Mark Latham

Ex Labor leader, Mark Latham, recently joined Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party and will be running for the NSW legislative council at the next state election. Here is his 8-Point Plan to "save Sydney “suffocating” from overpopulation and overdevelopment."

Latham's 8-Point Plan

1. Our immigration program must be framed in the interest of the people who live here now. This is especially true of policies impacting on an over-crowded, increasingly dysfunctional city like Sydney.

2. Permanent immigration numbers should be slashed, bringing them closer to their 20th Century average of 70,000 per annum (down from 190,000 currently). Temporary visas must also be cut back.

3. NSW should not take any more special refugee intakes, given the mismanagement of Syrian refugee settlement by the Baird Government.

4. Sydney’s planning laws must be overhauled to make the city more efficient and sustainable. An urban containment strategy is needed. For existing suburbs, One Nation supports development and density restrictions in under-serviced, over-crowded LGAs. The Government should publish a comprehensive report identifying these suburbs (most likely, most of the city).

5. The release of greenfields residential land also needs to be limited to prevent further urban sprawl. Priority should be given to the development of employment land in Sydney to reduce commuter-travelling times, especially in the city’s outer suburbs.

6. The Greater Sydney Commission should be disbanded (at an annual cost saving of $18 million) as it has become a mouthpiece for Big Australia immigration and unlimited population growth in Sydney. Political appointments and unrealistic planning strategies have dominated the Commission’s work.

7. The Greater Sydney Commission’s excessive housing and population growth targets should also be abandoned. NSW Planning should be given the task of containing the city’s growth to reasonable lifestyle, infrastructure and environmental limits. Local Councils, as the level of government closest to the people, also have a critical role to play in limiting densities and development in line with local infrastructure/service capacity. One Nation respects this vital local government urban planning role.

8. The State Government should scale back the responsibilities of the so-called Western Sydney Aerotropolis to focus on employment creation in the immediate vicinity of the new Badgerys Creek Airport, rather than land acquisition and development for residential purposes. In the fair treatment of existing property rights, affected landowners should be bought out at enhanced (rezoned) land values, rather than current unimproved rates.

Mark O'Connor is running for the federal Australian Senate as a candidate of the Stable Population Party Australia (SPPA).

Photo source was Canberra Times, by Rohan Thomson

Mark O'Connor is running for the federal Australian Senate as a candidate of the Stable Population Party Australia (SPPA).

Mark O'Connor is well-known to candobetter.net and he is the co-author of Overloading Australia and a fierce and long-term advocate for keeping Australia's population small. He lives in Canberra, in a suburb by the same surname, and grows fruit trees from cuttings. Lately he has been specialising in fejoas. He is also an expert in tropical fish. Most of all, of course, he is an environmental poet, known for a slew of books of poetry and pronounced Australia's Olympic Poet by Bob Carr for the Year 2000 Olympics in Sydney Australia.

My favorite poem by him is this one, about God and a coral sea-garden, which has a rich scientific base:

The Beginning

God himself
having that day planted a garden
walked through it at evening and knew
that Eden was not nearly complex enough.
And he said:
"Let species swarm like solutes in a colloid.
Let there be ten thousand species of plankton
and to eat them a thousand zooplankton.
Let there be ten phyla of siphoning animals,
one phylum of finned vertebrates, from
white-tipped reef shark to long-beaked coralfish,
and to each his proper niche,
and — no Raphael, I'm not quite finished yet —
you can add seals and sea-turtles & cone-shells & penguins
(if they care) and all the good seabirds your team can devise —
oh yes, and I nearly forgot it, I want a special place
for the crabs! And now for parasites to keep
the whole system in balance, let . . ."

". . . In conclusion, I want," he said
"ten thousand mixed chains of predation —
none of your simple rabbit and coyote stuff!
This ocean shall have many mouths, many palates,
many means of ingestion. I want
a hundred ways of death, three thousand regenerations —
all in technicolor naturally. And oh yes, I nearly forgot,
we can use Eden again for the small coral cay in the center.

"So now Raphael, if you please,
just draw out and marshall these species,
and we'll plant them all out in a twelve-hectare patch."

So for five and a half days God labored
and on the seventh he donned mask and snorkel
and a pair of bright yellow flippers.

And, later, the host all peered wistfully down
through the high safety fence around Heaven
and saw God with his favorites finning slowly over the coral
in the eternal shape of a grey nurse shark,
and they saw that it was very good indeed.

You can read more about Mark on his home page.

Poaching skilled workers and removing political activists; dividing and conquering; restructuring communities to remove democratic organisation, multiculturalism as a cover for big business links with politicians

Political outcome of poaching skilled and educated elites

The poaching of skilled and educated people from other overpopulated countries is a way of removing a class of people in those countries, who might otherwise lead their compatriots to struggle against overpopulation and exploitation by corporations and crooked governments and religions.

