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Political Bribery
In a blatant act of political bribery the Chinese community has switched into election mode, warning that any party supporting One Nation will lose hundreds of thousands of ethnic dollars and votes.
At the snap of their fingers, Chinese political leaders can fill up to 700 banquet seats and charge $1000 a head for a ticket to lunch.
In the past five years, the Chinese, along with Arab communities, have displaced more traditional migrant groups, such as the Italians and Greeks, as the key ethnic political fundraisers.
"Ten years ago I threw a $1000-a-head function," says Hong Kong-born NSW Liberal MLC Helen Sham-Ho, offering just one indication of her clout.
"I could pull it off again for Philip Ruddock, because the Chinese community likes him; but not for John Howard, because he's not personally close to the community."
Chinese-Australians are now uniting nationwide to punish parties and politicians that might direct preferences to Pauline Hanson. Their reason is simple - she wants to stop the mass migration of illegal Asian immigrants into Australia.
Sydney's Deputy Lord Mayor, Labor supporter Councillor Henry Tsang, is understood to be seeking a commitment from all Australian Chinese leaders to "withdraw moral, economic and political contributions" from any party that gives preferences to One Nation.
Ms Sham-Ho, one of only three overseas-born ethnic Chinese politicians in Australia, is regarded as one of the most powerful fundraisers for the NSW Liberal Party.
On average, the Chinese community contributes more than $50,000 a year to the NSW Liberal Party, according to Ms Sham-Ho's estimates. In March alone, she raised $60,000 from a banquet celebrating her 10th year in Parliament. An extra $50,000 was raised by Ms Sham-Ho for the 1996 federal Liberal election campaign.
As the prospect of a federal election based on race draws closer, Ms Sham-Ho is planning a $1000-a-head lunch for Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock in July. But even she will struggle to win support for the Liberals as long as the Prime Minister fails to rule out directing preferences to One Nation over the Labor Party.
Chair of the Chinese-Australian Services Society, Henry Pan, warned that despite Ms Sham-Ho's visibility, the Liberals are losing Chinese support.
"Before the last federal election, Chinese people perhaps supported Labor over Liberal in general," Mr Pan said. "At the last election, we saw that reverse. But in the present climate, even Helen Sham-Ho would have trouble convincing the Chinese community to vote Liberal."
Chinese business and community leaders explain that, traditionally, the Chinese will "sit on the fence", delivering funding dollars to the political party that best meets their needs.
The National Party in Queensland has already lost Chinese support in that State, where publicly disclosed electoral funding checks reveal donors of Chinese ethnicity contributed more than $7000 to the Queensland Liberal Party and about $12,256 to the Labor Party in 1997.
Now we are only talking tens of thousands of dollars swaying the yellow bellies of the Liberal party... so what about the Au$4.65 million donation to the Liberals that fell out of a multinational tree. When are we going to learn where it originated from?
An alternative to the MAI
The MAI misses one key aspect - the democratic involvement of people in favour of the greed of multinationals. This link takes you to a socially correct alternative to the MAI.
Here are some of the new charter's key points:
Article(1) A world where the people are first would provide basic health care for every living person on the face of the planet regardless of race or social status. Where there are systems in place that prohibit this, these systems would be rolled back.
Article(2) A world where the people are first would provide basic education for every young person on the face of the globe within their culture and world view. We view movements by corporations and wealthy elites to take over public education as creeping expropriation of our lives.
Article(3) A world where the work of women in the home and society would be recognised and therefore funded on the same basis as other workers in society.
Article(4) A world where there would be adequate fresh water for health and family needs.
Article(5) A world where there would be adequate food and shelter for all human beings so that they may live decent human lives.
Where is Paul Keating now?
Who will ever forget and who can ever forgive that slime bag, Paul Keating, who once exposing Australia to the foreign wolves set up base with the most corrupt empire in the region, Suharto's. Keating famous for his foul tongue, quick wit and total lack of morals is the primary reason Australia is now largely owned by foreign multinationals.
