08 May, 2005

Buy Australian

8th May 2005

"We're not just good at rocks and crops. Australia is starting to make a fortune in education" - Mr. Chris Richardson, Access Economics (St George Bank luncheon, 6th May 2005)

If there were any doubts at all regarding the plans held by the internationalists for the future of our nation, they have all dissipated following the speech given by one Chris Richardson of Access Economics at St George Banks recent "business lunch".

Mr. Richardson did not hold back with his economic rationalist diatribe, claiming loyal Australians who insisted on supporting Australian industry and producers - Australian jobs, were actually doing the nation a disservice.

Mr. Richardson's utopian view for our nation, according to his speech, is for our nation to rest predominantly upon growing wheat, mining minerals and educating rich foreign students. Where this leaves our nation's workforce in the struggle to find secure employment is anybody's guess.

Not content with his fairyland view of our nation's economic survival in the international marketplace, Richardson turned his attention upon our country's water resources claiming that they were severely underpriced and a review should be conducted to have them revalued accordingly.

This review, according to Richardson, would drive our rice, cotton, sugar and our invaluable dairy producers out of production, leaving us to concentrate on "things we're really good at" - supposedly denying Australian youth places at our universities in favour of rich foreign students, creating a massive underclass of unemployed Australians watching our manufacturing jobs head overseas (ie Hills Industries, Fletcher Jones, Sheridan et al) while waiting for a vacancy as a university lecturer, wheat farmer or mining magnate to arise one presumes.

Evidently, Mr. Richardson and his ilk believe Australia's place in the New World Order is as a nation of consumers of imported goods, and somehow our country's rural producers will produce enough to carry the nation through it's perpetual spending spree and balance the books.

Under Keating's reign I remember the claim that those of us employed in manufacturing need not worry as we watched our jobs head over to Asia and the "sub continent", because Australia was to be the Clever Country and we'd all be working in Information Technology - creating computer programs and working in call centres of large corporations.

The only problem was there was never any support for workers ending up on the scrap heap - no re-training, no direction, no support for one's family while one studied and certainly no much fabled IT jobs for all the displaced factory workers.

IT and the support jobs for large corporations never eventuated - at least not here in Australia. How many readers when phoning to enquire about their finances, credit cards etc are forced to grapple with an off shore employee located in the sub continent? Electricity companies, telecommunications companies - all using outsourced employees from India so desperate for extra commission they refuse to accept no for an answer.

Mr. Richardson would have us believe that things will be different if only we accept our designated place in the economic marketplace. He's correct, only it won't be the veritable cornucopia his kind continually promise the Australian people.

Instead, we will be faced with an economic misery the kind of which we have never witnessed in this country. Australia's economic sovereignty and in turn, our national sovereignty and self reliance, will be non existent. Australian workers will be reduced to mere serfs struggling to compete with imported cheap labour in a deregulated marketplace.

Weakened quarantine regulations as we import more primary produce, exploding trade deficits, spiralling unemployment and social problems as security disappears and the inability of governments to raise expenditure to care for our unemployed and elderly becomes increasingly evident.

Mr. Richardson's comments gain even more weight when one considers the Howard Government gains control of the Senate in less than two months, with Labor happily crawling into the internationalist bed next to the Liberals in their quest for Industrial Relations reform (and God knows what else in banked up legislation).

The choice is yours. Do nothing and accept the blame for the enslavement of future generations of Australians or support parties working to regain control of our nation's future.

Australia - Your Nation, Your Future. Take them back!

21 March, 2005

The LIMA Declaration

March 2005

Although originating from 1975, the Lima Declaration has had far reaching effects and can clearly be seen as the blueprint for the disastrous policies embracing the bizarre philosophy known as "Globalisation".

The Second General Conference of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) met in Lima, Peru, during the period March 12-26 1975 and the resulting declaration had disastrous ramifications for Australian industry. The basic reasoning behind the declaration was the drastic plight of the Third World was the result of the rapacious policies of the advanced industrial nations - Australia listed as one of these. The only way to rectify the situation was to transfer industrial resources from the advanced to the Third World. then to provide markets for Third World exports by buying products once produced locally.

Both major parties are equally to blame for betraying the nation. The Fraser Government took over where Whitlam left off, Hawke and Keating increased the tempo of the programme with Mssrs Hawke, Keating, Button and other senior ministers telling unsuspecting Australians they were working to "INTERNATIONALISE" the Australian economy.

More than half of Australia's manufacturing capacity has been destroyed since 1974 and the economic carnage continues while Australia imports vast quantities of goods once produced locally.

In 1970 estimates numbered Australian farmers at around 300 000, the number has now fallen below 125 000 with tens of thousands more in the current government's sights.


The following are the MAIN recommendations of the LIMA Declaration:

(35) "That special attention should be given to the least developed countries, which should enjoy a net transfer of resources from the developed countries in the form of technical and financial resources as well as capital goods, to enable the least developed countries in conformity with the policies and plans for development, to accelerate their industrialisation."

