrument repealed all or part of an earlier instrument then disallowance also has the effect of reviving that part of the earlier instrument; a similar instrument cannot be made again: within 7 days after tabling (or, if the instrument has not been tabled, within 7 days after the last day on which it could have been tabled) (unless both Houses approve);
• while it is subject to an unresolved notice of disallowance; within 6 months after being disallowed (without the approval of the House that disallowed the regulation)

....a double dissolution?
This legislation, although not in the constitution, is part of our constitutional system which provides checks and balances against the abuse of power. The cumulative effect of this will be that a double dissolution on as important a question as the ETS could take on the nature of a referendum.

Because of wide media support for an ETS, the failure of much of the mainline media to allow dissenters a voice, and the support in principle for an ETS by the opposition leader and the shadow cabinet, little has been heard about the arguments against an ETS, as well as the costs involved. This may well change in a double dissolution election.

ACM has no position on either anthropogenic global warming or an ETS. Our role is to defend the constitutional system which provides checks and balances against rushed legislation and ensures the people are consulted. The system is designed to ensure an informed vote by the people, and nothing could be more democratic than that.

LOCAL COUNCIL CONCERNS OVER 'FLOW OF FUNDS '

by Betty Luks
Many local councils around the Commonwealth are cash strapped and have expressed their concerns to the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. Remember the $900 payment made to a number of Australians as part of the Rudd government’s ‘stimulus package’? The matter was taken to the High Court and the presiding judges ruled in April that the government could make cash handouts of up to $900 to taxpayers as part of its $42 billion economic stimulus package.
However, the court's 228-page judgement has cast doubt on the Federal Government’s ability to make other payments without State authority.

The President of the Australian Local Government Association, Geoff Lake, has written to Mr Rudd telling him there is anxiety within local government that the court’s decision could cast doubt on the Federal Government’s ability to provide money directly to councils. Cr Lake says local government would be concerned if any “road blocks” made the delivery of funding from Canberra to the sector needlessly cumbersome. He says if current or future funding is placed in jeopardy it would have serious implications for councils and ratepayers.

Councillor’s short-sighted answer:
Councillor Lake believes the answer is for local government to be recognised in the constitution. He says it will take some time for the government to fully determine the impact of such a complex ruling, but local government is keen to discuss the implications of the judgement at the appropriate time.
Of course that is just what the centralisers want – to have local councils ‘recognised’ in the constitution: that and the move to abolish the States. They want to set up a soviet system: local councils beholden to a central government for all its financial needs - and directives.

Time for local councils to ‘come clean’ ?
Maybe it is time local councils admitted just how much they lost of ratepayers’ money in the derivatives/speculation scams. Readers will remember Mr. Will Peden of Robe, South Australia kindly gave us permission to republish his paper on the matter. “Derivatives: Situation Worse Than Governments Admitting” (O.T. Vol.44 No.47 2008).
Mr. Peden revealed the Bank of International Settlements put “the total derivatives trades” as exceeding “one quadrillion dollars – that’s 1,000 trillion dollars. The gross domestic product of all the countries of the world was then only about 60 trillion dollars.”

He continued: “The scale of the problem in Australia: Australian Banks have a combined exposure of $13,785 Billion (or $13.785 Trillion) to derivatives and other “off balance sheet business” as at 30 June 2008. These are the most recent figures publicly available. Readers can verify these figures by getting a copy of the Reserve Bank Bulletin, September 2008, and look at Table B4, and it is the last figure on the page. The source is credited to APRA or the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority.”

“This is their exposure, not their turnover:
It is unfortunate that the banks’ combined exposure has been increasing, even in the past year. To get this figure into perspective the total shareholder equity of the banks at the same date was a mere $129 Billion (or $0.129 Trillion). The total shareholder equity in our banks is less than 1% of the banks’ combined ‘off balance sheet’ exposure. In Australia the banks may claim that they are hedging, however the size of their derivative positions dwarfs their total assets ($2T table B2) so this argument doesn’t hold water.”

“Counter party failure:
If there is counter party failure (this is where the bank, hedge fund, etc., at the other end of the deal goes broke) of even 1% of these positions, then the whole equity of our banks is gone. The reason that governments around the world are preventing banks failing is that if one bank folds, the counter party failure will ensure the domino effect around the world causing most banks to fail. The ironic thing is that it is the banks with severe exposure that are being saved. I.e. the ones that have gambled the most.

