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. Whitlam pleads for another chance for Labor.  The following is the text of the address to the nation by the Labor leader, Mr. Whitlam, in Melbourne last night. Men and women of Australia, the whole future of Australian democracy is in your hands. The decision you make on December 13 goes far beyond who shall govern Australia for a few months or a few years. It goes to the heart of how Australia is to be governed into the twenty-first century. Above all, Australia must be re-united- united about our basic faith in the value of parliamentary democracy, as a means for change, and as a means for good government. The shame of the past six weeks must be wiped away. In those shameful six weeks, a stacked senate went on strike against a Budget vital to Australia’s welfare and the nation’s economy. The nation and the nation’s elected government were held to ransom. And by those means, the elected government in full commend of the confidence of parliament was deposed.  NOV 11.---Day of infamy. In Australia to continue to be a parliamentary democracy? Are we to have Government’s elected by the people through the people’s House? Are elected governments to govern? These are the questions. Upon the answer you give depends the survival of parliamentary democracy as we know it, or as we all believed we knew it until November 11, 1975. Remembrance day, 1975. Remember that day. Mr. Fraser’s day of shame, a day that will live in infamy. In place of the government you had twice elected, a bad twice elected, a government with an unchallenged majority in the nation’s parliament are the very men whom you twice rejected in less than three years and last rejected just 18 months ago. In place of a twice-elected Prime Minister who retained an unchallenged majority in the parliament, it is a man who at the very moment be received his commission was censured by the people’s house for unconstitutional and reprehensible conduct. The house of parliament declared no confidence in him. Now the people must declare no confidence in him in the name of parliamentary democracy- in the name of the survival of parliamentary democracy in Australia. Remember indeed November 11, 1975, but above all remember the actions and motives of the men who forced this situation. At the crucial time for the nation’s economy the senate went on strike. For four weeks, a mere half of the senate, using the stolen proxy of a dead Labor Senator’s vote, stalled the Budget. It has been the costliest strike in Australia’s history. Never before in our history has there been a strike for the sole purpose of paralysing the whole national administration. Never before in our history has there been a strike against parliamentary democracy. But what was what they did and they were able to do it only over a dead senator’s corps, not my words, but the words of a former liberal premier, now Senator Steele Hall of South Australia. These are the men who by their actions have shown their contempt for the House of Representatives, the House of the people. Yet these are the men who would ask you to give them a majority in the people’s House. By their actions they have misused and abused the powers of the Senate. Yet these are the men who would ask you to give them a majority in the senate. By their actions they have shown that they were prepared, in their grab for power, to do any damage to the economy, to cause any hardship to thousands upon thousands of their fellow Australians, to destroy Australia’s good name as stable parliamentary democracy. Yet these are the men who would ask you to trust them with the management of Australia’s economy, the conduct of your affairs and the reputation of Australia. The safeguards @ parliamentary democracy in Australia’s built up by the Constitution, by convention, by tradition, by the hard-won rights of the people are now being struck down. The people alone can restore them and the people must restore them, if they are not to be lost forever. The shame that now hangs upon Australia and Australia’s good name must be wiped away. It shall be on December 13. For the third time in three years, I call to the nation for its support. Twice you have given it. How many times must the elected government be elected before it is allowed to govern? How many times must the people’s will be expressed until their will is accepted? How often do we have to obtain endorsement for our program before it can be implemented? How often must three-year programs for three-year parliaments be presented to the people and supported by them? Are a majority of the Australian people to be forever denied a fairly-won share in shaping Australia’s destiny? The three-year program you endorsed on December 2, 1972, was cut off in mid-stream 17 months later in April, 1974. On May 18, 1974, you once again declared your support for a new program- for a further three years. The sabotage to the program began almost as soon as you had given us the power to implement it. Our opponents have confessed that they embarked upon a course to destroy the program in April, 1973. If their action are now condoned, the people will have given to the senate- a bare half of the Senate- the right to dissolve the House of Representatives every six months- every May and every November when the elected government has to obtain supply. And they could do this merely by refusing to bring the matter to a vote- by just going on strike.  Paying for disruption.  Last year, at a critical time for the management of the Australian economy they succeeded in bringing the decision-making processes of the nation to a halt for two months, and in keeping this nation without a parliament for three months. We are all still paying for the disruption they deliberately engineered @ an economic price, a political price. They have succeeded in creating unparalleled political disruption and total suspension of government. Australia has no government at this moment. Even when the true government of Australia is elected for the third time in succession on December 13 we will all continue, for months and months and perhaps years to come, to pay the consequences of their actions over the last six weeks. Decisions which can save scores of small business dependent on government contracts, the decisions which can ensure that as many schoolleavers as possible will be quickly absorbed into the work-force, cannot be taken, they cannot be now taken for weeks and weeks yet. The decision needed to restore the economy, decisions which had already been taken and were the key part of our budget were delayed by the senate so as to delay or even destroy their quickest and best effect. The benefits of the sweeping new tax reform contained in the Hayden Budget, due to take effect on January 1, are in jeopardy. The future of tenders and contracts affecting hundreds of businesses and thousands of employees is in double. Above all wage indexation, the key to our fight against inflation and unemployment- is in mortal danger. That policy is succeeding. Its continued success depends upon the greatest restraint, responsibilities, discipline, goodwill and co-operation from employees. These were forthcoming. My government had @ the basis for co-operation. Employees accepted that false and temporary advantages forgone in excessive wage demands were more than compensated by real and lasting benefits through my government’s program- through benefits in health, in education, in genuine welfare. The success of wage indexation is inseparable from success of the program of reform which the people of Australia have already twice endorsed. What possible basis for co-operation can there be if the program- or program- which alone gives any meaning to that co-operation, were to be thrown away? The co-operation we had secured on the basis of the real benefits of our program resulted in a dramatic fall in the rate of inflation last quarter. We had won one round in a long fight- the people, the employees of Australia, had won for themselves one round in our national fight against international inflation and unemployment. In a mixed economy and a free society, the most difficult task of all is for a government to secure voluntary wage restraint. Alone of all western democracies, our government had succeeded. For nearly three years Australia has shared with every comparable country, and with all our trading partners, economic conditions of difficulty unparalleled for 30 years. But of all these nations Australia alone has had to deal with deliberate disruption of efforts towards economic recovery by a political combination determined to destroy the elected government at all costs.  All governments have been trying to solve these intractable problems of worldwide inflation and worldwide unemployment. My government was a successful as any comparable government in dealing with them. But my government alone has had to wage this war in the face of economic sabotage by its political opponent.  