WARNING LIGHTS ARE FLASHING

Australia's best-known historian, Professor Geoffrey Blainey, has felt it necessary to warn that Australia could be facing the worst depression for over 100 years, drawing attention to the declining export prices for Australia's primary production, including minerals. Professor Blainey also warned of the serious political and social consequences of such a depression. Press reports quote Professor Blainey as suggesting that only major internal reconstruction could avoid disaster. But these reports did not state what type of reconstruction Professor Blainey has in mind.

If Australia's domestic economy is going to be geared to external markets over which Australia has no control, then there is no doubt that Australia is in serious trouble. Even Prime Minister Hawke has had to admit in his parliamentary report on April 30th, that while he had established in the minds of American and European leaders the seriousness of the present agricultural trade crisis, he was not going to attempt "to delude" Australia's rural community that he had resolved the agricultural trade crisis. "I have not been able to change fundamentally the policies of the US or the European Community", he said. "Those policies will continue to corrupt markets and to depress prices for a considerable time to come."

Mr. Hawke had just returned to Australia when the news came of subsidised American exports of wheat to North Yemen, followed shortly afterwards of reports of subsidised American rice and cotton exports. The situation is developing exactly as we have predicted. Operating under common policies of debt finance, with constantly rising financial costs, all developed nations are attempting to solve their internal problems by fighting harder for export markets. All that the "Opposition" parties can do at Canberra, particularly the National Party, is to offer carping criticism of the Hawke Government without advancing one constructive policy to deal with the worsening situation.

Like a drug addict, the Hawke Government has been attempting to prevent a major collapse by massive injections of debt finance into the Australian economy. We were the first to warn of the course being taken by the first Hawke Government, in 1983, when Prime Minister Hawke and Treasurer Paul Keating became the pin-up boys of Wall Street, New York. Others are now catching up with our warnings. Mr. Viv Forbes, President of Tax Payers United, who produces some extremely valuable financial data, has been inserting advertisements in newspapers to warn that Australia's debt per head of population is about the same as debt-ridden South American countries Australians tend to treat with contempt. While we applaud Mr. Forbes' vigorous assault on government waste, this is an effect, not a cause, of the developing crisis.

Mr. Brian Hamley, National Australia Bank's general manager warned last week that Australia's foreign debt could go to $93 billion. Governor of the Reserve Bank, Mr. Bob Johnston, warned last week that Australians are faced with further belt-tightening. Katharine West, who says many sensible things, draws attention in her column n The Weekend Australian of May 3-4, that deficit financing "means running up for our children a bill they will not be able to pay unless they suffer a dramatic drop in their standard of living or produce a dramatic rise in their productive capacity.

While agreeing that the present financial policies are a disincentive to production, a massive increase in production, under present financial policies, can only add to Australia's problems. In what way would Australia's desperate primary producers be better off if they dramatically increased their production? How could they increase exports when there is a world glut of primary production? A much bigger home building programme is required, but this is a purely domestic matter without any consideration of exports. And there is no need to borrow overseas to build Australian homes from Australian materials brought together by Australian builders eating Australian food.

Australia is now faced with a revolution of horrendous proportions. Powerful groups are determined to use the deepening crisis to phase out tens of thousands of Australia's primary producers, and as part of "restructuring in depth", eliminate small-scale enterprise, while progressively centralising all power. The Big idea is to fit Australia into the New International Economic Order as a major step towards the World State.

The PHYSICAL REALITIES are that Australia is one of the wealthiest nations in the world. There is no need for a depression, no need for any of the other disasters being threatened. All that is required is a challenge to the Black Magic known as debt finance, which spawns high interest rates, high taxation and continuous inflation. Cannot those warning of the dangers threatening the nation grasp that there are no solutions while the nation's real credit is progressively written as a debt; that social debt must be replaced by social credit?

THE RIGHT HAND KNOWS NOT WHAT THE LEFT IS DOING

... It is little wonder that few have confidence in the Liberal Party's position on the Bill of Rights. Shadow Attorney General Neil Brown has issued some strong statements condemning the Bill, and is now "persona non grata" within the sacred precincts of the Human Rights Commission. Leader John Howard is on record as saying he opposes the Bill, and that his party will repeal it when returned to office. Few would believe, however, that he speaks for a united party on this issue.

The Liberals' position is made more confusing by the fact that, among the dozens of submissions made to the Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs on the need for a Bill of Rights was one by the Young Liberal Movement of Australia (Victorian Division). Obviously, the Young Libs don't go along with senior party members like Neil Brown and John Howard. Their submission was based on a resolution approved by their policy committee in June 1984, now official Young Liberal Policy.

The resolution read: "That this Council supports the principle of an Australian Bill of Rights:
(a) Initially in statutory form, as a national declaration of rights;
(b) With limited judicial enforceability; to override or modify common law and Federal and State legislation when inconsistent unless that legislation otherwise provides; and to act as an aid to statutory interpretation;
(c) leaving further judicial remedies to subsidiary, specific legislation;
(d) As a further basis for the work of executive agencies such at the Human Rights Commission and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal;
(e) Not preventing complimentary state legislation wherever possible."

Mr. Anthony Seyfort, an Executive Member of the Young Libs appeared before the Senate Committee on July 22, 1985 to give evidence in support of the Bill. His arguments were generally woeful. Among questions he was asked was the following:

Senator Hill - "The Young Liberal Movement obviously is not as concerned by the wide interpretation being given to the 'external affairs' power as some other arms of the Liberal Party."
Mr. Seyfort - I suppose you can say that by accepting my proposals the Movement is not; certainly I am not, because whatever is enacted on that power is still enacted by Australians in an Australian parliament which is responsible to an Australian electorate…"

So far, we have not heard John Howard or Neil Brown pulling the Young Liberals into line. Mr. Seyfort was followed, on the same day, by Mr. Stanley W. Johnston, official spokesman for the United Nations Association of Australia. His evidence was fascinating. In his written submission, Mr. Johnston claimed:
(Section 14) "With ratification of the CCPR (Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) Australia already has an effective bill of rights. This is our law now, and the Australian Human Rights Commission should enjoy full power to implement it with respect to the States as well as the Commonwealth. In his oral evidence Mr. Johnston claimed: "The Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 is a document no less important than Magna Carta. It is much more widely known and respected than The Ten Commandments on a global basis…"

BRIEF COMMENT

The welter of comment concerning the Chernobyl accident, much of it hysterical and unfactual, has obscured one significant point: When the Americans experienced an accident at the Three Mile nuclear generating plant, with most of the comment and allegations subsequently proved to have been false, there were worldwide anti-nuclear marches and other demonstrations. Clearly the Soviet accident was greater than the American. But as yet we have witnessed no worldwide demonstrations against the Soviet Union and its big nuclear generating programme. Isn't that strange?

Preservation of the integrity of the Australian judicial system requires that Mr. Justice Lionel Murphy be asked to resign from the High Court. At the end of his second trial, Mr. Justice Murphy made the outrageous statement that he had suffered a "political trial". This was a serious slur on those who, because of the nature of the serious allegations against him, had no alternative but to test them in a court of law. Equally outrageous have been the statements of Mr. Justice Murphy's friend, Premier Neville Wran, whose attack on the N.S.W. chief magistrate Mr. Clarrie Briese reveals the unpleasant character of the N.S.W. Premier. We predict that the last has not been heard of the Murphy affair.