12 Hurrey Place
BEECHBORO WA 6063
18th August 2000
To all thinking Australians, but mostly to politicians...
As an ex career soldier I am alarmed at the nature, structure and
constitutional abrogation within this act for Aid to the Civil Authority.
The Governor General is, constitutionally, the "Command in Chief" of the
Armed forces of Australia. In any case where the Australian Armed Forces
are called upon to quell unrest by Australians, more than politics (and
therefore politicians) is involved.
I cannot conceive of any such situation where the GG could abrogate his
responsibility of command to enable Australians to bear Arms against
Australians, where just one side of politics would be involved.
My proposition is that the GG must know, via an act enabled amendment to
the membership of the Executive council perhaps, or by separate briefing,
the opinion of the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition. Anything less is
Stalin or Hitleresque.
Surely in this situation the GG must speak for all Australians?
When I was commissioned at Canungra I asked what the latin on my "pips"
meant. Nobody could tell me.
I discovered that it was a call of the Crusader Knights "Tria Juncta in
Uno" a call to the holy Christian trinity. As a non Christian I had to
work out just what this meant to me - today in Oz.
After much pondering I decided that as I was commissioned by the Governor
General (my constitutional "Command in Chief" not politicians!) then this
"pip" called me to the highest human office in my nation - a place where
one decides just who lives and who dies.
Thus, even, should the occasion arise when commanded by my "Command in
Chief" to undertake an immoral or ignoble task, I could, indeed must,
refuse.
I can tell you that as the great grandson of a man who was a trade unionist
ridden down by English Troops in the 1880s, given the task to wade into my
fellow Australians, without a proper and unified briefing of my "Command in
Chief" - I would have to refuse.
Jim Duffield
Retired Captain
Royal Australian Engineers
[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- http://www.kultcher.com/ --- Jim Duffield
"A society that values planned teaching above autonomous
learning cannot but teach man to keep his engineered
place." Ivan Illich - Limits to Medicine
http://www.louis.asn.au http://www.deathsincustody.com/
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