"Bet the wrong way:
A 'significant bet’ that goes the wrong way, that results in a loss of 1% of the total exposure, will have the same result.”

Shouldn’t the next step be along the following lines? The local councils should call public meetings of their ratepayers to discuss constitutional means of implementing a sounder financial system based on Australia’s sovereignty. Jeremy Lee in his paper “A+B – Mending a Mortgaged World” insisted that under the Commonwealth Constitution, Section 51, the clear responsibility belongs to the Federal government AND States via their own State banking powers.

ADVANCE NOTICE: DVD - BORROWING TO PAY THE BANKER ?

Jeremy Lee will be releasing a new DVD within the next few weeks dealing with this absurdity. "Mending a Mortgaged World" addresses the insanity of all nations, including Australia, trying the impossible - to borrow themselves out of debt! In spite of endless conflict and destruction, the haunting idea of peace on earth persists - we KNOW this a world of superabundance!
The ten-year-old presentation "Retell the Story" will be included on the DVD, providing illuminating background to the situation we could have avoided then.

Further reading:
"The Money Trick" from the Institute for Economic Democracy - $10 plus postage
"The Story of the Commonwealth Bank" by D.J. Amos - $5.00 plus postage

THE RACIAL DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA

by Brian Simpson
The metaphor for the racial health of White America (and for Whites in the West in general) is that of a lone horseman, wounded, whose blood slowly seeps into the dark earth beneath his horse’s feet.

A few years ago the US Census Bureau said that “White” Americans would be a minority by 2050. Now, Whites, said to make up 66 per cent of the US population will be a minority by 2042, swamped by Hispanics and Asians. High birth rates and mass immigration mean that White children will be a minority by 2023, the workforce will be predominantly non-White by 2023 and by 2028 the majority of young adults aged 18 to 29 will be non-White.

My guess is that “White” is defined so broadly by the US Census Bureau, that Whites in the sense of broadly Nordic-Alpine-Mediterranean racial types, are already a minority, especially when illegal immigration is taken into account. At best, I think that by 2023 Whites will be visibly swamped, as Whites are now in, say, some parts of Sydney and Melbourne.

What will America be like when two massive populations struggle for supremacy? And – both populations do not have a sense of collective guilt about the Holocaust. What will that mean?

THE SECRET LIFE OF SWISS PINKOS

by James Reed
Look on the brighter side of the degeneration and decay of the West. Who says it is not possible to have a snigger, in the lull between the howls of rage and tears of frustration? The Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-human Technology has released on-line “The Dignity of Living Beings with Respect to Plants”.
You guessed it, plants have moral rights. This takes animal rights one step further. Thus a person who aimlessly decapitates flowers violates the flowers’ rights to life. (p.9 of the report).

Back in the 1970s I read a book entitled “The Secret Life of Plants” which argued that plants may be sentient, despite lacking a nervous system. I thought of this book when I read Jewish philosopher Peter Singer on animal rights: animals have rights and only species-racism prevents us from recognising them.
I say Pete, it’s now time to recognise plant rights! What can we then eat? Let them eat dust! What’s that you say – even “dust” has a spiritual aspect? Part of the cosmic whole? Well what would make an animal more a part of a “whole” than being eaten?

HOSING DOWN ASIA MANIA

by James Reed
A so-called “debate” has occurred in The Australian about the need for Asian language literacy. Professor Michael Wesley, director of the Griffith Asia Institute at Griffith University, wants to see all Aussie kids learning an Asian language. Journalist Luke Slattery says that European languages should be learnt as they are easier to learn. Both parties are wrong. The language of science and commerce is English.

We do not need to spend billions on learning Chinese: behind this is a slave mentality that the mighty Chinese are going to conquer us. What schools need is scientific and technological literacy. More mathematics, less talk, talk, talk. Hard science, physics, chemistry. This will bring national regeneration. The entire Asian language debate is about the terms of Australia’s surrender to Asia.

THIS ONE REALLY DID WANT HIS 'POUND OF FLESH '!

