Drafted by the Alternative Three - a project of United People Power Inc.
The 1901 Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia is no more than an agreement between the six (colonies) states to share the power that the states already exercised.
Liberty and justice (peoples' rights) were not a consideration in the drafting of the constitution as it was an accepted fact that the peoples’ rights were secure through the legal instruments of the states.
Referendums to approve the constitution held just before federation did not receive popular support. Less than 20% of the population participated, at a time when the multiple vote franchise was a legal entitlement (to as many as six votes per man depending on landholding). Women were not entitled to vote. This alone should be sufficient reason to reconstitute Australia. The constitution then became an Act of the British Imperial Parliament and imposed on Australia as the Law.
Since then much has taken place to separate Australia from Britain. The separation has been largely by consent, the legal result of which places Australia totally outside of the law of Britain. As the Australian Constitution is a British law, it is of doubtful legal force. All doubt should be removed. To do so will require the citizens be given a proper opportunity to approve a constitution. For this to be done in an open and responsible way, ample time must be allowed for the people to debate and mould a fresh constitution. The Australian people must not be tricked into approving the existing constitution on the pretext that they are deciding on whether or not they wish to have a republic. Australia has been a republic since 1920 (when we joined the League of Nations).
The Australia Act 1986 finally severed all legal ties with Britain. When this transpired the peoples’ legal link with their "inalienable" rights was also cut, leaving all Australians totally without legal claim to rights. People find this every day in our court system, which is no longer, a justice system.
At the time of cutting off of the people’ rights the Australian politicians granted unto themselves the power of God to determine the rights of all Australian people. Which future Hitler or Stalin will seize upon this as their opportunity to take control the existing system of unlimited government in Australia?
The constitution was not designed to secure the rights of the people because they were otherwise secured at the time, secured by a long collection of historic events stretching over two centuries, all now totally inefective as a result of continuous white-anting, completed with the Australia Act.
Don’t be fooled by false and deceptive claims that the constitution gives people "rights". Only two citizens’ rights exist in the constitution. 1. The right to vote to elect a representative to both houses of the federal parliament. 2. The right to vote in a referendum with limited choice to either approve or reject changes that the politicians wish to make to the constitution. Both are Clayton's rights. Other rights, incidental to the very few real limits placed on government flow to people, but they are few.
The bottom line to all of this is that Australia does not have an effective totally legal constitution when viewed from the perspective of the peoples’ best interests or that of International Law.
The people are now wholly without proper legal claim to rights, other than the two listed above; and both have proved to be of little value as constitutional provisions, and government’s increasing intention to manipulate them is now legendary.
A constitution is the set of rules designed to control government and nothing more. The Australian Constitution is not very effective at its task. Totally unsatisfactory from the peoples’ point of view, but most satisfactory for the power-hungry, and members of their various gangs.
The system that we inherited and retain in part today, relies on a strong set of rules to limit government. Our problem is that the strong set of rules has been cancelled -- removed -- without the people's permission. In the past it was correct to refer to Australian government as "limited government". The limits were set in concrete over hundreds of years; the evidence detailed in instruments such as Magna Carta, Habeas Corpus, etc.
These one hundred odd instruments make up what is properly called the British Constitution. All these instruments served to limit Australian governments just as they limited the British government until our treacherous, power-seeking politicians finally snapped the link, with the 1986 Australia Act. An Act that the Queen personally gave assent to, advocating her position as Monarch.
What has occurred is that Australia has moved from limited government to unlimited Government. The only remaining limit is in the various state constitutions in their watered-down condition, and which the state governments alter at will; and the Commonwealth Constitution, which at best is ineffective in its power-sharing arrangement between the states and the Federal Government, and at worst illegal and unenforceable. But it in no way subitutes for the Laws of England, Magna Carta, etc.
Constitutions (a single document for the control of government) are somewhat modern ideas developed by people who wished to set down some rules for government. They are legal and become the primary Law of the Land, provided that they are put in place as agreed to by the people. Ours was not.
It is accepted as proper, in fact essential, democratic practice, at least by the so-called free world, that the process for establishing a constitution is through a compact of the people, an agreement. It is best explained by a few lines from the American Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, ----- that all men are created equal, ----- that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, ----- that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. ----- That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, ----- deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, ----- that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government."
What is clear from this statement of truth is that people should wish to be governed, and they are only prepared to be governed and accept government on the basis that the people set the rules that control government. Modern rules are called constitutions.