It serves a base political purpose and helps keep people of the third world in misery.

What is more, when large volumes of skilled and educated people come to a new country, they naturally focus initially on establishing themselves and their families. It takes quite some time to establish oneself materially. They do not tend to focus on the political well-being of their new country any more than they did on the political well-being of their old country. It may not be until the second generation that most immigrants become spontaneously politically active.

If and when they are ready to look at real political integration here, they will discover that their new country is ruled by the same corporate press and the same two 'pretend' political party system as existed in their old country. They will discover in Australia the same globalising, ecociding and populationist policies, the same lack of democracy, the same cynical and evil marketing of water and soil as commodities, and the same breakdown of local networks and self-government in the suburbs where they settle. They will see, if they can see through the political propaganda all around, that Australia is a country on the way down to the condition of the countries that they left. They will see that Australians are being forced into a struggle to survive debt and dispossession that is also taking their energies away from useful political activity.

Australian elites keep new and old Australians apart on purpose

When I said that immigrants are usually not politically active until the second generation, that does not stop them from being organised into silence and against national solidarity for the political ends of the dishonest elite that dominate Australia's media and government. I would identify the daily allegations by the press and by national and state politicians of Australians as 'racist' or 'selfish' as being a calculated way to keep the new immigrants and the native-born apart, thereby atomising any likelihood of national solidarity. As long as new immigrants believe that Australians are racist or stupidly selfish, they are not going to trust us, so they will not help us to defend the nation they have come to be a part of, against exploitation, degradation, poverty and dictatorship. Also, as long as new and old Australians believe what the government and the mainstream media tell them, they will not be able to see what is really happening around them and find common cause with their neighbours and workmates.

How Developers structure political disorganisation

There is a new land-use planning structure which also has the effect of keeping new and old Australians apart and ruining natural organic settlement and social organisation. This is the streaming of overseas immigrants into newly built suburban enclaves. When property is advertised off the plan to people overseas, along with visas and job contracts, you can finish up with entire suburbs where most of the inhabitants are new Australians from the same region, with similar incomes (defined by the cost of the housing), possibly even with similar occupations (suburbs full of doctors, nurses and town planners according to the 'needed occupations stream'), all arriving more or less together, as the houses are built. This is also convenient for politicians who wish to target voters in blocks by identifying common local or ethnic or social concerns. It is convenient for business wanting to build new private schools, swimming pools, hospitals and infrastructure. They know that they will have a captive market. It is essentially a money-making proposition for business and a vote market for politicians. It artificially segregates people from others with common interests.

In the workplace as well, those new nurses and doctors won't dare to speak out for fear of losing their contracts or not being able to acquire citizenship. So once again, you have silenced a community. As for the imported town planners - well, they have probably already been brainwashed by the industry. We cannot expect them to uphold democracy, only capitalism.

(I welcome contact with any planners who can demonstrate support for organic democracy. I will be happy to publicly apologise and to publicly support them. Here is hoping some contact us at candobetter.org!)

Australians need solidarity with new Australians and real democracy

Australians need solidarity with new Australians. This means that the people here need to find a way to identify as a nation despite the political and media classes and to communicate to new Australians that what they read in the papers and hear from our Prime Minister and Premiers is not what is important to the people.

We all have to start to distinguish reality from media production and government spin.

The importance of national identity is the ability to organise to get real rights and real political choices and a real press. This is what the French Revolution got the world. The French Revolution is the basis of modern democracy. Capitalism is not the basis of modern democracy; it did not bring democracy to the USA or anywhere else; it brought exploitative capitalism. Just look at the sub-prime global heist as taxpayers are forced to subsidise banks. That ain't representation! Democracy and capitalism (and communism for that matter) should not be confused, but are, constantly, by the global anglo elite and their colonial and emerging partners in ransacking this planet. (Communism is just a reaction to industrial capitalism, with similar values which include population growth = wealth and centralised authoritarian government in huge polities.)

If we are not a united nation, with clear rights to self-government at all levels, and the ability to control our numbers and the size and impact of our cities, and to choose whether we live as hunter-gatherers, farmers or as industrialised workers in cities, we are not free and we are not a democracy and we have no power to stop what is being done to us.

Structural disorganisation means political disempowerment of grass-roots

A further point is that, apart from the structure of new enclaves, we are being physically disorganised in other ways by mass immigration and by our economic structure. People have little time, due to travel and long hours, to participate in community. Their neighborhoods are being disorganised by infilling, huge highways, winding new roads in new suburbs, and other infrastructure, including things like desal plants and new heavy industry. Even the delivery of services has been disorganised by outsourcing. This has the effect of disorganising political expression about these services.

