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Your Will Be Done (p2 of 10)
A booklet by Arthur A Chresby
(Research Analyst in Constitutional Law, and formerly Federal Member for Griffith in the House of Representatives.)
(1) WHAT IS THE CORRECT RELATIONSHIP OF AN ELECTOR TO A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT?
Both by Constitutional 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 State Senators.
Any such abuse, intimidation or demand, would enable a Parliamentarian to take court action against an elector for attempting to use unlawful pressure to force the Member or Senator to act contrary to their judicially defined function and duty.
As an elector you have a right, and a legal duty, at election time to vote for the candidate of your choice. Indeed, so long as you obtain a ballot paper in a lawful manner and place it in the ballot box you cannot be compelled to vote for the candidates on that 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 stopping you from doing so.
Although such an action is classed as "casting an informal rote," you have legally signified that none of the candidates on that ballot paper meet with your satisfaction and 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 the 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 informal vote, and that is all that concerns parties: they need 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 will reflect the WILL of the people on the subject matter of those laws.
By those legal implications you have a lawful duty and obligation to keep your Members and Senators fully informed about what your WILL is upon any issue or matter that comes before them in their Houses of Parliament, or that should come before them.
It is only when you fulfil that lawful duty and obligation that your ember 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 own laziness or indifference 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 completely eliminated. You write, in this case AN INDIVIDUAL letter to your Federal Member, and each one of your 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 sales tax 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 this) or tell you what their party is or is not doing, you simply write back and say:-
Dear Sir,
I repeat that, 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 sales tax removed completely.
Yours faithfully.
Don't enter into written argument with a politician, for many politicians are past masters in the art of avoiding that which they don't want to face up to, and become experts in manipulating words to their benefit.
Although the majority of politicians would never publicly admit it, what worries them most - irrespective of majority or 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 principle of percentage trends in electorate thinking as shown by the above simple straight "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 and says so in a no-nonsence way. It is doubly impressed 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 motivating priority to that politician, and, as the long experience of the former Queensland Parliamentarian, Senator Ian Wood, has proved, time and again, 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 and 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 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 wild- fire 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 Member and 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 that an individual with a determination to act lawfully to right or alter something he doesn't like, and with the initiative to do so, is to write his "MY WILL" letter, show others and encourage 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 way of telling 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, nor those never identified "THEY OUGHT TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT." You have to be your own "they".
It is stressed 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 party yes-man. THE "MY WILL" LETTER IS A LEGAL DEMONSTRATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRACY IN ACTION.
When your Members of Parliament, State and Federal, do something that pleases you WRITE AND TELL THEM SO, as Members get plenty of abusive letters and extremely few courteous ones. If a Member or Senator knows that he is the centre of watchfulness from his area at all times he is 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" is freed from control of the party manipulators, for the party has lost 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 their House of Parliament.
To sum up this Chapter:
It is your legal duty and obligation, and yours alone, to keep your Members and Senators fully informed, at all times, of your "WILL." That is your true lawful relationship with your Members and your Senators.
This Book is reprinted in memory of the author, Arthur A. Chresby in appreciation for his 53 years of research and study into constitutional law.
Due acknowledgement should be given when quoting from material on this Site
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