From the Easy Chair

Forbidden Discovery in Australia

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 103-214

Genre: Speech

Track:

Dictation Name: RR161CB145

Year: 1980s and 1990s

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, RR161CB145, Forbidden Discovery in Australia, from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.

[ Rushdoony ] This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 255, November 9, 1991.

This evening Otto Scott, Douglas Murray and I have the privilege of having with us Ian Hodge of Australia. Ian Hodge is a Christian Reconstructionist down under and for those of you who would be interested—and I believe you would be—he puts out a couple of reports. And if you send him, I hope, a generous contribution he will add you to his mailing list. Now mailing from Australia to the states is not cheap so be generous. The Foundation for the Advancement of Christian Studies puts out an F A C S report PO Box 241, Engadine, E N G A D I N E, New South Wales 2233 Australia and also he will send you Christian Economics and I think you will find them both very, very interesting. And these two that I hold in my hand, the articles are in both cases by Ian. One is “The Gun Owner’s Arsenal,” one of the finest statements on the right to keep and bear arms that I have seen. The other on the social conditions for wealth, which deals with what the alternatives to freedom are. And it is an excellent analysis. I urge you to write, to send in a gift. And I think you will enjoy these two. And if you have enough copies, Ian, perhaps you could send them these.

[ Hodge ] I can always make copies of them.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, Ian, you were telling us or you were telling me a little earlier that the two forbidden discussions of discussion in Australia are politics and religion. So let’s break the taboos, both of them, and discuss both subjects.

You told us that the ignorance of Christianity outside the churches is quite extensive and you told us a couple of stories illustrative of that. Did you repeat those stories?

[ Hodge ] I think on this occasion under duress I could repeat them for you. The story is told of two Australians who were wandering through a large outback paddock when they noticed a large bull in the same paddock approaching in their direction. As they were running for the safety of the fence and realized that they would not make it before the bull came upon them, one turned to the other and said, “Quick, say a prayer.”

His friend promptly replied, “I only know one.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, “Say it.”

He said, “All right. For what we are about to receive...”

[ Rushdoony ] I like that one. And the other?

[ Hodge ] Well, the other is a story that was actually told some years ago by, excuse me, I will just have to find it here in the ... in the book. We have a very interesting publication in Australia, a recent book entitled Advance Australia Where? which I believe provides a very good analysis of Australian culture in terms of religion and the attitude to Christianity.

Australians don’t... as you said earlier, the two taboos in Australian culture are politics and ... and religion. It is considered impolite to ... to kind of browse those subjects. But I think it is true to say that politics is... well, the taboo against politics is broken down in... in recent years. The economic effects of the country and the... the state of the nation has definitely brought politics to the fore so that most people now are willing to discuss it.

Sorry, I am just having a little difficulty finding... Here this is the story that was told at {?} Hancock, one of the great mining magnates in the country in a series of lectures he gave in 1973.

The story is two Australians and one mumbles to his mate and he says, “I will bet you can’t even say the Lord’s prayer.”

“Bet you two bob I can,” says the other.

“Go ahead,” his friend replied. “Say it.”

“Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”

“You win,” says his mate. Here is your two bob.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, let’s break the taboos and start with politics. Some of the Australian readers of the Chalcedon Report have told us that things are rather grim in Australia now economically. Would you like to comment on that?

[ Hodge ] At least since the stock market crash of 1997 Australia has begun to see severe economic repercussions of that event. We had as one business writer analyst put it, probably in the first 12 months after the stock market crash we had probably a hundred billion dollars written off the value of company business, which for a population of about 16 million people is probably a fair amount of money.

[ Scott ] Are you talking about our stock market crash?

[ Hodge ] It was also our stock market crash and ours was far more severe than what yours was.

[ Scott ] Yes, at the same time.

[ Hodge ] The same day.

[ Scott ] Over at the same day.

[ Hodge ] Same day.

[ Scott ] I didn’t know that.

[ Hodge ] Our market went down approximately 50 percent in the... in the few hours of trading on that fateful day in October.

[ Rushdoony ] And those companies went under. They didn’t just lose, they disappeared. Is that right?

[ Hodge ] Most of them were firms that became bankrupt. If you look prior to that, the events leading up to the ... the demise of those companies, we had had fairly constant inflation through the period... through the period and by inflation, I mean they were at... the government manipulation of the money supply.

That had bee running at levels as high as around 18 to 20 percent per annum for a fairly consistent period from about 1983 when the Labor government came into power up to that period.

[ Scott ] We had it not that much. We have had much at the close of the Carter administration which took us up to 1980.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And you went into it three years later.

