Recent stories exclusive to (how to) subscribe/rs of the Australian National News of the Day:
Just me and
Pauline - 5th May
One Nation breakfast
- 4th May
Just who are the
Mont Pelerin
Society - 3rd May
The Internet and
the DEATH of the MAI - 30th April
Launch of Pauline
Hanson's re-election campaign - 29th April
Second One Nation
protest surprises Bob McMullan - 28th April
Sultan
of Brunei buys up big tracks of Australia - then negotiates Indonesian
"settlements" 25th April
Maritime
Union of Australia win in the Federal Court 22nd April
Just
who is behind the dock war? 19th April
One
Nation Birthday Party on Pauline Hanson's farm 10th-12th April
One
Nation state and federal candidates meet in Toowoomba 4th -5th
April
Current topical links (available to all readers):
[Links to the MAI]
[Queensland
One Nation State Election website]
[One Nation Federal Web
Site]
Archive of weekly features (available to all
readers):
[The
Canberra Column]
[Economic
Rationalism]
Today's
Headlines
an Aussie's viewpoint on Australia's
first daily Internet newspaper.
Since
October 1995
So much for independent journalism.
The "intellectual prostitutes" of Murdoch's media empire are hard at work again. Today's Courier Mail goes one better than its report yesterday by that anti-Hanson bigot, Sweetman, a freelance journalist with about as much credibility as a masked toad at a Spring Fair.
Today Murdoch's mouthpiece carries an editorial slamming the Liberal Party for putting One Nation above the Labor Party on its How to Vote card in the upcoming state election.
Here are some quotes from the article:
"For One Nation to hold or share the balance of power in a Queensland Parliament would be a victory for short-sighted and crude populism and an indictment of the major parties for allowing such a profound increase in public cynicism and disconnection with mainstream politics. This week’s announcement by the Queensland Liberals that One Nation will receive preferences ahead of Labor will feed this disconnection. It is just the kind of political pragmatism over principle that drives voters to disillusionment."
Like the comment below from an earlier Courier Mail editorial the emphasis of the editorial is that somehow "populism" is bad. Now what is "populism"? Quite simply what it states - it is the popular view of the majority - not the dictates of the elitist minority who currently manipulate the politics of this country.
How can it be bad in a supposedly democratic country like Australia for the people to decide what is right?
What is blatantly bad is the biased reporting of these intellectual prostitutes who are not allowed to think for themselves but who perpetrate their bile on the Queensland voters in a clear attempt to manipulate the politics of the state.
"The danger for the Liberals is that such hard-headed pragmatism will spark a backlash in metropolitan Queensland and other urban parts of Australia. Already, the Queensland decision is causing angst for Steven Huang, the party’s Taiwanese born candidate for the Southern seat of Sunnybank, who pledged in some material directed at his own ethnic community to put One Nation last. Senior Liberal Minister Santo Santoro is using the large number of “ethnic” candidates running for his party as a selling point in the election campaign."
Of course in a scenario where reporting ethics are not in consideration and the gloves are off, the editorial, like Sweetman's trashy article yesterday brings in the race card.
What should not be lost on Australians is that the Murdoch media have been instrumental in painting Pauline Hanson as a racist - a statement which is so completely incorrect, so distorted, so idiotic in its thinking that one can only conclude that News Limited are desperate to maintain the status quo.
The question that needs to be asked is why... the answer is quite simple. The mainstream media effectively "own" Australia because the major political parties have got about as much intestinal fortitude as that masked toad I was talking about earlier.
Comments from The Courier Mail editorial in August last year:
"Now Liberals are gathering support to force a decision on the party. At issue is how the major parties will treat Ms Hanson, and her One Nation candidates, at the next federal election. The Liberal, National, Labor and Australian Democrat leadership agree her crude mix of populism and simplistic opportunism can do real harm to Australia if she is taken too seriously by our regional neighbours. The fear is that her rhetoric will lead a loss of economic jobs and the consensus is she should not be re-elected."
Tourism Task Force (TTF) threatens Nationals
Last year the Gold Coast tourism commission blamed Pauline Hanson for a drop in Asian tourism... while it was actually rising and now we have the loony left forces in the TTF threatening the National Party if they decide to put One Nation ahead of the Labor Party in the state elections.
What the hell happened to democracy in this country?
Yesterday the TTF wrote to the leaders of the major political parties demanding that they put Pauline Hanson's One Nation last on their How to Vote cards... yes, that's right, DEMANDED... and do you know who Chris Brown is? Surprise, surprise the son of former ALP tourism minister John Brown... now I would never have guessed!
Executive director Christopher Brown wrote that over 100 investors in tourism (largely Asian owned) could take "further action" which included financially supporting candidates who put One Nation last.