WAR ON TWO FRONTS. My government alone has had to wage the war on two fronts. In circumstances which called for long-range economic planning of a complexity and a difficulty beyond all living experience, my government alone was denied the power to plan ahead with certainty for more than six months. In economic circumstances which require that the elected government must be able to assert all its authority to see that its economic policy is carried out, my government alone was denied the right to govern at all. In times of unparalleled economic difficulty around the world, in a world situation needing the full and undivided attention of the government and the administration, the mustering of the best national advice available and the summoning of all the purposeful energies and resources of the nation, our  Opponents ensured that for month after month, the government, the Administration and the whole nation should be preoccupied with purely political and partisan matters. Our opponents used every weapon at their disposed to paralyse the Administration. They failed to do so- until November 11. Their failure- up to November 11- none the less inflicted prolonged economic damage upon Australia. Their success on November 11 is already inflicting untold damage. Our victory and our vindication on December 13 will certainly mean that Australia will recover. But we cannot overestimate the damage already done; the cannot underestimate the extent to which the recovery which will begin on December 13 will be needlessly drawn out by what they have already done to Australia by their conduct in these crucial months and weeks and days- the needless disruption, the needless delay in economic recovery, the needless doubts about the future of our democracy, the needless division in our national unity, the needless diversion from great national purposes. It is against the known actions and known conduct of our opponents that every offer they make during this campaign must be judged. Can they be trusted on any matter when they have shown that they cannot be trusted in the greatest matter of all the parliamentary system itself? Remembering what we have seen them do since April, 1973, when they began their wrecking, reckless course; since April, 1974, when they disrupted Australia for three months; since March, 1975, when the new leader pledged to let the elected Government govern; since October, 1975, when he reneged on that pledge; and since the infamous November 11, could you trust these men with anything? In all the great fields of policy, there is a great unknown about the intentions of our opponents. The frantic drumming-up of new policies, which they undertook in recent weeks, fools nobody. Their so-called alternative Budget produced in parliament three months ago has already been declared by its author to be inoperative. The second greatest thing Australians have to fear about our opponents and what they would do in government is all those things which we don’t know about their intentions. But the greatest thing we have to fear about them is what we already know about them. We don’t know what they would do if they had the power in the next few months. We do know what they have done in the last two months. We don’t know what they would do if they had the power in the next two years. We do know what they have done in the past two years. And what they have shown with brutal clarity is that they will obstruct and disrupt, will @ the constitution, break its conventions, set aside the will of the Australian people to get their way. Far from accepting the verdict of December 2 1972, and May 18, 1974, they escalated the level of constitutional violence and obstruction. More legislation has been rejected in the Senate in the past 12 months than in the previous 50 years. More bills have been rejected since 1972 than in the previous 72 years of federation together. Twenty-one of those bills now form the grounds of the double dissolution forced a fortnight ago. The history of five of those bills illustrates completely their methods and their motives.  ARCHAIC BOUNDARIES  These are the bills about the equality of votes in Australia. Our opponents were determined to prevent a House of Representatives election on fair electoral boundaries. They are determined to prevent Australians wherever they live being counted as equal. That was their purpose in forcing an election in 1974. The joint sitting in August, 1974, made equal representation the law of the land. Our opponents have prevented that law being carried out. These elections are to be held on boundaries in breach of that law. The present House of Representatives electorates were based on the census before last in June, 1966. In New South Wales, Victoria Queensland and South Australia, some electorates @@@ more votes than other electorates within the same States. Our opponents were determined to have an election on these archaic boundaries- against the law of the land. Nothing could better illustrate their contempt for the people and their contempt for the law of the land. Despite the obstruction, our government had already passed more numerous and more significant measures than any government in Australia’s history. These achievements will remain enduring witness to the energy and zeal of the twice-elected government. But more than that, they attest our faithfulness to the pledges we made to the Australian people in 1972 and again in 1974. Despite obstruction, not just by the Senate, but by some State Governments, we have carried out our pledges, more fully, more faithfully, than any Government Australia has ever had before. Twice we put to the people programs for three years. Twice the people supported those programs. The assassination of the 29th Parliament in mid-life has left a great deal of unfinished business. The unfinished business includes: the 21 bills which the Senate has twice rejected since August last year. The bills which the senate had already once rejected this year and the pending bills for: the National Companies Act; the National Rehabilitation and Compensation Scheme; the Consumer Protection Authority; the Ombudsman; the Legal Aid Scheme; the Petroleum And Minerals Right; The Public Lending Right; the Corporation and Securities Industry- to eliminate the scandals disclosed by the Cormack Committee, @ Committee and Georges Committee in hearings going back to March, 1970; the Insurance Corporation- to provide cover against natural disasters and to insure houses at cost and the referendum for simultanous elections for the Senate and the House of Representatives for interchange of powers between the federal and state parliaments and federal assistance with local government debts. Let us finish the task, the task of fully implementing our three-year program. But this time let’s make sure that never again in Australia’s history can the people’s will be set aside of an unrepresentative Senate. In 1972 I said that our program had three great aims; to promote equality; to involve the people of Australia in the decision making processes of our land; and to liberate the talents and uplift the horizons of the Australian people. Our aim- our ongoing aim is this: that in so far as the community acting through its elected government can ensure it, there shall be no second-class citizens in Australia. The substance and the spirit of our reforms and achievements are now all gravely imperiled. For the first time Australia had a government determined to make the conditions of the more equal for all Australians, wherever they live in Australia. For the first time for a generation Australia had a Government dedicated to equal education opportunity for all our children.  MEDIBANK FOR ALL.  For the first time, the best available medical and hospital care is equally open to all Australians through Medibank. For the first time, Australia had a Government which insisted that pensions of all @ would be linked @ to the prosperity of all other citizens. Pensions reached 25 per cent of average weekly @ under the first Hayden Budget, compared with 19 per cent in the last Liberal Budget. Pensions have increased by 80 per cent- double the increase in consumer prices. The means test has been abolished for all pensioners over 70, and the Hayden Budget proposed the next step towards complete abolition- by removing the test for all persons over sixty-nine. for The first time Australia had a national Government involving itself directly in the affairs of our cities, accepting responsibilities for cities, the great established centres and new growth centres. For the first time local government had direct access to the national finances. For the first time, the Grants Commission promoted equality between regions in every State. For the first time Australia had a national Government prepared to co-operate in renewing our decaying urban transport systems. The foundations were laid for a national highway system. We have constructed the administrative and legislative framework for modern, mobile armed forces. We embarked on the largest re-equipment program ever undertaken in peacetime. My government had already passed a record 29 acts for the benefit of members and former members of the Defence Force and had four more before the parliament on November 11. For the first time, Australia had a government which guaranteed woolgrowers incomes, just as, 30 years ago, another Labor government guaranteed wheatgrowers incomes. My government had already passes a record 29 acts for the benefit of primary industries and had 11 more before the parliament on November 11. For the first time, Australia had a government seriously concerned to give equality of opportunity to women and to remove all forms of discrimination against women. Every federal department is now charged to take women’s interests into account. For the first time, Australia’s government recognised its continuing responsibility to migrants after they arrived in Australia. Every federal department is now charged to take migrants interests into accounts. For the first time, Australia had a government determined to promote Australian ownership and control of Australian industries and resources. For the first time, Australia had a national government determined to fulfil its constitutional obligation towards the Aborigines, a government which for the first time gave them rights to land. For the first time Australia had a government determined to preserve, protect and enhance Australia’s national estate- our natural and historical inheritance, what we keep from our past, what we transmit to the future. For the first time Australia had a national Government which recognised the significance of the arts and artists in our society. These great initiatives- none of which could conceivably have occurred without a Labor Government, all of which have been opposed or denounced by our opponents- must be allowed to reach their full potential. The work of the Schools Commission, which has transformed the opportunities of all our children wherever they live, must be allowed to continue. Mr Fraser opposed the Schools commission tooth and nail. He opposed the needs concept in education. He opposed free education at universities, teachers, colleges of advanced education and technical college. He was the prime minister in the first effort to destroy our Budget, our first Budget, in 1973, because he was determined to destroy our schools program. That program is now marked down for savage attack. It is marked down for destruction. Our program for real equality of opportunity would be replaced by a policy of elitism. All the great reforms- abolition of fees, tertiary and technical, help for isolated children, the secondary allowances scheme, the adult secondary education program, higher education opportunities for Aborigines, migrant education - are in peril. They must continue. A