In
This Southern Land of Ours, Australia’s greatest poet, Charles Harpur, wrote:
With clowns to make our laws, and knaves
To rule us as of old,
In vain our soil is rich, in vain
‘Tis seamed with virgin gold!
But the present only yields us nought,
The future only lours,
Till we have a braver Manhood
In this Southern Land of ours.
On 21st August, 2007, less than a month after U.S. physical economist Lyndon LaRouche’s 25th July announcement that the global financial collapse was underway (within days of which the giant Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns went under), newly-appointed shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey, then Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, replied to a letter from Citizens Electoral Council candidate Kundan Misra:
“I have noted your views,” Hockey wrote. “I however disagree vehemently with your analysis that the world is facing a collapse of the financial markets. The last few days have indicated that the financial markets, with the support of central banking institutions, are able to meet the demands that have been placed on them.”
CEC leader Craig Isherwood today blasted Australia’s political leaders as “dangerous fools,” whom the Australian people can no longer afford to tolerate.
“Joe Hockey is just one of a troupe of economic clowns, from all major parties, who have finally been showed up by the global financial collapse.
“For more than a decade, the CEC repeatedly warned many of these politicians, in person, that the global financial system was headed for collapse, and were often met with the same response as Mr Hockey’s.
“Now, knowing they were warned, these clowns can only whine, ‘nobody could have seen this coming.’
“Deputy PM Julia Gillard lied to the ABC on 7th November, 2008: ‘When we put the Budget together in May, obviously we weren’t predicting, and no one was predicting, the global financial crisis which then emerged.’ She repeated the lie as reported in The Australian on 24th November: ‘By a country mile, the biggest unexpected challenge is the global financial crisis. Its impact on the Australian economy a year ago—no one was predicting we would face an event like that.’ Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner made the same false claim on the ABC’s Insiders on 16th November, ‘But clearly we are in a completely extraordinary situation here. We are in circumstances that nobody really could have predicted.’
“Why the lie? For the same reason former Treasurer Peter Costello recently pretended that he didn’t encourage everybody to pour all their wealth into superannuation before 30th June, 2007, which has now all been lost—they prefer to be seen as clowns, rather than criminals.
“Whether they are clowns or criminals, it is homeless families, impoverished pensioners, ruined retirees, and the growing ranks of unemployed who are now paying the price.
Mr Isherwood concluded, “As Charles Harpur said, nothing will change until ‘we have a braver Manhood, in this Southern Land of ours.’
“So I urge my fellow Australians, don’t be afraid of the change required to solve the crisis—get behind the CEC’s campaign for a Pecora Commission to investigate the bankers and politicians who destroyed the financial system; support the Homeowners and Bank Protection Bill, and a National Bank to finance an economic recovery.”
For a free information pack on the need for a Pecora Commission and the Homeowners and Bank Protection Act, click here.
Click here to join the CEC as a member.
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