[ Hodge ] Ours was also high during that period as well. But we had had enormous inflation for what I consider fairly substantial inflation during the period. So companies had been very prone to the use of debt as a means of expansion and some had ... some companies had built quite substantial {?} on the takeover philosophy and then regarding the asset and, yeah, {?} the company eventually...

[ Scott ] Right.

[ Hodge ] And... and going on to the point now where most of the major players into ... up to that period of 1987 the last ... the last of those big players is just about to go under with the possible bankruptcy and that was just one company I am talking about here was an enterprise that had around five billion dollars in assets.

[ Scott ] What are the central industries involved?

[ Hodge ] It is a mixture. Most of these large ones were companies that had built diverse empires. And...

[ Scott ] Conglomerates.

[ Hodge ] Yes.

[ Scott ] What is the central industries anyway? I mean I remember sheep, mining at one point. What else?

[ Hodge ] They would still be the major ones, especially for the export trade. And we don’t have a real any else in terms of ... of industry in such a small population.

[ Rushdoony ] You mentioned the effect on one great family of Australia sending their son to the Harvard Business School. I think that is a story that bears repeating.

[ Hodge ] It is a good example of what has happened and what prompted it, Otto, was{?} I heard on one of these tapes some time back where you said, I think, that the only thing they learn at Harvard Business School is how to go into debt. But the particular family, the Fairfax family had started newspapers in the country I the early 1800s. And through the generations had built the most substantial newspaper empire in ... in our country and the flagship paper, the Sydney Morning Herald was a... was a ... still is the leading newspaper in the country.

The current heir apparent had been to Harvard Business School in the early 80s and graduated or came back into the country in... towards the end of 1986 and decided that he would privatize the company and buy back all the share holders including other family members, odd aunts and uncle and privatize the company back into his own name and his mother’s name as much as possible.

To do that he borrowed 1.7 billion dollars, half a billion dollars of which were junk bonds out of America {?}. And he did that just prior to the stock market cash and he put the whole thing together in about August of 1987. The result was that with the continuing economic decline after 1987 the result was that he has now lost the family inheritance and...

[ Scott ] The whole thing.

[ Hodge ] The whole thing.

[ Rushdoony ] And it was in the family how many years?

[ Hodge ] 146 years.

[ Rushdoony ] 146 years.

[ Scott ] Who took it over?

[ Hodge ] The banks that...

[ Scott ] The banks took it over.

[ Hodge ] The... some of the major banks that...

[ Scott ] Oh, they would do a great job running a newspaper.

[ Hodge ] Well, the... they have put it up for sale.

[ Scott ] Sure. Yeah.

[ Hodge ] As a means of getting assets back.

[ Scott ] Right.

[ Murray ] Was the bulk of the money borrowed from other countries?

[ Hodge ] No, the bulk of it {?} as I understand was borrowed and he ... within Australia.

[ Murray ] Through stock sales, sale of stock or shares of stock?

[ Hodge ] Through bank loans.

[ Scott ] He borrowed from the bank and he bought the shares of stock back.

[ Murray ] So the depositors in the bank ultimately wound up losing.

[ Scott ] Well, they got the property.

[ Hodge ] The depositors in the bank haven’t lost anything yet. The....

[ Scott ] It depends on how much they can sell it for. But I doubt they can sell it for that kind of money.

[ Rushdoony ] How about unemployment now?

[ Hodge ] Just to finish on the {?} the extended value that... possibly ran about 1.2 billion dollars. He probably could have made it.

[ Scott ] He could have made it...

[ Hodge ] So, you know, if they wipe out probably a half a billion dollars of the debt or something like that, then, you know, the chances are... And it is being sorted out by Australia’s richest citizen at the moment who also owns competitive newspapers and ... and TV stations.

[ Murray ] Sorry I {?}

[ Hodge ] If I can just get back to the press. Paint the picture a little bit from 1987. Following the stock market crash the government particularly then increased the money supply at a far higher rate. They reached peaks of pretty close to 30 percent through e period 1989 into 1989. And then all of the sudden they cut that rate back to the last figure I saw which was about two percent per annum.

Now from going from that kind of monetary expansion from that rate to cut it back so savagely then what Australia has experienced in the last 20 months now since virtually the beginning of 1990 we have seen a ... a... seen an extremely severe recession.

[ Scott ] So what you have gone is from inflation to deflation.

[ Hodge ] Yes.

[ Scott ] So now prices are dropping.

[ Hodge ] Not yet.

[ Scott ] Not yet.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, you have an election next year. Are they starting to inflate I terms of that?

[ Hodge ] How did you guess?