Brown is the sort of fellow who has sold his soul to the Asian investors in the tourism industry. He does not represent the best interests of Australians - but his move guarantees him a prominent position in today's Courier Mail and it goes without saying that his TTF office will be faxing the article to the Asian investors in Queensland's tourism industry - perpetuating the "racist myth" for a few browny points he might get in the right circles.
Looming Land Use Controls
Extract from this week's article by Graham Strachan on "Economic Rationalism":
Only a fool believes that the waterfront dispute is the straightforward issue presented by the media, and that there are not vested interests acting behind the scenes with ulterior motives concerning control of the nation’s wharves. The same must be said now for the sudden obsession by the media with the preciousness of water, including concern for the country’s rivers.
This is not to deny there are problems with the rivers. There are, and there have been for some time. After all, the original excuse given by John Howard for having to sell a third of Telstra was to clean up the Murray-Darling system. That was before the election. Once in power something happened to that idea. But why the sudden revival of interest now?
The Maritime Union of Australia return to work
Following their court victory on Monday the MUA workers returned to work today. Only the security guards and dogs on the docks stand in the way of the workers. MUA leader John Coombs making it clear that his men won't go back while the security are there.
The reputation of Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith is now on the rocks and the complicity of John Howard's government with Patrick Stevedores could have a major impact at the next Federal election.
On the aftermath of the wharfside war Coombs said, "If there are surpluses they'll be dealt with accordingly... and we'll deal with the productivity questions to make the companies viable again."
In a statement by the administrators of the Patrick Employment companies, Grant Thornton, Peter Brook and Bill Butterfield warned "Accordingly, there is a lot of work ahead of us to get the parties to form a workable deed of arrangement. Whether or not this comes about is dependent on the goodwill of the parties and their propensity to compromise.
"We can only try to get the parties to agree. It is not up to us to resolve the issues."
In the meantime things do not look good for the men and women contracted to Patrick by the National Farmers Federation as a replacement for the sacked MUA workers.
The Net and the MAI:
Extract from the article by the Gazette:
The story of how the MAI died is an instructive lesson about democracy in the Internet age. The Multilateral Agreement on Investment was supposed to become the world's first set of comprehensive rules on how foreign investment should be treated by national governments. The idea remains a sound one - that the world needs a rules-based system for investment, just as it has rules about trade.
But the MAI, negotiated in Paris among the 29 nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, was killed by a rag-tag coalition of citizens' groups, labour unions, environmental activists and the like who spread their wildest fears about the secret negotiations on the Internet.
The jungle telegraph was so effective that trade ministers finally blinked and walked away from the table.
Indonesia Warns Protesting Students
Extract from the Washington Post:
JAKARTA, Indonesia, May 4—Indonesia's top military commander warned today that soldiers will crack down on students who move their demonstrations to the streets, and the government announced an increase in fuel, electricity and transportation prices that is likely to aggravate social unrest.
"There is proof that if students go out of the campus, the protests become uncontrollable," Gen. Wiranto, the defence minister and chief of the armed forces, was quoted as saying after a meeting with President Suharto. "Therefore, I have ordered the military to take stern action against activities that are clearly moving toward anarchy, like in Medan."
Medan, on the island of Sumatra, has been the scene of violent protests against the Suharto government for the past two weeks. University officials closed two campuses after students repeatedly clashed with security forces. Protesters have hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at military police, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. A small riot erupted Saturday.
The demonstrations, which began across the country two months ago, are the most widespread and enduring since Suharto came to power 32 years ago. The collapse of the currency, the rupiah, last summer led to an economic crisis that has laid bare the corruption and nepotism that were tolerated as long as the standard of living was rising. Recent hardships have aggravated seething frustration over Suharto's authoritarian rule in a country whose 200 million people have virtually no representation in government.
The students have been demanding economic and political reforms, but their protests so far have failed to attract significant numbers outside the universities. Analysts say the price increases, which go into effect Tuesday, could tip the balance.
Making the
news" -
Subject: hello !
I just can not imagine how a person with common sense can support Pauline Hanson, who could not even keep her family together (let alone the Nation).
If she becomes the Prime minister of Australia, this country will be the laughing stock of the world. Just think, can you imagine a fish and chippy becoming The President of USA.
Even in countries like India or Nigeria (considered to be illitterate) a person like Pauline with below average intelligence and no eloquence (evident from all her interviews with media) will never even see the Parliament house.
Please don't make Australia the Laughing Stock Of The World !!
Please publish this note on your site for the benefit of others.
Joe
Joe,
You obviously do not understand the plight that Australia is in because of the mainstream political parties dalliances with internationalists and the mainstream media. I am not about to give you a history lesson... you can go find out for yourself.
Editor
The Net and the MAI
Dear Sir:
The editorial published in the Gazette about the Multilateral Agreement on Investment on MAY 1 contains some misleading statements and inaccurate inferences which I think it would be honest to correct.
