LAND RIGHTS ISSUE GAINING HEAT

"Aboriginals will claim 5,000 acres of South Yarra, including the Botanic Gardens and the grounds of Government House, when the Victorian Land Rights Act becomes law." - The Sun (Melbourne), October 8th.

It is to us of some significance that the "Land Rights Claim" of the Victorian Aboriginal Lands Council was not mentioned in the other two morning dailies available in Melbourne, viz. The Age, and The Australian (Victorian edition). It is quite probable that this matter received the ventilation it did in The Sun because of an earlier ventilation by a Mrs. Dorothy Turner, of Melbourne. This issue was dealt with in On Target Bulletin, last issue; and the same journalist has "exposed" this "Land Rights Claim". We shall not reprint the full claims, it would take half of On Target those who are interested can obtain a copy of The Sun (Melbourne) of Saturday, October 8th. It is on Page 3.

The Claims total 360,000 acres, including also suburban building sites, and prime farming land. Mr. Stewart Murray, the "Chairman" of the Victorian Aboriginal Lands Council states that the Victorian Land Claims Bill has already been deferred a year (our emphasis) because the "task force" people don't think it goes anywhere near far enough. The Victorian Premier, Mr. John Cain, has said that the Bill will be deferred until next year (not necessarily "a year") "to allow for more community discussion". The real reason has been (no doubt) unwittingly let slip by our Commonwealth Attorney General, Senator Gareth Evans, still as eager as ever to insist that Australian children "want a right to sexual freedom and (sex) education and protection from the influence of Christianity" (our emphasis, source Sydney Morning Herald, May 7th, 1976, page 11).

Senator Gareth Evans has placed a very limited number of advertisements in metropolitan dailies giving notice that his "Task Force", under a Ms. Gae Pincus, has been established to advise him on "the implementation of the Government' s policies for "new and amending legislation" in a "review" of the Racial Discrimination Act (1975).

The original Racial Discrimination Bill of the Whitlam Government contained some savage, punitive penalties (fines of $5,000 for an individual breach of this law). This savage Bill was "decriminalised" by the Coalition controlled Senate of the day. We well recall the disappointment of the then Senator James McClelland (then Minister for Labour) who said in the Senate - ''you've gutted it!" Ex-Senator McLelland is now a judge of a Court in N.S.W.

Senator Evans' "Task Force" welcomes contributions from the public (no prizes for guessing where most of these will come from!) and "special interest groups" on the operation of the (Racial Discrimination) Act. Major issues for consideration include,
(a) dealing with race hatred propaganda, and this could be made to apply to "Red Over Black". If these bureaucrats are given arbitrary powers, then they can make anything mean anything.
(b) the operation of enforcement mechanisms, and this means, simply, re-criminalising the Racial Discrimination Act. The former, most unlamented Commissioner of Community Relations, Mr. Al Grassby, was ever bewailing the fact that he had no powers to "make" people obey the provisions of his dear Racial Discrimination Act. How these essentially childish Socialist ideologues love power to make others people do this and that! We don't give power to children, and we must fight strenuously against allowing the Socialist ideologues, masquerading too often behind the name "Labor", to assume undemocratic political powers.
Incidentally, during the initial stages of successful Communist revolutions, there have been many instances where children have been given power over adults, and armed with deadly weapons to enforce their sudden powers. It is part of the Communist terror to stun a population into submission; it is usually short lived; until power is fully in Communist hands.

Probably the most sinister "issue or consideration" is the third, viz. "the relationship between the (Racial Discrimination) Act and Aboriginal Land Rights Legislation (our emphasis), What this means is that Senator Gareth Evans' "Task Force" will come up with "amending legislation" (surprise, surprise!!) to make criticism, exposure, etc. of Aboriginal Land Rights legislation an offence under the (re-criminalised) Racial Discrimination Act.

This is the real reason for the delay of the Victorian Aboriginal Land Claims Bill, so that, for example, Local Government councilors and indeed their councils, can be "threatened", and intimidated under the re-criminalised Racial Discrimination Act. We shall deal further with this issue in the Bulletin to this On Target.

MR. DOUG ANTHONY ATTACKS SEX DISCRIMINATION BILL

Most supporters would have already read the letter by the Hon. J.D. Anthony, Leader of the National Party, Canberra, which has been published in the metropolitan dailies during the last week or so. We don't intend to republish this letter; it is too long. However, we can make a few comments. First of all, full marks to Mr. Anthony for blasting this Bill: credit where credit is due. He does point out that the relevant United Nations Convention Against All Forms of Discrimination Against Women was signed by the (then) Minister for Home Affairs (Mr. Ellicott) at a limited Nations Conference of Women's Affairs held at Copenhagen, Denmark. This was when the Fraser Government was riding high. Mr. Anthony states that the Bill of the Fraser Government would not have relied on the U.N. Convention for its authority, and would have applied only to areas of Commonwealth responsibility. …
"I object to a Bill which is based on provisions of the Convention and which uses Australia's signing and ratification of the Convention as a source of its powers - a use of the foreign affairs power which should be strongly resisted."

We have already commented more than once, recently, in these pages, that the "external affairs" power of the Australian Constitution is being ruthlessly abused to steamroller the States out of existence. That is what the Canberra Socialists are now up to. The Tasmanian Franklin Dam issue is a case in point. The High Court ruling means not that the Dam must not be built (it can still be built!) - but that the Dam cannot be built without the full approval of the relevant Commonwealth Minister! Meaning that the State of Tasmania (or any other of the six Australian States) are no longer sovereign powers.

Mr. Anthony points out, correctly, that Senator Susan Ryan's Bill (almost certainly drafted overseas by U.N. bureaucrats) does not rely enough on Common Law (which is to be phased out anyway, if Senator Gareth Evans has his way) rights and safeguards, and it places "victims" in the position of having to establish their "innocence".

BRIEF COMMENTS

There's no doubt about some academics; they really do think they are some type of Higher Being. Our attention has been drawn to the Australian Quarterly, published by the Australian Institute of Political Science. The Winter 1983 issue is virtually given over to multiculturalism. One article is from the pen of a "James Jupp", who is principal lecturer in Politics, Canberra College of Advanced Education.
Under the subtitle - "The Politics of Multiculturalism" we read -"Another neo-conservative approach has been to deny the need for or desirability of (the punctuation leaves much to be desired) any public policies designed to maintain or advance 'foreign' culture or 'foreign' groups. While expressed by writers like Professor (Lauchlan) Chipman of Wollongong or Geoffrey Partington of Adelaide in sophisticated terms, this argument is not far from that of primitive Australian nationalists like Bruce Ruxton, president (small "p") of the Victorian RSL (no full stops) our emphasis.

It was Kossuth who said that "The instinctive feeling of a great people is often wiser than its wisest men", and the insinuations of paltry academics merely demonstrate this truth. Mr. Bruce Ruxton speaks out on what the majority of Australians "feel". Thank God for him.

According to an American report, the much publicised American "recovery is "patchy", while a record trade deficit is marring the recovery. This is resulting in pressure for stronger protective measures to aid ailing American business organisations. We repeat what we have said on many occasions: the deepening finance economic social crisis cannot be reversed under present financial policies. The stimulation of the American economy has been the result of a slightly more liberal credit creation policy. But this in turn has increased the debt burden. Until the cause of the debt problem is faced and acted upon, the crisis must deepen.