The Brooklyn man arrested for dealing in black-market kidneys was identified to the FBI seven years ago as a major figure in a global human organ ring. Levy-Izhak Rosenbaum's name, address and even phone number were passed to an FBI agent in a meeting at the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan by a prominent anthropologist who has been studying and documenting organ trafficking for more than a decade. Nancy Scheper-Hughes of the University of California, Berkeley, was and is very clear as to Rosenbaum's role in the ring.
"He is the main U.S. broker for an international trafficking network," she said.

Her sources include a man who started working with Rosenbaum imagining he was helping people in desperate need. The man then began to see the donors, or to be more accurate, sellers, who were flown in from impoverished countries such as Moldova. "He said it was awful. These people would be brought in and they didn't even know what they were supposed to be doing and they would want to go home and they would cry," Scheper-Hughes said.

The man called Rosenbaum "a thug" who would pull out a pistol he was apparently licensed to carry and tell the sellers, "You're here. A deal is a deal. Now, you'll give us a kidney or you'll never go home.' " Scheper-Hughes felt she had to stop Rosenbaum. She met with the FBI. "I always thought of it as my Dick Tracy moment," she said Thursday.

She waited and waited for something to be done. The FBI may have been following the lead of the State Department, which dismissed organ trafficking as "urban legend." "It would be impossible to conceal a clandestine organ trafficking ring," a 2004 State Department report stated.
Scheper-Hughes had better luck in Brazil and in South Africa, where law enforcement corroborated her findings and acted decisively. But the ring kept operating elsewhere. Scheper-Hughes visited villages in Moldova where, "20% of the men were siphoned off to be kidney sellers in this same scheme."

Back in Brooklyn, Rosenbaum stayed busy. He was contacted by an FBI informant who introduced Rosenbaum to an undercover agent who supposedly wanted to buy a kidney for her uncle. "I'm doing this a long time," Rosenbaum was recorded saying. The undercover asked how many organs he had sold. "Quite a lot," he answered.

The FBI called Scheper-Hughes, who is putting her findings into the upcoming, "A World Cut in Two, The Global Traffic in Humans for Organs." She asked why they were calling her now! Seven years after her Dick Tracy moment with the FBI at the Roosevelt Hotel, Rosenbaum was finally arrested.

Further reading:
"The Zionist Factor" by Ivor Benson... especially the chapter on Shakespeare's Shylock - $14.00 plus postage

LETTERS: 1... to Israel Shamir

“I am what you call a matchmaker," Rosenbaum is quoted as saying at a July 13 meeting with the two undercover agents. "I'm doing this a long time," the complaint says Rosenbaum told the two agents. He then added: "Let me explain to you one thing. It's illegal to buy or sell organs. … So you cannot buy it. What you do is, you're giving a compensation for the time." As we learn from Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary Chris Huhne that “Britain is setting a shameful new record in anti-Semitic incidents this year,” we also happen to be informed by every press outlet about the massive New Jersey Corruption Sweep: A shocking tale of money-laundering and human organ trading led by a bunch of Rabbis.

The New York Times reports:
“It was replete with tales of the illegal sales of body parts; of furtive negotiations in diners, parking lots and boiler rooms”. In an article titled the “Jewish Launderette” the Israeli Ynet takes it further providing the juicy details.
“The FBI raided synagogues and arrested a few Rabbis. One of those who are held in custody is Rabbi Yitzchak Levi Rosenbaum of Brooklyn who is suspected of trading in body parts. He is charged with a decade-long activity selling kidneys, exploiting both ill and poor donators. He would convince a donator to sell his kidney for $10.000. Rabbi Levi Rosenbaum would then sell the kidney to the needy for $160.000.”
I may raise the inevitable question here: can you imagine your local priest or Imam trading in ‘body parts’? Can you think of a Muslim cleric or a pastor trying to buy your kidney or sell you one in a ‘parking lot’ or in a 'diner’? I do not think so.
Here is my suggestion to Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary and everyone else who happens to be ‘concerned’ with the ‘rise of anti-Semitism’.
In the light of Israeli brutality, the conviction of gross swindler Madoff and the latest images of Rabbis being taken away by FBI agents, it is about time we stop discussing the rise of anti-Semitism and start to elaborate on the rise of Jewish Crime.
“No use trusting politicians. I had a very wise old friend who told me ‘Anyone who wants power is unfit to have power.’"