This Labor Party icon represents the new face of politics in Australia. I wonder where he is now, now that his gravytrain has disappeared into total chaos as can be seen from the articles below.
I predict that we will suddenly have the thoughts of Keating appearing on our television screens during the next few months as this new tool of the internationalists joins the pay of the media barons in trying to ridicule Pauline Hanson's One Nation.
So when he does appear, and I am sure he will, ask yourself this question... When has Keating ever done anything in the interests of others? Think on all those Mum and Dad Australians left behind in a country being torn apart... as you can see from the article below.
The Australian government is organising a massive airlift this weekend to get Australians out of Indonesia.
Extract from Washingtom Post article "Indonesians Tally Victims, Await Suharto's Next Move:
JAKARTA, Indonesia, May 15—As heavily armed troops backed by tanks and armoured vehicles patrolled the debris-strewn streets of this ravaged capital today, Indonesians tallied the victims of Thursday's violent outburst -- and anticipated the next act in the political drama being played out in the cloistered confines of the presidential residence.
With the death toll from Thursday's rioting now more than 200 and rising -- and with foreign embassies, including the United States, arranging charter flights to evacuate their nationals from this shocked and devastated city -- President Suharto remained closeted with his advisers, giving no hint of how he intended to respond to the mounting calls for his resignation, including one from a breakaway faction of his own party.
While many observing this cryptic shadow play remained convinced that Suharto's 32-year regime is nearing its end, few here offered specific scenarios for how the finale -- if it is near -- might come about.
"You still don't know what he's thinking, because he hasn't said anything," a Western diplomat said. "The people who are going to decide aren't talking about what they're going to do. It's going to remain a closed book for a while."
In an act intended to mollify a public angry and frustrated over a deteriorating economic situation, the government announced it is revoking hefty price increases on fuel and electricity imposed 10 days ago. Those price hikes, coming atop the hardship already being felt here since the economy collapsed last year, prompted a series of sometimes violent riots and added fuel to the demands of university students who have been staging near-daily protests calling for Suharto's resignation and reform of Indonesia's closed and corrupt political system.
Why is this not racism?
Burning tires and bonfires set by looters disappeared from the streets of Jakarta's Chinatown district today, replaced by more blockades thrown up by the Chinese who were burned out of their homes and businesses.
In an effort to keep out a potential second wave of marauding looters, young Chinese men sealed off alleys leading to their homes off the main street. They used scorched chairs and other damaged furniture, small uprooted trees and pieces salvaged from their burned businesses.
"We will fight with them because we defend our rights," said Ricky, an angry 28-year-old, as he stood behind a barricade with a dozen others. He was talking about non-Chinese Indonesians. Ricky leaned on a blue aluminium baseball bat while the men beside him rolled metal pipes in their hands and surveyed the street.
Chinatown resembled a war zone a day after thousands of people rampaged through Jakarta. The street was littered with burned-out vehicles, broken glass and ash. Frightened people peered out through smashed windows in apartments above their shops. A huge plume of black smoke rose from a torched mall. Straggling looters were still running out of smouldering buildings as soldiers fired warning shots in the air.
As in past periods of economic and political turmoil, the Chinese, who comprise about 3 percent of Indonesia's population, were particularly hard-hit in the rioting.
Indonesians resent the ethnic Chinese because they control a majority of the country's wealth and trade, and accuse them of hoarding and indiscriminately raising prices in the midst of rampant inflation.
"They hate us," Ricky said.
But many of the Chinese who lost their homes and businesses in the rioting are as poor as the looters who smashed through their windows and set fire to their neighbourhoods. They also have suffered from the economic crisis and its resulting high prices and unemployment.
Ricky, for example, lost his marketing job two months ago -- one of the 8 million-plus Indonesians and ethnic Chinese who have become unemployed since the crisis erupted last summer after the fall of the Indonesian currency, the rupiah.
The exchange rate was further destabilised after Chinese conglomerates and other businesses moved their money into overseas bank accounts shortly after the crisis hit.