Our local governments have lost their power which now lies with the State governments and the state governments have been infiltrated and outsourced to property developers. Public servants now serve private interests. The National government takes its cues from banking and big business. The ruling clique - the ALP - owns massive investments in property and banking - set up, amazingly, by our Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swann in Queensland before they entered Federal politics, notably in the form of Labor Holdings P/L and Labor Resources P/L. I don't pretend that the Liberal Party is not underpinned by the same business interests, but they are not as 'successful' as yet. That clique belongs to a bigger mysterious clique which manifests in arcane coalitions, such as the Australian Multicultural Foundation, which has a host of connections which would not be of any interest were it not that its small membership is mostly made up of very high profile politicians from Liberal and Labour - The Hon. Kevin Rudd MP (Prime Minister of Australia), The Hon. John Howard AC, The Hon. Kim Beazley AC, The Hon Mr Simon Crean MP, The Hon. Alexander Downer, The Hon. Robert Hawke AC, Dr J. R. Hewson AM, The Hon. Paul Keating, Mr Mark Latham, The Hon. Andrew Peacock AC... [More interesting membership details and page info reproduced at end of this article.]

These are some reasons why Australians must organise politically outside the established political parties. We need many more independents to form coalitions of common interests and we need to ensure that those independents are not actually fakes, ready to vote with the dominant political parties.

Australia's history of political oppression

It is likely that many of the convicts sent to Australia were in fact political prisoners. Removing them from Britain made it all the easier to keep the British from demanding real rights as citizens. Many other protesters were, of course, executed in England.

This is something that Australians should be able to make clear to new Australians. Our country was founded on political oppression - of the indigenous people and of the first convicts and indentured servants. Unfortunately this condition has continued because of the structure of representative government and the power of the mainstream press to support and manipulate it for economic ends.

We are still a colony and treated legally like colonial citizens. This needs to change, but not through top-down republicanism.

Notes

Do also have a look at this page which shows the Australian Multicultural Foundation in the bigger political and corporate picture.

[Links to information about members are made by candobetter.org and do not appear on the AMF page itself.]
Australian Multicultural Foundation (AMF)
Board of Directors

The Hon Sir James Gobbo AC CVO (Chairman)
Major General Peter Maurice Arnison AC CVO
Ms Carla Zampatti AM
Professor Kwong Lee Dow AM
Executive Director and Company Secretary

Dr B. (Hass) Dellal OAM
Administrative Assistant

Mrs Brigit Murikumthara

Ms Azmeena Hussain
Project Co-ordinator

Ms Athalia Zwartz
Training and Project Development Manager

Ms Lynn Cain

Members of the Foundation
The Hon. Kevin Rudd MP (Prime Minister of Australia)
The Hon. John Howard AC
Dame Beryl Beaurepaire DBE AC [Generally noted for activism in girls' education and women's affairs in Liberal Party and historic involvement in WAAF, but described as company director in the registration of the Foundation.]
The Hon. Kim Beazley AC
The Hon Mr Simon Crean MP
Mr Ivan A. Deveson AO
The Hon. Alexander Downer
Sir Llewellyn Edwards AC
Mr William Charles Fairbanks [?Secretary of Landcare Australia P/L)
Ms Gaye Rosemary Hart AM
The Hon. Robert Hawke AC
Dr J. R. Hewson AM
Ms Vivien Suit-Cheng Hope (Careers and Counselling Centre Tutor, Centre of Asian Students, University of Adelaide)
The Hon. Paul Keating
Mr Mark Latham
Mrs Irene Kwong Moss AO [Home Building regulation]
Mr Robert Brooker Maher AM Executive Director, American Chamber of Commerce in Australia, Paddington NSW and Former board member of The Australian Rail Track Corporation and with the
Ms Wendy Elizabeth McCarthy AO Interestingly, this woman is also a patron of the Australian Reproductive Health Alliance, which has links with Sustainable Population Australia. Interestingly, she is also Chair of McGrath Estate Agents, currently expanding into Australia's iconic Blue Mountains.
Mr Lindsay Gordon Crossley Moyle AM
Professor John Nieuwenhuysen AM
The Hon. Andrew Peacock AC
Lady Stephen
Mr Ross Tzannes AM
Mr George Wojak AO MBE

Source: http://amf.net.au/about/australian-multicultural-foundation/
Further documentation

Also, here is the Memorandum of Association of the Company, known as the Australian Bicentennial Multicultural Foundation Limited.