whole range of new initiatives were in train or in preparation before we were untimely cut off - the new dimensions and expanded fruits of a program which had been subject to unparalleled obstruction and often mindless resistance from the Senate and some State governments. But our major and immediate task must be that the Hayden Budget is given a chance to work, is at last given that chance which was denied to it throughout the critical weeks in September, October and November. The benefits of that Budget in taxation reform, the tax cuts, the new rebate system, pension increase, education, Medibank , hospitals, child care, must be protected and preserved. Never in our history have we Australians been faced with so momentous a decision. For the choice we make on December 13 must decide the whole future course of this nation. What course shall Australia now take? If our immediate problems are to be overcome the course must be one of cooperation between all sections of the community. Our opponents have destroyed for themselves any chance of building co-operation. They have disqualified themselves from the task of leading a united nation. We have already proved our ability to get co-operation in the area where it is now most necessary and urgent. But the co-operation we seek in the future and must have if Australia is to have a strong and secure future must extend to all sections of the community. A house divided against itself cannot stand. Our opponents have deliberately and willfully sown the needs of a terrible division. To confirm them in the power they have usurped would be to confirm and deepen for all time the division they have created.  PRINCIPLES BETRAYED.  But in this election you are not only choosing between two parties: you are not only choosing between two sets of policies. You are making a choice about the whole future of Australia and the whole future of Australian parliamentary democracy. I ask you to choose resoundingly for democracy. I ask you to render a resounding verdict in favour of the principles and traditions which have served Australia well for the past three-quarters of a century. Parliamentary democracy is worth another chance. Give it that chance on December 13. I appeal for support from our young men and women because in their hands lies the choice of the kind of Australia they shall live in for the rest of their lives- a true democracy or a take one. I appeal from support from the older members of our community who have seen the betrayal of those principles and traditions which throughout their lives have brought security and stability to Australia. I appeal for support from our fellow-Australians born overseas, men and women who chose to live with us because they believed that at least in Australia parliamentary democracy seemed safe, stable and secure. I appeal again to those millions upon millions of my fellow Australians who supported us in 1972, and again in 1974, in the belief that they were electing a democratic government for three years and were giving that government a mandate to carry out its three-year program. And above all I appeal to those thousands and thousands of my fellow Australians who hitherto have voted otherwise, and have supported other parties, but who have always supported in their hearts and minds the far greater cause -the cause of democracy, the cause of the Australian way, the cause of Australia herself. For that is what is at stake in this election. My whole public career has been dedicated to the proposition that reform and change needed in Australia can and must be achieved through democratic parliamentary means. For 15 years as deputy leader of my party and Prime Minister of Australia. I have maintained that faith: and the Australian Labor Party has held to that faith with me. Now that faith is challenged in a way none of us would ever before have believed possible. I shall never abandon that faith - because my faith rests not just in parliamentary democracy itself, but in the Australian people themselves in their commonsense, their intelligence, their decency, their instinctive sense of fair play. Let us all make sure that December 13, 1975, is recorded for all time as the day when the Australian people asserted for all time that parliamentary democracy would survive in Australia for all time. Let us make sure that government of the people, for all the people, through the House of the People, shall endure in this nation forever.  Labor basks in sunshine.  By James Cunningham.  Mr. Bob Hawke was perfectly right. It was he said, sensibly, much better to bask in the sunshine of Sydney Domain than to be shut up in the Opera House. The Labor Party, Mr. Hawke went on to allege, had been frustrated in its attempt to book the Opera House for the official opening of Mr. Whitlam’s election campaign. And for this he bluntly blamed our opponents perverted sense of what democracy is all about. Still, whatever the reasons for being there, people at this massive lunchtime rally yesterday clearly believed that they were in the right place at the proper time. Indeed, after watching the people gathering for an hour felt that anyone who had wanted the Opera House must have seriously misjudged the drawing power of the principal performer in this political drama. Estimates of the crowd varied. Mr. John Ducker, NSW Labor Party president, who chaired the meeting, put it at 60,000. Police suggested more cautiously that the figure was about 20,000. Other observers came up with around 30,000. Certainly it was the biggest political rally Sydney has seen for many years. And how could any deposed Prime Minister, now fighting back, have wanted a better setting? The late Jack Lang, dismissed as Premier of NSW, had spoken here to assembled thousands in the 1930’s. Now it was Gough Whitlam’s turn. And for him also the crowd roared and chanted. The people who came to the Domain yesterday were the armies of the afternoon. They were the lunchtime office workers, the trade unionists who had downed tools, the family groups and some young lovers who lay down and listened close together. There were shorts and thongs and bare feet, business suits and brief cases. There were uniformed school girls who munched apples under the fig trees. And there were the banners, red and purple and green, and the blue flag of the Furcka Stockade with its four stars waving above the sun hats. There was also the seemingly interminable chanting that is now a feature of each Whitlam rally. Did anyone, one wondered, ever want Curtin or Chifley or even Menzies as these people now appear to want Gough. Mr. Whitlam, in a grey suit and the tan deepened by platform appearances under the sun was, of course, performing on a wicket of his own choosing. He flighted his words like a spin bowler tempting it batsman. And the crowd took them and flung back their approval to the far boundaries of the Domain. Yet how suddenly, when it was all over, did the crowds melt away back to their desks and their work benches. Soon there was nothing left but about 15.000 lunch wrappers. There was however a final word of praise from Supt. N. H. Bowden, Deputy Metropolitan Superintendent of Police. It was a well-behaved and good-humoured crowd, he said. We had no trouble. An ALP spokesman said last night that $18000 had been collected from the crowd and the AMWU had presented a cheque for $35000.  Give democracy a fair go.  The former Prime Minister, Mr Whitlam accused the Fraser Government yesterday of having betrayed democracy. Mr Fraser and his crew - these burglars masquerading as caretakers - must be thrown out of the Cabinet room bag and baggage. Opening his election campaign in Sydney yesterday, Mr. Whitlam called on the Australian people to set right a great wrong. The wrong must be righted . . . the shame must be wiped away. Only the people of Australia can do it - and they will. Mr. Fraser, he said, had not only betrayed the millions and millions of people who had voted Labor in the past two elections. He had also betrayed his own followers- the decent Australians, good Liberalk supporters, who place their faith in the parliamentary system and who believed that the Liberal Party was loyal do that system, loyal to parliamentary democracy. Mr Whitlam made no election promises in his speech. Instead he made it clear he intended to base his campaign on the constitutional crisis. This election cuts across all old party lines, he said. At stake now is not just the right to govern after December 13 of the party with a majority in the House of Representatives, the House of the people. At stake is the right of all future elected governments, whatever party, to govern. This time it’s not just a question of fulfilling election promises. The question is whether Australia allowed to fulfil her great promise as a stable parliamentary democracy, in a time when everywhere around the world, democracy is under challenge. Mr Whitlam urged Australians to give their children a fair go on December 13. Make sure that they have the chance to grow up in a safe, stable, secure parliamentary democracy, he said. Give parliamentary democracy a fair go. To condone what happened during the past six weeks would ensure that it will happen again and again until the parliamentary system itself breaks down. We all must make sure it shall never happen again. The only way to make sure that it will never happen again is for the people of Australia to render a crushing verdict of censure against these betrayals of democracy.  Pensioner groups urge Labor vote.  Two pensioner organsations are campaigning for the return of the Labor Government. The secretary of the Combined Pensioners association in NSW, Mr. J. Sharrock said in Sydney yesterday that the decision was not political but practical. We are not a party organisation and we guard this very highly, he said. But we believe the Labor Party has taken a progressive step forward in the interests of pensioners. The association has nearly 100000 members in Australia- 16000 of them in NSW. Mr. Sharrock said that members of the association’s executive had examined the Liberal NCP social welfare policy with dismay. There were no positive or constructive propositions in the policy. In these circumstances, it is in the welfare of pensioners to reject it. In Melbourne the Australian pensioners Federation said: during Labor’s three years in office steady progress has been made in establishing sound social security principles. The federation said the Liberal-NCP’s social welfare policy, announced on October 20, was a welter of words silent on benefits in dollars and cents.  