The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has today released its report into matters related to Section 44 of The Australian Constitution.
Committee Chairman Senator Linda Reynolds said the report found that s. 44 was becoming increasingly undemocratic and that future referrals to the High Court would be inevitable.
“Problems with s. 44 are neither new, nor unforeseen,” Senator Reynolds said.
“20 years of Parliamentary Committee reports and a Constitutional Convention have all predicted that without constitutional reform to parts or all of s. 44, challenges would occur to otherwise qualified and validly elected Members of Parliament.
“Problems with the operation of s. 44 have come to public attention over the past year as a result of the high number of s. 44(i) citizenship matters referred to by the High Court. While public discussion has been on these citizenship cases, two other sub sections of s. 44 were also the subject of High Court consideration.”
Senator Reynolds said in addition to the previously identified problems with s. 44, recent High Court decisions have created new uncertainties and future opportunities to manipulate election results, which are likely to end by being referred to the High Court.
“Recent High Court decisions on the interpretation on s. 44 are clear–to nominate as a candidate, all reasonable steps must be taken prior to nomination to ensure all candidates are not disqualified to be on the ballot paper,” Senator Reynolds said.
“The Committee makes no judgement on the dual citizenship issue itself,” Senator Reynolds said.
“The question of whether or not the application of these rules meets contemporary Australian expectations is a different matter altogether and is one for Australians to ultimately determine.”
“We believe that issue is one for Australians to consider as part of a wider debate on qualities we want in our candidates when they stand for election and for those who are elected to Parliament.”
Based on the significant and persuasive evidence to the Inquiry, the Committee has recommended that the Australian Government prepare a referendum question to either repeal sections 44 and 45 or insert the words ‘Until Parliament so provides…’ into both sections.
Senator Reynolds said while the Committee had recommended a referendum to permanently fix the problems with s. 44, the Committee acknowledged the preconditions for a successful referendum do not yet exist and may take time to achieve.
Until such time a referendum is successful in providing Australians or their elected representatives the ability to change disqualifications, the committee has recommended the Federal Government consider implementing a range of mitigation strategies. The first measures should be in place before the conduct of the upcoming by-elections to minimise the chance of those elections being challenged in the high court.
Report recommendations:
- Recommendation 1
The Committee recommends that the Australian Government prepare a proposed referendum question to either:- repeal sections 44 and 45 of the Constitution; or
- insert into sections 44 and 45 the words: ‘Until the Parliament otherwise provides…’
- Recommendation 2
If the referendum passes, the Committee further recommends that the Australian Government further engages with the Australian community to determine contemporary expectations of standards in order to address all matters of qualification and disqualification for Parliament through legislation under section 34 of the Constitution. - Recommendation 3
In the event that a referendum does not proceed or does not pass, that the Australian Government consider strategies to mitigate the impact of section 44 as outlined in this report. - Recommendation 4
The Committee recommends that the Government consider the implications of this report in the context of the upcoming be-elections, in particular the options outlined in chapter 4.
Further information will be available on the Committee’s website www.aph.gov.au/em.
www.cairnsnews.org 
All that is increasingly undemocratic is those backroom political party people chosen because they mainly have a conflicting faith to the doctrine of the Crown, or who are tactically been positioned to deliberately preselect, more & more of their people who & because they are in breach of the constitution. Those preselected increasingly are dishonest lawyers or are deceitfully dishonest accountants by profession before politics. Hence, are more of those who are invalidly preselected by backroom gangsters as they are mainly these days those who are in one of those two professions to assist in unconstitutionally creating more and more unconstitutionally & grossly corrupt conflicts of interests to cover up lawyers crimes.
