Citizens Electoral Council of Australia

Media Release Tuesday, 3 June 2014

Craig Isherwood‚ National Secretary
PO Box 376‚ COBURG‚ VIC 3058
Phone: 1800 636 432
Email: cec@cecaust.com.au
Website: http://cec.cecaust.com.au

Time to act! Become a CEC member to fight Libs, ALP & Greens’ fascist crackdown on democracy

The Australian people must fight against the fascist attack on democracy that the Liberals, ALP and Greens agreed to last month in Canberra.

The existing parliamentary parties put aside their charade of ripping into each other long enough to unite on changing the electoral rules to make it extremely difficult for other parties to contest elections.

Under the proposed rule changes, the membership requirement for party registration will be tripled, and the verification process will be much more onerous.

Conveniently, the existing parliamentary parties will not be subject to these registration requirements!

This decision is not about the large Senate ballot paper in the 2013 federal election; it is about terror among the powerbrokers in Australia’s major banks and corporations at the growing revolt in the general population against their bought-and-paid-for political parties, a revolt which is spawning a host of new parties.

Chief among the targets of this rule change is the Citizens Electoral Council. Unlike most alternative parties, which might flare brightly but then quickly burn out, the CEC has been a political force in this country for 25 years.

More importantly, the CEC is the clear opposition in Australia to the disastrous free market consensus between the Liberals, ALP and Greens, under which Australia’s economy has degenerated into a raw materials quarry and financial casino.

Now, as we stand on the edge of a new, far worse global financial collapse than that of 2008, the CEC uniquely is mobilising for Glass-Steagall legislation to split our Too Big To Fail (TBTF) banks into normal commercial banks servicing the community and the real economy on the one hand, and speculative investment banking on the other. The former will receive government backing, but the speculators will be left to sink or swim—and speculation forms the bulk of the assets of the Big Four and Macquarie. Following the enactment of Glass-Steagall, we must start to pour credit into the real economy, into family farms, manufacturing and great infrastructure projects. For this purpose the CEC has drafted ready-to-enact legislation for a new national bank as well as specifications for major new infrastructure projects in water, power, and transport which will unleash a recovery of our physical economy, and provide a well-paying job to anyone who wants one.

The reality is that the TBTF banks own the entrenched political parties, who have pledged to bail them out when they collapse, as they most certainly will when some of their $23 trillion in derivatives speculation goes bad or when our nation’s mortgage bubble—one of the worst in the world—finally pops, as it inevitably soon will.

The banks take full advantage of this arrangement to loot the Australian people of tens of billions each year, through outrageous fees, artificial clearance delays, high interest rates, and crushing penalty interest rates on struggling farms and small businesses. This looting extends to their reckless speculation in real estate and mortgages, which has made housing completely unaffordable, and loaded Australian households with record debt, now 177% of household income (up from 60% in 1990). Together with skyrocketing costs for electricity, toll roads, and services from formerly state-owned assets which the “major” parties have privatised, the burden of servicing the interest on this debt is driving the cost of living crisis in Australia. The banks are funnelling every spare cent into this property bubble, by starving the productive small business and farming sectors of the economy of credit, which is driving many enterprises to the wall.

This omnipresent looting by the banks is fuelling the political revolt in the population. But instead of taking action against this theft, the parties in Canberra are carrying out the orders of their TBTF masters to suppress any political revolt, by excluding alternative political parties.

Time to act

It is time for Australians who support Glass-Steagall and national banking to stand with the CEC by joining as an Associate Member.

The CEC is on a nationwide membership drive, which aims to go well beyond the new membership requirement to make it impossible for this naked political suppression to succeed.

Join the CEC today.

Click here for a free copy of Glass-Steagall Now!, which details the CEC’s most urgent policy priority, and includes introductory information on the CEC’s other policies of national banking and great infrastructure projects.

Click here to join the CEC as a member.

Click here to refer others to receive regular email updates from the Citizens Electoral Council of Australia.