Forwarded message from Jim Duffield
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Yes No or Informal... the Australian Constitution...
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 21:02:45 +0800
From: "Jim Duffield" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Organization: Settlers for First Nation Australia
To: "Yagan Mob" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
OK, more on this problematic document, over which many have
allegedly perspired...
I've started to get some answers to my query about the subtleties of
the "Command of the naval and military forces" including a
conversation with Professor Craven at NDU in Fremantle (thanks
Professor). I think that I could be persuaded that the amended
document is no more sinister than the old. Perhaps.
Now for the cruncher. "Race" as a 'fact' of constitutional law. In
1993 at the Canberra conference: THE POSITION OF
INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN NATIONAL CONSTITUTIONS
conducted by the COUNCIL FOR ABORIGINAL RECONCILIATION
and the CONSTITUTIONAL CENTENARY FOUNDATION, Mr Ron
Castan, AM QC, said of Section 25 of our constitution:
"The final point I would make is that to our unutterable shame, we
still have in the Constitution Section 25, which was not altered in
1967. That section explicitly says that where a state provides by its
laws that the people of any race are not entitled to vote, then those
people are not counted among the people, those who are to be
represented by the parliamentary democracy by the houses of
parliament in Canberra. How we can have left that racist provision in
our Constitution to today is utterly beyond me. If I can provide an
issue or an option for the Constitutional Centenary Foundation and
the Council for Reconciliation to take forward, it is getting rid of
that
basic racist clause from our Constitution, in addition to the other
matters I have mentioned.
And what was done about Section 25 in the intervening years?
Nothing.
So what does S25 say? This:
"Provision as to races disqualified from voting
25. For the purposes of the last section, if by the law of any State all
persons of any race are disqualified from voting at elections for the
more numerous House of the Parliament of the State, then, in
reckoning the number of the people of the State or of the
Commonwealth, persons of the race resident in that State shall not
be counted. "
Take this together with S51. xxvi:
"Legislative powers of the Parliament
51.The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to
make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the
Commonwealth with respect to:
...xxvi.The people of any race, for whom it is deemed necessary to
make special laws; "
And we now know from the High Court that this can be interpreted to
not just mean 'for' but also 'against' a minority identified by "race."
What are my points?
1. "Race" is a social construct not a scientific truth. It is a piece
of
european folk taxonomy. It cannot be shown to exist outside of a
phenotype (ie. in the genotype) in us, the homo sapiens sapiens of this
planet.
2. How did it get into our constitution? Courtesy of Sir Sam
Griffiths coaxing Sir John Forrest and Western Australia into the
federation, with the States to retain power over Aboriginal
Australians, as a piece of eugenics. Yet in spite of its demise with
Adolph in 1945, we in Australia continue to give it a legal identity in
our Australian constitution.
3. Please read the proposed Preamble, then consider the issue of
"race":
"Preamble
With hope in God, the Commonwealth of Australia is constituted as a
democracy with a federal system of government to serve the common
good.
We the Australian people commit ourselves to this Constitution:
proud that our national unity has been forged by Australians from
many ancestries;
never forgetting the sacrifices of all who defended our country and
our liberty in time of war;
upholding freedom, tolerance, individual dignity and the rule of law;
honouring Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, the nation's first
people, for their deep kinship with their lands and for their ancient
and continuing cultures which enrich the life of our country;
recognising the nation-building contribution of generations of
immigrants;
mindful of our responsibility to protect our unique natural
environment;
supportive of achievement as well as equality of opportunity for all;
and valuing independence as dearly as the national spirit which binds
us together in both adversity and success."
Yes, I know that the preamble is a political sop and meaningless in
terms of law, but we do it with the hope that "God" might fix it,
because none of the bloody lawyers who have pored over the
document since Ron Castan have had the sense or conscience to
attend to it!
Look at the political buzzwords; "national unity" "many ancestries"
"tolerance" and get this one "honouring Aborigines and Torres Strait
Islanders" and "recognising the nation building contribution of
generations of immigrants" and finally "equality of opportunity for
all"!!! How do you honour anyone when you retain the power for the
continuance of a genocide?
My point here? I do hope that it is apparent without it having to be
spelt out, the entire bloody preamble is humbug.
How much money has been spent on this Republican thing? Tens of
millions at least? Yet we go forward into the next century with with a
constitution of which Spencer and Galton and the Nazi Party would be
most proud.
I cannot be party to a "we the unknowing being led by the unthinking,
the ignorant, racist and incompetent" constitution.
Any Australian of whom it might be said that they are NOT racist
must make a conscious decision to spoil their vote.
They must vote informal to register their protest over any legal
continuance being attributed to this racist diatribe that has some
sixty odd amendments, and yet the most pressing need is omitted.
Getting it wrong a century ago is perhaps understandable, even
forgivable. However, to continue this, even as a NO vote is to accede
to the perpetration of a most extraordinary form of racism. It is
clearly constitutionally approved power to discriminate based on the
colour of one's skin.
We carry this into the next century for our children's children?
Shame, Australia, shame...
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