But the idea that all Chinese are wealthy is an illusion. Most of the hundreds of shops destroyed in Chinatown were mom-and-pop businesses, and many of the owners couldn't afford plane tickets to Singapore, Australia and other countries, like the thousands who flocked to Jakarta's international airport today.
Still fresh in the minds of many Chinese are the massacres of tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Communists and suspected sympathisers during the late 1960s, when President Suharto rose to power. The looters refrained from personal violence in Thursday's mayhem, but their seething anger is palpable.
Despite the fear in Chinatown, many people, like Frankie Hakim, 48, have chosen to stay. He estimated the damage to his small restaurant at about $10,000.
"We cannot move to other countries because we know that we are born here, and we have grown up here," said Hakim as his workers swept up the rubble around him. "We are Indonesian, too."
What you will not read about in the Australian media is the blatant racist activity of the Indonesian rioters... the people whose politicians trashed Pauline Hanson as racist when buoyed along by the corrupt mainstream media and parties in Australia.
A message that was then translated as Hanson "doing damage to Australia's relationship with Asia".
Making the
news" -
Starting
from today we will carry a daily "gibbleguts cartoon for light
entertainment...
Subject: Party Names
Antonia Feitz always writes good letters, but she fouled up this time; failing to see that Australia IS down under, and that's upside down and back to front isn't it? Or was that the Antipodes part of the gag I missed?
Philip Madsen
GST: The tax the IMF say we have to have. 16 May 1998
Dear Sir,
The push for a GST is back on the agenda again, John Howard is being a true politician by not letting the truth be known about taxation and avoidance.
The facts are, that in 1979 Australian manufacturing and farming was not only providing full employment for the people of Australia, but tax was being paid on 90% of goods sold in our country! The significance of 1979 is that the Senate held an inquiry into our future recession under the secrecy of a "D" notice, while at the same time, then Treasurer John Howard launched the recession with the Campbell inquiry which set the scene for the future 1983 de-regulation of the economy with our resultant problems.
Now in 1998, 90% of goods are produced offshore by foreign companies who pay absolutely no tax in Australia, the Liberal/Labor team have destroyed our manufacturing/farming tax base for little more than the very dubious cause of World Government.
Another fact is that since 1953, Australia has been allowing foreign companies to avoid taxation, despite strong warnings the government enacted the treacherous International Taxation Bill into law; commonly known as the Double Taxation Bill, it allows the repatriation of profits without the burden of having to pay tax in Australia. Current annual revenue loss is estimated at $20B.
Another fact that should come at no surprise is that the GST is not a government concept, it actually comes as a "suggestion" from the International Monetary Fund. One of the functions of the IMF is to enforce economic austerity on behalf of the United Nations, in the early 90's the IMF issued a guide on how to "sell" a GST to the public, entitled "Value Added Tax: Administrative and Policy Issues", it was produced by Alan Tait of the IMF fiscal affairs division. John Hewson and Peter Reith were initially given copies of the study which espouses the "revenue potential" of a GST!
Mr Howard knows that a GST is just another step in the "globalisation" or sellout of our country in preparation for World Government.
Noel Mc Donald
Geelong
Biblio
Subject: Blame yourself.
We have no one to blame for bad government but ourselves.
Rep. Sonny Bono, who died in a skiing accident, once told a good story about how he got into politics. He owned a restaurant, and a city bureaucrat was giving him fits about a sign.
After Bono had jumped through all the hoops, the bureaucrat still wouldn't approve the sign and told Bono, "There's nothing you can do about it".
Bono replied, "Oh, yes, there is. I can get elected mayor and fire you." And he did!
More Americans (and Aussies) ought to follow his example. Many seem to have forgotten that the government belongs to them and that elected officials and bureaucrats are their servants, not their masters. Many Americans seem not to realise that any law can be repealed, any bureaucracy abolished. They seem unaware that Congress can impeach federal judges, limit the jurisdiction of federal courts and, if it chooses, reduce the number of Supreme Court justices to three.
