Aussies LXV - what choices have we?!

[Stubby]

So the first High Court hearings began yesterday into the citizenship debacle.

Two notables changed their tunes when they were under oath.

Canavan admitted he has been an Italian citizen since he was 2, after earlier blaming his mum.

Roberts admitted that he had not formally renounced his British citizenship until after the election.

Fucking lying turds.

[Yukle]

On 8/11/2017 at 4:55 PM, Impmk2 said:

Election polling in the US and the rest of the world is far harder than in Australia because of voluntary voting, so the pollsters have to guess at who is actually going to turn up and bother to vote. That's unlike here where at the last federal election the polls were off by less than 1% for the major parties.

This is one of many reasons I'm grateful for compulsory voting.

Another is that making it compulsory means that the government must make it easy to vote. The USA has so many stupid inhibitions on voting to ensure that only the party favoured by the government of the day can actually vote.

[Yukle]

I think that the High Court should renege on its earlier decision about renouncing citizenship.

For one thing, New Zealand, the UK and Canada (3 nations in the current mess) all have the Queen as the Head of State. Therefore it's reasonable to argue that they're not foreign powers, and that their citizenship is issued by the same person. It's a little different for other nations, but I have no qualms with dual-citizens being in Parliament. It's meant to be representative, and representing dual-citizens is fine with me.

For another, there was no such thing as Australian citizenship when the constitution was written; everyone was British.

Finally, it means that it wouldn't be hard for New Zealand, in a fit of humour, to issue a decree that every Australian is henceforth a New Zealander until they otherwise renounce it, just to ensure mayhem. They wouldn't do this, but the fact that the current interpretation means that they could shows the flaws.

[karaddin]

18 minutes ago, Yukle said:

This is one of many reasons I'm grateful for compulsory voting.

Another is that making it compulsory means that the government must make it easy to vote. The USA has so many stupid inhibitions on voting to ensure that only the party favoured by the government of the day can actually vote.

I was only commenting the other day that if we had voluntary voting and had to do it under the conditions that Americans do (in snow in winter with many hours in a queue in our cars in some cases while we are taking an unpaid break from work) we would have even lower turnout than they do.

[Stubby]

On 2017-8-25 at 10:54 AM, karaddin said:

I was only commenting the other day that if we had voluntary voting and had to do it under the conditions that Americans do (in snow in winter with many hours in a queue in our cars in some cases while we are taking an unpaid break from work) we would have even lower turnout than they do.

No doubt.

Meanwhile, on the lack of ethical integrity front, Morrison confirms that he will vote no regardless of the outcome of the postal survey.  He also says he won't be campaigning because he has more important things to worry about as treasurer. Ugh.

[Paxter]

Perhaps a good thing he is not campaigning if he's in the No camp!

The upcoming "survey" has seen a lot more money spent on polling the electorate and they have generally confirmed the strength of the "Yes" voice in the community. Hopefully these next few weeks of campaigning pass quickly and uneventfully, and we move towards a conscience vote ASAP.

[karaddin]

So much fucking anguish and fighting just to get...what? The vote we could have right now, that they still will vote again. Wow, thank god we spent the fucking public money on that and had a national campaign vilifying a minority group just to ask if we should maybe do our jobs. And if the scare campaign works, we get a whole lot worse than the status quo.

[brook]

If the rest of the no campaign is as inept as what I've seen of the 'ok to say no' campaign I'll be feeling pretty good about things 

There are a lot of terrible infographics out there but this is one of the worst I've seen

and then there is this

 

[Yukle]

Based on Parliament today, I think all of you are dual-citizens until proven otherwise.

Show me your papers!

[Stubby]

Abbott is such a twit.  Shorten has let him blather on about needing to release his proof until Abbott is blue in the face and then he shows his papers.  Labor knows how to push Abbott's buttons.

[Impmk2]

Not a lawyer, but would be very surprised if the high court decides the postal survey meets the "urgent" and "unforeseen" test for the funding. Question is where the government goes next in the event the court finds it can't do it.

Hopefully it's enough to give them a kick in the ass and just allow a free vote, so it isn't constantly coming up in the lead up to the next election. 

[Stubby]

That's why the govt is arguing standing.  They know that if the HCA applies Williams the govt will lose.

[Impmk2]

Ahhh that makes sense, thanks! I hadn't seen any articles on what the government was trying to argue.

[Yukle]

The challenges against the government are coming from three fronts.

Firstly, there may not be authorisation for the funds to be used in this way. The government argues that the Finance Minister has discretion when allocating funding for the purpose if it is for "unforeseen" and "urgent." One aspect of the challenge is that the survey is neither unforeseen nor urgent, especially since it is not required for Parliamentary changes to be made to the Marriage Act, 2006.

Secondly, the ABS is authorised to collect statistics, and opinions may not be included under this criterion. Actively seeking opinions, rather than collating existing objective data (putting aside that lots of people lie on the census, but oh well) may not be within the ABS's legal authority.

Thirdly, since the ABS is using the AEC's electoral roll, the rolls may not necessarily be allowed to be used for this purpose, unrelated to an election or referendum.

 

It's hard to see how the government can win any of the three arguments, let alone fend off all three legal challenges.

[Stubby]

Hearing Transcript, Day 1.

The standing issue was fully argued yesterday morning.  The first plaintiffs ran varying points on the Williams issue in the afternoon, with some arguments crossing into legislative authority issues for the AEC and AS.  In the afternoon, junior counsel for the first plaintiffs argued the legislative issues in more detail. Counsel for the second plaintiffs took the Court to the decision making process of the Finance Minister directly, relying on his "reason" for making the funding available.

In this regard, the decision to release the funding could only be made if the need for the funding was "urgent" and "unforseen"  Cormann's official reason was:

"These circumstances meet the requirements of section 10 of the Act regarding the expenditure being urgent because it was unforeseen." 

Amateur hour.

Will be interesting to see where the defendants go today.

[karaddin]

What's your read of things so far Stub? I'm far too invested and having to steel myself against it being upheld even as their arguments seem utterly unconvincing.

[Stubby]

k,

My take is that the postal survey stands on the brink of being shut down by the Court.  The main reason I think that the survey will die is the reasoning of the Court in the Williams case (the chaplaincy challenge).  It all has to do with whether the govt of the day had the power to use the funds in the manner it did.  In Williams, the Court said no.  On the evidence discussed in the transcript, I think the govt is pushing the proverbial uphill.

I also think that all of the parliamentarians with questionable citizenship will be kicked out of parliament.  If the HCA applies the reasoning in Culleton (from earlier this year) then I cannot see how any of them were validly elected.  in Culleton the Court said that the only fact that matters on this issue is "was the (politician) a valid candidate on the day of the election"?  Intent does not matter and events after the election did not matter.

I may of course be wrong - I'm not a constitutional lawyer - but purely on the evidence and the application of precedent, that is what I think will happen.

[karaddin]

Yeah the MP one really doesn't seem to have much wiggle room. Mal is just engaged in some fingers in ears denial of reality with his confidence on that front.

[Stubby]

It seems that one way or another we will know tomorrow.  The HC has said it will deliver it's reasons tomorrow. 

That means they think the Plaintiffs have not proved their case, or that it is obvious that the govt has blatantly done wrong. I note that the main reason the govt argued that it was "urgent" was that "urgency is relative".

 

[Yukle]

4 hours ago, Stubby said:

My take is that the postal survey stands on the brink of being shut down by the Court.  The main reason I think that the survey will die is the reasoning of the Court in the Williams case (the chaplaincy challenge).  It all has to do with whether the govt of the day had the power to use the funds in the manner it did.  In Williams, the Court said no.  On the evidence discussed in the transcript, I think the govt is pushing the proverbial uphill.

I also think that all of the parliamentarians with questionable citizenship will be kicked out of parliament.  If the HCA applies the reasoning in Culleton (from earlier this year) then I cannot see how any of them were validly elected.  in Culleton the Court said that the only fact that matters on this issue is "was the (politician) a valid candidate on the day of the election"?  Intent does not matter and events after the election did not matter.

Yeah, from reading the goings-on at the court today, I also think (with no legal expertise, obviously) that it seems the funding issue is by far the biggest sticking point. With any luck they'll also rule, separately, that data collected by the AEC cannot be used by the ABS, which is another argument, for non-electoral reasons.

The parliamentarians are really annoying me - only the Greens Senators did what they believed was the right thing: they resigned, then renounced, and then said they'll stand for office again if the chance arises. They were slammed and held up as posters for the Greens being a terrible party - only for all of the government and opposition members in the same position to cling firmly (especially those in the House of Reps for the government, whose slender majority has been thrown into chaos).

That said, I can't see how they can be allowed to stand given the earlier decision from the 90s, which set this current precedent. I suppose the precent could be overturned, but otherwise, yeah, they probably weren't validly elected. The precent also said that their jobs were carried out correctly while they held office, so at least their votes and everything still stand, otherwise it'd be total chaos.