Dated 1988, with illegible month, it is signed by R.J.Hawke, (witnessed by his senior private secretary in the prime ministerial lodge in Canberra); Sir James Augustine Gobbo (Judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria); Michael George Kailis, Governing Director of M G Kailis Group of Companies, West Australia [Seafood and pearl culture industries]; George Wojak; Lindsay Gordon Crossley Moyle, Chief Executive Officer, State Bank of Victoria, 131 Powlett Street, East Melbourne; Sir David Ronald Zeidler, Company Director, Park Avenue Towers, Parkville, Victoria [Past Chairman of ICI and 1983 - 1988 President of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering];Dame Beryl Edith Beaurepaire, Company Director, Mt Eliza, Victoria; Vivien Suit-Cheng Hope, Careers and Counselling Centre, Tutor, Centre of Asian Students, University of Adelaide, S.A.; Ross Tzarthes, Solicitor, Pryor, Tzannes, Glebe, NSW; Marie Anna Elizabeth Blake, Managing Director Jetset Tours (Old) Pty Ltd, New Farm QLD; William Charles Fairbanks, General Manager, Finance and Management Services, The Australian Bicentennial Authority, Wahroonga NSW; Gaye Rosemary Hart, General Manager Programs, The Australian Bicentennial Authority, Elizabeth Bay, NSW; James Frank Kirk, Chairman and Chief Executive, The Australian Bicentennial Authority, Edgecliffe, NSW; Wendy Elizabeth McCarthy, General Manager Communications, The Australian Bicentennial Authority, Mary St., Longueville, NSW.

What organisation has only 24 members of which the first ten comprise the current Prime Minister and nine past and present Australian Prime Ministers or Prime Ministerial contenders? And why would they be so dedicated to an organisation with a focus so antithetical to democracy and Australians? Read on.
See also: "Nuclear power, totalitarian spin and overpopulation in Australia", "Bernard Salt on the Population 'debate'> and "Ziggy Switkowski, Population Numbers and Nuclear in the Australian" and "Normalising endless immigration and coupling it to nuclear power in Oz"

The document below probably furnished the blueprint for the Australian government to plan to transform Australian society in a manner which will displace and disenfranchise the bulk of its current population.

The Scanlon Report 30/50 - The Technological Implications of an Australian Population of 30 million by 2050

Note - this link no longer functions - see "Notes" [1]

Here is a new link: https://www.atse.org.au/Documents/reports/30-50-technological-implications-australia-population-2050-report.pdf. (Date last visited was 8 June 2018).

In the 150 pages the word 'democracy' is not mentioned once, although every aspect of Australians' lives and governance is dealt with here.

This is a 'peak oil' document, but it advocates a route whereby any choice Australians might have of reorganizing, locally, to adapt to declining availability of cheap energy, is being abrogated by the Scanlon Foundation’s grand plan to increase Australia’s immigration intake by 1.5% per annum to achieve a population of 30 million by 2050.

Australian politicians have apparently accepted the Scanlon prescription for continued economic growth through social and infrastructure engineering, and social indoctrination at the expense of democracy.

Immigration to increase by 1.5% of total population per year

To cater for our 'aging population' and 'economic growth', with immigration to increase by 1.5% of population every year, based on a recipe worked out by ANU demography, with demographer Peter McDonald, we are to have imposed upon us an unwanted and unsought massive population increase to accompany, service and pay for massive engineering works. Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, the report is the result of a study carried out by The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering with money from the Scanlon Foundation. The Scanlon Foundation was, until 2001, the Brencorp Foundation, and the child of Peter Scanlon, of IXL and Patrick/Corrigan fame, currently marketing credit cards to Asia.

The Australian Multicultural Foundation and the Institute for Global Movements

In 2006, the Scanlon Foundation recently made “one of the biggest private sector donations for social sciences” to the Monash University Institute for Global Movements and the Australian Multicultural Foundation,[1] in the words of Professor Nieuwenhuysen (formerly Director of the Bureau of Immigration Research), now director of the Australian Multicultural Foundation and of the Institute for Global Movements.

The study in question seems to have been a project investigating ways to get Australians to accept a massive immigration program, draconian changes to their way of life, and loss of the natural amenities and space they grew up with, in the context of huge engineering works and infrastructure expansion proposed by the abovementioned Scanlon Report. Nieuwenhuysen commented in 2006, when the Monash University study began, that "The results of these studies are destined to generate much interest from government, academia and the wider community, both in Australia and internationally."

Membership list of this exclusive club

Indeed, if you look at the 24 person strong membership list of the Australian Multicultural Foundation, you might consider this a foregone conclusion. Here are the first 10 members:

The Hon Kevin Rudd MP (Prime Minister of Australia), Mr John Howard, The Hon Mr Simon Crean MP, The Hon. Mr Alexander Downer MP, Mr Robert Hawke AC, Dr J. R. Hewson, Mr Paul Keating, Mr Mark Latham, Mr Kim Beazley, andMr Andrew Peacock AC.