[ Rushdoony ] That I what we do here.

[ Hodge ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] ...before every election.

[ Hodge ] The figures are just starting to show a month by month increase again and it is a little too earlier to predict exactly what rates, but the... we face an election here and if not in 92, we are looking to 1993. So now would have to be time we need to recommence cranking up the money printing machine if they are going to do anything.

[multiple voices]

[ Hodge ] Unemployment has grown in the last 20 months from around about seven percent up to about 10.2 percent was the last figure.

[ Murray ] I got a flyer from Scudder Investment Company today that stated that the growth rate on ... in Australia is 114 percent of that in the United States. I don’t know whether they are anticipating this inflation pending increase in the interest rates and growth coming out of that or ... or what, but they... that is their current statement that they came out with today.

[ Scott ] Our growth rate is flat, so I guess...

[ Murray ] Yeah.

[ Scott ] I guess if they had a two percent growth rate, it would be way up there, no?

[ Hodge ] I don’t know what the growth rate figures are. It is ... so I am unable to comment or kwon the backgrounds of their statement. The company I work for which is in the financial services industry, we are a financial planning company that help people invest their money. Our managing director addressed us only a couple of weeks back and he had been to a meeting of stock market people and the stock exchange was involved and some of the leading insurance companies. They are predicting a fairly substantial increase in business over the next five to six years.

[ Scott ] Based on what?

[ Hodge ] Based on the fact that the banks currently in Australia are in a major problem. We have not only had the stock market crash, but in the last 20 months we have also seen 25 to 30 percent {?} in our property prices. Now that has created another bout of... of ... of problems within the society, but it especially for the banking community who have now a large percentage of non performing loans.

Under our regulated banking system we don’t see the banks go under like, you know, you... you do in this country. Although we have seen the equivalent of a couple of savings and loans, what we call building societies have gone under. So the banks have really cut back their lending to business.

[ Scott ] So the same thing is here.

[ Hodge ] But Australians seem to be willing to put money, you know, personally into business enterprises. We have just seen the labor government in the country privatize the commonwealth government bank where they sell roughly a third of it. And there were 200 and a little over 200,000 Australians who were able to get shares I that fund. And the put up about one point something billion dollars to ... to buy the shares. And the stock market, the stock exchange people and some of the fund managers over there are saying that if Australians are willing to do this, at that kind of level, then they feel that Australians will respond favorably to corporate private fund raising either for a share {?} or bond issues.

[ Scott ] Are the savings... savings... do they have a lot of savings there?

[ Hodge ] There are substantial savings.

[ Scott ] I see. Well, that helps. That makes a big difference. The United States is very thin on the savings end.

[ Hodge ] Well, we have our savings rate is probably not much higher, but we have, you know, there is... there is a lot of money in the country in... in terms of dollar amounts. Just to give you one example, I mean, just one fund manager alone this faith government super inhalation board in the state where I am, New South Wales, he manages about 10 billion dollars.

[ Scott ] That is a lot of money. Sam Blumenfeld called me last night and sends his regard and said you have beautiful cities, wonderful cities, great broad streets, clean and so forth. And, of course, he lives just outside Boston which is not very beautiful these days. And... but he also said that it is a very socialistic country.

[ Hodge ] We are heavily regulated. Whether we are more regulated than America or ... is probably debatable. But we have this history of our British background, of course, gives us very high left wing activity within the trade union movement. It is probably pegged at close to 70 percent of the work force involved in the union movement.

Now that has started to decline. The union movement has dropped off. I would still be probably though as high as 60 percent of the work force involved in labor. So what we have is very high protectionism.

[ Scott ] You have white collar unions?

[ Hodge ] There are white collar unions, but they aren’t the real force of aggravation. It is the blue collar unions that have been the ... the major source of economic ... I was going to say mayhem, but that isn’t so true these days because {?} with our current labor government they have been most successful in managing the economy by doing two things. I think which are... which were essential to the country. Number one, when the labor government got into power they ... and I just preface that with the statement that our current prime minister {?} was the leader of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the ACTU men and was a very...

[ Scott ] So he is a union leader.

[ Hodge ] He is a union leader. He had carved out for himself an enormous popular following, mainly because of his ability to negotiate during the 70s, the late 60s and the 70s when we had a lot of union activity and strike activity he was able to step in at the last moment and bring up very successful negotiations to prevent last minute strikes and things like this.

He was enormously popular. The... the labor party which is our ... the equivalent to your liberal party, saw his electoral potential and pushed him into parliament at a bi election in a safe labor seat in the late 1982 or something {?} sorry 81. I thought it might have been 81, 82. And then very quickly promoted him to leader of the party and therefore he became prime minister when the labor people won the voting in 1983.

