IMPROPAGANDA

by Jeremy Lee
Sensible Australians will tender their deepest sympathies to the good people in the federal seat of Aston, who will go to the polls on Saturday, July 14. Media coverage has been never-ending and the polling spin-doctors have examined the political entrails ad nauseum. Candidates have kissed babies, door-knocked, handed out pamphlets and practised their smiles as though such stunts had not already stuck in the craw of a long-suffering public.

In the run-down to the federal election one factors stands out - the enormous increase in advertising by the Howard Government. Leading the Opposition in the run-up to the 1996 election where Keating was defeated, John Howard was quoted in September 1995 as saying: "This soiled government is to spend a massive $14m. of taxpayers' money over the next two months as part of its pre-election panic .... Keating is about to boost government promotion to a massive new high and it's time a brake was put on this fraud..... This propaganda blitz will make the electorate feel even more angry."

Well, it's Kim Beazley's turn to dust off and trot out the same rhetoric. Last month he said: "The government is trying to buy this election with your money - $500,000 a night some nights .... being spent on the re-election of this government. This is wholesale looting of the public purse for the benefit of a political party .... it is actually a disgrace...." (quotes from The Bulletin, 10/7/01)
The Bulletin article went on to say: " ....Labor huffs that the Howard government is outspending major advertisers such as McDonalds and Coca-Cola. They underestimate. In fact, the detractors could have aimed much higher. McDonald's media budget, at around $65m - $70m in 2000 -according to estimates compiled by recognized industry monitor, ACNielsen AdEx - was around half what the government will outlay on its programs from now until the end of the year. Coca-Cola annually outlays a relative pittance of up to $25 million.....
Last September, the Joint Standing Committee on Parliament Accounts and Audit unanimously issued draft guidelines for government advertising. Labor adopted them for Kim Beazley's private members' Bill which was reintroduced into the House of Representatives just weeks ago. The government used its numbers to prevent debate. Small wonder....."

Isn't it nice to know our money is in such safe and honest hands?

POLITICIANS WORTH MORE?

PRIVATE COMPANY WITH STATUTORY POWERS

Australia is currently the second-largest wheat exporter in the world. Export of the crop is about to be vested in the hands of a private company, which cleverly has kept the same name as its predecessor, although the former was a semi-government statutory authority. The new company is about to list on the Stock Exchange, expecting to raise over $800 million in the float. So far, those who have done best out of the deal have been the brokers. A UBS Warburg team of advisers have reaped a $703,000 fee for their work in the past two year in changing the shape of the old Wheat Board into the new. They will gain another $300,000 once the float is completed, plus about $2 million for underwriting the float. Board directors fees have ranged as high as $400,000.

Under Australia's competition rules, how can a private company acquire statutory-monopoly-status over an export market? Will any of the expected advantages of this arrangement get as far as Australia's beset wheat farmers?

SNIPING AT FREE SPEECH

Executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council Colin Rubenstein included another stereo-typing snipe at the Australian League of Rights in an article in The Australian (11/7/01). Under the heading WHY WE NEED RACE HATRED LEGISLATION, Rubenstein included this comment:
" .... Extremist and anti-Semitic groups at work in Australia vary greatly in their memberships, activities and target audiences. The Australian League of Rights continues to hold meetings, conduct action campaigns and seek publicity for its anti-semitic assessments of domestic and international affairs ...."

Pardon me, Colin Rubenstein, but is it not the right of all Australians to hold meetings and conduct action campaigns so long as it is done lawfully? The League has been doing so for over half-a-century, as well as hosting a wide and distinguished variety of guest speakers. The literature it offers for sale is not anti-semitic, although often strongly critical of Zionism - as are a considerable number of Jews. Rubenstien should note that the League has, more than once, defended Israel's right to exist. It is the right to disagree with and argue against policy matters that he should be defending rather than attacking.

