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Sunday, 15th February 1998
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Day by day reports on the Constitutional Conventional reports by Peter Mackay

International:

Launch of Pasquarelli's book on Pauline Hanson covered ad nauseum by News Limited

One of the most telling demonstrations of selective media censorship was highlighted this weekend by News Limited.

Just ten weeks ago Helen Dodd launched the official biography of Pauline Hanson, "Pauline, the Hanson Phenomenon" at a bookstore in Ipswich.

Pauline Hanson attended the launch as did all the commercial television channels (see right above), and, amongst others, News Limited journalists - see left. In fact, after the media throng left, the view by those involved with the launch was unanimous that the coverage of Dodd's book would be excellent.

And why shouldn't it be? We had Jeff Summerfield a journalist from News Limited's Courier Mail who proclaimed that he had an excellent story on the launch and the book and would put it forward for publication the next day - Saturday.

It never happened - in its place was a picture of Bryce Courtenay and a story about his book launch in Melbourne. When I spoke to Summerfield the next week he shared my concerns saying that the Chiefs of Staff at the Courier Mail had told him that the "story was not news worthy" (ie it did not fit the image the paper wanted to portray of Ms Hanson).

To this day not one News Limited paper has reported on the November 1997 launch of the book by Helen Dodd and mentions of the book are so small and so rare in the press to be totally irrelevant. The coverage of the launch in the television news was equally unconvincing with only Channel 10 making any reference to the event.

Let us remember this was the official biography of Pauline Hanson - the Member of Parliament the media love to misquote and denigrate.

Quite simply the book put Ms Hanson in a good light so the story had to be canned. The unethical News Limited press and Channel 9 who so dominate our media do this all the time pull this selective reporting trick all the time.

The latest example of media manipulating the news was demonstrated this weekend. Pauline Hanson is currently in Adelaide, see the story on one of her meetings in Adelaide (extract below):

"Pauline also had some aboriginal supporters in the audience, who backed her call for the abolition of ATSIC. In particular, Amelia Campbell (a Ngarrindjeri woman who had the courage to dispute the "secret women’s business" at Hindmarsh Island), stated that most Aboriginees received little or no benefit from the billions of dollars given to ATSIC. An aboriginal elite controlled the money, and they needed to keep other aboriginees living in poverty to maintain the white guilt and the continuous flow of money to the aboriginal industry.

"It shouldn’t really come as any surprise that the majority of Aboriginal people despise their ATSIC politicians just as much as white Australians despise most of their politicians. The Ngarrindjeri Aboriginees received generous applause from the audience in appreciation of their courage and integrity."

Now it just so happens that all the commercial television channels and mainstream media were there to cover the extraordinary situation where a group of Aborigines supported Ms Hanson's stance on ATSIC.

In case the media had lost their notes a press release was sent out on Friday by Ms Hanson. Here is a short extract from the statements at the preceding press meeting:

"It is reported by Aboriginal Australians that unless you have a family member working at ATSIC, your chances of benefiting from their assistance is next to nothing - ATSIC is a corrupt organisation run by Aboriginal Mafia.

"This is clearly evidenced by the fact that many connected withe ATSIC are driving expensive cars and living with great comfort while the majority of Aboriginal Australians live in squalor.

"It is difficult to determine how much of the billions and billions of dollars in funding for Aboriginal Australians actually reaches them and helps them but some report that less than 20 cents in every dollar is actually spent to the genuine benefit of the Aboriginal community. The rest is chewed up by dubious administration, paid out in questionable fees, misappropriated or simply stolen."

Now just like Helen Dodd's book News Limited, the curse of Australian democracy, looked the other way and simply failed to report on this extraordinary development. They were not alone, being joined by their partners in crime, Channel Nine and Channel Seven - only Channel 10 News covering the most remarkable contradiction of the woman slated as a racist going in to bat against ATSIC and being supported by Aborigines who want equity as well.

In place of the remarkable meeting of minds in Adelaide the press found more relevant material on which to spin their anti-Hanson tales, spin their lies and deceit, continue with their ill-conceived facade.

Now remembering that Dodd's official book "Pauline, the Hanson Phenomenon" has never been referred to by News Limited papers like the Courier Mail, the Sunday Mail (the major Queensland papers) it is ironic that News Limited took this weekend to trumpet the arrival of John Pasquarelli's denigrating book on Pauline Hanson, "The Pauline Hanson story by the Man who Knows". This before it has even been launched.