Fraser tore up rules- Dunstan.  MELBOURNE, Monday. - The caretaker Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, had torn up the rules of democracy in Australia. South Australia’s Premier, Mr. Dunstan, claimed today. Democracy cannot continue in this country under what Mr. Fraser proposes, Mr. Dunstan said at a press conference in Melbourne. He is proposing that a government should have the confidence of both Houses of Parliament. How can any government govern when it is faced with the Upper House forcing elections every six months, when it does not have to face elections itself? All politicians know the rules on this, and Mr. Fraser and his friends have just torn up the rules. Mr. Dunstan said the constitutional aspects of Mr. Whitlam’s dismissal as the elected Prime Minister of Australia transcended Australia’s economic problems. The basic, real issue in this election we will have democratic government in Australia, he said. But people should be looking at the economic aspects, particularly, Mr. Fraser’s utterly disastrous policies. Mr. Dunstan spent most of today campaigning on the behalf of Mr. Lamb, the ALP member for La Trobe.  Coalities to offer investors incentives.  From MIKE STEKETEE.  CANBERRA, Monday. - The Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, is expected to offer voters a three- year program of investment incentives and tax cuts to bring Australia back to economic stability. In his campaign opening speech tomorrow nigh t in Moorabbin Town Hall, in metropolitan Melbourne, Mr.Fraser will give a timetable of measures starting from the time the Liberal-NCP is elected to office and including the next regular Budget in August and those in the following two years. The aim will be to give business a clear indication of Government policies affecting them in future years so that they can plan with confidence. The Prime Minister will promise several immediate measures to get the economy moving again. These are expected to include investment allowance- initially at 40 per cent- allowing firms to deduct for tax purposes 40 per cent of the funds they use for investment. Mr. Fraser will renew his commitment to the proposal of the Mathews Committee to index personal income taxes, meaning that individuals would not pay additional tax if a pay increase was due solely to inflation.  Desperate- DLP claim.  The Federal secretary of the DLP, Mr. Jack Kane, denounced the campaign opening speech of the former Prime Minister, Mr Whitlam, yesterday as desperate, dishonest and deceptive. He said Mr. Whitlam was campaigning on the propriety of the Senate blocking Supply because he was afraid to stand on his record.  Fear is poll weapon for both sides.  The psychology of fear is bound to be exploited in this election campaign by both Mr.  Whitlam and Mr. Fraser. It has begun already. Mr. Whitlam’s speech to the vast crowd in the sunshine at Sydney’s Domain yesterday had a shilling undertone. Mr.  Whitlam combined fear of the known with the even more frightening fear of the unknown. He portrayed Mr. Fraser as a ruthless Opposition Leader who had stopped at nothing to destroy an elected Government and would be equally ruthless in Government. He repeated the message in his speech at Melbourne’s Festival Hall last night. The greatest thing we have to fear about them is what we already know about them. Mr. Whitlam said of Mr. Fraser and his coalition. We don’t what they would do if they had the power in the next two years. And what they have shown with brutal clarity is that they it obstruct and disrupt, will defy the Constitution, break its conventions, set aside the will of the Australian people to get their way. Mr.  Whitlam won the 1974 election on the slogan of Fair go for Labor. Yesterday he set out to win the December 13 election with a new and bigger slogan – fair go for Australia. He has resolved to present this campaign as an historic, even noble, struggle to save democracy from the Mongols led by Genghis Fraser. His first stirring words to the crowd spilling over the verdant amphitheatre formed by the Domain sloping down to Woolloomooloo were: A great wrong must be set right. He repeated them at Festival Hall: men and women of Australia, the whole future of democracy is in your hands. This is one of the few campaign statements he has made with which Mr. Fraser will be in complete agreement. Mr. Fraser will be offering a different solution- the only way to save the country will be to make him Prime Minister. He will declare that nothing in the future could be more frightening than the past record of the Whitlam Government with its staggering unemployment and ripping inflation. December 13 will show whose psychology of fear is the more potent. Did Mr. Bob Hawke make the Freudian @ yesterday when he referred to an awesome composite creature called Mr. Gough Fraser?  Family Action Movement  The Family Action movement will open its NSW Senate campaign at a a Wallongong rally tonight. The movement, the electoral body of the Festival of light, will field three candidates in the December 13 senate election - Mrs. Frieda Brown, the Rev Fred Nile and Mr. Ken Harrison. Mrs. Brown and Mr. Nile will give their policy speeches in Wollongong Town Hall tonight, outlining their concern for moral issues and family life.  OECD predicts 15 pc inflation in Aust.  MELBOURNE, Wednesday-An international economic agency has forecast that Australia will have an inflation rate of around 15 per cent during 1976. The estimate, by the organisation for economic co-operation and development, compares with Australia’s annual rate of 12.1 per cent in the September quarter and a peak reached in march this year of 17.6 per cent. The Prime Minister, Mr Fraser was asked today about a newspaper report mentioning the 15 per cent figure. Mr. Fraser replied: I confirm the basic accuracy of the report. The significance of this is that in early every other OECD there have been tremendous improvements in the rates of inflation. In Australia, there has been virtually no improvement. Mr. Fraser called a press conference at his Melbourne home, where he is recovering from severe influenza which forced the postponement of his campaign opening last night. Mr. Fraser called the press conference to discuss industrial relations, but the questions concentrated very heavily on the economy and particularly on his statement last night that Australia during 1976 would have the second highest rate of inflation among the major Western nations. Today he defined these countries as the seven largest industrial powers. These are the US, Britain, Canada, West Germany, Japan, France and Italy. Australia, though not a member of the group, is among the 24 member nations of the OECD. The 12.1 per cent annual inflation rate applying in the September quarter placed Australia eleventh in this list of 24. With inflation falling in other countries, a 15 per cent rate next year would move Australia well up the ladder. Mr. Fraser said the OECD estimate was the only firm figure he had received, but in Canberra the former Treasurer, Mr. Hayden, said he was confident inflation would not exceed 10 per cent for 1975/76. Economists contacted today, mainly in the Treasury, forecast a rate of between 10 and 15 per cent for 1976. The general view of the Treasury is that there will be a continuing gradual decline in the underlying trend of price increases. The former Prime Minister, Mr. Whitlam, tonight challenged Mr. Fraser to release the documents on which he was basing his claims. On unemployment Mr. Fraser said information provided by the Department of Labour, indicated the number of people out of work could reach 335.000 by June next year. Mr. Fraser refused to say whether he was still aiming to reduce the Budget deficit to $2800 million- the figure estimated in the Budget in August which Mr. Fraser at the time said should be maintained. The projected deficit has since risen to $4,000 million, largely because of the fall in tax revenue caused by the deceleration in wage increases. Mr. Fraser denied suggestions that someone in the Liberal Party had given the ALP a copy of his policy speech, which was released yesterday before the postponement of the campaign opening. How do you feel about a member of your professional, if it was a member of your profession giving it to a member of the Labor party when it was under embargo? he asked journalists. He did not know who had given a copy of the speech to the ALP but pressmen had been the only persons to receive copies. On industrial relations, Mr Fraser said that in 1972 under a coalition Government strikes cost the loss of two million working days and $32 million in wages. In 1974, after two years of Labor Government 6,25 million days and $218 million in wages had been lost.  Labor plan to house needy.  CANBERRA, Wednesday.-A Labor Government would provide home loans for low income and other needy families, the former Minister for Urban and Regional Development, Mr Uren, said today. Mr. Uren said the Australian Housing Corporation would make loans available on a deferred repayment basis. Repayments would be limited to no more than 30 per cent of borrowers’ regular household gross incomes in the first year of a loan. They would start at low levels and rise year by year for the first ten years. Mr. Uren said that the Housing Corporation, established by Labor last June, would make $20 million available for loans in 1975-76. It is understood that the Whitlam Cabinet fixed the amount to be made available just before the Government was dismissed on November 11. Interest being charged at present was 11,5 per cent. Mr. Uren said the people the corporation was seeking to help were; low income families. initially loans would be available only to applicants whose regular gross weekly incomes, excluding overtime and child endowment, did not exceed 110 per cent of average male weekly earnings in their State. This ranged from $158 in South Australia to $205 in the ACT. In NSW it was $173. Mr. Uren said the main trust of the program was directed to second mortgage loans for home purchase or building using the deferred repayments system.  Report was confidential, says Hayden.  