WHAT IS THE CORRECT RELATIONSHIP OF AN ELECTOR TO A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT?
Both by Constitution and Statute law an elector has no legal right, whatever, to abuse, intimidate or demand anything of his Member of Parliament, State or Federal, or of his 12 State Senators.
Any such abuse, intimidation or demand, would enable a Parliament to take court action against an elector for attempting to unlawfully pressure the Member or Senator to act contrary to their judicially defined function and duty.
"THE CRIMES ACT (COMMONWEALTH) 1914 Part ll.
Section 28
Interfering with political liberty
Any person who, by violence or by threats or intimidation of any kind, hinders or interferes with the free exercise or performance, by any other person, of any political right or duty, shall be guilty of an offence.
Penalty: Imprisonment for 3 years."
As an elector you have a right, and a legal duty to vote for the candidate of your choice at election time. As long as you lawfully obtain a ballot paper and place it in the ballot box you cannot be compelled to vote for the candidates on the ballot paper and may, if you wish, cast your vote against all names on that paper by neatly crossing them out. As voting is legally secret there is, at present, no legal way of preventing you from doing so.
Although such an action is classed as "casting an informal vote", you have legally signified that none of the candidates on that ballot paper meet with your satisfaction. You have therefore, lawfully cast your vote against all of them. If a majority of the electors were to vote "informal" it would force a fresh election and bring forth fresh candidates, thus indicating that electors were casting their votes with care.
Political parties, of course, would cry that the electors were wasting their votes; that electors were disenfranchising themselves. But this is only party propaganda, because no party got any value out of your vote to grab for power.
Once the election is over that is the end of ballot paper voting until the next election. However, under both Federal and State Constitutions and Statute laws you have certain implied legal duties and obligations.
The whole system of Parliament, and the SOLE reason for its existence, is to make laws for the people, with the clear implication that those laws, in their subject matter and detail, will reflect the WILL of the people.
By those legal implications you have a lawful duty and obligation to keep your members and senators fully informed of your WILL in relation to any issue or matter that comes before them in their Houses of Parliament, or that you believe should come before them.
It is only when you fulfil that lawful duty and obligation that your Member and Senators can properly fulfil their judicially defined function and duty in their Houses of Parliament. If you do not fulfil your lawful duty and obligation, if you do not keep your members and senators fully informed of your will on any issue, then you cannot blame them for what they do. You have only your laziness to blame.
How do you correctly inform your members and senators of your WILL?
It is so simple that only laziness and indifference on YOUR part stops it from working. Yes, it is so very simple, and here is an example: Suppose, for instance, you believe that income tax should be halved and sales tax should be completely eliminated. You write, in this case, an INDIVIDUAL letter to your Federal Member, and each of your 12 State Senators, such as this:
Dear Sir,
I know that it is my duty to keep you informed of MY WILL on anything that comes before Parliament, or that should come before Parliament.
IT IS MY WILL that you take immediate action to have income tax halved and GST removed completely.
Yours Faithfully,
(signed)
(insert your full name, address and date, as legal evidence that you are a constituent.)
Should your Member or Senators try to side-step (and some of them are extremely adept at doing so) taking positive political action on your behalf (i.e., they rattle on about about what their party is or is not doing, instead of agreeing to act in accordance with your WILL), you simply write back and say:
Dear Sir,
Further to my letter of (insert date of your original letter) and your reply of (insert date of their inadequate or fob-off reply), and in accordance with my lawful obligation to keep you informed of MY WILL, I again inform you that IT IS MY WILL that you take immediate action to have income tax halved and GST removed completely.
Yours Faithfully,
(signed)
Above all, don't enter into written argument with a politician. Politicians are masters in the art of avoiding what they don't want to face up to, and are experts in manipulating words to their own benefit.
Although the majority of politicians would never publicly admit it, what worries them most irrespective of their electoral majority or their party is the percentage trend in electorate thinking that is shown by the number of simple straight letters clearly expressing THE WILL of the elector signing the letter.
To illustrate the above point further. Opinion polls claim to reveal THE TREND of public thinking BY ASKING SIMPLE QUESTIONS of a given number of people selected at random, and, more often than not, the trend shown is reasonably accurate. BUT NOTE THAT THE TREND IS WORKED OUT ON THE BASIS OF THE OPINIONS of people, and people can change their opinions as often as they change their clothes.
The principal of percentage trends in electorate thinking as shown by the above simple "MY WILL" letter is an entirely different thing, and certainly leads to greater accuracy, for politicians know from experience that if one of their electors sits down to write such a simple "IT IS MY WILL" letter, then that elector is not expressing a mere opinion , but knows what he wants to say in a no nonsense way. It is doubly impressive upon the politician's mind if, after trying to side track the elector, he still gets back a straight "IT IS MY WILL!"
Experience of the various techniques used in opinion polls, and the evaluation of same, reveals that one such "IT IS MY WILL" letter indicates the mathematical probability that a minimum of four (4) other electors are of the same conviction but have not written.