PHONY TAX BACKDOWN

Following our lengthy report last week on the draconian new tax measures, the Government has moved hastily to diffuse the issue. It's wonderful how an impending election smartens the political mind! But the changes are cosmetic, and have hardly dinted the room for injustices. Tony Walker (AFR, 10/7/01) made this clear:
"Treasurer Peter Costello would have you believe that yesterday's concessions on the implementation of new tax laws, aimed at quietening agitation among independent contractors, is simply another relatively minor example of fine tuning. Don't believe him, and also don't believe that this is the end of the matter. .... It is an area that remains riddled with ambiguities - and open to all sorts of abuses. Accountants and tax lawyers should be salivating over opportunities that will present themselves in due course as a result of battles between the Tax Office and those whose status as independent contractors has been challenged.
Costello would also have you believe that the alienation of personal services income measures are a separate issue, somehow shielded from the bad odour attached to the GST. Again, don't believe him ...."

There is no doubt that the Australian Tax Office is increasingly being transformed into the most feared and hated institution in the land. It has a massive armoury of powers which it can change and interpret itself. Its 19,000 staff are a mini-army. Tax reform we may have had, but it has not been reform for the better. Before anything else, there should now be firm barriers erected against ANY retrospectivity in tax matters. If the Tax Office has made a mistake, or been lax in making determinations so that people know where they stand, it should be forced to live with the results rather than penalizing people for matters once deemed legal.

GST AND 'THE RECOVERY'

The claim, parroted by election-anxious politicians that Australia has turned the corner and is on the way to a recovery is drawing a very long bow. For hundreds of thousands of Australians the debt-burdened misery of existence, even for those in employment at the lower wage levels, means nothing has changed. During the last quarter of the financial year, according to the Insolvency and Trustee Service, bankruptcies blew out by 177 percent over the equivalent period a year ago. The GST was the chief reason for this explosion.
For those small businesses who have hit the wall, talk about recovery is simply a chimera.

Meanwhile, the Australian Tax Office itself has come under heavy fire from the Auditor General and the Australian National Audit Office. Apart from abysmal investigation in a number of tax-fraud cases, the department's records were so patchy that it could not even keep an accurate tally on GST revenue.

PETROL-PRICING RORTS

With yet another petrol price inquiry under way - part of the election campaign no doubt - the comments of the Editorial in The Australian Financial Review (9/7/01) are worth consideration:
"If there are three certainties in Australian political life they must be complaints about the ever-increasing size of the Tax Act, political mavericks dreaming of third parties, and petrol price inquiries ..... "Indeed, it was the Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, who set up the system of import parity pricing for petrol in the late 1970s and the Hawke Government which created the revenue refinery of excise indexation to inflation. .... Depending on where the volatile world oil price is, the existing excise rate in Australia of 45c. a litre is more than a 100 per cent tax on the underlying product ..... Australian governments have become particularly dependent on fuel price excise. Before the decision to freeze excise, the tax was expected to raise about $13 billion, which is more than half the revenue expected from the GST ...."

AN EYE FOR AN EYE

TRUTH ABOUT 'THE INDEPENDENT NATION OF PALESTINE'

by Antonia Feitz:
1. According to www.cactus48.com, a Christian site which supports the anti-Zionist group, "Jews for Justice in the Middle East", the British Government's Balfour Declaration of November 1917 which promised the Jews a homeland in Palestine was made:
a) by a European power,
b) about a non-European territory,
c) in flat disregard of both the presence and wishes of the native majority resident in that territory.

They're right. It's beyond dispute that the Declaration totally disregarded the views of the resident semitic Jews who lived amicably with their Arab neighbours and overwhelmingly opposed the establishment of a Jewish state on religious grounds. The European Zionists were, are, mainly atheists. In 1919, Balfour himself acknowledged that while the 1918 Anglo-French Declaration had promised the Arabs of the former Ottoman colonies independence as a reward for supporting the Allies, he admitted that "in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country... The four powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desire and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land." (Edward Said, The Question of Palestine)

Though having promised independence for Arab support Her Majesty's Government didn't even plan to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the Palestinian people. "The desire and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs" - isn't that incredible! For Balfour, the rights of almost a quarter of a million people who had continuously lived in Palestine for millennia counted for nothing against the wishes of a small cabal of Europeans. Talk about clout!