Canberra, Wednesday. The former Treasurer, Mr Hayden, has refused to agree that the Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, release a confidential document said to show that Australia will have the second highest inflation rate among the major Western nations next year. Mr Hayden said Mr. Fraser could go ahead and release the document at his own responsibility, but he would not be a party to breaching the trust of the organisation which had supplied the figures- the Organisation for economic co-operation and development (OECD). Mr. Fraser said yesterday that the OECD forecast for 1976 had predicted that Australia’s inflation rate would be three times greater than West Germany’s and twice that of the US and Japan. But he refused to give any figures because they were confidential and when pressed today said he wanted Mr. Hayden’s approval for further disclosures. Mr Hayden said Mr Fraser had embarrassed Australia by breaching the trust of the OECD in releasing confidential forecasts prematurely for blatant electoral purposes. To mitigate his error he has invited my complicity. However, I will disappoint him, he said. Mr Fraser had irresponsibly waffled about the forecast, but would he tell full truth by releasing the assumptions on which the forecasts had been made? The preliminary forecasts were out of date because they had been based on the Budget estimate that wage levels would rise by 22 per cent. Current forecasts for wage rises had been reduced to 15 per cent or less. Mr Fraser knows that the OECD forecast of an Australian inflation rate of 20 per cent for 1975 was overestimated by at least 7 per cent. I adhere to my forecast, made several times this year, that labor’s policies could see a rate of 10 per cent or even lower, next year. Mr Fraser had given only as much information as he thought electorally necessary but he should tell the full story on inflation in Australia.  Fraser backed by the voices….  Melbourne, Wednesday. The prime Minister, Mr Fraser had the help of a girl’s choir to get his press conference off the ground today. Just as journalists were assembling in the garden of his South Yarra Home, an organ began playing a hymn in the adjoining Melbourne Church of England Girls’ Grammar School. Glad tidings of comfort and joy were the words which came drifting across the backyard fence as Mr Fraser began speaking. The Prime Minister’s statements did not quite measure up to this description. He spent most of the next hour talking of rising inflation, 335,000 unemployed by next June, the rising number of strikes and the disastrous path along which Labor had led the Country.  Whitlam: court compromised.  The Chief Justice, Sir Garfield Barick, had seriously compromised the High Court, the former Prime Minister, Mr. Whitlam, said last night. After the High Court had reserved its decision on a challenge to House of Representatives electoral boundaries, Sir Garfield had responded to the invitation to the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, to express his view on the Course Sir John had decided to take, he said, in an interview in the ABC television program, This Day Tonight. It is certainly an extraordinary situation where the Chief Justice has before him the preparation of a judgment on whether they should be an election for the House of Representatives and then agrees to express a view to the Governor-General on that very subject Mr. Whitlam said. He has compromised the court and many of his colleagues have told him so. The Interviewer: His brother judges have told him? Mr. Whitlam: Oh, yes, yes. Mr. Whitlam said it was not the job of individual judges to express views on legal matters. The court acted as a whole. Sir Garfield in recent constitutional cases had been in the minority. Mr. Whitlam said it was unlikely that the High Court's decision would be brought down before December 13. Mr. Whitlam was asked why he had fallen foul of the managing director of News Ltd, Mr. Rupert Murdoch. I don't know, i can’t explain this, Mr. Whitlam said. He was all over us three years ago. I did not compromise myself with him then as I think would be realised. I think it is the media in Australia. Not only the newspapers but the commercial TV stations are owned by about four people. They all want to play the role of king-maker. It's not only Warwick the king-maker now, Murdoch wants to be. They ant it to be thought that they can decide who will be Prime Minister who will be the Government or who won't be.  Pensions link to CPI.  CANBERRA, Wednesday. The coalition parties promised today to adjust repatriation pensions automatically twice a year to keep up with increases in the Consumer Price Index. The promise was included in the party’s repatriation policy issued today by its spokesman, Senator Durack. The policy is essentially the same as the Labor Government's policies except for the automatic adjustments undertaking. The former Minister for Repatriation und Compensation, Senator Wheeldon, said today that the Labor Government had raised the TPI (Totally and Permanently Incapacitated) pension to the level of the minimum wage, and had kept it at that level with twice-yearly increases. The Liberal policy proposed to abandon this principle in favour of CPI-linked increases, he said. If CP1-linked increases had been given over the past three years, the TPI pension would now be $4 a week less than it was. But a coalition spokesmen denied that the automatic TPI increases implied any abandonment of parity with the minimum wage. The Liberal policy announced today promised to examine, as a matter of urgency, assistance to pensioners in nursing homes, some of whom were now paving $36.75 a week for board from a pension of $41 a week. Adequate loans to help ex-servicemen re-establish themselves, in civilian life would be provided. It also promised that, a soon as economic circumstances permitted, proposals, for the relief of widows of general rate war pensioners would be examined and further extension of the service pension to embrace former members of Allied forces would be considered. Senator Wheeldon said the coalition policy was the worst example of plagiarism he had seen.  Steel Hall names NSW Senate team.  The Liberal Movement's leader, Senator Steele Hall, introduced the party’s NSW Senate team of three businessmen yesterday. Two of them are Liberal Party dissidents. The team’s leader is Mr Terry Morgan, a 33-year old businessman and company director, of Davidson, who resigned the presidency of the Frenchs Forest Liberal Party branch earlier this year because the Libs were starting to move too far  to the Right. They seemed hell, bent on governing at any cost, he said yesterday. Mr Morgan resigned altogether from the Liberal Party last week. It's not such a drastic step; we (LM) are basically a Liberal party believing in free enterprise and very much antisocialist, be said. But 1 don't believe that the liberal Party had a right to defer the two appropriation bills. The second member of the team is Mr. Bill Payne, 26, of Glebe, an advertising executive, who was president of the Kirribilli-Neutral Bay Young Liberals and resigned last year because of dissatisfaction with the Liberal Party. I have followed Steele Hall's integrity and that it one of the reasons why I am standing for number two on the ticket, he said yesterday. The third member, Mr Bruce Irwin, 40, of West Pymble, general manager of an office supply company, believes that there is need for somebody to occupy the middle ground in a climate of extremism. Steele Hall reflects the kind of values and beliefs in the Parliamentary system and in the general beliefs of democracy that I believe more Australians should have. Mr. Irwin said that he had never bean ideologically committed to either of the major parties. In introducing the team, Senator Hall also announced the establishment of the Liberal movement in NSW with its headquarters in Artarmon. He said preferences would be given to Liberal Party candidates. But whichever party won the elections, the Liberal Movement would not block Supply.  Defector from Labor ranks.  Labor Party supporters in the electorate of Robertson were a shock yesterday when their former leader defected to the coalition parties. Mr. Arthur Mollett, a Wyong business and civic leader had been president of the Wyong branch of the Labor Party @ the Federal Council for Robertson for many years and was former Federal Labor candidate. There is no little doubt the leaders I once admired and respected, men like the late John Curtin and Ben Chifley would turn in their graves if they knew the party image of today. Federal policy speech.  Eighteen months ago in an election triggered by a diplomatic appointment by Mr.Whitlam, which filled even his own supporters with shame, the Democratic Labor Party lost its Parliamentary representation, Mr. Whitlam declared then that the DLP had been an obstacle to good government. Has there been better government since the DLP lost its Senators? Rather has the Australian government been revealed as more incompetent ruthless and corrupt! It is commonly said that we have the best country in the world! All that is wrong is the people running it. The sheer incompetence of the Whitlam government is revealed by the fact that it cannot fight the election on its record - it has none. Instead it invests its leader with the halo of martyrdom! Surely the role of slaughtered innocent sits oddly on one whose Prime Ministership has been marked by his political assassination of Messrs. Creang, Cairns, Cope, Connor, Cameron and others of his own followers; whose proudest boast is that he destroyed four Liberal leaders – Holt, Gorton, McMahon and Snedden; whose ambition is to add to their number Fraser and even a governor-general. He has proved that he can destroy - we need another Prime Minister, who will build!  Therefore, the DLP calls on the Australian people to  1. Remove from office the corrupt, incompetent, and economically disastrous Whitlam government.  2. Restore Democratic Labor representation as an inspiration towards policies for economic good sense, wise control of inflation, free enterprise, better family life, realistic defence and foreign policies, preservation of rural industry and adequate education for all.  The unedifying Canberra events of the past two months have made many Australians determined to vote for the acceptable alternative the D.L.P. In a desperate attempt to sidetrack the real issue - the failure of his government, Mr Whitlam on 18th October, stated the issue of the Parliamentary crisis - this is the first Senate in Australian history to reject a money bill.  