The free world accept a procedure where a people willingly enter into what is called a compact (agreement) on how they wish to be governed. Such a compact sets down the type of government they agree to and the rules under which the government must operate.
Such a compact is then put to the whole of the adult population for approval or rejection. On approval it becomes the constitution, the law of the land.
It is important to understand that it must be the people writing the constitution, not the government, or their agents and not the establishment or their agents. It is important also that the people do not require government permission to produce a constitution and have it put to the people, be it the first constitution or a later one.
It is important therefore to understand that if the people go to a referendum and as a majority agree that a Fresh Constitution is to be the Law of the Land, then there is nothing that government can legally do about it, except, to accept the peoples’ decision and the peoples’ constitution. There is no possible legal claim that a vote for a fresh constitution is informal, there is no provision in the constitution to declare such a vote informal and there is no provision that allows the government to pass any law to that effect. To deny the will of the people, is to deny the human right expressed in the American Declaration of Independence "a right -- to institute new government"
The government-sponsored referendum is nothing more than a trick to have the population approve the existing constitution with or without a president. With this understanding it becomes clear that something is drastically wrong with the proposed constitutional changes. What is most illuminating is the fact that heading up both the "opposing" teams in the non-existent constitutional debate, are prominent people trained in the law, one representing international bankers, who not only should, but do know the law. Who is fooling whom? The important question is, are you being fooled? It is easy to become infected with what we might call media-transmitted Brain Disease.
Are the Australian people being suckered into approving the existing constitution? The end result will be exactly what is planned -- that the existing constitution will be unanimously approved by all who vote at the referendum. Voting either for or against the proposed changes will mean you will be approving the existing constitution. This result means that the people will have approved the existing constitution, not knowing that this is what was intended all the time: approval by deception: so legalising a dictatorship in which the people have only two Clayton’s rights, as set out above. Experience shows that even these rights are effectively controlled by parliament; making them no rights at all.
Australia is at a crossroad. The decision we collectively make will lead us all up one road or another. The Alternative Three Draft Constitution is the correct road alternative.
Readers will find on studying the linked draft that the Alternative Three intention is to retain the existing governmental structure, only with much, much more people control, exercised through referendum, along with the return of our fundamental rights and thereby the return of limited government. The proposal includes an elected body to enforce the constitutional rules on government and lays down a solid foundation of the peoples’ rights to life, liberty, justice, property and the pursuit of happiness. The overall goal that this fresh constitution sets out to accomplish can be best summarised by the following six points.
Limited government as opposed to unlimited government.
Representative government — that is, representing the people.
Responsible government --- responsible to the people.
Controllable government --- under prudent controls exercised by the people.
With a Head of State elected by the people as part of a 25 member constitutional council.
Liberty and justice based on the long proven principles inherited with our system, which will be returned with the Alternative Three constitution.
This fresh, totally responsible Alternative Three constitution builds on the good we have accomplished as a nation over the century, returning to those things that worked and rejecting those that have proven not to work; and at the same time introducing ideas to improve the people’s position in many areas, all based on our one hundred years of constitutional experience.
The bottom line is that the people have a well-established democratic right to establish a fresh constitution. There is absolutely nothing the establishment can do to prevent it. We have no choice to do otherwise, given the total of the set of circumstances that exist.
The process required to install this fresh constitution as, the Law of the Land Australia, is simple and exposes nobody, thanks to the secret ballot used at referenda.
All that is required of the citizen casting a vote is to, 1. Not answer any of the questions on the referendum paper, and 2. Write --- Alternative Three ---or--- A3--- across the paper. Either will indicate a clear choice, provided that none of the questions are answered and nothing else is written.
What the referendum will finally come down to, is that the establishment will be putting forward their options and the people will be putting forward theirs. The choice will remain with the individual casting a vote. Don’t be distracted by claims of informality. When a majority of the people vote as one there is absolutely no informality. No government could get away with claiming informality when the majority of the people have spoken. Then the government is so bound.
It is important to note that with the Alternative Three choice comes a totally legal opportunity, for the people using the proper processes as set out in the fresh constitution, to amend any section of this fresh constitution that they believe is not working in their best interest. People who have concerns with the draft will not be locked out from addressing those concerns at any time in the future. We expect if people find things don’t work out as planned, that they will move to ammend these things. Such an option does not exist in the establishment’s proposals.