The status quo is not set in concrete. Americans just have to remember that the point of the American Revolution was that sovereignty and rights reside with the people, not with the government. The Declaration of Independence is the philosophical statement of the revolution. Its basic premise is that the only legitimate purpose of government is to protect the God given rights of the people and that we can, and have the duty to, alter or abolish any government that becomes abusive of those rights.
Alas, Americans(and Aussies) have this great power, but too many are just too busy to use it. They have left government to office seekers, those people who, in the words of P. J. O'Rourke, "achieve fame and power without merit". The truth of his observation is in the resumes of most officeholders. A large number of them are devoid of any achievement other than winning a popularity contest,
Some Americans seem to think that government doesn't matter as long as they have a job and a television and can make their credit card payments. Of course it's bad government that allows the credit card companies to charge rates that would be called usury if a gangster charged them. It's bad government that has cost millions of Americans their jobs by encouraging corporations to move jobs to cheap labor countries. It is bad government that has inflated the currency, burdening you and your posterity with a $5 trillion debt. It's bad government that sells your foreign policy to the highest bidder, putting Americans in jeopardy. It's bad government that takes nearly 40 percent of your income and delivers far fewer services in return than most European governments.
It's only a slight exaggeration to say that bad government has given the American people socialism but without the benefits of socialism. We get the high taxes, the restrictions on our liberties the elephantine bureaucracies but virtually no economic security. An American who loses his job is in far more economic peril than a European who loses his job.
Economic risks would be acceptable if we, in fact, had a free economy and a free society, but we have neither. A Basque friend once remarked it was easier to start a business under Spanish dictator Francisco Franco than in America. Under the guise of political correctness, free speech is more in danger than ever before.
But all of these bad things are happening to us by default. There is no army or secret police forcing bad government on us. We are doing it to ourselves. Too many Americans have grown timid.
Sure, if you question affirmative action(ATSIC), someone will call you a racist. If you question aid to Israel the Israel lobby will call you anti Semitic. If you stand up for Christian morality, someone will call you a bigot. That's how those enjoying the privileges of the status quo avoid legitimate debate. As the song says, though, if you ain't brave, you ain't gonna stay free.
Charley Reese, Orlando(Florida - USA) Sentinel
Subject: SUBMISSION ON NAFTA & WATER EXPORTS
The recent revelation that several businesses have applied to export Canadian water has rekindled a debate that started five years ago as to whether NAFTA puts our freshwater supplies at risk. The Nova Group of Sault Ste. Marie has received a five-year permit from the Ontario government to draw up to 10 million litres of water a day from Lake Superior for export to Asia and the McCurdy Group of Companies of Gander has applied to export about 52 billion litres of water a year from Gisbourne Lake in southern Newfoundland. The government of Newfoundland has given the project the good housekeeping seal of approval, citing badly need jobs. All that remains is an environmental review. Says an official with the Department of Environment and Labour, "We're not worried about it at all. We're treating water as any other resource." Unless federal government action is taken very soon, it is almost certain that Canada will be exporting water within the year.
There is grave cause for concern. Chapter 3 of NAFTA establishes obligations regarding the trade in goods. It uses the GATT definition of a "good" which clearly lists, "waters, including natural or artificial waters and aerated waters" and adds in an explanatory note that "ordinary natural water of all kinds (other than sea water)" is included. When the deal was being negotiated, NAFTA opponents pointed this out and asked the government to specifically exempt the trade in water from the deal. The government argued that under Canadian domestic law, NAFTA does not apply to the trade in water. This is correct. But domestic law does not bind NAFTA panels. In fact, the U.S. spelled out its clear position at the time. Mickey Kantor, then U.S. Trade Representative, said "when water is traded as a good, all provisions of the agreement governing trade in goods apply."
"Thus," explains respected trade lawyer, Barry Appleton, "in the American view, NAFTA's obligations on water will commence whenever water is traded as a good. This view appears to be an accurate reading of the terms of NAFTA. When water is not traded as a good, it would not be subject to the terms of NAFTA chapter 3. While water is covered as a good, the NAFTA trade obligations will not apply until water is traded."(Italics mine.)