The President of the Australian Labor Party, Bob Hawke, supported Mr. Whitlam - he said it has not happened once in 75 years. These statements are blatantly untrue. I know because I voted in the divisions where money bills were rejected. Voting with me were Labor Ministers, Senator Lionel Murphy. D. McClelland, J.Cavanagh, and the full A.L.P. Senate team. I recall the Senate majority (Labor and DLP) defeating,, among others  1. The Income Tax Bill, 1965 - a money bill.  2. The Bill to increase Post and Telegraph Rates, 1967.  3. The State Receipts Duty Bill, 1970 - a money bill.  On May 12, 1967 (see Hansard) on the 1967 Bill, Senator Murphy was very explicit. He said: "The Labor Opposition opposes this Bill. There is no tradition, as has been suggested, that the Senate will not use its Constitutional powers, whenever it considers it necessary, or desirable to do so in the public interest. There are no limitations on the Senate in the use of its constitutional powers except the limits imposed by discretion and reason. There is no tradition in the Australian Labor Party that it will not oppose in the Senate any tax or money bill, or what might be described as a financial measure. Mr. Whitlam must have known his statement was untrue, that no Senate had ever rejected a money bill. In his own Party Caucus discussions in 1965 and 1970, he took a prominent part. The Labor Party rejected his view and supported Senator Murphy, who triumphantly incorporated in Hansard a list of almost 300 occasions when Labor Party Senators voted against money bills, supply bills and appropriation bills. The Whitlam constitutional issue is exposed as a "phoney". Australians must look at the real issues. Since 1972 we have seen two grave threats to our Parliamentary democracy - threats which Parliamentary leaders in Britain have warned are a grave danger to the Parliamentary system. They are:  One - An increasing trend for the executive power, the Cabinet, to by-pass Parliament, culminating in Mr. Whitlam's action against which even some of his own Party protest, to replace the traditional Prime Ministership by an American Presidential style of pre-watergate vintage. The Whitlam Cabinet attempted to evade Parliamentary control through the notorious Khemlani loans.  Two- Assertion by trade unions @@@ influenced), of their right to reject the rule of law in industry, reject economic policies declared by the elected government to be vital to the people's welfare, deprive citizens of their property rights and determine without regard to the elected government, government's policies on foreign affairs, defence, social issues and a host of other purely political issues.  On the first issue, we have seen  1. A first Whitlam Cabinet of two – selected by one who claims to stand for political convention.  2. The gag and guillotine regularly used to prevent all but perfunctory discussion of bills making vital changes in the Australian way of life. Twenty one bills are lined up waiting to be passed if Whitlam wins. They will change the whole face of Australia.  3. A wholesale expansion of ministers’ personal staffs a Cabinet bureaucracy.  4. A "dirty tricks" department, formed to manage the press, by offering inducements where they are acceptable and by hints and threats where they are not.  5. Blatant treachery to by-pass Parliament and the Loan Council and obtain vast sums from dubious criminally exorbitant interest rates.  The Whitlam Party poses as the champion of democracy, yet in this election a Whitlam win could end Parliamentary democracy as we know it. The second issue - trade union power - has almost brought the United Kingdom to its knees and threatens Australia with a similar fate. Australian examples are - the ban on wheat to Chile, the ban on the export of live cattle without a permit from the meat union, the ban on supplies to Australian troops in Vietnam in Australian ships, the ban on certain overseas ships unless bribes are paid to certain unions, the ban on the transport of uranium, the ban on mining on Fraser island, the ban on the erection of the Newport Power House, the ban on demolition of the Regent Theatre. All these bans imposed arbitrarily by persons not subject to popular election, are a threat to democracy. Government, both Liberals and Labor, has preferred, appeasement to assertion of the @.  It is time to assert that Australia will be governed by the people's elected representatives, not un-elected union bosses! It is no answer to ignore the facts, and as so many commentators do, bleat about "kicking the communist can. None of the four communist groups here expects to win power by political action. Where communist candidates stand, they do so only to issue propaganda and win recruits. Their power is in the trade union, and it is stronger than at any time in our history. Even though divided at the trade union level, except for occasional personalities, e.g. Mundey versus Gallagher, the communists work as a team. They have power inside the ACTU, they are close to control of the Trades Hall Councils. Their aims are to produce a revolutionary situation by  1. Amalgamation of trade unions into 4 huge economic units, each under a communist secretary, i.e. Transport, Light, Fuel and Power, Iron and Steel, and Building. With these four, they can control the economic life and eventually the political life of Australia.  2. They have the shop-steward movement whose object is to give the communists control at the job level, and by-pass any non-sympathetic non-union leaders. It should be remembered that both Bob Hawke and Clyde Cameron have warned of possible authoritarian coups unless economic disorder can be eliminated. Sharkey, the Communist theorists called the shop stewards the leaders in producing a revolutionary situation.  It is pathetic to see the Whitlam government pleading with men who are dedicated to destroy capitalism and build communism on the ruins, to instead co-operate to make free enterprise work. There is danger also in the election claims of ALP leaders that the unions will not permit a Fraser government to govern. This would mean that governments are not to be elected by the people but subject to the approval or veto of Messrs, Carmichael, Bull, Halfpenny and Gallagher. The DLP believes the solution to communism in the unions lies with the rank and file unionist. He must be activated to defeat Red influence not by bans but democratically at the union ballot box - as the Industrial Groups did. Opponents will brand a statement of policies by the DLP as unrealistic. They believe we will not be a government. Yet ideas in world history have outweighed numbers. In the Senate we voted for issues on their merits - not on the rigid party lines of the Government and official opposition. Our presence was for years a factor in resolving Senate deadlocks, when neither major party would budge. We were a powerful factor in influencing desirable advances on pensions, social issues, housing the family, especially education and child endowment, defence and foreign policy, industrial and economic policy. We will do that again.  THE ECONOMY  The Whitlam Government, whose leader is so scapegoat-minded has sought a scapegoat for its misgovernment in overseas conditions. That is an unacceptable plea. In countries like Britain or Japan, their problem has been the need to spend vast sums on imports of food, raw materials and especially oil. We are the lucky country. We have all the food we need, vie have most raw materials, we produce 70% of our own oil (and that the most costly type). Overseas conditions have some effect, but overall our troubles are due to ineffective and disastrous government policies, which were humiliatingly reversed by the Socialist-minded Whitlam government-in recent months. No political party has an infallible nostrum for our economic ills and the DLP does not claim to be an exception. The first essential is a restoration of confidence. Investment and employment are bound up with this, just as during the depression of the early thirties. Government policies must seek to restore the private sector, to rehabilitate the struggling farmer and aid the small business man. If this is done, Australia has the resources for complete recovery.  The DLP recommends in addition  a) Substantial cuts in unessential government expenditure, which has been a major contributor to the inflation rate.  b) reform of the tax structure - tax indexation both for @.  c) Wage indexation.  d) A return to the Rule of Law in industry. Outlawing of political strikes.  e) immediate reduction of excessive charges for postal and communication services, which are gravely inflationary and affect all industry, especially rural industry.  f) Encouragement for mineral industry development and oil exploration. If our present oil supplies run out, we will face vast increases in our overseas costs.  g) A more stable economy would eventually make possible a desirable lowering of interest rates.  The DLP will call in the Senate for a complete survey of the whole field of rural industry and its problems over the next decade at least. We sought this in the last Parliament, without avail. It was contended that each rural industry wished to be a law to itself. That policy has been a failure. An overall rural plan is vital. Rural industry and the mining industry are the mainstays of our export trade and deserve encouragement, not the economic attacks under which they have suffered in the past 3 years. Finally, there is a need for every Australian to work to make his country a better place. Wage increases ultimately must depend on increases in productivity and not the something for nothing attitude encouraged by the Whitlam government.  SENATE RIGHTS.  All the hysteria and emotion about Senate powers is unnecessary and bogus. There is a method available to obtain democratically the people's decision on Senate powers - a referendum. The DLP has no objection to such a referendum.  FOREIGN POLICY AND DEFENCE.  As a result of Liberal ineptitude, the 1972 and 1974 elections were fought with foreign policy and defence non-issues. As these two issues have been for years Labor's Achilles heel, it is no wonder Whitlam won!  FOREIGN POLICY (Cont).  