Please find below the February 2001 text-only edition of ADC ONLINE. To
receive this publication as a PDF attachment, please email
antidef@ozemail.com.au, with the words "PDF version" in the subject header.

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"ADC ONLINE" - Vol.2, No.1, February 2001

An online journal for discussion, news and
analysis of far-right activity in Australia,
New Zealand and the world.
ISSN 1445-0402
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Text-only version

Contents
* How successful were the racist candidates?
* Far-right leaders to gather in Inverell, NSW
* Racists rally against Victoria’s Tolerance Bill


***  HOW SUCCESSFUL WERE THE RACIST CANDIDATES?

-- One Nation candidates with racist links

Despite One Nation endeavouring to portray itself as having shed its racist
associations, it ran two candidates with far-right backgrounds in the recent
Western Australian and Queensland State elections.

Tony Drake, the One Nation candidate for Warren/Blackwood in the WA State
election, received almost 1500 votes. He previously stood as the district’s
candidate for the Citizens Electoral Council (CEC), the Australian arm of
the fascist LaRouche cult, at the 1996 State election (receiving 666 votes),
as well as a CEC Senate candidate at the 1996 Federal election (receiving
142 votes), and was the WA Senate leader for the CEC in the 1998 Federal
election (receiving 108 votes).

Maurice Horsburgh, the One Nation Party candidate for the marginal seat of
Currumbin in the Queensland election, received almost 3500 votes. He is the
former webmaster of the “Dirty Digger” website. Operational until early
2000, the site railed against the “New World Order” (a core racist
conspiracy): “Are the members of your electorate fully aware that any
decision which you may make on their behalf can be overridden by a sinister
and nefarious group which only owes allegiance to the United Nations?… I
refer to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. No individual,
business, church or school is safe from their vindictive and pernicious
activities.”


-- Citizens Electoral Council

Further to our report on the CEC in the November 2000 edition of ADC ONLINE
(Vol.1, No.3), although it failed to obtain the required 500 names to
register as a political party, the CEC’s twelve “Curtin Labor Alliance”
candidates for the Legislative Assembly ran as independents in the WA
election, with most receiving the least number of votes in their respective
districts. Such was not the case in the Legislative Council, where three
Curtin Labor Alliance-backed candidates obtained significant voter support,
including more votes than most other independents and, in one region, more
than the Democrats. Curtin Labor Alliance leader Adrian Bennett received
almost 3000 votes in the Legislative Council South Metropolitan Region,
quite possibly as a result of his prominence in WA trade unionist circles
and his having served as an ALP Federal MP from 1969-1975.

The Federal election later this year may present yet another opportunity for
the CEC to support the candidatures of maverick trade union members as a way
of legitimising its activities and maximising its voter support. By
presenting itself as a political party which seeks to address bona fide
economic concerns, the CEC is able to prey on elderly and educationally
disempowered Australians for large donations. In its 1999/2000 electoral
return, the CEC declared donations of $1.11 million, which is more than
received by One Nation, the Greens and many of the State branches of the
major parties. (The B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission Inc. recently
published a Briefing Paper on the CEC. For information on obtaining a copy,
please email antidef@ozemail.com.au)


***  FAR-RIGHT LEADERS TO GATHER IN INVERELL, NSW

The town of Inverell, NSW, will play host to a national gathering of
far-right leaders on the weekend of 23-26 March 2001. The “Inverell Forum
2001” is sponsored by “The Strategy”, Australia’s foremost far-right
newspaper, and will be compered by former ACT Abolish Self-Government MP
Dennis Stevenson, who has been associated with the Australian League of
Rights and the Citizens Electoral Council.

The Forum’s program will include speakers not only from the racist right,
but also from the right-wing conspiratorialist fringe who will address
issues such as the poisoning of food, modern medicine, privatisation, loans
to farmers, and illiteracy. The Forum will thus allow an intermingling of
racist ideas with fringe conspiracies, and provide further opportunity for
racist messages to reach a broader fringe audience.

Speakers associated with the racist right will include:

* Geoffrey Muirden of the Holocaust-denying Australian Civil Liberties Union
and Adelaide Institute, speaking on “The decline and fall of the White Race”

* Jim Saleam, the former leader of the skinhead group National Action,
speaking on “The disruption of patriotic organisations”. Saleam recently
completed his doctoral thesis at Sydney University on “The Other
Radicalism - The Australian Extreme Right 1975-1995”.

* Queensland-based Tony Pitt, formerly of the Confederate Action Party, will
be attending and speaking at the Forum despite his recent illness.

* Andrew MacGregor and Wendy Scurr speaking on the Port Arthur Conspiracy.

* Australian League of Rights activist Antonia Feitz on “Can national
sovereignty survive globalism?”


***  RACISTS RALLY AGAINST VICTORIA’S TOLERANCE BILL

Since the launch of the Victorian Government’s Racial and Religious
Tolerance Discussion Paper and Model Bill in December 2000, racist groups in
Victoria have mobilised against its enactment, fearing that it would limit
their racist rhetoric. The most vociferous campaigners have been the
Citizens Electoral Council, whose activities have included: systematically
telephoning and emailing ethnic and religious associations in the State;
submitting letters to the editor of rural newspapers; holding a rally in the
Melbourne CBD; and attending the Government’s public forums on the Bill to
disseminate their literature on the alleged British/Jewish conspiracy to
subjugate Australia.

“The Strategy” newspaper produced a front-page article attacking the Bill,
and similar articles have appeared in the Australian League of Rights’ “On
Target” publication and in the League-backed email list “The News Report”.
Geoffrey Muirden of the Australian Civil Liberties Union wrote in the list
that the Bill will enable the “link[ing] up with UN efforts to create a One
World Church with a syncretistic doctrine which all may eventually be forced
to believe”, and will create a “State-imposed totalitarian thought crime
dictatorship”. He also claims that “whites are hypocritically and
selectively targeted for racial vilification”.

The fact that racist groups have responded in this way, demonstrates that
the Bill would have the intended effect of limiting their ability to incite
racial hatred.

Copyright (c) 2001 B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission Inc.
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This issue of ADC ONLINE honours the late Harold Fisher, a staunch advocate
and supporter of the ADC.

ADC ONLINE is a publication of the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission
Inc. (ADC), a national organisation dedicated to researching and combatting
all forms of racism.

For comment on issues addressed in ADC ONLINE, contact:

B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission Inc.
Phone 61-3-9527-1228, fax 61-3-9525-9127,
email antidef@ozemail.com.au
PO Box 450 Caulfield South Vic 3162, Australia.

Technical support provided by
Fluffy Spider Technologies http://www.fluffyspider.com.au/
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