Each state of Australia has an official motto.

Victoria’s motto is “Peace and Prosperity”.

* * *

Prosperity?

Last week, caretaker-Prime Minister Julia Gillard told the National Press Club, “We have begun building a strong foundation for our future prosperity investing in 21st century infrastructure . . . .”

Clutching desperately at whatever straw might help her survive as PM — her best bet was to talk prosperity . . . .

Australians love being prosperous.

* * *

Peace?

One wonders what kind of peace is Victoria’s motto referring to?

Simply there being no foreign invaders and no blood in the streets?

* You say, “We’re going well. I saw no Chinese/Russian/American soldiers manning roadblocks in town today.” Perhaps not, but did you look at the label inside your shirt? Where was it made?

* You saw no bleeding corpses in the shopping mall? No, but watching TV tonight you’ll see them non-stop — on the news and in what passes for “entertainment”.

* * *

Forget all that.

What matters is internal peace.

Ask your GP how many of his patients have peace of mind? How many live 24/7 at the verge of screaming point?

Ask your children’s teacher how much class time is spent talking about (and to) their Creator.

If God exists, and we ignore him, we’ll never find peace — denying and defying the very Origin of peace.

If God didn’t exist, then nothing but hate and chaos – the opposite of peace — could be possible.

Belief makes the difference.

God created us capable of loving him. That is our purpose. He proved it by entering history himself in the person of Jesus Christ.

That being so, all life lived apart from Christ is a bit of a waste — and the pursuit of prosperity pretty irrelevant.

* * *

If one’s first aim is pleasing God, one will gladly accept prosperity if that’s what God sends.

Or poverty, if he sends that.

The Bible describes God as a “jealous” God.

To please him, we must put him first — as individual persons and, likewise, political parties and governments.

Which makes the notion of separation of Church and State a bad joke.

Today’s gospel reading in traditional Catholic churches is about money and attitudes to money.

Words of Jesus: “No man can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will be devoted to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.  

“Worry not about your life, what you will eat, or for your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food: and the body more than clothing?

“Look at the birds, they neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns: yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you of more value than they? Can any of you, by taking thought, add a single moment to his life-span?

“And why worry about clothing? Consider the lilies in the field, how they grow: they do not labour, nor spin. Yet not even Solomon, in all his glorious robes, was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass in the field, which is here today and thrown in the furnace tomorrow: will he not much more care for you – you who have so little faith?

“Worry not then, saying, ‘What are we to eat: what are we to drink: what will we have to wear?’  These are the things the heathens seek. Your Father knows that you need them all.  

“Seek first, therefore, the Kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things will be given you as well.”  (Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 6)

* * *

Arriving at a crossroads (unless you plan to sit there the rest of your life) you must go one way or the other. You cannot go both ways.

That applies also in the spiritual life — a fact that we spend much of our time pretending isn’t true.

We might convince ourselves that we’re basically good, despite doing a bit of money-worship on the side. We may convince others around us.

But God, we will not convince — and it is he who judges us. He judges justly.

If we don’t put ourselves utterly at God’s disposal, we are, in fact, putting ourselves into the hands of the devil — who hates us and will destroy us painfully and eternally.

* * *

So God tells us, “Make up your mind.”

The Australian Labor Party used to be more or less anti-poker machines.

John Cain, Labor Premier of Victoria in the 1980s, refused to permit them.

But it was Joan Kirner, a Labor Premier succeeding him, who introduced them.

About that time something very nasty happened to the Labor Party . . . .

Current Victorian Premier, Mr Brumby, is no better.

His moves to modify the gambling industry have all been strictly cosmetic.

Nothing has happened that will reduce losses by gamblers.

* * *

In Tasmania it is exactly the same.

The Tasmanian Labor government enjoys a deep and meaningful friendship with Federal Hotels, and has arranged for them to have a monopoly contract at least until 2018.

How interesting, then, that anti-pokies candidate, Andrew Wilkie — running as an independent in the Tasmanian seat of Denison — has just beaten off the Labor candidate and won the seat.

Mr Wilkie has publicly promised that his aim is to make Tasmania “pokies-free”. 

The latest research in Tasmanian shows that one in every two voters knows personally somebody who is a gambling addict.  No wonder the people of Denison were glad to have Andrew Wilkie there to vote for.

Mr Wilkie said yesterday, “$95 million has been lost just on poker machines, just in Tasmania, just in the last five months . . . There’s something like 100,000 problem gamblers in Australia, problem gamblers on poker machines, costing the community something like $5 billion a year . . . .

“If I can get into the House of Representatives, and with Nick Xenophon in the Senate, I think we have an unprecedented opportunity to energise the public debate about poker machines, and bring about some genuine reform nationally,”

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Yes, the poker machine problem is the same Australia-wide.

Where are the anti-pokies candidates that so many of us want to support?

Will there be a few in the November 27 election in Victoria?

Let’s hope so – and let’s hope they get elected.