Australian foreign policy and the defence policies associated with it are the creation of Mr. Whitlam. He has said that he believed himself to be the greatest Foreign Minister in Australian history. When pressure was put on him by his party to relinquish the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and concentrate en the Prime Ministership where frequent absences abroad would not leave Australia leaderless, he used a subterfuge to retain Foreign Affairs. He removed the Ministry from the House of Representatives so that he could remain spokesman for it there. The Titular Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Willesee, was to Whitlam a figurehead. Our foreign policy is Mr. Whitlam’s. The keynote of the Whitlam policy was set some years ago, when returning from South East Asia, he said we must accept division of the world of the future into spheres of influence dominated by super-powers -Europe to the Soviet; North America to the United States; South East Asia and probably us, to Red China. Whitlam's policies in Asia are dominated by the need to appease China, but appeasement does not bring peace - it brings war. The danger to us is greater when our defences are emasculated. Remember, most of the world's people today live under communism - Russia is the most powerful military nation in the world. Yet the Whitlam cry is that a world full of violence has offered us immunity for 10 or 15 years!  The DLP offers these realistic policies:  1. We should make ourselves as self reliant as possible in defence, even if this involves considerable spending on the army, navy and airforce. Even if danger were not in sight for 10 years, it would take all that to rebuild our defences.  2. We should prove by self reliant defences to our allies in Anzus that we are equipped to make a contribution to mutual security instead of adopting the Whitlam policy of free- loading. Our army of 30,000 means only 5,000 fighting men. Our navy, airforce and defence supply department are equally in need.  3. Our subservience to Peking should be replaced by a cool realization that China regards 12 million people as of minimal importance and their interest in us only extends as far as we can be made us of.  4. Alliances and associations with Britain, U.S.A. and friendly South East Asian countries, especially Indonesia, should be strengthened.  5. Double diplomacy, e.g. encouraging guerrillas in countries like Vietnam, Laos, South Africa, Cambodia, Rhodesia, while condemning them in countries under Communist rules should cease.  6. Aid to "have not" countries should be doubled at least. Our aid is still small and largely confined to New Guinea.  7. Oil exploration should be stepped up on terms attracting overseas capital but ensuring adequate Australian content.  8. Friendlier relations should be cultivated with the Pacific Island areas and mutual security agreements encouraged.  EDUCATION.  The DLP stands for the best possible education for Australian youth. It therefore supports the dual system of State and registered schools. It should be remembered that the DLP pioneered the call for aid, a better term for which is "justice" - for the registered schools. The DLP also supported and voted in the Senate for every proposal to advance State education. The DLP believes that there should be a survey of the whole field of education. Australians have readily provided money in astronomical quantities for education, but are we getting value? Should we spend more on primary education and less on the more glamorous forms. Where are the advances best made? A wide ranging survey should be made to provide the answers, so that we get full value in both State and registered schools. Mr. Whitlam profited in 1972 by posing as the friend of the registered schools. He promised additional aid and that no aid then being given would be withdrawn. Yet he proceeded to withdraw all aid from A class schools and only reversed the decision under DLP pressure. Parents of children, in A class schools should remember that Mr. Whitlam declared their aid would be continued only for 2 Years. That term is @.  EDUCATION (Cont).  Perhaps Mr. Whitlam’s true attitude was shown when he eliminated in his Budget, tax concessions to parents of children in private schools. The increased sums allocated to private schools have largely been robbed of their value by Whitlam-caused inflation. The DLP regards the latest Schools Commission Report as most unsatisfactory. The DLP attitude is for each child to be treated equally no matter what type of school he or she attends. Finally, the DLP believes there should be an examination of the voucher system favoured by many teachers as a remedy for excessive centralism.  RURAL.  Long ago, Mr. Whitlam decided that elections were determined by the city vote, the pensioner vote and the civil service vote. That explains his indifference to rural problems. Even Senator Wireidt, who is closer to him that most of his Ministers, could get little from Whitlam for the farmer, and it is no secret that he was glad to be transferred from the Primary Production portfolio. Mr. Whitlam's creed is that the farmer has never had it so good and therefore Labor's mission should be to improve the quality of life in the cities. Yet rural production is our biggest industry and today languishes from governmental indifference and neglect! Farmers, whose debts are mounting and whose prospects are deteriorating for the first time in history, demand the equivalent of unemployment pay. Their problems have no hope of solution under a Labor government. The DLP advocates an overall survey of rural industry to spotlight problems and determine solutions. The DLP calls for long term finance at low interest rates, reform or elimination of estate duties, immediate drastic reduction of postal, telephone and other communication charges and measures for effective decentralisation and preservation of the family farm. Without measures such as these, the Country will die, and Australia will be the worse for it!  HEALTH and HOUSING.  The DLP originally opposed Medibank. We believed the voluntary Health Benefits system effectively covered 90% of the people and the Government should provide for pensioners and those unable to cope. Whitlam Labor pressed on and as a result we have a huge bureaucracy set up to handle Medibank and promising unlimited problems with doctors, pharmacists and others - also unlimited costs! When Australians, receive their tax assessments they will realize that Medib-W1k is not free! The DLP will urge the new government to seek a better system, with less regimentation, less bureaucracy and less cost. On housing, Whitlam, Labor has been a total loss. The building industry is at an all-time low, and homes are priced out of the home seekers reach. The DLP will seek to divert finance to home builders at lower interest rates. The DLP, in order to assist genuine home seekers, calls for a reduction in interest rates and the re-introduction of an up-dated Home Grants system which in the past has helped young people to reach the deposit required by lending institutions. We call again for the setting up of a special fund at the Reserve Bank which will provide loans for the erection of homes on the purchaser's own land, the purchase of land itself, the purchase of a home already built, or the purchase of a home unit.  SOCIAL JUSTICE.  In the area of social policy there are two groups of persons which require immediate and sympathetic attention the pensioner and the family man.  Pensioners - Pensioners have not and will not receive justice under the existing system, where pension rates are determined in the auction room atmosphere of politics, particularly at Budget time or Election time. All pension rates should be determined on a regular basis by an independent tribunal of exports. The tribunal, which should include a pensioner representative, should review all the relevant criteria, cost of living, prices, wage increases, etc. On many occasions the DLP moved in the Senate for the establishment of such a tribunal and on every occasion the ALP joined with the Liberal-Country Party to defeat it. The tribunal, would now be a reality if the ALP had, for once, voted for a proposal on its merits and not solely on @.  SOCIAL JUSTICE (Cont).  The best way to assist the family is through child endowment. Under the present and past Governments, child endowment payments have been allowed to decline in real value. The DLP believes that child endowment payments should be increased, particularly for the third, fourth and later children, and that, the increase should be on a graduated basis. There is no point or logic in spending millions dollars on immigration if the natural increase in population is ignored and not encouraged. To assist those families who are experiencing accommodation problems, the DW also advocates the introduction in Australia of the very successful New Zealand scheme of the capitalisation of child endowment payments in a lump sum for housing additions and improvements. The DLP directs attention to and supports the child endowment policies set out by Professor Henderson in his report on poverty, especially regarding large families.  WOMEN.  The DLP affirms that women have certain undeniable natural rights. Foremost is the right to contribute to the welfare of home and family as a full-time homemaker. While women have a rightful role as part of the workforce, it cannot be accepted that this role be promoted as superior to a woman's traditional role in society as a full time homemaker, particularly if she has dependent children. To assist these women to maintain their rightful natural role in Australian society, the DLP calls for:  1. An inquiry into the contribution made to the community by the mother who stays at home, and an assessment of its value.  2. Immediate and significant increases in child endowment.  3. Promotion of family life education, especially at the secondary school level.  Working women.  The DLP advocates that married women be guaranteed absolute freedom of choice as to whether they wish to work in industry or to care for their families full-time. There is no real freedom of choice unless the economic rewards of both occupations are substantially the same. In order to ensure absolute freedom of choice for married women, the Arbitration Commission be urged to structure a new wage system on the following principles  a) There should be a Standard Wage, expressly fashioned to provide for the 'needs' of the unmarried wage-earner, including savings for marriage.  