This must be the most exclusive club in Australia. I cannot help but wonder, what's in it for the members? Maybe this is how you get a crack at being the titular head of the country, by selling out your constituents to big business.

At any rate, any illusion some naive people may have been clinging to, that the Australia 2020 conference really meant to consult with Australians, rather than get them to do the bidding of engineers and industries which benefit from rapid population growth, should now be dispelled, along with the illusion that we are still living in some kind of democracy, or that the future is safe in the hands of our politicians.

[1] "Monash University > News and Events > Monash Memo
$600K for study on social cohesion

22 February 2006

The Monash Institute for the Study of Global Movements has received $600,000 from the Scanlon Research Foundation to study social cohesion in Australian and international societies.

The research program for the Social Cohesion Project will be undertaken in partnership with the Australian Multicultural Foundation.

The grant will fund major interrelated studies on social cohesion: analysing and measuring the components of social cohesion; how to constructively attain social cohesion in Australia; and a study on minorities in Australian and international society.

The research will be led by academics from Monash's Faculty of Arts, including School of Political and Social Inquiry senior lecturers Dr Nick Economou and Dr David Wright-Neville, lecturer in sociology Dr Michael Ure, and Professor Andrew Markus, Director of the Jewish Civilisation department within the School of Historical Studies.

The research will be undertaken in cooperation with scholars at Chatham House in London, the Australian National University and Macquarie University.

The institute's Director, Professor John Nieuwenhuysen, is managing the project in association with Multicultural Foundation Director Mr Hass Dellal.

"This is one of the biggest private sector donations for social sciences," Professor Nieuwenhuysen said. "The Scanlon Foundation is genuinely interested in research and public policy issues and is greatly impressed by the calibre of research staff at Monash.

"The Social Cohesion Project is of central importance to the future of Australia and the international community and is a significant event for the institute.

"The results of these studies are destined to generate much interest from government, academia and the wider community, both in Australia and internationally."

The findings from each study will be presented at the 12th International Metropolis Conference to be held in Melbourne in October 2007. The conference, to be co-hosted by Monash, is the world's largest annual conference on international migration and settlement issues. It is the first time it will be held outside North America and Europe.

The Scanlon (formerly Brencorp) Foundation was established by the Brencorp Group in Victoria in 2001. The foundation's current focus is population and cultural diversity in Australia."

NOTES

(Added to article on 2 April 2010.)

[1] The URL for "The technological implications of Australia at 30 million in 2030" was a href="http://www.atse.org.au/index.php?sectionid=128 but the file is no longer listed there. I have copied and pasted the Address by Peter Scanlon below, to document the launching of the document. This address is quite interesting because it gives us an economic belief context and even admiringly cites a chapter written by Harvard economist, Benjamin M. Friedman, written with the notorious Milton Friedman: Benjamin M. Friedman, Milton Friedman, A. W. Clausen, "Postwar Changes in the American Financial Markets," in Martin Feldstein, ed., The American Economy in Transition," University of Chicago Press, 1980.

If anyone wants an electronic copy of the 2007 ATTSE Report itself, "The technological implications of Australia at 30 million in 2030," contact me through candobetter.org and I will send one to you.

"ADDRESS BY

FOUNDATION CHAIRMAN, PETER SCANLON

TO ATSE REPORT LAUNCH

18th April 07

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Ladies and Gentlemen:

The Honourable Robert Smith MLC, President of the Legislative Assembly.

The Honorable Jenny Lindell MP. Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and Parliamentarians;

Mr. Peter Laver, Vice president of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering

Mr. Vaughan Beck
Distinguished guests.

The Scanlon Foundation is committed to the belief that Australia needs to continue to grow and that this growth will require a substantial and increasing role for migration. As a consequence we see social cohesion as critical to both migration and Australia’s growth.

In that context and separately from the study by ATSE The Scanlon Foundation’s Social Cohesion Research Program incorporates six (6) individual projects, managed by the Monash Institute for the Study of Global Movements and the Australian Multicultural Foundation.

One of these projects is the innovative benchmark survey throughout Australia measuring the current status of social cohesion in Australia. This survey has been commissioned and field interviews will commence in May. We anticipate results in July ready for analysis and preparation for release at Metropolis 2007.

However, the study released today by ATSE, and although very much part of our program, has different origins. In the early days of our work on social cohesion it was clear to us that there are a number of people in Australia across a broad spectrum who queried the underlying principal of growth because they worried whether the country was able to accommodate more people. In essence they asked “can we have a population of 30 million people by the year 2050 without creating substantial infrastructure and environmental issues”.
It was to deal with this perception, this question that led the Foundation to commission this study. That is why it is specific both as to numbers and Australia. That is why we went to ATSE as the independent expert with its 750 eminent Fellows.

