Point number two calls for:
The establishment of a National Bank and State Banks to provide loans at 2% or less to agriculture (family farms), industry and for infrastructure development.
This policy is the cornerstone of what was once known as the American System of Political Economy, as opposed to the British System of free trade and privately-controlled central banks, and was designed by George Washington's Secretary to the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton. A National Bank was part of "old Labor's" program from almost the very beginning, as evidenced in their 1894 and 1899 Fighting Platforms. In 1911, Labor's King O'Malley who said of himself, "I am the Alexander Hamilton of Australia," succeeded in getting the Commonwealth Bank established, over the objections of the leadership of the Party, which had a private deal with the Melbourne bankers. O'Malley's idea, which was not fully implemented, was for a nationally-owned bank to direct credit for the development of the nation, and so break up the private banking cartel. Such a National Bank issues credit, backed by the nation, for development projects, and productive industry at around 2% interest. The credit enables economic development, which increases employment and hence also the tax base. As the loans are repaid, based on the expanded economic development, even more credit can be lent out, and the process expanded indefinitely.
The Citizens Electoral Council in 1994 drafted legislation for a National Bank, which legislation is ready to implement immediately. It is contained, together with four accompanying pieces of draft legislation, in the CEC's 1994 policy document entitled, Sovereign Australia: An Economic Development Program to Save our Nation.
Old Labor always defined its primary enemy as the "Money Power", which works through "central banking" as opposed to national banking. So-called central banking really means private bankers exercising control over the nation's finance, and has been in existence in its modern form since 1694, when the Bank of England was first chartered. Witness how Alan Greesnpan and the U.S. Federal Reserve, which was established under private banker control in 1913, has spent the past five years organising bail-out after bail-out of the financial system, in order to keep the bankrupt private banking system afloat. Our own Commonwealth Bank functioned brilliantly under Sir Denison Miller, whom O'Malley recruited to run it, but, after Miller's death in 1923, was corrupted in the later 1920s, when the government of Stanley Melbourne Bruce transformed it to be part of a British scheme of an international network of central banks controlled by the Bank of England. As for the Reserve Bank, which is also privately controlled by such luminaries as Janet Holmes á Court and the Mont Pelerin Society's Hugh Morgan, and before him Bill Kelty, it was established as Australia's central bank by H.C. "Nugget" Coombs, one of Prince Philip's mates, and the father of Aboriginal land rights, who once bragged he belonged to the "international freemasonry of central bankers". As you remember, the Commonwealth Bank was partially privatised under the Keating government, and then finally sold off altogether, something which would make John Curtin, Ben Chifley and all the veterans of the old Labor Party roll over in their graves.
John Curtin, in his 1937 Fremantle Town Hall speech said:
"To deal with unemployment and to make that industrial and economic preparedness which is the essence of national defence and security, three related monetary measures are necessary:
1. National control of credit to ensure its adequacy to maintain and increase employment.
2. National control of interest rates, in order to keep to a minimum the monetary and capital costs on production and industry.
3. National direction of investment with the object of assisting in the promotion of a balanced economic development. The Commonwealth bank is the logical instrument to function for the community in effecting monetary re-adjustment and economic reconstruction. The Labor Government will legislate so that the Commonwealth Bank would be able competently to control:
(a) Credit for the Nation
(b) Rates of Interest
(c) Direction of general investment
(d) Currency relations with external markets
"The Labor Party points to the planks of its platform and insists that the Commonwealth Bank must have its original charter restored. The policy of the Government must be given effect and the people's authority established in respect to an indispensable national service." If the Government of the Commonwealth deliberately excluded itself from all participation in the making or changing of monetary policy it cannot govern except in a secondary degree.
