By Robert Barwick and Allen Douglas
On December 14, state of Victoria Premier Steve Bracks released a document outlining his government's intent to introduce draconian new laws, under which individuals could be jailed for six months and/or fined $6,000, and organisations fined $30,000 for "vilifying individuals on the basis of race or religion."
The extraordinarily broad law would allow for the prosecution
of virtually anything including name-calling, verbal or written statements,
gestures, the wearing of symbols or uniforms, or anything else which a
"reasonable observer" could interpret as an offense to a "racial or religious
group."
It would cover statements or activities, even in private homes and the burden
of proof would be on the accused to prove that he or she was innocent. And
accusations could be made by a "third party, - not even the person who was
offended."
The legislation is itself prima facie
racist, presuming as it does, that there are many "races" instead of one
human race, all of whose members are created in the image of God.
In fact, the law has nothing to do with vilification, but is designed to
silence political discussion, as Australia and the world hurtle into the
worst financial collapse in centuries.
It is a complement to the "shoot-to-kill"_laws passed by the
federal government late last year, and its proponents are the most fanatical
right-wing extremists in Australia, grouped around Melbourne tax lawyer Mark
Leibler, who are associated with the West Bank settlers movement in Israel
and the drive for a religious war in the Middle East.
For much of the last decade, Leibler has been on a crusade to silence, by whatever means necessary, the Citizen's Electoral Council (CEC), the Australian wing of the international political movement associated with Lyndon LaRouche, which has become the only alternative policy alternative in the country to the establishment-controlled Labor and Liberal/National parties and their shared policy agenda of free trade, deregulation and privatisation.
Leibler, the head of the Australian
Israel Jewish Affairs Council, and the former longtime head of the Zionist
Federation of Australia, has been pubicly acknowledged chief driver behind
"racial vilification" laws ever since 1992. His hodcarrier for
the present effort in Victoria, is the anti-Deformation Commission of B'nai
B'rith (ADC), the Australian wing of the notoriously corrupt U.S.
Anti-Deformation League, whose espionage and infiltration activities in the
United States caused a scandal several years ago.
In its submission on the proposed bill, the ADC
claims that the bill is required because it has allegedly discovered "over
14 extremist racist groups, based in Victoria," a ludicrous list of mostly
postage stamp sized grouplets and intelligence agency fronts such as the
Ku Klux Clan into which list it has inserted the Citizen's Electoral
Council.
In addition to silencing LaRouche's associates, Leibler and
his pals want to shut down any public discussion of their own activities,
either of their extremist actions in the Middle East, or of their financial
wheeling and dealing.
For instance two members of the Melbourne Football Club recently held a
high-profile press conference to call for the bill's passage.
Their club is owned by mining magnate and Lubravitcher leader Joseph Gutnick,
who finances settlements on the West Bank, and who was reportedly the single
largest financier of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's
notoriously racist election campaign in 1996, on the slogan, "Netanyahu is
Good For The Jews."
Leibler's brother Isi, the leader of Australia's Jewish community until hr
moved to Israel a couple of years ago, openly sided with the fanatical settlers
movement against then Prime Minister Yitzhac Rabin, shortly before Rabin
was assassinated in November 1995.
Still another Leibler crony, Rabbi John Levi, recently caused an uproar when
he denounced the Uniting Church (Australia's largest) as "anti-Semitic" because
it supported the Palestinians; under the new law, Levi could presumably have
the church prosecuted.
The Leibler crowd also wields charges of "anti-Semitism" to shut down any
scrutiny of their dubious financial dealings. Federal parliamentary hearings
in 1992, for example, questioned
Leiblers activities as Australia's foremost
tax lawyer, which one leading tax specialist charged
had cost the Australian government at least $30 billion in tax evasion.
Leibler screamed that the enquiry was "anti-Semetic," though the light shed
on he and his clients such as Gutnick, forced Leibler's resignation from
several taxation bodies.
Gutnick is currently under suspicion for possible involvement in a long-running
scheme to launder hundreds of millions of dollars out of Australia and into
Israel, using Australia's notoriously dirty ANZ bank.
When faced with similar allegations in 1992, Gutnick's accusers were charged
by Leibler with being-what else?-"anti-Semitic."