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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, MARCH 4, 1983
PAGE 8
The traQedy is that there is no reason whateve : why blacks and
wFiTtes .!..!! Austra!Ta should � be pitted ag �1nst . each other.
There is no race problem as such. Most Australians live in a few
big cfTies ari'anever seteyes on a black.... According to one
calculation, there are only about 30,000 full-bloods, and well
under 200,000 altogether, including the most diluted blood lines.
It can be argued, indeed, that Australian blacks now constitute
the most favoured racial group in the entire Pacific area.
Special assistance schemes, which are provided in addition to
normal social services, are running at $1,690 a head every year.
There are some fanatics who� that the whole of Australia ou � ht
� be 'lf"returned
11
�
abor1g1.narownersliT� . Assuming this
lS
d1s
m1ssed as impractical, however, there is no doubt that current
land legislation treats them with unique generosity.• • • More
over, though mineral rights throughout Australia are vested in
the Crown, in much of the territory now owned by aboriginals
mineral rights appear to go with the freehold, an anomaly which
gives blacks privileges never conceded to whites. It is possible
that they may come to constitute the wealthiest racial group in
the entire population....
The radical Left is also getting increasingly worked up over the
state of the kangaroo population, and with even less justifica
tion. [ There are from 30 million to 50 million of them in the
country, twice or three times the human populationJ
Farmers and
others who have to deal with kangaroos have been outraged by a
recent film, "Goodbye Joey" (kangaroos are known as Joeys), which
depicts the culling industry as guilty of appalling and indis
criminate cruelty.... Farmers shoot kangaroos, to be sure, but
probably more are killed by crashing into cars and trucks at
night•..• The kangaroo lobby merges imperceptibly with the con
servationists or "greenies," also dominated by the radical Left.
It is essentially an anti-business, anti-capitalist movement,
concerned to obstruct progress rather than to preserve nature•...
Stifling a Blessed Country's Initiative
A majority of Australia's voters, writes author Johnson, are found in the
two "old" states of Victoria and New South Wales. Together they determine
what happens in Canberra in much the same way that voters in Ontario and
Quebec together determine the fate of Canada. But Australia's future, ex
perts believe, is to be found in Queensland--Australia's California--in the
mines and wheatfields of Western Australia, and in the as yet undeveloped
Northern Territory. These areas have the present and future wealth. What
their citizens lack is the representational voting power to protect them
selves from what they consider to be a despoiling federal government. Thus
this problem is similar to that experienced by the western provinces of
Canada and America's "Sun Belt." Author Johnson continues:
...Victoria and New South Wales clamour for more protection and
Federal aid. Queensland and western Australia do not want or
need either and fear they will end by paying for both. Queens
land grows more confident of its independent strength as a steady
stream of immigrants from down south vote with their feet for its
free-enterprise style..•• It is western Australia, however, which