(41) "That the developed countries should adhere strictly to the principle that the Generalised System of Preferences must not be used as an instrument for economic and political pressure to hamper the activities of those developing countries which produce raw materials"

(43) "That the developing countries should fully and effectively participate in the international decision making process on international monetary questions in accordance with the existing and evolving rules of the competent bodies and share equitably in the benefits resulting therefrom"

(52) "That the developing countries should devote particular attention to the development of basic industries such as steel, chemicals, petro chemicals and engineering, thereby consolidating their economic independence while at the same time assuring an effective form of import substitution and a greater share of world trade"


In order to achieve the above "altruistic" recommendations, the Lima Declaration advocated the following Plan of Action:

(59) The developed countries should adopt the following measures:

(a) Progressive elimination or reduction of tariff and non tariff barriers and other obstacles of trade, taking into account the special characteristics of the trade of developing countries, with a view to improving the international framework of the conduct of world trade"

(b) Adoption of trade measures designed to ensure INCREASED exports of manufactured and semi manufactured products including processed agricultural products from the developing to the developed countries

(c) Facilitate development of new and strengthen existing policies, taking into account their economic structure and economic, social and security objectives, which would encourage their industries which are LESS COMPETITIVE internationally to move progressively into more viable lines of production or into other sectors of the economy, thus leading to structural adjustments within the developed countries and redevelopment of the productive capacities of such industries to the developing countries and promotion of a higher degree of utilisation of natural resources and people in the latter"

(d) Consideration by the developed countries of their policies with respect to processed and semi processed forms of raw materials, taking full account of the interests of the developing countries in increasing their capacities and industrial potentials for processing raw materials which they export"

(e) INCREASED FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS AND TO GOVERNMENT OR CREDIT INSTITUTIONS IN THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES IN ORDER TO FACILITATE THE PROMOTION OF FINANCING OF INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT . SUCH CONTRIBUTIONS MUST BE COMPLETELY FREE OF ANY KIND OF POLITICAL CONDITIONS AND SHOULD INVOLVE NO ECONOMIC CONDITIONS OTHER THAN THOSE NORMALLY IMPOSED ON BORROWERS

To Section (e) was added the following rider: "Urgent consideration of the question of re scheduling of debt servicing of long out standing debts, their conversion, if possible, into grants and granting favourable treatment to the industrial and financial requirement of the developing countries most seriously affected by the present economic crisis"


Clearly, Australian workers are just the sacrificial offering upon the alter of economic rationalism to the bizarre cult of globalisation. It is recommended that all those at risk take time to investigate GATS and other international agreements regarding trade - before it's too late.

Australian Protectionism - the ONLY way forward.

17 January, 2005

Globalists Throw Australian Workers Onto Scrapheap

17th January 2005

"We just can't sit here and remain Australian". Words issued today from a spokesman for Australia's icon, QANTAS must surely be music to the ears of economic rationalists and treacherous advocates of the global village.

Australia's national air carrier, with an unrivalled safety record the envy of the world and a standard of service which places it amongst the world's best carriers, has succumbed to the lure of cheap labour and the scourge of "out sourcing".

QANTAS employees have every right to be outraged at the proposal by the company's executives to move many operations off shore, placing at risk thousands of Aussie jobs in the search for ever increasing profit margins. Make no mistake - QANTAS, like many companies with their roots in the public sector, is a highly profitable and efficient organisation. The proposal to take advantage of third world labour is motivated purely by GREED and nothing else.

However, it must surely be of no surprise. Just another in a long line of companies closing operations and dumping Australian workers onto the dole queue or into the ever expanding pool of casual labourers who long for a return to the security of the past. Sheridan in Adelaide began closing operations just before Christmas 2001 to move operations to Asia, Mitsubishi also took advantage of the veritable cornucopia that is the "Global Village" and Fletcher Jones in Mt Gambier wins the prize for brutal honesty by announcing Globalisation was to blame for the decision to dump their loyal workforce onto the dole in favour of exploitation of cheap foreign labour.

Of course, we have become accustomed to the momentary outrage expressed by the nation's union movement, only to see them roll over once they have "secured their members' entitlements", believing they've made the best of a bad situation.

Every three years, these same unions will bend over backwards to throw their support behind the Labor Party in an election campaign. The same Labor Party that has betrayed the interests of Australian workers time and again, giving tacit support to the de regulation of both the labour market and the economy, leaving our industries open to takeover by multinationals and our jobs threatened by the availability of cheap labour.

Australian workers soon realised that the line spun to them during the Keating regime that Australians had to work harder, smarter and more efficiently in order to compete in the world market was nothing but a smokescreen. The harder we worked, the improvements we made and the contributions to increased profit just sharpened the greed of unscrupulous directors with no national loyalty or compassion towards their dedicated workforce - there was only one way to improve profit from this point, that lay in off shore labour pools.

At the risk of sounding somewhat melodramatic, our nation stands on the scaffold and the noose is being placed around our collective necks. We have in Canberra a pseudo "social Conservative" Government hell bent on selling our nation to any bidder that comes along. The essence of being "conservative" is exactly as the name suggests - to conserve the nation's institutions, culture, resources and ensure that future generations have a sound foundation on which to build.

The time has come to set aside any petty differences that may exist between various organisations or parties remaining that still give a damn about Australia's future.

Australian Conservatives will sit at the table with ANY movement for discussions about co operation. Conservatives are to be found on factory lines, in small businesses, on farms. Many of us belong to unions and realise Labor has done NOTHING but betray our interests, Liberal pays lip service to small business and serves corporate business in reality and our farmers? Well, no one really gives a damn about them until election time.

We welcome contact with any organisation who has seen through the farce that is Australian politics today. Farmer representatives, small business organisations, unions, traditional Christian bodies.

The invitation for co-operation is here. You are not asked to surrender any autonomy, merely to continue the fight on points of common interest.

National survival for future generations
It's in your hands

01 January, 2005

Welcome

Welcome to the blog site of Andrew Phillips, with commentary on news and social issues - especially for regional Australia.