Clearly the study says we can accommodate 30 million people by 2050. However it does say there are issues and that these are legitimate issues that need to be discussed and dealt with. ATSE concludes in fact they need to be dealt with irrespective to 30/50.

However I ask that as you reflect on this study that you do not do so in isolation. There is a flip side to the debate. That is the consequences of Growth. Too often growth is mistakenly seen to be only about material outcomes.

In his book “The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth” Benjamin Friedman demonstrates why the elements, held out by the Enlightenment thinkers so central to Western philosophy, of openness, opportunity, tolerance, economic and social mobility, fairness and democracy are all enhanced by growth.

Freidman explains that growth, rather than simply creating a higher standard of living, is the key to effecting political and social liberalization in the third world. He shows that even the wealthiest of nations puts its democratic values at risk when growth stops. Merely being wealthy is no protection against a turn toward rigidity and intolerance when a country’s citizens lose the sense that they are getting ahead.

Post war we had the growth of economic socialism which tried to deal with the imbalance of material well being by relying on redistribution rather than creation. It failed miserably.

Today, to me, in many ways there seems to be a populous move to a form of environmental socialism in that there is a concentration on regulating and redistributing what we have as was the case with economic socialism. It won’t be the answer. Separately from mans proven record of ingenuity and adaptation we need to get back to planning and doing. This will be the answer.

That we need to manage better is without doubt. The ATSE report is very clear about this. The short period of elected governments, our system of Federation together with upper and lower houses, the politicisation of the public service and so on has left us with ineffective long term planning. And this when there has never been a better time to set these priorities with our prosperity and surplus investment capital which is searching the world trying to find a home.

If Social Cohesion was not the Foundations main game I think we would have tackled this issue. Pressure and knowledge needs to be focused on our infrastructure and environmental planning. The current situation is a disgrace. We probably need for the want of a better title a Reserve Bank of Infrastructure.

However right now that’s not for us other than to support ATSE’s call for leadership and planning.

In conclusion the Foundation expresses it appreciation to ATSE. In particular my thanks to Vaughan Beck, Ian Duncan, Ian Rae and of course many talented authors and contributors to the 30/50 study.

We at the Foundation look forward to pursuing our ongoing work on social cohesion and positive migration strategies for the future prosperity of Australia.

Thank you"

"The Latham Diaries" published in 2005 reveal how figures within the Labor Party and the trade union movement undermined the election prospects of Federal Labor Party in recent years and have prolonged the misrule of the Howard Government. State Labor Premiers, the Forestry division of the Construction Forestry and Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), in league with the woodchippers who are destroying Tasmania's old-growth forests, and even members of the Federal Labor caucus acted as if they found the prospect of Howard ruling after 2004 elections preferable to the prospect of a Latham-led government.

Now in 2007, many who had admired and supported Latham in the past will be dismayed to have read "Latham: Beware the Polls and The Swinging Voter" the second of two articles for the Australian Financial Review published on Saturday 17 November. Just as he had shown that people within the Labor Party had acted to undermine Federal Labor when he was its leader in 2004, Latham now appears, himself, to be acting to undermine Federal Labor's chances in 2007.

Furthermore, if as he says in his article, that the outcome of the Federal election is still undecided, then the anti-Labor views propagated in that article may yet make the necessary difference that would deliver Howard a fifth term in office.

The article contains a surprisingly one-sided blinkered pronouncements against the union movement's "Rights to Work" campaign against the Howard Government's "Work Choices" legislation, which Latham implies is the one factor which would prematurely end the rule of a Government which is capably managing the national economy. As Latham put it:

Throughout this year most commentators have been surprised by the Howard Government's poor showing in the polls. Conventional wisdom says a government presiding over a strong economy, with no reputation for corruption (my emphasis) should be safely re-elected.

I would have thought that many others would perhaps have expressed even greater surprise that a Government such as Howard's could enjoy even that much support, given its record.

Evidently, the rorting of the regional partnerships grant scheme against Latham's own bid to become Prime Minister in 2004, the AWB bribery scandal in which $296 million (all dollar figures given are in AU$ unless otherwise stated) was paid to the regime of Saddam Hussein and the spending of an unprecedented $1 billion on saturation-level Government self-promotional advertising since the 2004 elections, the abuse of the Government's absolute Senate majority do not technically amount to 'corruption' so should not concern Australian electors.