But Mr. Hawk was very successful in negotiating what become known as the union accord or the wages accord. And what has virtually happened in the last eight years he has convinced the unions to take a cut in pay by not keeping the wage rates up and the inflation. So Australians have had substantial cut in... in... in income levels over the last eight years.

[ Scott ] He cuts in to accept that?

[ Hodge ] He got them to accept it.

[ Scott ] He must be a pretty persuasive man.

[ Rushdoony ] He is. You have only to hear him once on television and you know that he comes across as a folksy man who can convince people of whatever he chooses. He is very impressive that way.

[ Hodge ] There are not too many men who could sit in front of a TV camera with a ... an interviewer with tears in his eyes confessing adultery and how sorry he was for it and actually receive acclamation from the population.

[ Scott ] What does his wife say? I mean that... that ... that clinches it.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, he has an audience that you haven't seen since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s day.

[ Scott ] [ affirmative response ]

[ Murray ] What is the unemployment situation like now?

[ Hodge ] Well, {?} risen in the last almost two years from about seven percent up to about 10.2 percent. So it is substantial and the amount of jobs being offered is {?} cut in half rather than over the 20 month period.

[ Murray ] Well this resulted in .... in this country in blue collar workers voting much more conservative. Has there been a shift in voting patterns over there yet?

[ Hodge ] I think the labor government has started to wear out its welcome with its own support base for a number of reasons. I should say the other thing that the ... that the labor government did... to finish up what I started earlier about the... what they have done to help the economy. they also brought in and balanced... almost balanced budgets which they had run almost through the period.

Now we were running budgets as high as, you know, eight billion dollars during ... and so the labor government is, surprising enough, the left wing socialistic type government has not only negotiated union workers and wages down, it brought in a balanced budget and embarked on a program of privatization.

[ Scott ] That is very interesting If... is this the same government that blocked American ships, nuclear vessels and...

[ Rushdoony ] No. The was New Zealand {?}.

[ Scott ] That was New Zealand. I am sorry.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Shows you how much I know.

[ Murray ] Well, at least Greenpeace hasn’t sunk any boats in the harbor and run off.

[ Scott ] That is true.

[ Murray ] How is the... the military establishment and defense establishment in Australia? Is it kept at a very minimal level or is it growing?

[ Hodge ] No, it has been, if anything, scaled down. The current government has poured most of the resources into welfare. And so the military has suffered as part of that.

[ Scott ] Big welfare bill?

[ Hodge ] Yeah.

[ Scott ] Well, all those unemployed are they getting welfare? Are they getting unemployment benefits? Whatever?

[ Hodge ] Yeah. They can get welfare at ... pretty easily. They are closing to begin to limit that and that will create political backlash, really. You made comment earlier about Socialism in Australia and it is very {?}. We have our {?} earlier the protection... protection... protectionism in industries there.

To give an example of ... of our economic status, our salary level, dollar for dollar, is probably in some way similar to what it is here, at least from the {?} Americans in recent days. And say, you know, 50,000 dollars salary here I probably get the same or somebody in Australia doing similar work would probably get the same salary.

Our personal tax levels on that, though, expand as high as 48 cents on the dollar. That is another 1.25 cents in Medicare {?}.

[ Scott ] Well, that is higher than ours. We go up to 33 and begin at 28.

[ Hodge ] Yeah.

[ Scott ] Incidentally, there ... the Rockefellers have put... are putting a lot of money into Australia and there is a sort of a millionaires or multi millionaire’s colony down there of Americans who are buying up large estates and putting up very expensive establishments, non business, as far as I know.

[ Hodge ] Do you know where?

[ Scott ] No, I don’t. But I do know of a retired executive from Exxon who is part of that group who is making ... he has been going back and forth to Australia quite a bit. He is very intrigued with the country. And I think they are they are looking at it as a refuge because these are rather far sighted individuals who see increasing disorder here.

[ Hodge ] The small population probably does lend itself to a lifestyle, especially in our major cities that, yeah, is very conducive and we have a fairly laid back lifestyle and without the pressures of ... that are there.

[ Murray ] Does Australia encourage or discourage foreign investment?

[ Hodge ] They have an ambivalent attitude toward public and they tend to discourage it, but practically, I think, they encourage it as much as they can. And we know. We ... we don’t know the internal resources to develop what we really have to.

[ Scott ] You haven’t reached the Canadian stage. They are selling citizenships. They really are. If you have enough money, you can become a Canadian citizen.

[ Hodge ] We are doing that to people in Hong Kong who want to get in.