Thereby they are preselected so as to politically continue to do away with political party chosen non-compliance of the constitution as majority in the Cabinet Room do now also have a faith that is with foreign allegiance to the Vatican City, thereby to ignore, destroy and to treasonously do away with the constitutional doctrine of the Crown. So some may say they are in public office illegally committing treasonous religious invasions & crimes of perjury to wilfully set-out to ignore, override and to unconstitutionally disrupt & to corruptly do away with the constitution by unlawfully & ineligibly holding public office position of trust.
Hence, they have been strategically positioned by purported Governors-General holding a faith that conflicts with the doctrine of the Crown, so as to protect their preselected stooges and constitutionally invalid Governors-Generals were also appointed by a HCA purported Chief Justice whose faith also constitutionally conflicted with the doctrine of the Crown.
Hence, by their purported Governors-General and by their stacked legal profession purported politicians are mostly protected for their treasonous contempt for and of the authority and for their abuses in breach of the powers of Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second our Constitutional Lawful Sovereign of the Commonwealth of Australia. But, those political party planted republican puppets, have also treasonously been doing away with the constitution in other areas, but, they & their conflicting faith stacked high court mates, are each coming unstuck with and by section 44. So to change or to even hold any constitutional referendum to attempt to get rid and do away with the Constitutional protections in section 44 would be contemptuous acts of more undemocratic crimes of more wilful political party treason.
All that needs to happen is have only constitutionally compliant people preselected to stand for constitutional public office positions of trust. Any one who has been caught out by s44 should be criminally prosecuted for their oath of office crimes of perjury and must be forced to repay the tax payers fully with interest and charged for having wilfully mislead the voting public and should not be allowed to ever again hold any public office whatsoever.
There must not be any different rules or any special political party favours by politically writing off their major frauds of salary, expense’s and political perks misused by them failing to comply with the laws that are crimes akin to theft and deception committed by those politically Stacked & Rigged s.44 criminal’s; who are no better than any Tax fraudsters or Centrelink fraudsters but, who constitutionally perjured themselves under oath before the purported Governor-General while representing & taking their oath’s for and on behalf of the Crown. So criminally why has there not yet been any penalties enforced by the Crown?
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If it works s.44 ( and it does)dont f-‘””k with it. If these contenders for parliament cant understand signing a stat dec truthfully is a criminal offence , their either dull or bad.either way their not what we want in government!
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Actually they owe loyalty to the People and by the people voting they accept the liability of a fictional all capitals name that they have been deceived into accepting. When this happens then they are sure to ignore the people. After all they are not real people voting!
Originally the Constitution was imposed on the Parliament it has never been ratified and remains as an instrument of the United Kingdom [Queen Victoria].
An interesting question would be to ask what research has been done and who proposed the referendum? I would lay odds on it being a Politician.
I left one thing out in my other comment and that is Gillard, Ex PM charged with Treason and still at large thanks to Rob Hull AG and the BAR Flies [Victoria].
Aussies need to wake up to the treason that is endemic in the men and women in the Corporate Parliaments.
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Which constitution are they referring to! Is it the Corporate version Circa 1986 or the one that they have been unlawfully using since Australia joined the League of Nations? The Constitution of a Foreign power. Emeritus Professor Clements Cambridge and Fitzgibbon v HM Attorney General seems to shed some doubt on any notion of a Referendum being lawful.
Seems that there are short memories in these Public Servants minds when looking at and applying section 44 (i). One would be to look at little Bob Ex PM [Duel Denizen] and Brandarse Ex AG.
They are real good at making rules for us and even more efficient at protecting their arse to avoid giving back what they have stolen.
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If changes are to be made to the Constitution, it HAS to go to Referendum.Why does it have to be changed? To allow people with loyalties elsewhere, sit in OUR Parliament and dictate to us, changing our way of life.I say…keep it as it is. They cannot have two loyalties, they will clash.A politician should have one loyalty only…to Australia.
If they are so sloppy and unorganised that they cannot check it all out before sitting for election, they should not be entering Parliament…how on earth can they run a country correctly?
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Section 44 (ii) Is attained of treason, … is their biggest worry
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