Extracts covered two full pages in News Limited's Sunday Mail in Queensland with three separate articles under the heading, "The doomsday sentence".

In one the gist is that Pasquarelli got Hanson to take out the sentence "I wouldn't mind if there were more Asians in Australia than Anglo-European Australians as long as they (the Asians) spoke English." from her maiden speech. This one line is dissected and interpreted to prove that Pauline is everything from stupid to racist to a time bomb waiting to blow up.

In another advice is given to John Howard on how to derail the "One Nation juggernaut"... Listen to this classic: "The more Pauline is exposed to public and media scrutiny, the more her intellectual shiortcomings are revealed, making it difficult for even her most ardent supporters to feel really confident."

and in the third article Pauline is referred to as a "Jekyll 'n' Hyde feminist Ms".

Now I know that the Sunday Mail is a trashy paper with the credibility of a used condom but it just goes to underscore how News Limited run a continual campaign on deceit and lies. Ethics in reporting is not part of their repertoir.

As someone who knows Pauline well I would like to answer the comment by Pasquarelli about her intellect. Pauline is not an academic, Pauline is not a student of literature, Pauline is not even politically astute. Pauline is Pauline. But more than that Pauline is an Australian who speaks for millions of other Australians just like her - just like me.

Why should one's intellect or political mouse be the measure of your ability to represent Australians hopes and desires? If that is the measure then God save Australia because those who climb to the top of the political ranks of the Australian Labor Party and the Coalition by proving themselves in these areas have two common failings. Greed and self-interest. I cannot think of one senior politician on either side of mainstream politics who does not carry these undemocratic traits. Traits rooted in the system they have grown up with.

In this system the voter is nothing more than a tool, a tool manipulated by the media who protect the self-interest of the likes of Beazley, Evans and Costello in exchange for their pound of flesh... and woe betide the Pauline Hanson's who would dare upset such a cosy relationship founded in shadowy halls away from prying eyes. (See letter below)

But don't ever expect to see this story told in the mainstream press.

Bill Clinton , Suharto and the IMF.

Extract the Washington Post:

The head of the International Monetary Fund wrote a private letter to Indonesia's President Suharto threatening to cut off bailout money because of a dispute over economic policy, raising the prospect that the international effort to stem Asia's financial crisis could come unglued.

President Clinton called Suharto last night to reinforce the IMF position in the dispute, administration officials said yesterday.

The confrontation between the Indonesian president and his would-be rescuers came as Indonesia's crisis deepened across both economic and political lines. The Indonesian rupiah, which had been climbing, plunged as much as 24 percent against the U.S. dollar. And the country suffered one of the worst outbreaks of violence since the onset of its economic troubles, with thousands of rioters in four towns looting and burning shops in protest over rising food prices.

Below is a transcript of a letter written by Bryan Chapplo of the New Zealand Reserve Bank's Economics Department. The letter clearly reveals how the commercial banks just "create" money and then charge interest on it... who owns our Australian commercial banks? You guessed it - foreigners!

1 September 1994

Dear sir,

Thank you for your letter of 24 August regarding the creation of money.

As you noted banks do create money and credit, adding to broad measures of money supply.

The percentage of the money supply which is created by banks and other financial institutions depends on the particular definition of the money supply used. Notes and coins, the narrowest definition of money, are only issued by the Reserve Bank. Commercial Banks cannot print and issue currency.

However, notes and coins only make up a small proportion of broader measures of money and credit - the majority being created by the banks. A commonly used definition of the broad money supply is M3, which includes currency plus deposits at most financial institutions. In June 1994 M3 was NZ$66 billion. Currency and primary liquidity, issued by the Reserve Bank, were around NZ$2 billion in June. Therefore around 3% of M3 is created by the Reserve Bank (currency and primary liquidity), with the remainder being created by commercial banks.

I hope this answers your queries.   

Public enemy number one is the commercial banks - ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, NAB and Westpac (in no particular order)

Political:

Goodbye, Amen, Farewell and See You All Again in Five Years

As they say in the classics, in the cliche-ridden work of Shakespeare, the tumult and the shouting dies down, the captains and the kings depart.