[ Scott ] Oh, you are.

[ Hodge ] I was told by bank officer that in order to qualify for consideration to enter the country it is oily to be considered...

[ Scott ] Right.

[ Hodge ] A Chinese family had to deposit a quarter of a million dollars into a bank account for at least two months.

[ Rushdoony ] Australia seems to be giving up its exclusively white policy.

[ Hodge ] The white Australian policy was abandoned probably during the 70s. I am not quite... I couldn’t exactly date it. But that is when the fairly strict regulations {?} had come was abandoned.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, there are many Hindus coming in.

[ Hodge ] Not a real lot of Hindus. We have a growing Muslim population and Arabs coming in.

[ Rushdoony ] Oh, Arabs.

[ Hodge ] And ...

[ Scott ] That is surprising.

[ Hodge ] {?}.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, what brings...

[ Scott ] From what ... from what... from Arabia?

[ Hodge ] From Jordan, around those areas and, you know, countries surrounding them. And I was just recently employing staff and I had to ... a young Kuwaiti man who was a refugee from the recent troubles there and had come to the country was job hunting and by himself, so no doubt he will settle down and then apply to bring his family in.

[ Scott ] It is fairly easy to enter Australia, then.

[ Hodge ] It is easy if you can get the... the approval. I am not sure what the approval regulations are having never applied to enter my own country, so...

[ Scott ] Well, we don’t know here either anymore. We used to know.

[ Murray ] Are they looking primarily for people with skills?

[ Hodge ] Yes. If you have certain skills the ... the entrance requirement is pretty easy. We do have... a targeted figure which you... which the government allows within certain skill ranges. I think the figure is, you know, a hundred odd thousand, you know, immigrants per year can come in.

[ Scott ] Of course you have location. You know, you are an island and you are a way distant island, too. So you don’t have our problem. People are... are pouring in from Mexico and from Canada. We have an unprotected border. On both sides. We used to be very proud of that. I am not sure that we are still so proud of it. But some are.

[ Hodge ] Yet on the other hand we have living just to the north of us the Indonesians and I met an interesting man who was involved in military intelligence one time who claims that he saw maps captured from the Indonesians which had Australia mapped off as part of their own territory.

[ Scott ] Well, that is possible.

[ Hodge ] ... which would be... which would be interesting. And the Indonesians, too, have a ... a history of expansionism to ... to some extent. And while we are maybe an island, we are not that far. We have had boat people come down from ... from Vietnam and reached our shores without too much trouble. But Australia has really created a ... a problem for itself with its own immigration policies by limiting so that the ... the influx of people in rather than, perhaps, encouraging the right kind of people into eh country. We have a very small population for the amount of land that we have. And in the current economic situation worldwide we have had a massive, massive commodity or... a massive drop in prices of commodities and ... and items like that where we have had, you know, and sheep just killed, slaughtered, you know, in the fields, because it is to worth...

[ Scott ] Really?

[ Hodge ] ... bringing them to... to market. If we probably had double the size of the population our rural community could probably be self... self sustaining out of the local population. But it is not large enough. So we have grain growers and our... our sheep herders need to find export markets to ... to maintain their properties.

[ Murray ] Are they able to market the wool as well as the meat?

[ Hodge ] No, we have had a massive problem there earlier this year with some several million dollars of bales stuck there. We had a price subsidy scam where the government purchased through the wool corporation purchased all Australian wool and then resold it out to the world markets, but at seven dollars a kilo or whatever it is when the world market was only willing to pay two or three we had a glut of wool. And we had may Australian farmers go under because the... the... the sudden price drop. And the government has actually abandoned wool corporation and thrown the whole thing out to...

[ Rushdoony ] The wool market has never recovered from World War II. So many synthetic fabrics have come along and central heating has increased and taken over in the cities so that there is no longer the same necessity for wool clothing in the winter.

[ Scott ] Yes. We grew up with wool clothing.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And now a wool suit costs more than any other.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. You simply switched to wool in the fall when Otto and I were young and after the war the sheep industry here died for two reasons. First the servicemen came back from the South Pacific having had rancid mutton to eat and telling their mothers or their wives that no mutton or lamb was ever going to cross their plates again. And, second, the synthetic fabrics. The sheep industry was tremendous. It used to be that this area right here, for example, and all the foothills and mountain areas had sheep that would be brought down in the valley to winter in the fields there on the {?}. And now the sheep industry in this state is minimal and is Colorado and other states were once tremendous producers of lamb and wool. It is minimal everywhere now.

[ Murray ] Is it true that you have hamburgers or burgers made out of kangaroo?