2. The British crackdown
"In 1936-9, the Palestinian Arabs attempted a nationalist revolt. David Ben-Gurion, eminently a realist, recognized its nature. In internal discussion, he noted that 'in our political argument abroad, we minimize Arab opposition to us,' but he urged, 'let us not ignore the truth among ourselves.' The truth was that 'politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country, while we are still outside'.... The revolt was crushed by the British, with considerable brutality."
Noam Chomsky, The Fateful Triangle.

WHY WE NEED A TAX REVOLT!

by Antonia Feitz
"Australian Report: The Legacy of Government in Australia": The Privateer - Number 427 Page 9

Rolling forward towards the inevitable Federal election, Stephen Koukoulas of The Australian Financial Review has performed a valuable service. He has looked across the tax landscape of the Aussie establishment's double party, the Liberal / Labor party. Even better, he has made note of the fact that in 1975, when they lost office, taxation by the Whitlam Labor government amounted to 28.5% of GDP. Now, in the sixth year of the Howard Liberal government, taxation stands at 37.7% of GDP. Only a politician would call that "progress". That same tax data shows conclusively that it doesn't matter which of the establishment's own(ed) parties Australians vote for - taxes ALWAYS go UP.

Historical Note
When Gough Whitlam gained office way back in 1972 he raised government expenditures and all taxes faster and higher than any previous Prime Minister ever had. That was only the beginning though, because the tax data above starts from his LAST and highest taxing year in office. At their peak, the level of taxes under the Whitlam government stood at 28.5% of GDP. Labor under Hawke/Keating raised the tax stakes (over 13 years) to 32.3% of GDP. Then, the "Coalition" under Howard arrived, and taxes just kept on rising - to reach their present level of 37.7%. Yes, Australia's nominal GDP is rising, but the government's tax take is rising faster. Much faster.

How much faster? Well, consider the rise of the tax take as a percentage of GDP since 1975, up from 28.5% to 37.3%. That's a rise of 8.8%. In other words, government taxes as a portion of Australia's GDP have risen by 30.9% in the 26 years since 1975.
In the 30 years since 1972 when Whitlam won government, Labor has been in power for about 17 years and the Liberals about 13 years. Over the entire period, the government has increased in size by just under ONE THIRD.

Once Upon A Time
. 1975: When Malcolm Fraser, and the Liberals, gained office at the end of 1975, the NET external debt of the Australian economy stood at about 3% (repeat - THREE PERCENT) of GDP.
. 1983: When Bob Hawke won office in 1983, that net debt had climbed to 13.5% of GDP.
. 1996: Thirteen years later, when the Liberals again took over, under Howard, the net debt had climbed to 38.2% of GDP.
. 2001: And the five years of the Howard government have now managed to take Australia's NET external debt to 49.1% of GDP.

As of March 2001 - the net external debt of the Australian economy stood at $A317 Billion. GROSS external debt stood at close to $A700 Billion. And it is that gross debt that Australians pay interest on.

In just over a quarter of a century, the Australian establishment's dual political party has managed to take Aussie net debt from 3% to 49.1% of GDP and taxes from 28.5% to 37.7% of GDP.

The Rock Bottom Fundamentals
Have you noticed that (with rare and honourable exceptions) no politician in Australia or almost anywhere else talks about a FREE society. What they talk about is a "free and DEMOCRATIC society". In Australia, people don't just get to vote, they HAVE to vote - by LAW. Politicians tell anyone who will listen to them that this is the way that Australians preserve their "freedom". Really? Take a look at the record of BOTH political parties over the past 25 years. Democracy there certainly is. Aussies must vote or pay a fine. Freedom there certainly is NOT. Aussies, like most other people today, are simply SERFS!

