Yesterday on radio 2GB, constitutional barrister Bryan Pape indicated that as the carbon tax will affect State-owned property – the electricity generators – there are grounds for the State governments to challenge the Commonwealth’s legislation (not yet passed into law) under section 114 of the Constitution.
Regular readers will know that your humble blogger recently launched Right On Our Side. It’s a movement focussing not on traditional protests and petitions, but on the law. Our focus is on finding new and innovative ways for the voters to legally challenge and ultimately, change it.
Right here, right now is a window of opportunity for you, dear reader, to help us put an end to the Green-Labor carbon tax “law”.
There are two (2) simple actions that you can take today. Both involve properly expressing Your Will to the politicians who have a legal duty to serve you:
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.
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 own laziness or indifference to blame.
Arthur A. Chresby, Research Analyst in Constitutional Law, and formerly Federal Member for Griffith (QLD) [1958-61] in the House of Representatives.
ACTION #1
Properly express Your Will to your state’s Senators in the Federal Parliament.
The Senate has not yet voted on the Clean Energy Future legislation. So there is still time to properly inform them of Your Will.
Here is a Sample letter that you can copy and send to each of your state’s Senators, expressing Your Will that they vote against the government’s Clean Energy Future (ie, carbon tax) bills in the Senate:
Dear [insert Senator’s Name],
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 vote against the passage of each one of the Clean Energy Future 2011 (ie, carbon tax) bills.
Yours faithfully,
[signed]
[insert your full name, address, and date, as legal evidence that you are a constituent.]
Should the Senator try to side step, or tell you what their party is or is not doing, simply write back immediately and say:
Dear [insert Senator’s Name],
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 vote against the passage of each one of the Clean Energy Future 2011 (ie, carbon tax) bills.
Yours faithfully,
[signed]
[insert your full name, address, and date, as legal evidence that you are a constituent.]
You can find the contact details for your state’s Senators in the Federal Parliament here.
ACTION #2
Properly express Your Will to your state MP.
Here is a Sample letter that you can copy and send to your state MP, expressing Your Will that they take immediate action to have your State government challenge the Commonwealth’s Clean Energy Future (ie, carbon tax) bills in the High Court:
Dear [insert state MP’s Name],
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 cause the [insert state Name] State government to challenge the constitutionality of the Commonwealth’s Clean Energy Future 2011 (ie, carbon tax) bills in the High Court.
Yours faithfully,
[signed]
[insert your full name, address, and date, as legal evidence that you are a constituent.]
Should the MP try to side step, or tell you what their party is or is not doing, simply write back immediately and say:
Dear [insert MP’s Name],
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 cause the [insert state Name] State government to challenge the constitutionality of the Commonwealth’s Clean Energy Future 2011 (ie, carbon tax) bills in the High Court.
Yours faithfully,
[signed]
[insert your full name, address, and date, as legal evidence that you are a constituent.]
You can find the contact details for your state’s MPs below –
When you are done with that, why don’t you come over to Right On Our Side?
It’s a movement.
You should join it.
Barnaby Is Right 
I’m somewhat unsure of how to use the links above to find the MPs and Senators for my State(NSW) in question. If someone could assist me with this quickly, I could post the said letter/s tomorrow.
Michael,
For the Senators – you can find the NSW Senators by clicking on this link, then scanning down the page to where it says “Contact List Of Senators”. Then, click on and download the pdf document titled Senators’ Parliament House and State/Territory addresses, phone and fax numbers . Alternately, you can also click this link to see the names of each of the NSW Senators – then by clicking on their names, you can see their contact info.
For your local state MP – click on this link to go to the NSW state parliament website. If you click on the very first link at the top, titled List of Members, Legislative Assembly (No. 04) , you can then see a link to download the list.
Ok thanks for that. I don’t intend writing to all of them as the Coatiltion senatos seem to be against this,from TA’s speeches in the HOuse last week. Just the labor ones eem to ben in question.
Hi,
Now that the CT has passed senate, can we still use the letters to the MP’s? what good will it do?
Wendy, you can still affect the outcome in the Senate – where the bills are being debated now – by sending this letter to the Senators in your state.
The bills will likely be voted on next week.
ok, thanks – will do this, will it make a difference if I send to Lib’s as well as Labor/Greens?
Yes, I think so. Even though the Lib Senators should vote against the bills anyway, it helps them to understand community strength of view when they receive these – for every one they receive, it indicates 10 or more other people sharing the same view.
thanks for the info – I’ve now sent 12 letters to every senator in VIC – should I send to other state senators or just my own?… does it matter or will it make a difference? (not sure of the protocols here)
If you really feel motivated to harrass them (which is your right) then sure, send to as many as you like. Technically though, only Senators for your state are obliged to take any notice of your letter.
Just quietly, when I’ve got a bee in my bonnet I tend to bombard the whole lot of the b@st@rds regardless 😉
Hah!! too true, you sound like me… I’ve been bombarding journo’s and that idiotic “GetUp!” group for months now, so their intelligent response has been to block or moderate me. (the media have been interested though) Not sure if you’ve ever checked that site and the misleading diatribe they regurgitate, but it’s indicative of what actually happens to these organisations once they become political. The road to hell is always paved with good intentions. I’ll continue with the bombardment and thank you for the advice.