[ Hodge ] If there are, I have never seen them.

[ Murray ] Well I had some very good mutton. My wife and I were invited on board an Australian aircraft carrier that called in San Francisco Bay and the second in command invited us aboard and I think the cook was probably specially trained in 147 ways to cook mutton, but it was very good.

[ Hodge ] Kangaroo meat is very similar to beef, you know.

[ Murray ] Is it?

[ Hodge ] ... and very nice to eat. They are living in and coming from a rural community where we would often go shooting kangaroos. They can be a nuisance and break down fences and destroy the crops. So, yeah, roo meat I have eaten. It is... it is palatable, kind of quite well.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, they live on grass, don’t they?

[ Hodge ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] So it should be edible.

[ Scott ] Well, the sheep industry here, there still is one. I understand that the ... the meat is less adulterated or has less hormones and injections and so forth. It is the only area that the FDA doesn’t fool with. The government leaves alone sheep as the natural ... you are getting the natural meat.

[ Rushdoony ] But how much lamb do you see in the markets?

[ Scott ] Not too much.

[ Rushdoony ] No. That is... that is...

[ Scott ] And lamb I am very fond of.

[ Rushdoony ] I am, too. But most of your good lamb is sold to restaurants and what the restaurants don’t take go to the meat markets.

[ Scott ] Right.

[ Hodge ] Of course, again back there on the wool problem what we have to understand is that I Australia with our subsidized price or with the government artificially holding the price up, what they effectively did was create an... an over supply of wool. And, of course, it came to the head where the government suddenly didn’t have the funds to pay up the... for the current wool crop. So they really didn’t have much choice but to turn in to the farmers and say, “Well, you know, we have made a mistake.” But, of course, the famers have borne the brunt of the bureaucratic era.

[ Scott ] We haven’t done that yet. We have got enormous agricultural subsidies which we cannot afford. And we have ... we have lost millions of farmers in recent decades and the department of agriculture now has 150,000 employees. It had something like 25,000 when we had a big agricultural sector.

[ Rushdoony ] Is there a viable candidate to oppose Bob Hawk? You have an election next year, don’t you? 92.

[ Hodge ] Or shortly there after. It can be held in this ... up into 93. No, we don’t have an viable alterative, at least not that I think is a viable alternative. We have the liberal party is the major party in opposition, but they historically have shown themselves to be just as left wing as the ... as the left wing unions.

[ Murray ] Is there any attempt at an alternative party, a third party?

[ Hodge ] There are a growing number of independents being elected into parliament, primarily at the state level. Not so much I the federal level as yet. So there is ... there is voter backlash against, you know, I the political arena.

[ Scott ] What about the identity card? Did I... is that an Australian problem?

[ Hodge ] It... it was to be an Australian problem. They did attempt to introduce that in 1987 and 1988. It was a drop. There was a {?} put in {?} although we have now what is called the Clayton ID card. I am not sure whether you Americans understand that phrase. We have a non alcoholic drink called Clayton’s tonic which is very nice, a dry ginger ale. And the advertising copy of the drink is, “The drink you have when you are not having a drink.” So we have coined they phrase to, you know, Claytons can be used, you know, in a number of circumstances.

[ Scott ] I see.

[ Rushdoony ] The environmental movement and the spawning adulation of Aborigines seems to be as well underway in Australia as it is in the United States.

[ Hodge ] I can’t comment about America either... because I don’t know what is happening here. We have had enormous amount of territory handed back to the Aboriginals and what amounts virtually to an establishment of Apartheid within the country. And they are given their own territory. They can run their own laws and they are a self governing on that ... within, you know, certain limitations.

[ Rushdoony ] How many Aborigines are there?

[ Hodge ] I don’t know what the ...

[ Rushdoony ] But it is a small number, isn’t it?

[ Hodge ] It is not large, but virtually now they can... if they can prove that it was once tribal land and held some religious significance, the government is almost handing it back and there are quite a few claims, apparently, that are being fraudulently used by the Aboriginals.

[ Scott ] But you have two types of Aboriginies, don’t you? You have the {?}...

[ Rushdoony ] No. They are in... they are in New Zealand.

[multiple voices]

[ Scott ] That is New Zealand. Well, then you have the...what is the... they are... they are... rather... very primitive, are they not?

[ Hodge ] They...

[ Rushdoony ] And they are blacker than Africans. Very black.

[ Scott ] So was this a great favor to them?