Here are answers to three often-asked questions:
Question: Why doesn't the monarch have a place in this fresh constitution?
Answer: Simply because there is not now a legal position retained by the monarch in Australian governmental affairs. The question of whether Australians choose to retain the monarch as Queen of Australia is an entirely separate question to be decided by the people at some other time. It is important that the monarch is not used to muddy the water in order that the people cannot see what is going on. There is little doubt that using the fiction of the monarch's involvement in government is the establishment’s intention and the key to their strategy to divide the nation in two. If this strategy of division is successful, then the deception of the proposed referendum will also succeed.
Question: Who holds the position as Head of State in the Alternative Three proposal?
Answer: The Governor General, who shall be elected by the twenty-five-member Australian Constitutional Crown Council from their own number, all of whom are elected by the people, creating the best possible method of appointment of our Head of State, eliminating both the possibility of a popular media chosen head or a political party choice and establishing a true peoples' choice.
Question: What about a Bill of Rights?
Answer: With the system of limited government regained there is no requirement for a Bill of Rights, The system of limited government that Australians relied on in the past is far superior to a Bill of Rights system. It is far better to place limits on government than to place limits on the people, which a Bill of Rights does.
It is essential that the people have at all times the means of enforcing the rules that they themselves impose on government. The proposed Alternative Three Constitution guarantees this control to the people.
I recommend Alternative Three to all Australians. It has plenty to recommend itself as you will see on investigation, while the establishment’s options have absolutely nothing to recommend them.
The full story of our perilous constitutional position becomes clearer by the day. The more we dig, the more skeletons we find. Copies of the Draft are available for $5 each.
The March 1999 Alternative Three Draft, is just that, a draft. It remains open for input from people across Australia (any citizen). The draft should be considered as a broad list of possibilities from which the people may add, subtract or modify. (see below for instructions).
The opportunity to amend the draft will be open until the end of May 1999 when the draft will be closed for final printing and publication and circulation in preparation for the November referendum. (This does not rule out a final draft say in September, but it is unlikely)
The referendum will provide all citizens of voting age an opportunity to approve the final draft as a whole, no opportunity will exist to pick and choose sections. What is important is that the people approve the draft as it is at the referendum. Opportunity to make changes after the referendum is built into the draft. So people are not locked into anything they don’t wish to be.
People can the deal with amendments if and when the see that it is necessary to do so. There is no reason why a move to amend could not start a day or two following the referendum, this is not likely but it can happen under this Alternative Three Constitution. It is after all the peoples constitution and the people can raise a petition to delete from or add to this constitution, such a petition having received the required number of signatures, shall be put to a referendum of all the electors. This is crucial information. Nobody is locked in. Not supporting this proposal on the basis that it has a few words wrong or it needs more words is totally unjustifiable.
We at UPP have considered every submission received, most are covered in the draft. We believe that we have prepared the best document possible, it needs some minor adjustment, which it will no doubt receive at the various conventions held for that purpose.
We believe we have learnt much from nigh-on one hundred years of experience under the existing constitution and we have attempted to cover all of the original documents short comings while retaining the things that work in the best interests of the Australian people.
Yes it is possible that we have missed something. Let me remind you that the Americans missed including any protection of the rights of the people, they later added a Bill of Rights, referred to as amendments. We have not made such an error. But we have not included a bill if rights, we have stuck to the English system of limited government as opposed to limited people.
The highlighted sections in this draft indicate the draft changes made as a result of the last Alternative Three Constitutional Convention held in Queensland. These sections were considered at the Victorian Convention between 5th to 8th March 1999.
All are welcome to make submissions which deal with a single issue using one of the following processes.
To clarify the intent of a particular section.
To add intent to a section.
To delete from the intent of a section.
To introduce a totally fresh section dealing with a totally new issue.
All submission shall start with one of the above four headings. If a submission is made that falls under more than one of the above headings, then each separate item of the submission shall have its own separate heading. You may make as many submissions on as many issues as you see a need to.
We welcome all submissions. Thank you for your cooperation.
United People Power Inc. have a lot of relative information available, please make use of it and remember we could not function without your generous donations.
Joe Bryant. National Coordinator,
Alternative Three.
For further information:
Alternative Three, PO Box 270 St Marys 1790.
Ph: 02-9623-6177 Fx: 02-9828-1670 E-mail:
Succeed@bigpond.com
Web site:
http://www.users.bigpond.com/succeed/upp/