1. The MAI was not killed by "a rag-tag coalition of citizens' groups, labor unions, environmental activists". but by a widening group of very ordinary citizens, concerned by the lack of answerability to their electorate by Cabinet Minsters, their technical researchers their linguists and their negotiators in the process of "defining rules for international investment"
2. We, the group of citizens in question did not "spread (our) wildest fears about the secret negotiations". We proceeded to a systematic analysis of the drafts leaked in February and May of 1997. These drafts were not, as you pretend, "published by the OECD". The first official publication of a draft text by the OECD is dated October 1997.
These analyses and the publication of full texts of the draft ahead of the OECD's "public" version, led to discussions among people of high calibre, university professors, specialised in economics and trade and commerce among them, and also, ordinary citizens without specialty. This process led also to calls to Members of Parliament, Cabinet Ministers in Canada and their equivalents in other countries (USA, New Zealand, Australia, France, Germany, etc..). This led to force the OECD to publish an official draft. This forced the government of Canada to open public hearings in Parliament which were held in November 1997.
If the groups of citizens and learned critics of the MAI had not worked to open up the process to the public and to render some life to real democracy, you can be sure that no draft oft he MAI would have been published.
When you qualify the civic action which took place, partly on the Internet as a "jungle telegraph", you are definitely insulting to the people who did work and devoted considerable energy to alert the public of their countries to the negotiations and to the fact that these negotiations were (1) going against the common good of citizens, and (2) probably not within the constitutional mandates of governments (at least in Canada).
When you attribute the demise of the MAI, or at least its shelving to us "rag-tag" groups, you seem to conveniently ignore that there were other reasons, perhaps more crucial to that demise. For example the USA, whose delegation and their backers from the US Council on International Business saw that the simple idea they had started with in 1995 had been overloaded with requests for exceptions from all countries (including themselves). France, Canada et al. were asking for exceptions to the cultural aspects of trade. France was taking exception to restrictive laws in the USA such as the Helms-Burton law re: trade with Cuba, etc... Therefore, the Ministers "walked away from the table" because the deal was no more to their liking. Period.
The rest of your editorial is really a distortion of reality, and some very particular interpretations of democracy. I have already addressed the issue of secrecy: The OECD published a draft text of the MAI only when it could not keep silent any longer. You argue for secrecy in international negotiations. This, in my opinion is absolutely contrary to the spirit of democracy and transparency. If things are negotiated in secret, it means that the object of the negotiations are potentially harmful to the common good of the citizens. The citizens have a right to know what harm is being concocted. We are citizens, not stupid slaves.
The opposition to the MAI was not just a return to national sovereignty. Actually national sovereignty came distant second or third to a respect of their duties to their constituents by Cabinet Ministers and other parties in Parliament and government and to fairness between parties involved in investment. Your snappy phrase that perhaps a little less sovereignty would not be such a bad thing ignores that with the MAI, sovereignty was and still is being transferred to international financiers and traders. In what would these persons act better to the common good than abusive national governments remains to be seen. What is their track record on the subject?
Your judgement that the "MAI fears have been wildly overblown is based on very little evidence and actually a distorted interpretation of the MAI drafts. Have anyone at the Gazette read the drafts in question? Your comparison with NAFTA does not stand water. NAFTA does not bind its signatories for five plus fifteen years. You can get out of it in six months.. NAFTA does not define investment as widely as the MAI would. NAFTA does not open the settlement of conflicts to an international tribunal, beyond and above national legislation. It may be true that very few companies have lodged complaints through NAFTA. But what happened to the jobs of Canadians, What happened to our country with NAFTA? Have your examined the statistics? When you say: "Still, there were some legitimate concerns about MAI over culture, the environment and social programs. These should be addressed by negotiators when talks resume, either at the OECD or through the World Trade Organisation.", do you think the negotiators would have addressed these issues if the groups of citizens, on the Internet and in public meetings and through books published on the subject had not drawn the attention of the public to the issues? or father to their absence of treatment in the initial drafts?
Finally when you set the issue as an either the MAI or protectionism, I would argue, with all due respect, that the process is not absolutely honest. This is not the alternative. The alternative is between the unfair establishment of a preference to international investors anywhere over local and national equivalents, all that in the illusory and false pretence of setting up an "even playing ground", and the establishment of rules for international investment with the common good as main concern, including a reasonable profit for investors.
I can document all the points made in this response to you. My last question will be: Have you ever given some thought to the fact that all this movement toward economic growth through investment geared to short term profit does not necessarily take into consideration the probability that our species has already, by its sheer numbers, increasing consumption, etc.., exceeded the limits of resilience of the ecosystem in which we live and upon which we depend for continuation? Have you examined with any attention the extent to which the objective of economic growth as practised now and advocated in your columns is compatible with life in a "full" world, where there is no "new frontier" anywhere?
National Centre for Sustainability,
Canada
Another perfect day in paradise.
Have a good one.
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