Poll is fight for democracy.  Lismore (NSW). A Liberal Country Party Government would consider restoring when economic circumstances permitted the rural taxation concessions Labor had cut, the leader of the Country party (Mr. Anthony) promised last night. Giving the country Party policy speech, he said: I must warn the people of non-metropolitan Australia that Whitlam Government’s attack on them has hardly begun. Mr. Anthony said an LCP Government would begin an urgent investigation into the possibility of establishing a national disaster insurance fund. It would pursue policies of decentralisation and regional development which recognised the role and authority of the States. Your choice in this election is much more than a choice between parties, policies, promises, or performances. When you elect a new parliament in 16 days’ time, you will be choosing between opposing political philosophies. It will be time for you to stand up and be counted. To say where you want Australia to go. Do we stay with the democracies? Or move in another direction? Is our society still to be motivated by individual initiative and freedom, or by Government initiative, control and direction?  Inflation the top problem. Mr. Anthony said the basic thrust of the coalition programme presented by Mr. Snedden would be to attack the most devastating problem fading Australia, rapidly-rising inflation. We are determined to give the Australian people the strong and uncompromising leadership needed for a new and determined national attack on inflation, he said. And we are also determined to strongly resist a fundamental change which the Labor Party has sought to impose- the change from free-enterprise to socialism. Australia was menaced by an enemy, inflation, the vicious plunderer of our standard of living and our quality of life. Inflation attacks with the greatest ferocity those least able to fight back. Prices, the manifestation of inflation – are moving up faster in Australia than in practically any other Western country. People must have more money even to buy the same things, let alone buy more or better things. Strikes, generated by inflation, are becoming endemic. They disrupt our society, frustrate our people, damage productivity, cause shortages, raise costs, lift prices. Yet are those who seek higher pay irresponsible? Often they are driven almost in desperation to demand more of the depreciating money they must have to keep their heads above the rising tide of inflation. Today, we are in a national crisis situation. Not a crisis to endanger life, but certainly to endanger the way we live.  Breaking young people’s hearts. If inflation was not restricted and repulsed now, it would eventually overwhelm us in a recession or even a depression, of a magnitude that would leave many lives damaged and many Australians disillusioned. People are worried about their savings. They’re moving their money into real estate, lifting demand for land and houses, creating shortages, forcing up prices and breaking the hearts of many young people. There is a need for a new realisation of the nature of inflation, for a new national will and determination to fight it. Government must be ready not only to use its economic powers but - even more importantly – to lead the people into a new understanding of the seriousness of the crisis we face. The Whitlam government has resigned the commission of leadership - the most important task in time of national crisis. A belief is growing in the minds of the people that inflation cannot be stopped. This belief must be changed.  Not buying popularity. Mr. Anthony said the LCP put a programme that was sound and reasonable. Not a programme to buy popularity, he said, but a programme of retrain. But that programme would not succeed unless the people were convinced beyond all doubt their Government meant business. I call upon you to join with a new government in a new national commitment to fight the menace of inflation, he said. I call upon you to make the fight against inflation your top priority, as an individual and as an Australian. I call upon you to resist and to repulse this threat to our very way of life. Mr. Anthony said: You can respond by restraining the demands you make on government. You cannot expect to go on demanding more and more from government. You cannot keep on asking government to do everything at once. You cannot ask government to spend rapidly increasing amounts of money, your money, without there being repercussions on your living standards. We’ve all got to realise that if we're going to insist more and more government spending, then we've got to pay for it, and pay for it with inflation. Higher food prices, higher land and housing prices, higher prices for everything. We’ve simply got to steady up a bit. You can respond by restraining the demands you make on society for rising living standards whether you have ... them or not. You must understand that if you make heavy demands on society, big wage rises, big reductions in ..., you must be prepared to ... them. ... them increasing your productivity. The concept of reward for effort ... out most strongly in the primary industries and to small business, said Mr. Anthony. It’s not surprising that the most ... attacks by the Whitlam government have been ... against the heart of free enterprises, the primary industries, he said. After years of ... ... difficulties in which enormously debts were run up, and ... with wool prices down nearly 80 per cent, on last year, ... exports cut drastically, and with returns reduced by ... and inflation, the primary industries are told by Mr. Whitlam they’ve never had it so good. This is the justification he gives for imposing on primary industries and country people new costs and removing assistance totaling $350 million a year. And he’s only half-way through the Coombs Report. The serious economic situation a new government will inherit from the Labor Party will limit our capacity to respond. But we recognise that the fortunes of primary industry fluctuate. We stand ready to help those industries in their vital role of providing the Australian people, and the world, with good products in adequate quantities at reasonable prices. Mr. Anthony continued: We will continue the bounty on superphosphate for three years and then have the matter reviewed. We will continue the bounty on nitrogenous fertiliser. We will establish a new rural finance institution to meet the unique needs of farmers for long-term credit. We will establish a farm income reserve fund which producers can use to bring greater stability to their incomes. We will immediately enter into discussions with the wheat industry and State Ministers on the new stabilisation scheme. We will investigate the practicability of establishing a feed wheat pool. We will immediately discuss with the Australian Wool Corporation and the industry the proposals put forward for marketing reform. We will ... more local wool .... We will ... with the diary industry to see that orderly .... We will work with the ... industries ... and development and we will look closely at the ... on the fruit industries of the most recent ... of the .... We will ... the ... of the existing Commonwealth- Queensland, ... agreement to allow adequate time for negotiation of a new agreement. Mr. Anthony said: we will see that proper attention is paid to provision of a basic input of agriculture, water. It will be our objective over the longer term to achieve a uniform basic charge for all telephone calls in Australia.  Bid to keep in power. Labor’s real assault on democracy would come through the referendum to change the electoral system, said Mr. Anthony. The strategy was to decimate rural political representation. Inflation of city electorates with non-voters is a key weapon in Mr. Whitlam plan’s plan to destroy democratic representation. Six million children, non-citizens and overseas visitors will be counted is setting the boundaries of electorates. There’ll be many more city electorates, any many fewer country electorates. City electorates will proliferate in traditional liberal areas. A Labor Government elected on May 18 will be so entrenched in office by this means that the chance of removing it will be remote. His plan is contained in one of the four referendums to be put to you on May 18. The common purpose all the questions is to tighten the Whitlam Government's grip on office, to increase its power, and to weaken the federal system on which Australia’s great development and successful government have been based. I urge you to reject Labor’s dangerous proposals by voting all four of the questions.