And Letter 2… to Wallace Klinck, Canada. Small is beautiful:
A correspondent wrote to Wallace:
“It is one of the things that attracted me to Social Credit when I first stumbled over it. People like Schumacher (author of “Small is Beautiful”...ed) had pointed me in the direction of sustainability, and the desirability of restricting international trade to the things we really could not find or make for ourselves in our own communities, but orthodox economics had nothing constructive to say about the drive to seek this "positive balance of trade".

Wally responded: The reality of the "mantra" is more aptly stated as "export AND die." Armaments sent against foreign nations are exports which fall in this category. But war provides "work for all" and "profitability" to banking and industry. Anything to serve the moral imperative to "work"!
Indeed, if the vast territory and almost endless natural resources of Canada combined with our highly educated and skilled work force cannot far more than provide the means to all citizens for a magnificently abundant life, then surely no nation on earth can do so.
The whole notion of a "recession" or "depression" is preposterous and derives solely from a delusional evaluation of our wealth through the distorted glasses of fraudulent national financial accountancy.
What has changed in reality? Have our mines been depleted, our rivers ceased to flow, the forces of growth been suppressed, the rays of the sun stopped flowing, the winds abated?
Have we suddenly and mysteriously lost of cultural heritage of a vast accumulation of knowledge and know-how? Have our people suddenly lost their motivation to live?
These are questions which should be put to all of our seemingly stupefied political representatives who perpetually mouth with acceptance the imbecilic terms "credit crisis, recession, depression", etc.
It is long past due time when these alleged servants of the people were provided a decisive reality check!

CORRUPTION OF UNIVERSITIES : REED DEBATE CONTINUES

by James Reed
It has been something of an open secret for some time that overseas students in some courses in our universities are ‘pushed through’. Plagiarism is recognised but a blind eye is turned. There is no doubt that foreign students are under pressure to perform. But the universities see them as ‘cash cows’, ever ready for milking.

Ponder this article: “UNE Accused of Allowing Plagiarists to Graduate” The Australian, 29/7/09 p.29. At the University of New England in a masters programme 220 out of 230 theses were plagiarised, “the worst case of plagiarism in Australian history”. The course was attractive to full-fee paying students looking for permanent residence. Most of the students were from India. Material had been copied from a variety of easily identified sources.
The dollar-degree system is a joke. All the more reason to close down universities and put the professors on pick and shovel jobs on outback roads, in the summer time.

Let them stay at home:
Readers will know that I am a warm-hearted person who cares for the underdog. I have argued that Indian students should not come to Australia to study because educational institutions, especially ‘our’ universities provide them with sub-standard service and treat them as mere cash cows. Yes, the institutions are racist, racist, RACIST !

It is good news for the poor suffering exploited victims of racism that the Indian student market looks like it is collapsing with a severe fall in applications. (The Australian 30/7/09 p.1) Let us hope that the continual debate about these scams punctures the Indian student market further.

FEMINIST LOBBY AND JOINT PARENTING

by Ian Wilson LL.B.
How they hate John Howard’s shared parenting laws! Family Court Chief Justice Diana Bryant has described the laws as “problematic” and the expectations of fathers, a “concern”. She also sees punitive cost orders for those who raise false allegations of violence as counter-productive, and that women are in fear of being found to be “unfriendly”. (The Australian 27/7/09 p.1) I find these claims “problematic”.

Both Family Court judge Richard Chisholm, the Australian Law Reform Commission and the Institute of Family Studies are undertaking various reviews of the Family Law system. The Attorney General Robert McClelland cited the case of a three-year old child who was thrown from Melbourne’s Westgate bridge by her father, as a reason for the review.
Now this is “problematic” and a “concern” in my opinion. In that case “nothing was raised before the court about violence.” (p.3) To suppose that the laws in question need examination on that basis is absurd, and an ideological smokescreen.

A hard-left feminist contingent in the Rudd government doesn’t like the shared parenting laws. They want a return of Family Law to the good old days. The Family Law Act is anti-male. Who would want to get married or live in a de facto relationship these days?