Even the least intelligent politician, where his SEAT is concerned, can multiply four (4) by the number of such "MY WILL" letters he receives , and if he gets two or three thousand such letters he will know that he is going to come up with a mathematical stomach twisting figure showing that he is not in tune with his electorate.
Self preservation, even with a party ridden politician, is always of the highest priority and particularly motivating to that politician. The long experience of the former Queensland Parliamentarian, Senator Ian Wood, reflected time and again in the experience of other politicians, is that a political party thinks many times when trying to remove a determined straight Parliamentarian who has electorate thinking behind him. (Senator Wood fulfilled his judicially defined function duty and refused, consistently, to bend to party pressures.)
On a subject like the drastic reduction of income tax, and removal of sales tax, it is obviously something on which most people will have strong convictions, not mere opinions. Thus, it requires only a few ordinary people to get together in their various electorates and, after writing their own "MY WILL" letters get out amongst friends, relatives, acquaintances and others in their own electorate inviting them all to write such "MY WILL" letters to their Federal Member and 12 State Senators. Such determined ordinary people also have relatives and friends in other electorates and can invite them to do likewise.
Thus, in no time, the work of say 3, 4, 5, or 6 people can spread like wildfire through the electorate, especially when most people are incensed over one thing. To get two or three thousand individually signed "MY WILL" letters is not a hard task for such ordinary determined people.
It must never be forgotten that ordinary people have the legal privilege, if they wish to exercise it, of quietly approaching relatives, friends, acquaintances and others inviting them to write such "MY WILL" letters to their Members and 12 Senators. It requires no committees, no resolutions, no street marching, no formation of groups, bodies or associations with all sorts of names and titles. No constitutions, no minutes, no wasting of hours in fruitless arguing and discussions, no presidents, secretaries or treasurers.
All that is required is an individual with the necessary initiative and determination, to act lawfully to right or alter something he doesn't like. He simply writes his "MY WILL" letter, and shows it to others and encourages them to do likewise. There are a multitude of issues upon which people have strong convictions and the simple "MY WILL" letter is their lawful, simple and powerful way of driving their message home to their M.P.
Don't argue that it will not work, or that people are stupid. If you feel strongly enough about something, don't just moan and talk about it, write your "MY WILL" letters. IT IS YOUR PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY to do so, not someone else's. It is no use bleating "THEY OUGHT TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT". You have to be your own "they".
It is worth stressing again and again: it is your legal privilege, and your lawful duty, to encourage others, peacefully and quietly, in the manner outlined in this Chapter. A Parliamentarian, armed with the written proof of the "WILL" of his electors, upon any issue, can completely ignore party pressures and set about faithfully fulfilling his judicially defined legal function and legal duty. He is freed to be a Parliamentarian and not, as at present in most cases, a mere "yes man". The "MY WILL" LETTER IS A LEGAL DEMONSTRATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRACY IN ACTION.
When your Member of Parliament, State or Federal, does something that pleases you WRITE AND TELL THEM SO. As centre of watchfulness for his electorate, he should be at all times, left with no alternative than to carry out his judicially defined function and duty, no matter the protests and pressures of his party.
Thus, Politicians, secure in the knowledge of written electorate support, possessed of the written "MY WILL", can be freed from control of the party manipulators, for the party should lose control over his voice and vote on all issues on which the electorate has expressed its WILL. Wise politicians would do well to continuously seek the written "WILL" of all their electors on every issue and proposed legislation. After all they do have offices and a secretary in their electorate, whilst Federal Members also have research Officers, so they have no excuse for not organising to seek the electors' "WILL" before casting their votes in the House of Parliament.
To sum up this Chapter:
It is your legal duty and obligation, and yours alone, to keep your Member and Senators fully informed, at all times, of your "WILL". This is your true lawful relationship with your Members and your Senators.
Based on, and containing text from:
"YOUR WILL BE DONE" by Arthur A. Chresby 1979
(Arthur A. Chresby was a Research Analyst of Law and Federal Member for Griffith)
ARE POLITICIANS ABOVE THE LAW?
The Editor
The Australian
ausletr@newscorp.com.au
Dear Sir/Madam,
As Kim Beazley has publicly said that the Labor Party members must vote, in the federal parliament, according to the will of the party and not the will of the electorate, at pain of being evicted from the party, with regard to John Howard’s proposed alteration to the Anti-Discrimination Act with respect to IVF entitlement, has he not committed a crime, punishable by Imprisonment for 3 years, under the Crimes Act (Commonwealth) 1914, section 28, and does this not occur each time a party whip tells members of their respective parties to vote a certain way in the parliament?
Thank you for your time,
Leonard Clampett
THE CRIMES ACT (COMMONWEALTH) 1914 Part ll.
28 Interfering with political liberty
Any person who, by violence or by threats or intimidation of any kind, hinders or interferes with the free exercise or performance, by any other person, of any political right or duty, shall be guilty of an offence.
Penalty: Imprisonment for 3 years.
Now that seems abundantly clear to me, and it is also abundantly clear to me that numerous politicians are in breach of this section of the Act.
Any party leader or whip who directs party members to vote along party lines goes to goal for 3 years.
(Ed)
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