In other words, the question is moot until some government in Canada grants a permit to export water. What happens then is that the "National Treatment" provision of NAFTA kicks in. This provision provides for "non-discrimination" in the commercial use of our water to investors in all NAFTA partner countries. Private American and Mexican companies would then have the same right of establishment to the commercial use of Canadian waters as Canadians. If Canadian companies export our water, American transnationals could help themselves to as much as they like. We can only start to imagine the free-for-all that will take place over the next thirsty century.
Now, here's the kicker: If the federal government bans the export of Canadian water, as it is being urged to do (in fact, the Ontario company has offered to withdraw its request if the government will introduce this law), by that very act it names water as a commercial tradeable commodity, triggering NAFTA. American "investors" would be granted NAFTA rights in the very law that excludes them, and under chapter 11 - the provision that gives companies the right to sue governments for lost future profit - they could claim for financial compensation. This is because there was no such ban when NAFTA was signed. Any new law any government introduces under chapter 11 is vulnerable to challenge. Similar compensation would not be available to Canadian investors.
Under NAFTA, the only way the Canadian government could protect water would be to invoke the GATT exceptions provided for natural resources but that would be subject to the NAFTA "proportional sharing" clause whereby Canada would have obligations to continue to supply water to NAFTA partners. It would also ban preferential domestic pricing for Canadian water.
The minister responsible, Lloyd Axworthy, who fought NAFTA with passion and expertise, knows all this. To buy himself some time, he sent the Ontario export request to the Great Lakes Commission, a group with no legal jurisdiction, for a recommendation for action. But the eagerness of the government of Newfoundland to commercialise and export its water has changed the whole situation. The federal government must act now to protect Canadian water. But it cannot do so while still under NAFTA obligation. What is more important to Canada - these trade obligations, or our water?
Maude Barlow
Maude Barlow is the National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians and the author, with Tony Clarke, of MAI and the Threat to Canadian Sovereignty.
Subject: Petition to Howard.
Mr Howard,
As an Australian and a scientist, I find the destructive, socially devisive policies of the Howard/Coalition government intolerable.
Rest assured, John Howard, the thinking people of this nation are fed up with your outdated and faulty methodologies. Your "Economic Rationalism" is equal only in its stupidity to Keating's infamous "J-Curve".
History shows that the greater the discrepancy between haves and have nots, the greater is the likelihood of social disruption.
The recent events in Indonesia provide a clear warning of the results of your style of thinking!
For the sake of your own political survival, (We know you don't give a damn about the welfare of the people of Australia, your policies clearly show that....) change your approach!
If you insist on dividing the community, creating unemployment and poverty and ignoring the voting power of the 30% of unemployed youth of this nation, you and your party will end like the dinosaurs, buried and irrelevant.
Your deliberate manipulation of the position of political parties on the ballot is something I would only expect from jackbooted totalitarian regimes, not a supposed democracy like Australia.
Whether you or your sycophants agree or disagree with the policies of any party or parties is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT. Your actions are tantamount to vote rigging of the most criminal kind!!!!
I am sure your "minders" are only too aware of the value of "tub thumping". I am disgusted to see tactics such as the Liberal Party is using becoming part of Australian politics.
I intend doing all that is legal to ensure your removal from office, and will lobby with all my ability to add to the growing anti-Liberal sentiment that is growing in this nation.
James A Donaldson B.Sc (Env. Sc.)
Another perfect day in paradise.
On the right is a picture of Peter James (left), Pauline Hanson's One Nation
new state director for Queensland. The picture was taken last Wednesday,
13th May 1998, at the Ipswich One Nation branch meeting at which his appointment
was announced.
To his right are branch president Darryl Kelly and branch secretary Colene Hughes.
Have a good one.
Recent stories exclusive to (how to) subscribe/rs of the Australian National News of the Day:
Unethical trifecta
expose Courier Mail's intellectual prostitutes - 9th May 1998
MIGA - son of MAI
exposed - 8th May
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
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