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a 3 Potentially contentious therefore be exclusively commercial ownership, issue, but extend that to exploited for commercial | commercial exploitation, the right to own modified | gain for a period of 16 and exclusive human life forms, and years”. commercial gain, the the Bill becomes “If the Senate sees fit | very substance of life positively to pass this legislation itself”. outrageous. without accepting this Needless to say, In Senator Coulter's amendment, | can only Senator Coulter's (Australian Democrats) say that it indicates amendment was own words, either or both of these rejected, and Senator “It is now possible to ‘| two things: an incredible Harradine’s (watered take the individual bases | ignorance on the part of down) amendment which make up the triplet | my fellow Senators in was accepted. codes in DNA and to put | not understanding the The essence of them together to extreme power which Senator Harradine's ‘construct an artificial modern biological amendment, that gene. methods have conferred | “Human beings and the That gene could be on us; or that they have biological processes for incorporated into an an incredible degree of their generation shall not animal, a plant, or, blunted perception of the | be patentable indeed, a human being. ethical dimensions of inventions”, is basically Under this legislation, | what they are legislating, | covered in the form of that material would be when they are prepared anti-slavery laws patentable, and could to hand over for anyway. CORPORATE OWNERSHIP OF ‘MODIFIED’ HUMANS? The issue of patenting life forms recently raised its head i in the form of Despite a short flurry of protests, raised on even shorter notice, the passed through the Senate with an amend- ment so ambiguous it may as well not be there. The pending Bill sent alarm bells ringing in several quarters. After all, the right to own life forms is itself a DAVID vs GOLIATH A FARMER TAKES ON THE BANKS A Victorian farmer is set to challenge the “might ofthe | Research has shown that banks only handle about banks”, when he takes them to court for “lending 6.5% ofreallegal tender (ie, notes and coins as issued created credit”. ; by the Treasury). Similar cases in the US have been successful, and Notes and coins held in a vault by a bank are not legal banks have been sued for millions of dollars by _ tender, until they are in the hands of the public —ie, in indebted farmers. circulation! He is basing his case on the fact thatbanks donotlend Mr Kerr questioned who actually owned the credit out deposits, but instead ‘create’ overdrafts out of created by the banks from smaller deposits. “Should approx '/16 of their capital. banks charge interest on the credit which they create Banks multiply every customer's deposit, by up to out of nothing?” he asked. 1,500% times to lend out more “money” than is _ If aborrower backs a loan with his own assets through actually there. a mortgage or whatever, and the bank creates credit This is new credit which passes as money, butisnot upon this guarantee, then who actually “backed” this legal tender. credit creation? “ . on Is this not fraud?” asks Mr Kerr. Chatlie Kerr Fighting Fund PO Box 24 Concord West NSW 2138 From an article in “The New Citizen”, June 1990 Charlie Kerr Fighting Fund PO Box 24 Concord West NSW 2138 15 the Patents Bill 1990. Patents Bill 1990 was DAVID vs GOLIATH A FARMER TAKES ON THE BANKS From an article in “The New Citizen”, June 1990