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Wednesday, 1st October 1997
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International:

Yesterday the ratbags started their intimidatory tactics again. The Socialist Left - thugs of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) threatened to disrupt the Prosper Australia rally yesterday because of Pauline Hanson's involvement. The event to be held in Brisbane's Festival Hall this Saturday is all about patriotism and the Australian ANZAC spirit. The threats have caused both Bruce Ruxton and Lady Jo to pull out from talking at the event. Of course Lady Jo now says that she did not agree to speak on the same platform as Pauline Hanson.

The brass band has also been intimidated and pulled out, but not the Pipe Band... good old Scots. They have said that they will definitely be there and will not be discouraged by louts.

Several thousand guests are coming to hear Hanson speak - tickets will be available on the day from the Festival Hall booking office in Brisbane with seats going for Au$8 each. There will be a public parade outside the hall followed by speeches in the Festival Hall - with festivities starting at about 10.30am.

Anti-Racist campaigner Brian Webb said that he expects thousands of protesters to turn up to try to disrupt the Prosper Australia rally.

On the issue of racist comments and racism here is a comment by respected Aboriginal elder Charles Perkins when he was head of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs (in 1981), "Every third face in the street is Asian... I am upset by the number of Indo-Chinese refugees driving cars and walking about in the streets... Who cares if I am called racist?"

This is what Kim Beazley's (current leader of the ALP) father said about the Labor Party: "When I first joined the Labor Party (in the 1940s), it was made up of the cream of the working class. When I left it (in the 1970s), it was made up of the scum of the middle class."

Yesterday we again informed the Prime Minister's office in Canberra about Labor's blatant promotion of the boycott of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. This time we spoke to Alex in the press room and even faxed her a copy of the bulletin which we copied off the net from the Left Link site yesterday.

It has been claimed that just one day after Princess Diana's death Andrew Morton, who wrote the book "Diana: Her true Story" in 1992, arranged a new edition of the book with his publisher which would reveal the princess's secret involvement.

Morton became a millionaire following the publishing of the 1992 book.

Labor's Oxley hopeful Wayne Goss was released from hospital over the weekend. He had a malignant tumour in the brain. Sources suggest that doctors have given Goss a maximum of ten years. 

Pastoralists have said that they will walk off the land if the Coalition's ten point plan is altered during its passage through Parliament.

United Graziers Association (UGA) president Larry Acton said, "Many white families have lived on their properties for generations. They've had weddings and they have been buried there."

Mr Acton was speaking at the annual general meeting of the Queensland Farmers Federation in Mackay when he said that the UGA was "absolutely opposed to some of the amendments being put up by Labor and the Democrats" to the Wik legislation..

"Our support for this legislation is highly conditional and we will be seeking to have several parts tied up to give pastoral leaseholders certainty," he said.

Queensland Graingrowers Association president Ian MacFarlane told the conference that proving physical links to the land was a key issue for producers.

"People who have lived on their properties for generations are being hit with native title claims when they no idea any Aboriginal connection existed.

"The Prime Minister (had) assured us that claimants had to have a current physical connection with the land. The word current seems to have slipped out. This is just another example of how the PM continues to slide all over the place."

Political:

The policy director of the Victorian Employers Chamber of Commerce, Stephen Shephard, has lashed out at the Howard government's sweeping reforms aimed at protecting small business from predatory tactics.

He branded the legislation as "anti-business legislation" and went on to say that "It's a disaster."

The Council of Small Business Organisations chief Rob Bastion disagreed saying, "The Government has demonstrably committed itself to the small end of town. This is the first step of bias towards small business. This Government has delivered on the Reid report and then tossed in half a dozen steak knives."

Federal Workplace Relations and Small Business Minister Peter Reith said, "We are for a system that is fair to all sides. It's not a leap into the unknown... laws which require disclosure do not detract from the marketplace."

You say:

Subject: Journalists & the Media

Letter from September Catholic letters, Quote:

I came across this piece in a journal titled the NATIONAL EDUCATOR for January 1993 on page 2. I thought it worth sharing with your readers.

"John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff of the NEW YORK TIMES, called by his peers, "The Dean of his profession." was asked in 1953 to give a toast before the New York Press Club. He responded with the following statement. ' There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twentyfour hours my occupation would be gone.

The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting to an independent press? We are the tools and vassals for rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks; they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes' "

The devastating thing is that if this were true in 1953, how much more must it apply to our day? We have all heard that one cannot believe much more than the date and the number of pages in a newspaper, and even then check the calendar and do a count. Is it really that bad?

Yours sincerely,
Michael Warren

Personal trivia, from the global office:

Another perfect day in paradise.

Have a good one!

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