The following applies to any issue which has bipartisan support of the major parties, but the specific application to immigration was advocated by Denis McCormack in the Spring 2007 Issue No 13.
For decades the Australian electorate has been frustrated on the immigration issue by major party bipartisanship. Since 1990 the efforts of minor parties specifically devoted to harness that voter frustration have changed nothing. We have record high immigration - most of it non-European, with all the short, medium, and long term downside environmental and socio-cultural burdens of growth stress and increasing complexity that they entail. All this becoming more evident every day in every way - yet immigration is increased every year, Coalition or ALP.
How easy is this for millions of us to do on election day?
1. With both ballot papers in hand, walk into the privacy of voting booth.
2. Number the squares as you wish for your valid vote.
3. In the clear blank space of about 1 cm deep across the top of both ballot papers write
which can’t obscure your numbered squares and therefore won’t invalidate your vote (confirmed by the Australian Electoral Commission).
4. Fold them both, walk out of voting booth, drop them into the respective Reps and Senate ballot boxes on the way out ... so easy!
It would most certainly be noted by all and sundry at the counting everywhere, and therefore spread naturally into the reportage of mass media on election night if a big % of valid ballot papers for both Reps and Senate had REDUCE IMMIGRATION written across the top of them.
The most important task is to spread this election day strategy idea, emphasising it’s ease and legality, in order to stimulate the millions of fellow Australians who agree with us on the need for reduced immigration. For the long run, a big % of REDUCE IMMIGRATION marked ballots may be more indicative of our ‘aspirational nationalism’ than our choice of who governs us for the next three years.
(The States bear most of the burden of high immigration - choked transport systems, lack of public transport, water scarcity, decline in neighbourliness, crime, high house prices etc., Hence it is equally valid to write Reduce Immigration across the ballot paper in State elections, especially those states like Victoria which have a policy of enticing immigrants.)
The Independent Australian firmly believes in the separation of powers. That is, the parliament makes the laws and the judiciary implements them literally (commonly known as black letter law). If they feel the laws are defective, the judiciary can point this out to the parliament, but it is not their role to subvert them with ‘interpretations’, which is inherently available to them in Bills of Rights.
We get the politicians that we deserve. At least we get the opportunity to reject them, not like judges, who are a protected species. A Bill of Rights in effect hands over moral judgements to ex-lawyers, many of whom are frustrated politicians who lacked the guts to enter politics, where actions are subject to fierce scrutiny.
The defects of Bills of Rights are fully explored by Professor James Allan in Issue 14, Summer 2007/08. and by NSW Attorney-General John Hartzistergos in Issue 15, Winter 2008.