QUEENSLAND SEMINAR TAPES

The following tapes are available on speeches made at the very successful Queensland seminar of the Australian League of Rights:
1. Welcome and Opening; An exercise in Social Credit - Terry Rogers.
2. The Victorian Racial Vilification Legislation - Betty Luks.
3. Port Arthur Revisited - Wendy Scurr.
4. Deceit or Terrorism - Andrew MacGregor.
5. The Strategy of Tactics - Sunday Session - Graham Strachan.
6. What is Social Credit? Betty Luks.
7. The Current State of Rural Queensland - Selwyn Johnston. A Challenge from a Young Australian - Damien Symonds.
8. The League of Rights, The National Party & the Rural Disaster - Jeremy Lee
9. The State of the Dairy Industry in Queensland - Dr. John Kingston MLA.

COST: $5.00 per tape, including postage. Money, with order, from: CVA TAPES, PO Box 987, Inverell, NSW, 2360.

GLOBALISM OR LOCALISM?

Jeremy Lee and Graham Strachan - Dalby, Queensland

Residents of Dalby, Queensland and surrounding districts are invited to hear two powerful speakers, Jeremy Lee and Graham Strachan, at a meeting to be held in the local RSL's Anzac Room, Drayton Street, Dalby. Saturday, July 21st, 2001, commencing at 1.30pm. Graham Strachan will speak on "22 Steps to Global Tyranny" and Jeremy Lee will speak about "The National Party and Demise of Rural Queensland". Perhaps one of the NP faithful should invite Senator Ron Boswell along? Admission $5.00. For further information - Tony Symonds, Phone 4667 4172

SYDNEY CONSERVATIVE SPEAKERS' CLUB

The next Sydney Conservative Speakers' Club will be held on Tuesday, July 31st, 2001, commencing at 7.30pm. It will be held as usual at the Estonian Club, 141 Campbell Street, Sydney.
Guest speaker: Mr. Ian Murphy. Subject: "The Question of Australia's Defence". A primary producer from Cobar, Ian Murphy has for many years shown a deep interest in the defence of Australia. The cost of attendance is $4; this includes an excellent supper.

Please note the following dates for your diary: August 28th - Annual General Meeting. Guest speaker Mr. Welf Herfurth - "The Threat to Freedom & Democracy in Germany Today". September 25th - Guest speaker Mr. Geoff Muirden - "The Decline & Fall of the White Race" October 30th - Guest speakers Wendy Scurr & Andrew McGregor - "The Massacre at Port Arthur".

WEST AUSTRALIA'S STATE WEEKEND

Saturday, August 11th - 35th Annual Seminar & Dinner for the Australian League of Rights. "Globalism or Nationalism".
Speakers: Jeremy Lee - "The Money Trap", Joan Torr - "A State of Fear" and Betty Luks - "The Individual's Role in a Threatened Society".

Sunday, August 12th - Australian League of Rights "Action Day". Venue for both days: Perth - Rose and Crown Hotel - Guildford - Phone: 08 9574 6042
For further inquiries and information please contact Maureen Burton, State Secretary: Phone/Fax: 08 9574 6042. After hours: 08 9574 6260

SCHEDULE for Australian League of Rights Tour July/August 2001 with speaker Mrs. Betty Luks, National Director:
Sunday, July 29th - Cranbrook - Murray & Jan Pope - 08 9826 8055
Monday, July 30th - Albany - Murray & Jan Pope - 08 9826 8055
Tuesday, July 31st - Ravensthorpe - Alan Burton - 08 9839 6025
Wednesday, August 1st - Collie - Norm Wiese - 08 9734 4066
Thursday, August 2nd - Harvey - Nigel Offer - 08 9729 3325
Monday, August 6th - Bullsbrook - Helen McKenna - 08 9571 3595
Tuesday, August 7th - Moora - John Broad - 08 9654 9030
Wednesday, August 8th - Morawa - Ed Valentine - 08 9971 1175

