Page 3273 - Week 11 - Thursday, 13 September 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
money and how the problems of ordinary Australians can be solved by using this credit-creation mechanism.
Mr Collaery: What is the venue? The Mint?
MR STEVENSON: It is the ACT Racing Club. I thought it fitting.
Debate (on motion by Mr Humphries) adjourned.
ADJOURNMENT
Motion (by Mr Collaery) proposed:
That the Assembly do now adjourn.
Creation of Credit
MR CONNOLLY (4.53): Mr Speaker, Mr Stevenson is running around Canberra promoting the views of one Len Clampett of Tasmania whose book Hand Over the Loot, which I now display, claims that Australia's and the world's financial problems can be solved merely by the creation of unlimited credit.
Mr Collaery: Well, it is true. Dennis has explained it.
MR CONNOLLY: Exactly. Now, Mr Clampett is described in the publicity blurb for this book as "Professor of constitutional law research analysis Len Clampett". That, of course, is intended to fraudulently indicate that Mr Clampett has some sort of legal qualifications or expertise. He has none.
The sophistry, in fact, which Mr Stevenson no doubt would respond to, is that "professor" merely means one who professes; therefore the title "Professor of constitutional law" is not intended to indicate that Mr Clampett holds a chair of law in an Australian university, merely that he professes constitutional law. He professes, of course, utter nonsense. He professes that, because the Commonwealth has a power over banking and the States also, under section 51(i), have the power to run State banks, it follows that unlimited credit and currency can be created by both. Of course, any simple analysis of the Constitution would reveal that the power to create currency is distinguished from the power to conduct banking operations and that, indeed, is a power reserved to the Commonwealth.
The theory promoted by Mr Clampett and Mr Stevenson is the ultimate in fairies in the bottom of the garden nonsense. Dennis Stevenson's and Mr Clampett's magic pudding is the magic pudding that every treasurer, and indeed every citizen, would aspire to own. It takes the mad view that
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .