The Senate committee which is to report on the most appropriate process to turn Australia into a republic opened hearings today in Parramatta – ironically one of the overwhelming majority of electorates which
rejected the republicans second preferred model in 1999!
Kerry Jones and David Flint will appear for ACM .As Kerry said, it was essential that ACM be represented at the highest level to demonstrate that we do not intend to stand aside and let the republican politicians throw out our constitution and our flag. ACM issued the following Media Release embargoed until the hearing:
MEDIA RELEASE : SENATE REPUBLIC HEARINGKERRY JONES AND DAVID FLINIIWEFEND
CONSTITUTION AND FLAG
On the first day of the Senate Legal and Committee's hearings on examining how to turn Australia into a republic, Kerry Jones and David Flint, who led the ACM's NO case in 1999,tabled 10 questions supporters of the present constitutional system have been asking. The Committee met in Parramatta, one of the 72% ofelectorates that voted NO in the referendum, to hear from mainly pro-republican speakers. No arrangements
were made for members of the public to ask questions or make comments. Supporters of the Constitution want to know why this issue had been raised less than four years after the voters had overwhelmingly rejected the republicans' own preferred republican model. They ask why it was proposed to 'divert even more millions of dollars of taxpayers' money from schools, hospitals and security into this folly. They want to know why there was to be no attempt to tell the people just what is so wrong with the Constitution which would justify this exercise.
Why, they ask, is there no one on the committee from the overwhelming majority of Australians who want to keep Australia as it is? As one of the republicans' main media supporters has admitted, no one seriouslyargues that they won't change the flag, too. "Foreign governments-and the UN- accept that we already have an Australian Head of State in the Governor-General. Sir David Smith has placed before the committee the
overwhelming legal and constitutional evidence that leads to this ineluctable conclusion," observed Professor Flint.
The submission stressed that the Founding Fathers had devised one way, and only one way, to change our Constitution – a referendum where the people see all of the details of any proposed change before they vote and not afterwards!
Authorized by David Flint and Kerry Jones,
National Convenor and Executive Secretary,
ACM,Level 13,189 Kent Street,Sydney 2000
02 9261 2600
The ACM submission can be found on this site at http://norepublic.com.au/Releases/acn_md_Flint_Apr1304.htmor
or the senate website.
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/legcon_ctte/republic03/submissions/sub455.pdf