If not for the trade union movement's campaign against "Work Choices" which Latham labels a 'scare campaign', the Howard Government in which Latham finds surprisingly little fault would easily win on 24 November:

The breakthrough has been the labour movement's capacity to run a long-term scare campaign on an issue affecting the hip pocket nerve - Work Choices. This has been the most expensive and sustained television advertising campaign in Australian political history. Since 2005 the trade unions have raised large amounts of money, selling off assets and raiding their slush funds, in one last push to get rid of the coalition and return to the patronage of a Labor government, and the campaign has worked, creating fear and misunderstanding (my emphasis) in the community about the industrial relations laws and hostility to the Howard Government

It's notable the language Latham uses. He now apparently disputes the right of unions to organise effectively and to engage in politics for the benefit of their memberships. Union funds have become 'slush funds'. The union movement's aspiration to bring about the election of a government more sympathetic to its wellbeing than the current government is denigrated as seeking 'patronage' as if somehow the relationship between the Howard Government and the big business interests that it serves is not 'patronage'. This paragraph sadly demonstrates how the line between legitimately criticising the anti-democratic practices of some trade unions as he did in "The Latham Diaries" and simply being opposed to unions outright is an easy one to cross.

If it is, in fact, true that unions have been forced, by the introduction of "Work Choices" legislation for which this government had no mandate and the subsequent lavish spending of taxpayers' funds on blatantly misleading partisan political advertising, to sell of their own assets in order to be able to counter the government misinformation, then a massive injustice has been perpetrated against many unions and their memberships, and they should be entitled to seek reparations from the Liberal Party, but this obvious point appears to have been lost on Mark Latham.

Latham continues:

For two years, the union ads have stirred emotions and hip pocket nerves, with powerful images of single mothers forced to work at weekends, young people coerced into signing contracts and middle-aged couples sacked for no reason after years of loyal service.

Here, Latham seems to be implying, without actually stating it explicitly, that the claims of the "Rights at Work" campaign are either false or a beat-up. He makes no acknowledgment of the fact that the claims have been borne out by numerous independent academic studies, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, as well as copious anecdotal evidence. He does not acknowledge that in "John Winston Howard: The Biography" by Wayne Errington and Peter Van Onselen it has been revealed that Howard knew perfectly well, contrary to undertakings he made and contrary to the claims of the initial saturation level $55 million "Work Choices" advertising campaign, that workers would be worse off as a result of his industrial relations legislation.

Having thus established that "Work Choices" as it now stands is of no great concern to Australian workers, Latham goes on to dismiss any suggestion that a re-elected Howard Government might take "Work Choices" further:

During the campaign, Labor's advertisement have added a new dimension of fear, that a re-elected Howard/Costello government would take Work Choices further.

Latham claims:

No-one on the Labor side honestly believes that the coalition would take Work Choices further, just as in 2004, no-one in the coalition believed that would keep interests rates down.

How Labor Party insiders can know this and how Latham can know that they know this is not explained.

The Australian public were never told by John Howard of "Work Choices" during the 2004 election campaign. Peter Costello, for his part, has said that the removal of protection against unfair dismissal should be extended to all employees and not just restricted to those working for companies employing less than 100 employees. Finance Minister Nick Minchin told a meeting to the HR Nicholls Society on 8 March 2006, "we do need to seek a mandate from the Australian people at the next election for another wave of industrial relations reform". Industrial Relations Minister Joe Hockey told ABC Radio's AM program on 18 October that the role of unions in Australian society is "essentially over"

As some employers are already loudly complaining of the complexity of the "fairness test" amendments to the "Work Choices" laws. Whatever might be said before the election, we can expect that once Howard is returned to office the campaign to remove or else water down the "fairness test" will be intensified.

For Latham to expect Australian workers to trust a re-elected Howard Government not to further reduce the rights of workers given all this and given its past record of deceit, lies, 'core' and 'non-core' promises and contrived excuses to dishonour pledges such as the "Beazley black hole", on the basis of his supposed insider information, not from the Government, but from the Labor Party is an extreme test of the credulity of the electorate.

Latham's article contain within it some pertinent observations about the health of Australian democracy. He makes a good case for making voting voluntary as far too much effort seems to be expended by both a major parties in order to win the support of apathetic people, whilst those who really care have relatively little impact. If voting were not compulsory this could change.

However, Mark Latham appears to have completely missed a far more basic question in regard to the operation of democracy.

