Lead Editorial

15 January 2025
Vol. 27 No. 1

The upcoming 2025 federal election will be a chance for Australians to vote for national and economic sovereignty,
by supporting the Australian Citizens Party (ACP). Australia’s lack of national and economic sovereignty is now hurting Australians in many ways that most people don’t understand; the ACP will use the election to inform and recruit voters to the fight for the Australian people to regain control of our nation.

Dan Duggan’s wife Saffrine in December visiting the US Embassy in Canberra. Her husband’s case shows the Australian government will not protect its citizens from US power.

For a truly shocking example of how Australia’s lack of sovereignty is hurting Australian citizens, look at what is happening to father of six Dan Duggan. On 23 December Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus did what the Duggan family most feared—approved Duggan’s extradition to the United States under the cover of Christmas, meaning Duggan was eligible to be transported to the USA any time between 1 January and 17 February. The ACP has covered Duggan’s case in detail, but the essence of the extradition case is that the charges against Duggan do not meet the criterion of dual criminality—that they must be crimes in both Australia and the United States. Australia does not have an equivalent to the law under which the US Justice Department is charging Duggan. For that reason alone, Mark Dreyfus could, and should, have rejected the extradition request. However, because the request is from the United States, Dreyfus was happy to bend the law, hiding behind a quirk in the Australia-US extradition treaty, thus demonstrating that the Australian government will not protect Australian citizens if the government coming after them is the United States. The consequences of this subservience to a foreign power should terrify all Australians.

The only good news in the Duggan case is that he wasn’t bundled onto a plane to the USA on 1 January, which would have allowed no time for his legal team to appeal the Attorney-General’s decision, as the relevant courts weren’t open over the Christmas-New Year break. On 13 January, Duggan’s lawyers were able to file an appeal in the Federal Court, which at minimum will delay his extradition for the duration of the hearing of the appeal. Dan Duggan’s wife Saffrine said: “Dan is exercising his rights as an Australian citizen to due process under Australian law. We are an Australian family, and we deserve a fair go.” (Please go to FreeDanDuggan.org online to help the family in any way you can.)

Another way Australia’s lack of sovereignty is causing widespread suffering is in the housing market, which is broken and not fit for purpose, denying entire generations of increasingly angry young people the fundamental economic opportunity of owning their own home. The young families who have been able to borrow to buy homes are
struggling immensely: Martin North presented a Digital Finance Analytics YouTube show on 13 January, The Great
Australian Nightmare, which detailed the extreme levels of mortgage stress, rental stress, and financial stress that is
widespread throughout Australia. This intolerable situation is the product of a banking system which is both majority US-owned, and more powerful than the government, thus not accountable to the Australian people. The banks, assisted by the Reserve Bank and successive governments, deliberately created this housing mess because relentlessly driving up housing prices has been extremely profitable, the majority of which profits flow into US coffers. The original way the government helped the banks was when then Treasurer Peter Costello in 1999 introduced the 50 per cent discount on capital gains tax in 1999, incentivising a flood of investors into the market backed up by banks keen to lend. The 20-year Cabinet papers that were released on 1 January revealed that by 2004 Treasury was advising the Howard-Costello government the capital gains tax discount had been a mistake, but instead of fixing the mess they created, Howard and Costello ducked the issue, not willing to upset the banks and their foreign shareholders.

Fixing these messes starts with having a government willing to assert sovereignty: this is the ACP’s fight.

In this week’s issue:
• For businesses to accept cash payments they need a place to bank it—time for a post office People’s Bank!
• Mary Kostakidis versus the Zionist Federation of Australia
• ASPI is going nowhere
• Indonesia boosts BRICS revolution
• Team Biden runs sabotage on the way out
• North Gaza now without healthcare after Israel destroys last working hospital, arrests staff
• The government must protect you
• Suppressed powers of state banking rise again

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