[ Hodge ] Yes, well, to some of them. I... one of my best friends during school was a {?} Aboriginal who currently works for the department of Aboriginal affairs in the national government department. He is totally cynical and skeptical of what the government is doing because he sees first hand. Of course there is a man who has risen through the ranks to, yeah, moderate middle class success for the {?} the ... you know, this is my historical land group.

And they have just run welfare at the Aboriginal treaty without ay considerate... concern either for the Aboriginals as well as for anything else. It has been political game...

[multiple voices]

[ Hodge ] For example, they had the establishment of a turtle fund, you know, on the Queensland coast which was...

[ Rushdoony ] How about alcoholism among the Aboriginies with that type of indulgence?

[ Hodge ] It is banned.

[ Scott ] The South Africans were, when I was in South Africa in 82, I think, very indignant, I guess you would say, or surprised, over the Australian criticisms of South Africa’s Apartheid. And they ... they seem to think that they didn’t expect that from Australia. I don’t know why not.

[ Rushdoony ] Doesn’t anyone criticize their policy there with regard to Aboriginies as Apartheid?

[ Hodge ] The... the comment has been made. Some of the most interesting readers in reading in the newspaper has actually been out of the South African ambassador in Australia. The only way that he could get a fair hearing in the Australian media was to pay for a roughly quarter page advertisement which he ran most Saturdays in our most natural Saturday paper, The Australian or The Weekend Australian. And those columns that he wrote were ... have become very popular, to the point they are even now published in book form.

[ Scott ] Is that so?

[ Hodge ] And he really told the story quite well. And when the government would say one thing he would come out and say, “But do you know you are practicing Apartheid?” We are actually in the process of dismantling it even though despite the criticisms and he won the long support for South Africans for those articles.

[ Rushdoony ] The Australian is a libertarian paper, quite unusual. I don’t think we have anything comparable to it here.

[ Hodge ] Well it probably tends to probably some free market aspects a little more favorably. I am not sure that it would be classified as Libertarian. But it has definitely been the national paper for the expression of some of those {?}.

[ Scott ] We certainly don’t have any. There is a few little newspapers in New Hampshire. There is The Oklahoman which is never, never quoted. Joe Farah lost his job turning his little paper conservative. Practically all our papers speak with one voice. We out do Pravda.

[ Hodge ] I think it is probably true. The Australian news press speaks with one voice. The Australian is probably unique in that it is willing not publish alongside an occasional contrarian viewpoint. And ...

[ Rushdoony ] It was very vocal a few years ago when I was there and it was quite new. Has it drifted since then?

[ Hodge ] No. It has probably maintained its ... its... its status over the years. The current owner of that paper, of course, is Rupert Murdoch who is buying quite a few of the newspapers and media outlets in this country.

[ Scott ] Yeah, Murdoch became an American citizen.

[multiple voices]

[ Scott ] But the rumor is that his money comes from Oppenheimier of South Africa. But that is only a rumor.

[ Rushdoony ] How about Fred Niles and his Christian party in New South Wales? Any signs of that spreading or growing?

[ Hodge ] No, if anything that is probably declining. Fred has been unique in the Australian landscape in that he has been able to break the taboo on religion in politics and combine both of them very well. Although his traditional stand on ... on ... on Christianity, at least in a political arena is probably ... could be confined to the areas of abortion and, you know, homosexuality have been his major campaign platform. He was just reelected again this year by a very slim margin. His party suffered a fairly substantial split three or four years ago.

[ Rushdoony ] Oh.

[ Hodge ] So... which I think has damaged the... the cause. But on the other side of it I think we have also seen the abandonment of Christian concern on the political arena in Australia, at least since 1988. And it was quite active opposition to the national identity card that was being proposed under the labor government. And then at least in New South Wales we had also had a labor state government that was proposing quite draconian legislation in the area of education control, which moved... which would have at that time moved right then to very tight control of the curricula within the schools as well. The labor government was defeated, primarily, I think, on that ... on that education issue and maybe one or two other areas. And on the gun issue they also had taken a stand against and the sporting shooters association in the country had mounted a very active campaign.

And the Christians came together in the state quite well on the education issue. But almost since 1988 the ... it is almost as if, well, we have done our best and we can all go back and do whatever we normally do and political involvement of Christians in the country has declined quite significantly and quite dramatically and quite unexplainably.

[ Scott ] Well, they won their case, I guess and they have relaxed, huh?

[ Hodge ] Well, they didn’t really win. The liberal government in the state brought in an education bill at the beginning of this year which was their promised alternative, which almost did exactly what the labor government promised to do. They now have curriculum control or curricular control within certain broad categories that all schools who wish to comply and sit students for the government examinations and all the examinations within the state for university {?} our government examinations. Then the school must comply with these curriculum requirements and there is a local Christian school near where I live. They currently are having a battle with the education department over some content or material that is to be taught in the area of, you know, sex education material and, you know, {?} material and ... and things like that.