After Friday, when the last delegates were wheeled out in an alcoholic haze of camaraderie, vowing revenge, Old Parliament House is returning to its quiet sleep. The technicians are "de-rigging" the cameras, the giant screens, the computers, winding up the cables and the networks, stacking furniture, locking up offices, and hauling away some of the tonnes of paperwork.

By Monday morning, the place will have returned to normal. A few tourists, a volunteer guide or two, a security guard on the door and the lady behind the counter of the bookshop. But for me, and I never knew the place when it was still the home of Parliament, it will be forever linked to that grand, glorious, uproarious Constitutional Convention.

I won't kid myself that the republic will die a natural death after being defeated at the referendum. Professor Greg Craven was spot on, I thought, when he predicted the defeat of the Australian Republican Movement's model at a public referendum, and the continuation of uncertainty.

Perhaps the people will learn more about their Constitution in the year-long education campaign leading up to the vote. Perhaps they will understand that the Queen has no real power, that the Governor-General is an Australian resident exercising all the powers of Head of State in his own right. Perhaps Parliament will pass a "Head of State Act" to recognise this. Perhaps the savagery of the attacks against "the Queen of England" will diminish. Perhaps, after the Olympics and the millennium madness, the republicans will knock off, having lost their head of steam for a head of state.

Perhaps, as Tim Fischer said, they will "test it, then rest it".

But I have my doubts. I think that republicans like their fame, their media attention, their words making headlines. I think people like merchant banker Malcolm Turnbull, cosmetic queen Poppy King, or comedian Steve Vizard lap up the publicity and turn it to their own crasser purposes. This is the future of our nation, but such people look on this as a free advertising campaign.

I go along with Professor Greg Craven, who predicted the defeat of this republic at the referendum, followed by several years of constitutional vandalism and uncertainty, before we have another convention which comes out with a workable republic which can obtain the support of the people.

As Ian Sinclair declared the convention closed and the bar open on Friday afternoon, I short-circuited the rush by heading the other way, into the offices of the old Press Gallery, hoping to find a flight of stairs leading out. I went through old studios lined with sound-absorbing foam, past a row of pigeonholes listing publications long dead -- Pravda and Tass caught my eye -- down a corridor past tiny offices where a dozen journalists must have worked, now empty but for piles of rubbish and old furniture.

I found the staircase, went down a flight or two and emerged behind enemy lines, in the very heart of "the secure area" where delegates had been immune from the prying eyes of the media. The door into the Representatives Chamber was just down the hall, and I ducked through, finding myself amongst a herd of emotional monarchists packing up their gear, their papers, their flags and their surgical cushions.

There were tears in their eyes, smiles on their faces and hugs and handshakes all around. They might have lost the vote, but they knew that their cause was right and the people would be behind them.

I'll be back in five years to do it all again, I reckon. There is a fundamental desire for change, even if it has not yet reached the mass of the people. As the Queen becomes older, and ever more linked to the past, the people of Australia, particularly the young people, for whom ancient history means DOS and Jaws I, will want something fresh and clean, a plastic republic that gleams at the edges.

I can understand their desire to rip off the shrink wrap and plug it in, but I can also feel the weight of history pressing down, the system that has kept us a stable democracy for nearly a century. We are now one of the oldest countries in the world, only a few having had a stable government, constitution and peace for more than a few decades.

We need to recognise what has made us that way. It is not the defunct British Empire, nor is it the flashy new commercialism of America. It is the genuine democracy of Australia, the goodwill and the guts, the mateship and the desire for a fair go.

If the Queen and all of the Royal Family died in a plane crash tomorrow, or the republicans got their wishes, nothing would change for the everyday Australian. We would still vote in those who spoke their mind and stood up for the people, and we would still vote out those who pulled the wool over our eyes as they dipped their snouts in the trough.

So long as the press reports Parliament with any accuracy, and so long as the people observe their politicians with open eyes, we will be a stable and happy democracy.

I will always remember my time in the Press Gallery at Old Parliament House with affection. And I will always be mindful of my duty as a journalist to report events as I see them. I am only one out of many, but if my words can spark a discussion over a beer, or a desire for someone to go out and read the Constitution or write a pointed letter to a politician, then I will be happy.

I thank you all for your attention and for the opportunity to observe and report back our country's history in the making.

You say:

The Melbourne Club and big business

Dear Sir,

Although Holly and I support your efforts in spirit, we have our own campaign in progress which is taking all of our spare resources; so we cannot help you except to encourage you. I have been in this fight a lot longer than you have and fought the real movers and shakers across half a planet and for over 38 years now.