Especially in Mildura, which has been picked out by the gambling fraternity as a good source of suckers to bleed white, while fattening the leeches of the big end of town.

A few weeks ago, Rebels Motorcycle Club established a new chapter in Mildura.

Its president told local media that Mildura was chosen for its quiet, casual lifestyle, legitimate business opportunities, and weather:

“It’s a good place to raise a family. Many of us have friends in Mildura. We’re regular people who pay taxes – we’re no different to anyone else.” (Sunraysia Daily, 10/7/10)

Translated into English, he’s saying they have to leave Adelaide, where the South Australian Police and Attorney-General’s Department have moved to make Rebels a “declared” organisation under Organised Crime laws.

According to Mildura’s local paper, the Rebels leader has a history of involvement in gang-related shootings — being twice  jailed for gun-related offences in SA.

“His departure to Mildura has been welcomed by SA Police”. (Sunraysia Daily, 26/7/10)

* * *

Having shifted to Victoria, they need to stay far from Melbourne where Deputy Police Commissioner, Sir Ken Jones, recently warned that criminal bikie gangs are being “closely monitored”.

Especially since Hells Angels members created a disturbance at the funeral of murdered Melbourne gangland figure, Macchour Chaouk.

Sir Ken Jones has talked to the State Government about outlawing crime-related bikie gangs.

Mr Brumby has been non-committal — but Opposition leader, Ted Baillieu, says he’s all for it.

Needing to leave SA, yet keeping as far from Melbourne as possible – no wonder  Mildura (550 km away) looks good to them.

* * *

But Mildura’s BIG attraction — making Mildura almost HEAVEN ON EARTH for them — is the prospect of a Casino opening there.

Any serious lawbreaking group needs a Casino nearby, where takings from drug deals etc. can be laundered.

* * *

If Mildura gets a Casino, the danger of its becoming a focal point for organised crime is real.

Criminal elements will be drawn there like iron filings to a magnet — like blowflies to a dead rat.

Mildura will become a most UNATTRACTIVE place for normal families to live in – or even to visit.

To make something good happen, you need two things: good motives and lots of determination

To make something bad happen, you need two things: bad motives and lots of determination.

To make anything at all happen, you’ll want determination (perseverance, persistence, toughness)

Jesus told a story about this. It’s the Gospel reading in traditional Catholic churches for today.

* * *

Jesus said to his disciples: A certain rich man had a steward who was accused of having wasted his property. He called him and said, “What is this I hear about you? You cannot be my steward any longer.” The steward said to himself, “What can I do, now that my Master has taken away the stewardship? Dig? No, I am not capable. Go begging? I would be too ashamed. I know what I will do, so that when removed from the stewardship, there will be people willing to welcome me into their houses . . . .” He called in his master’s debtors, one by one. To the first he said: “How much do you owe my master?” He answered: “A hundred barrels of oil.” The steward said: “Take your bill now and write fifty. To another he said, “How much do you owe?” “One hundred measures of wheat.” To this one he said: “Take your bill, and write eighty.” And the master commended the dishonest steward for his astuteness . . . for the children of this world are wiser in dealing with their own kind than are the children of light.  (St Luke’s Gospel, chapter 16)

* * *

So does God want us to be like the world’s wheelers and dealers – and the power-mongers of party politics?

Yes, he does in a way. 

He urges us to copy their astuteness, their shrewdness, their smartness, their focus . . . but NOT their hatred for rivals, their self-absorption, their greed, their lust for power, their lying, their contempt for those whom they pretend to serve . . . .

We will please God and create a better world only when we who claim to be Christians — and to be motivated by love — make ourselves more astute, more shrewd, more determined, smarter and more focussed than those who are haters.

Terrorism stalks the world.

For how much longer will Australia be the lucky country which hasn’t yet had a major terrorist blood-bath?

A Counter-Terrorism White Paper (2010) prepared by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet reveals that Australia is very much a potential terrorist target.

It says that, “Although al-Qa’ida has not itself launched a direct attack on Australia, it has shown an operational interest in doing so.”

Multiple planned attacks have been detected and prevented. Since 2001, twenty people in Australia have been convicted of terrorism offences.

* * *

Terrorist attacks cost money to organise.

The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) tracks financial business deals relating to the financing of terrorism and money-laundering.

In 2008-09, 29 such cases related to terrorism financing were investigated.

The enormous global drug trade is vital to financing terrorist criminal activity — what they call “narco-terrorism”.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration has evidence that 60 percent of identified foreign terrorist organisations are in some way connected to the illegal drug trade — and that the drug trade is increasingly used by Muslim terrorist groups to finance their activities.

* * *

Money-laundering is facilitated by the existence of Casinos.

In the Lu Hong case in Australia in 1997, four people were convicted of laundering $10 million as part of a heroin-distributing operation.

It was in Melbourne’s Crown Casino where they laundered the money. (Herald Sun, 25/9/1997)

The last thing a small city like Mildura, in Victoria, needs  — with its thousands of families trying to live decent lives — is a Casino.

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