[ Murray ] Do you have home schooling?

[ Hodge ] Home schooling is pretty small. But what the state government has brought into the heat of the state now is a... is a Clayton’s registration system where now you are free to home school and you are free to have a Christian school outside the state system providing you seek on registration of your school, that you seek an exemption. And the actual exemption is tied to the {?} you want to operate a Christian school. If you wanted to operate a private Christian school, they would assess that you are capable of teaching the required curriculum. If you want what is called a religious exemption from the state system, then they will not only assess you as to whether you are still going to teach the state curriculum in your private Christian school, but they also reserve the right to see if you genuinely hold to your religious conviction and that is really why you are seeking the exemption. So it is a double whammy.

[ Scott ] Well, what about religion in the public school, the government schools?

[ Hodge ] Which religion are you talking about in the government schools?

[ Scott ] Any religion.

[ Hodge ] Well, Humanism is right, of course.

[ Scott ] Yes, of course. But the Christian...

[ Hodge ] Ah, the Christian religion has now been relegated to a lower level. Up until the current state and I am speaking for my own state, because that is what I know the best. Up until the introduction of this new bill into the state at the beginning of this year, it was possible to have up to an hour instruction per day in religious instruction in classes. That has bee reduced to one hour per week. It probably, practically means nothing because I don’t know of any church or of any sort that would have been utilizing more than one hour per week, that would have brought in and taken a one period class of whatever.

But we have an interesting case there when the education act was debated in 1988, there was an Anglican minister in the {?} region who had resigned from teaching in the local high school and the issue which only made a very small printing in the paper and I eventually contacted the man to discuss it with him because it was an interesting case, he had resigned because there ... a circular had bee put out by the education department saying that if any minister wanted to teach... or anybody teaching religious instruction that was teaching viewpoints which the department was to happy with they could rightly interfere into the content of what was being taught in the religious instruction classes.

Now that is not law. That is just bureaucratic regulation. This man had resigned the position because he said, “I am the bishop in my area,” he said, “And no one tells me what I can and can’t teach.”

Now he was a high church man, what we would tend to call liberalish in his viewpoints, but he rightly saw it as here was the state interference and state control of religious instruction. He resigned and he resigned not because he had a problem. He said, “I teach in the ideal situation.” The head master in the local school was a deacon in his church, an elder in his church. So he had no problems. It was just this official position being taken and he felt he needed to make a stand against it.

But no one saw the issue and stood with him.

[ Scott ] Yeah. England has a state religion. It has the Church of England. Australia doesn’t have a state religion.

[ Hodge ] I think so far as we are still tied to Britain and that is a very tenuous at times.

[ Scott ] The Church of England has no... no special status there.

[ Hodge ] No, only in so far as the monarchy still, you know, has some bearing into the Australian political scene. And that is...

[ Scott ] But you don’t ... you don’t have an official religion.

[ Hodge ] No.

[ Scott ] And obviously what... what little you have is being diminished.

[ Hodge ] We have never had a strong religious practice in the country. We were founded by convicts, not Calvinists, like your own country here. And religion was very much a part of the establishment, you know, the Anglicans and even the Methodists, the early Methodists. Some of the clergymen were given positions as magistrates in the early colonies. One became known as the {?} parson and I think that our ... our country’s antagonism to Christianity really does go back to the ... to the roots of the country.

[ Scott ] So... so there is, in effect...

[ Rushdoony ] Let me ... our time is almost up, but let me say something in defense of this convict origin of Australia. You recall that at that time in England they had some 200 offenses whereby a man could be hanged from stealing a loaf of bread or a shilling.

Now the purpose of those laws not really to hang men, it was to give them the choice. And that was to depopulate the country because they felt they had too many poor people. So the choice was either to hang for stealing a loaf of bread or a shilling or go to Australia as a convict.

So the idea that there were a lot of bad people who were shipped to Australia is nonsense. They were worked as convicts, incredible tasks assigned to them, roads built. I saw one place about 80 miles out of Sydney where they bridged over almost a generation a gap, a canyon between two mountains by hauling rocks and throwing them there until they reached a level where they could build a road across. But those people were not convicts in any modern sense. They were very poor people against whom this terrible law had been passed in order to give the a choice between hanging and emigration.

Well, with that, we will conclude this session. And thank you all for listening.

[ Voice ] Authorized by the Chalcedon Foundation. Archived by the Mount Olive Tape Library. Digitized by ChristRules.com.