I have attended by the invitations of Sir John Williams (Adelaide Steamship and Salvage) and Sir Henry Sommerset (a CSIRO chancellor) the Melbourne Club in Collins Street. I have dined there and sipped ports and smoked cigars with many of the old cotton-topped knights who are the Australian members of the "Round Table" (RIIA). There I have discussed technologies and financial and political strategies which are so far beyond the average man in the street that to even seriously ask him to believe them would be futile - much less to ask him to help defeat their control.

I have dealt with representatives of Dutch Shell Oil in North Melbourne in the old days.... I have rung Billy Sneddon at home to give him instructions regarding meetings with us and Dutch Shell Oil in a room behind Sir Robert Menzies' home in Melbourne at the time....

I would probably still be there where I was promised that I would be "properly assimilated into business and social life in Melbourne" by Sir John and Sir Henry.... IF I had followed the party line and had kept their secrets. We parted ways in 1973... I knew they were under siege by a more powerful group than their own.

Then, something happened to their powerhold in 1973-74. They were defeated by a group that was bigger and tougher on a planetary scale. I do not know if you are really aware of what you are up against. It is not simply the political leaders. It is not simply the Murdochs or the Packers. It is something with real, incredible, tangible power and the technical knowledge and the will to use it against the human race to achieve its goal.

I wish it were as simple as electing good people to office; but it is not - as you must already realise. Knowing how the old Round Table used to play both sides of the fence, I am not even certain that there could ever be a truly independent political leadership in the world as long as they have power. I saw them manipulate major political parties, business groups, think tanks and political movements from the inside.

I suppose I am trying to wish you well... as well as those who help you in good faith. I know you must be feeling somewhat frustrated at times. Just try to stand by your guns as long as you can.... Things are coming to a head very rapidly on a global basis; so there is hope down the road a few kms.... So, for what is worth, here is:

a pat on the back from,

Stan and Holly Deyo

Subject: Re "persons"?

I was interested in Antonia's comments (13/2/98). I think you have a grasp of the situation as regards titles. Bradman was certainly a sportsman, not only for the fact that he played cricket, but THE WAY he played it and THE WAY he lived his life. But he, like so many others were and are much more than that. People such as Bradman, Norman, Kingsford-Smith, Julius Chan, Mary Durack, Barton, Kirsty Marshall, Ken Warby, Andy Thomas and the list goes on and on. These people are more than sportsmen and sportswomen, scientists, politicians etc. (notice I put politicians last?). These are the people that legends are made of. Their deeds should be taught in our schools. There should be songs about them. They and many others deserve and should be given another title. Hero of our nation.

Jason

Subject: Quality of Truth

Sir,

To give you some example of the quality of truth. It takes me between 5 and 10 minutes to read your "news of the Day". It takes about 5 minutes for me to read the Sunday Mail; most of that time spent trying to see if any "meaningful" letter to the editor got past the censor.

Philip Madsen.

GWB GOES COMMERCIAL

Oh, woe is me, woe is me.
GWB has gone commercial.

I can understand the need to charge for services when an organisation has grown beyond its capacity to provide a "free" service but that does not alleviate my sadness.

As a poor student, I rely on the internet and in particular, GWB, to provide me with research material that, for politically correct reasons, is not available elsewhere, (University libraries).

What am I to do now? As I see it, I have three options:
1. Don't research my assignments and risk failure
2. Proclaim that I am of Aboriginal descent to get more money from the Government
3. Cut my meals from 8 per week to 6 so I can pay the GWB fees.

Oh, woe is me, oh woe is me
Jason

Increasing costs have forced us to take this measure.

The current news of the day will remain free. The extensive archive will be restricted to subscribers only. I believe that it offers excellent value for just US$10 per month.

We hope to work together with other independent on-line newspapers in the near future providing subscribers with a rich mix of alternative news.

To achieve this we need to raise revenue...

Editor

Personal trivia, from the global office:

Another perfect day in paradise.

Last night my wife and I enjoyed a quite Valentine's dinner at College's Crossing.

One of our regular contributors to the letters, Barry Sampson Searle, produces a monthly community newsletter, The Bulletin, which my wife found is best read in the dark.... Sorry Barry could not resist that one...

Have a good one.

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