SOUTH AUSTRALIA'S STATE WEEKEND - August 18th & 19th

Seminar: Saturday, August 18th - 10am to 5pm. "Centenary of the Federal Commonwealth". Venue: Christ Church Parish Centre, O'Halloran Hill, South Australia. Admission $12 per person.
Speakers: Wendy Scurr & Andrew McGregor, "Defence, Deceit & Terrorism at Port Arthur"; Jeremy Lee "Constitutional Provisions for a State Bank"; Betty Luks "What is Social Credit?"; Bishop John Hepworth, "Arrangement of Power in British History".

Dinner: Saturday, August 18th, from 6.30pm "Frank Bawden Memorial Dinner" Cost: $22 per person, 3-Courses. Bar facilities are not available, please BYO alcoholic drinks.

Action Conference: Sunday, August 19th. Admission $12 - includes lunch.

Wendy Scurr & Andrew McGregor meetings - "Deceit & Terrorism at Port Arthur". Please consider inviting sporting shooter friends.
Victoria: Melbourne - 7.30pm, Friday, August 10th - Acacia Room, The Victoria Hotel, 215 Little Collins Street; Phone 03 9650 9749
Horsham: 8pm, Saturday, August 11th. CWA Hall, McPherson Street; Phone 03 5382 4720 or 03 5382 6400
Nhill: 2pm Sunday, August 12th, RSL Hall, Clarence Street; Phone 03 5391 2166
Edenhope: 8pm Monday, August 13th. RSL Hall, Phone 03 5586 4240

South Australia: Pt. Pirie: Wednesday, August 15th - details to be finalised.

BOOK NEWS

"Moribund Medicine" by Dr. Pat O'Neill, MRCS, LRCP (Hons. Cambridge): Readers of the New Times Survey will be acquainted with the writings of Dr. Pat O'Neill. In this book he expands on certain conclusions he reached after retirement, i.e., modern medicines do not hold all the answers to healing. Hippocrates carried on the tradition of letting nature heal. Today we expect new chemicals to take over from nature. Healthy changes in life-style and diet, understanding the nature of stress and how to control it, he believes are the first steps to good health. Advances in medical knowledge have ensured a better understanding of the body mechanism, but the complexity of healing methods have created an industry that thrives on new disease. The complementary use of ancient skills, such as relaxation techniques acquired through meditation cannot be discounted. Price $12.00, Posted $14.50, from Heritage Book Service, P.O. Box 6086, Lake Munmorah, NSW, 2259.

"The Story of the Commonwealth Bank" by D.J. Amos. Leading politicians scoff at the idea that low-interest creation of money is not only possible, but is part of the answer to Australia's present woes. It is important to relearn how Australia made enormous progress when 'the peoples' bank' (the original Commonwealth Bank) controlled the creation of Australia's credit. The original Common-wealth Bank was able to fund the cost of the First World War without debt to the nation and resettle returned soldiers on land grants at extremely low rates of interest. Public works, such as the East-West Railway, were funded free of debt. The insignificant 0.625% interest charged was sufficient for the bank to make a profit! This book is immensely important for Australians to help in their search for a way of lifting the yolk of usurious international debt-finance. Price $5.00, Posted $6.00

"Here We Go Again" by Doug Collins. The author of this book and the newspaper he represented were the first in North America to be fined by the Human Rights Tribunal for having 'wrong opinions'. The author refused to pay a penny and has described the tribunal as a 'kangaroo court', where the adjudicators are the judge, jury and prosecutor and a complainant may never be named! Many people pay lip service to freedom of speech, but show little fight for it, Collins does. His humorous columns, included in the book, well worth reading. Price $20.00, Posted $24.00. From all League Book Services.