We have in power a Government which has taken the practice of government to levels which would have previously been unimaginable. This includes, notwithstanding Latham's own attempt to belittle its impact, the introduction of the "Work Choices"legislation which had not even been put to the Australian public in the previous election which has changed the very fabric of our society. Had Howard been forthright about his plans in 2004, he would not be Prime Minister today. Having announced in 2005 his intention to introduce legislation, which he knew perfectly well would harm at least hundreds of thousands of ordinary Australians Howard used taxpayers' money to indoctrinate the public into acceptance of this legislation. The initial campaign had a massive budget of $55-million and inflicted a an unprecedented degree of saturation level advertising on the public. The claims made in the campaign that various workers' entitlements were "protected by law" were later shown to have been false, when the Government subsequently, under the threat of losing office made the "fairness test" amendments to the legislation. A further saturation-level advertising blitz, ostensibly to 'inform' Australian workers of rights supposedly safeguarded by the "fairness test" that they all had enjoyed back in October 2004 and which most had assumed were not at risk when Howard was re-elected, was then launched. Even at that the second advertising campaign still misled, because, amongst other things it neglected to point out that if a worker does not have protection against unfair dismissal, then no other right is worth anything anyway. If a worker does not agree that a proposed AWA is fair what is to stop his/her employer from sacking him/her one month down the track for any concocted reason, anyway?

The all up cost of the Work Choices propaganda stands at over $120 million of taxpayers' dollars. Total taxpayer dollars spent since Howard was re-elected in 2004 stands at $1 billion.

Whilst being prepared to spend copious amount of taxpayer dollars in order to 'inform' the public about "Work Choices" John Howard has refused to publicly debate the legislation, firstly with Beazley and then with Rudd. Only finally, during the course of the election campaign in the limited debate of 21 October did Howard openly confront Rudd and lost the debate. Had he agreed to when he first announced the laws, their harmful effects would have been far too obvious for anyone to deny and the unions would have been spared the necessity for much of the expense entailed in their rights in order to win the public.

Somehow, none of this has any bearing on the health of Australian democracy in Latham's eyes. The article concludes:

Next Saturday, people will be contemplating a change of government when what Australia when when what Australia needs is a change to its democracy

What Latham fails to point out is that if the Australian people fail on 24 November to take advantage of the opportunity before them to throw from office the worst Government by far that this country has had since federation, then a very dangerous precedent will have been set.

If the amount of time energy and money spent by opposition parties, trade unions and grass roots political movements cannot this time bring about the defeat of such a government, then when can they ever hope to succeed?

If Howard gets back in, there will be almost no limit to how much harm it will be capable of inflicting upon the public interest from now on, and their will be almost no limit as to how much an incumbent government can abuse its position of incumbency in order or cling to power.

In covering up this basic reality, Latham is, himself, undermining the very democracy he claims he wants to see rejuvenated.

Those who have read "The Latham Diaries" will have found startling confirmation of the fact the State Labor Premiers are cynical enough to deliberately damage the electoral prospects of their Federal counterparts in order to better ensure their own survival at the state level.Adapted from an article cross-posted to Online Opinion. Also, see article on webdiary "Peter Beattie bent on destruction of Rudd's chances" by Margo Kingston.

Those who have read "The Latham Diaries" will have found startling confirmation of the fact the State Labor Premiers are cynical enough to deliberately damage the electoral prospects of their Federal counterparts in order to better ensure their own survival at the state level. Former NSW Premier Bob Carr expressed it thus in his own diaries on 6 November 2001, quoted on pages 305-306 of "The Latham Diaries"(2005):

Published polls and the Party's polling starting to show Federal Labor edging up. Can't believe it. ... (Michael Egan, NSW State Treasurer said,) 'We'll be the ones weeping if Labor wins.' Yes - the secret agenda: State Labor wants to run against a rotting hated Coalition Government in Canberra. A Labor Government there only makes a third (State) term harder.

Mark Latham commented: "People used to get expelled from the Labor Party for this sort of treachery. Yet when it appeared in Marilyn Dodkin's book on Carr last year, no-one batted an eye-lid. Has it become part of the system? Everyone now expects Carr Labor to selfishly look after itself, cheering for a Howard victory, ..."

And certainly Bob Carr, together with his Victorian and Tasmanian counterparts did just that, as Latham abundantly illustrated, and we have them largely to thank for Howard's victory in 2004, together with "Work Choices" and all of his other policy abominations.

Which brings us to the forced council amalgamations in Queensland. There are no sound reasons derived from Labor principles to justify Beattie's current plans to abolish so many local governments which are in tune with the needs of their constituents. Indeed, it was a former Queensland Hanlon Labor Government which gave local government the powers they have enjoyed up until now (see "When amalgamations failed" by Dr Mark McGovern of the QUT).

The only possible motives that I see are:

1. To take away the powers that local communities now have to prevent the further ravaging of their regions by property developers, and
2. A cynical political stunt, in emulation of Bob Carr, to use the perpetuation of John Howard's rule to ensure the survival of his Government at the next State election.