b) There should be equal pay for equal work among male and female workers.  c) There should be a-system of Family Allowances, including an allowance for the wife who chooses to stay at home and for each child, fixed at a level to meet the actual cost of maintaining both wife and children.  REFUGEES.  The DLP regrets and condemns the callous indifference of the Whitlam government to the plight of refugees, particularly from Vietnam. The DLP will urge the new government to undertake a realistic, contribution to world refugee problems.  ABOLITION OF DEATH DUTIES.  Let me now turn to another issue - the abolition of probate or death duties - in which the DLP has played a leading role. We believe that death duties must be abolished on the following grounds. While a man is working, his income is taxed. It is outrage that when he dies, his life savings are also taxed! The tax schedules for probate have remained unaltered for more than two decades. Inflation over that period leads to ever higher valuations on farms, houses and other property. As a result, ordinary Australians are being taxed as if they were cattle kings or squatter barons.  DEATH DUTIES (cont).  In the case of the primary producers, over the past 10 years they have paid on average 35% of all Federal death duties collected by Canberra. But primary producers make up only 7% of all taxpayers. This is blatant discrimination against the rural community, practised - I remind  You- by both Liberal-Country Party and Labor Governments. In the cities, too often a widow is forced to sell up the family home to pay death duties because inflation has caused her home to be valued at ridiculous levels. The DLP had a Bill before the Senate to solve the problem by the complete abolition of Commonwealth probate. The Liberal-Country Party coalition always refused to abolish probate when it held office. Perhaps in order to win office, it will repent and support our proposal!  INDUSTRIAL.  The DLP believes that a return to the Rule of Law in industry is vital to our economic and social future. Therefore the DLP calls for Australian governments to defend the Arbitration system against the efforts of so-called militant and communist union leaders to destroy it. The DLP points to the warning given by Mr. J.B.Chifley in 1947 - "There are circumstances that must be guarded against, those that arise as a result of employers and employees engaged in industries that are almost monopolistic, coming together and reaching an agreement with a certainty that they will be permitted to pass on to the consuming public the excessive costs arising from such agreements”. Governments must insist that the public interest be not excluded from such negotiations and where, powerful unions threaten, employers with demands for. such "sweetheart agreements" governments must firmly protect those threatened. The DLP further believes that  1. The use of trade union strength by strike action to achieve political purposes should be made contrary to law.  2. That the trade union movement be called upon to develop effective procedures for dealing with demarcation disputes, so preventing ruinous strikes.  3. That elections for full time union officials be according to a system of compulsory voting in ballots conducted by Commonwealth Electoral officers.  INDUSTRIAL (Cont).  4. That employers be encouraged by tax and other concessions to introduce as far as possible worker participation and profit-sharing.  5. That the principle of secret ballots on strikes is democratic and desirable.  6. That wage and tax indexation should be implemented.  OIL.  The failure of the Whitlam government to promote oil exploration has gravely endangered our economic future. Our reserves have been allowed to fall from 2,300 million barrels in 1970 to 1,700 million in 1974. No new reserves have been discovered and consumption is rising. Oil imports have been estimated to cost  $650 million 1975  $1300 million 1977  $2000 million after 1980.  The Whitlam government removed exploration incentives and, exploration dropped catastrophically. Investment allowances should be re-introduced, together with tax concessions for exploration. Australia must provide significant sums for exploration and development of newly discovered fields. Oil exploration is a gamble but the rewards can be more than worth while. Additionally, Australia should seek to produce oil from its proven coal deposits. Oil price rises can make this an economic pro-position. We should plan to produce oil from coal deposits in the Eastern States. We will need home-produced oil for industry and defence, and as a barrier against inflation.  Environment.  The DLP strongly supports policies for the protection and improvement of the environment. The DLP however, condemns approaches by certain pro-environment organisations to trade unions, seeking to make them and their officials the arbiters on environmental disagreements. The DLP supports the establishment of judicial tribunals to determine such disagreements, the decisions of such tribunals, which shall have power to co-opt expert advice, to be final and enforced by law.  BALTIC NATIONS.  The DLP is irrevocably opposed to the Australian Government’s recognition of Soviet control over the captive Baltic nations. The DLP directs attention to the broken promise of Mr. Whitlam prior to the last election that his government would not recognise Soviet control over the Baltic nations.  DEFENCE FORCES.  The DLP will strive to  a) Widen the powers and charter of the National Disaster Organisation to incorporate Federal, State and Local Government representation and incorporate the armed services to the extent of purporting a purposeful, vital and essential need for the services in both peace and war.  b) Fully involve the expertise and technological training of the Services in national scientific and research programmes thereby allowing members to -apply the benefits of their education to their satisfaction and the nation's benefit.  c) Take all necessary practical actions to develop a living awareness within the Services and the nation at large of the achievements and traditions of our Services.  d) Relate individual service units to the local community and give commanders the facilities to allow effective cultivation of this concept.  DEFENCE FORCES (Cont).  e) Modernise service dress so that servicemen and women again wear their uniforms in public with pride and dignity.  f) Establish a Defence Forces Work and Resettlement Commission to continually investigate and advise or implement conditions of service, pay variations and repatriation in accord with the relevant conditions applying in outside industry.  g) Provide such national works as will anticipate wartime defence needs.  We record the fact that the DLP was the initiator of the inception of a National Disaster Organisation.  MIGRANTS.  The DLP supports migration and regrets the recent restrictions. It points to the words of the late Albert Monk that you cannot turn migration on and off like a tap. The great advances made in Australia since 1946 were to a big extent due to the migrant contribution.  The DLP calls for -  1. Increased assistance for family migration.  2. Supervised migration of single women in collaboration with national, Church and philanthropic bodies.  3. More humane attitudes to Asian migration.  The DLP condemns anti-migrant attitudes and attacks on human rights of migrants, of which the raids and attacks on citizens of Croatian origin were the worst attacks on human rights in Australian history.  ELECTORAL.  A sinister feature of the Whitlam Governments' plans is its legislative programme to alter the electoral system to perpetuate itself in power.  Features of this programme are -  1. Electorates are to he made equal in population, not in numbers of voters. With Labor electorates containing more children, this gives the adult vote in a Labor electorate far more value than a Liberal or Country Party vote.  2. The present ballot system is to be altered to first past the post or optional preferential. Either change gives substantial advantages to the Labor Party.  3. As part of the Labor plan to discourage or destroy small parties, large scale increases in candidates' deposits, and percentages necessary for the return of deposits are to be introduced. Yet, it is only a few years since they were previously increased. The DLP firmly supports the only just system preferential voting and proportional representation.  THE MEDIA.  The media can make or mar the election. It could be a British style election with not only major but also minority opinions represented, or an American Presidential style election - Whitlam v. Fraser. That was the style in 1972 and 1974, which were both media disasters. The DLP in 1972 and 1974 were censored from the election debate. We had five Senators and were the decisive force in the Senate, yet with most of the media we did not exist! If only we could get the coverage given to the Communist Party - the Mundey's, Gallagher’s, Halfpenny's and Carmichael’s. The DLP hopes the call for a fair go in the election will not be confined to Mr. Whitlam; minority views deserve a fair go too!  THE NEXT ELECTION.  This election will not be the decisive one for Australia; the decisive election will be the one after it. If Fraser wins, as we believe he will, everything will depend on his ability to do a good job. Already union elements are declaring that there will be no co-operation with a Fraser government and that the unions will bring him down. Their  belief is that Australia will then turn back to and give it the power in both Houses to implement Socialism. That is why whatever the result on December 13, the DLP will continue. Already we have created a record. No other small party in Australian history has lasted 21 years. The pressures favouring the major parties are too great. To those who sneer at the DLP’s performance. We point out that if someone opened a shop between Coles and Woolworth's and in competition with them, the fact that he failed to put both out of business would not mean that he was a poor businessman or sold a poor type of article. The DLP does not resent those who examine our arguments; we do resent those who ignore our arguments and attack us. We will still be there when the real crisis comes in the next five years!