“Small” Aussie investors in Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton are profiting from the wholesale looting of Australia.
As the CEC reported 24th May, exporting raw materials actually robs the nation of many times the wealth it generates, which was illustrated in Liberal Prime Minister John Gorton’s 23rd January, 1970 Federal Cabinet submission, in the case of exporting one million tons of bauxite ($ values have changed, ratios will be similar):
Raw material, export earnings: $5 million
Processed one step into alumina, export earnings: $27 million
Processed second step into aluminium, export earnings: $120 million
Processed final step into aluminium products, export earnings: $600 million!
Great Australian patriots such as the Liberal Party’s John Gorton, Country Party leader John “Black Jack” McEwen, and Labor stalwarts Rex Connor and Jim Cairns knew raw materials exports looted Australia, and waged a fierce fight in the late 1960s and early 1970s to establish the Australian Industry Development Corporation (AIDC) as a national fund to invest in processing; Gorton was even called a socialist by people in his own Liberal Party. When Connor and Cairns fought to “buy back the farm”, the owner of Rio Tinto (then CRA), the Queen herself, sacked the Whitlam government, to crush any attempt to assert national control over Australia’s resources, which would impinge on the Anglo-Dutch raw materials cartel’s monopoly.
Since Hawke and Keating unleashed the globalisation destruction of Australia, our once-great industrial economy, which built the Snowy Mountains Scheme, launched satellites into space, was capable of every type of manufacturing and boasted a world-class machine tool industry, has been literally reduced to rubble—mountains of it, towering beside the enormous holes that are the main feature of our globalised “quarry” economy.
The government’s bastardisation of our social security system has herded workers into compulsory superannuation, to become the millions of small investors in the very companies gouging Australia: banks, oil companies, resources companies etc.
Consider the mentality: Enraged at bank charges? Look on the bright side—you’re an investor! Furious at paying through the nose for petrol produced from oil set at the world parity price ranging from US$70-$140 a barrel, which costs BHP just $11 per barrel to pump? Relax—you’ve got shares in BHP.
Nationalise our resources
The only way to reverse this wanton destruction of Australia, and make our economy fully functional for the future, is to assert national control over all of Australia’s resource wealth:
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The CEC will establish a national resources company, owned by the government, to develop our strategic resources, especially uranium and thorium, and take over functioning mines that private companies would otherwise shut down, such as BHP’s Ravensthorpe nickel mine.
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Private mining companies would only operate under a strict national licensing régime, to regulate the mining operation and to ensure the resource is used in the national interest. For example, mining companies would not be allowed to use Australian resources to extort the domestic or global economy, the way the Rio Tinto/BHP Billiton duopoly currently use Australia’s iron ore to hold the world’s steel industry to ransom for higher and higher prices.
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Financed by a national bank, credit will be directed into developing onshore processing for all raw materials—steel factories, oil refineries, smelters, uranium enrichment etc. From there, Australian infrastructure and industry will have priority access to those materials, as Australia embarks on an unprecedented reindustrialisation program centred on a national high-speed railway network, a nuclear power grid, great water projects, especially to develop the Top End, and a space program.
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Australia will share its resources with other nations under mutually-beneficial, long-term government-to-government contracts.
Citizens Electoral Council leader and candidate for Wills, Craig Isherwood today urged people to see through the charade of the current mining debate:
“Australia doesn’t have a future unless we kick out the Anglo-Dutch raw materials cartel, and reclaim our resources. This is a fight for national sovereignty, and the common good. I urge all Australians to get behind it.”
For more information on the CEC’s program to rebuild Australia, including nationalising resources, click here for a free New Citizen newspaper and DVD.
To buy a copy of What Australia Must Do to Survive the Depression, click here.
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