Response to Tim Dwyers Letter Template
The Adelaide Freedom Rally was recently (30/03/2023) provided a Letter Template from local personality Tim Dwyer.
I would describe Tim as quite sincere, who attended our ALOR Seminar last July, in which Professor Augusto Zimmermen and Sydney Solicitor Robert Balzola were the main speakers. I encouraged Tim to probe deeply the views of these legal minds who hold standing in a University and several Supreme Courts around Australia. The recordings of these papers are on our Rumble video channel for those interested for the Sunday question time in particular to listen to Tim's input into the overall discussion.
The following Opinion is provided, without my comment, from an acquaintance who is versed in this area, that places some thoughts onto the table of ideas.
Comments
on the Tim Dwyer Letter
Tim is obviously a good Aussie patriot.
Philosophically he is right in pointing out that the real power lies with the
people, and without associative action we will be colonised by China, which is
certainly true. However, having one’s heart in the right place does not show
that his interpretation of the law is correct. He follows the general line of
Sovereign Australia of holding that most, if not all of the laws passed by at
least federal parliament are invalid as “no lawful oath, therefore no lawful
authority.” As he says:
“for 30 years NOT 1
member of parliament has sworn a lawful Oath/Affirmation of Office therefor NOT
one Bill, Act or Treaty is Lawful including Local Council Rates, fines or Fee.”
What is his evidence?
In the Rumble video he bases this on members he contacted who did not have a
copy of the oath they swore. Does that show there was no oath sworn? Perhaps
not. Here is a radical Leftist Aboriginalist Lidia Thorpe being sworn in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfM2WOBy8H0
 
I doubt she has a copy
of the oath or cares.
https://rumble.com/v2f5d34-onus-of-proof-of-authority.html
From
the Commonwealth Parliament Website
“The Australian Constitution requires that
those elected to the Senate and the House of Representatives swear or solemnly
affirm their allegiance to the Crown. Senators and members are required
to both ‘make and subscribe’ (sign) an oath or affirmation. The same oath
and affirmation have been used since Federation and can only be changed by
constitutional referendum.
Section 42 of the Constitution states:
Every senator and every member of the House of Representatives
shall before taking his seat make and subscribe before the Governor-General, or
some person authorised by him, an oath or affirmation of allegiance in the form
set forth in the schedule to the Constitution.[38]
The Schedule to the Constitution contains the
wording of the oath and affirmation:
Oath
I, A.B., do swear that I will be faithful and bear true
allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, Her heirs and successors according to
law. So Help Me God!
Affirmation
I, A.B., do solemnly and sincerely affirm and declare that I
will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, Her
heirs and successors according to law.[39]
NOTE - The name of the King or Queen of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland for the time being is to be substituted from time to
time.[40]
In the Senate, a senator must be sworn in
before sitting in the Senate or participating in its proceedings, but there is
nothing to prevent a senator performing other official functions before taking
the oath or affirmation. Thus the Senate appoints senators to committees, and
senators may participate in the proceedings of those committees, before they
have been sworn.[41]
In the House of Representatives a member
cannot take part in any proceedings of the House until sworn in. This includes
not participating in the work of committees until members have been sworn.[42]
At the first meeting of a new Parliament the
oath or affirmation is normally administered by a person authorised by the
Governor-General, usually a Justice of the High Court. After reading the
judge’s authorisation to the House, the Clerk of the House of Representatives
tables the returns to the writs for the general election, then calls members
elected, usually in groups of 10 to 12, to the Table of the House to make the
oath or affirmation and subscribe the oath or affirmation form. Members not
sworn in at this stage may be sworn in later in the day’s proceedings or on a
subsequent sitting day by the Speaker, who receives a commission from the
Governor-General to administer the oath or affirmation. Members elected at
by-elections during the Parliament are also sworn in by the Speaker.[43]
Advice from the Attorney-General’s Department
has confirmed that members making the oath of allegiance are not bound to use
the authorised version of the Bible:
The oath of allegiance need not necessarily be made on the
authorised version of the Bible, although this has been the common practice. A
Member may recite the oath while holding another form of Christian holy book,
or, in respect of a non-Christian faith, a book or work of such a nature. The
essential requirement is that every Member taking an oath should take it in a
manner which affects his or her conscience regardless of whether a holy book is
used or not.[44]
In September 2010, Ed Husic, Member for
Chifley (NSW), became the first Muslim to be sworn into the federal parliament.
The Age reported that:
For the first time an MP, Labor’s Ed Husic, took the oath while
holding a Koran rather than a Bible. The Koran belonged to his parents,
immigrants from Bosnia.[45]”
What
Happened When There were Members of Parliament Not Sworn in Correctly? The Site
Continues:
“The problems that can arise when members of
parliament are not sworn correctly were evident in June 1901, one month after
the commencement of the first Parliament. Donald Cameron, member for the
electorate of Tasmania, claimed, in a personal explanation, that:
… a large proportion of the members of this House, including
myself, have not been properly sworn.[46]
Cameron said that when he arrived with other
members to be sworn by the Governor-General, he:
… saw a number of honorable members sign their names on sheets
of vellum before they attended. I did not do so. When I arrived with other
honorable members in the room where we were to be sworn in, as I understood, I
listened most attentively; but I was never called up … and I was never asked to
make and subscribe the oath of allegiance.[47]
Following discussion, the then Prime Minister,
Edmund Barton, stated that:
I submit to the House that the honorable member should tender
himself to the Speaker to be sworn now, in order to save any question arising
hereafter.[48]
The Speaker asked Mr Cameron to ‘take a seat
behind the Bar of the House’ while the necessary papers were obtained.[49]
House of Representatives Debates records that:
The honorable member for Tasmania, Mr Cameron, having re-entered
the chamber, subscribed the oath.[50]”
Are
the Sovereign Australian Right? Sadly, No!
Here is how parliament has dealt with this issue of
lack of oath in the past; it was not a problem for them:
“In September 1901, Attorney-General, Alfred
Deakin, advised that, in his opinion, the direction in section 42 of the
Constitution, that a member of the federal Parliament ‘shall before taking his
seat make and subscribe’ the oath of allegiance, was ‘directory and not
absolute’ in the sense that ‘neglect of the requirement does not invalidate
what is done afterwards’.[51]
This has been interpreted to mean that:
… the validity of parliamentary proceedings would not be
affected by the participation in them of members who had not complied with s
42.[52]
Members of the federal parliament do not incur
a penalty if they participate in proceedings of the Senate or the House of
Representatives without fulfilling the requirement of section 42. This is very
different to the approach in the United Kingdom Parliament where:
Should a Member take part in parliamentary proceedings without
having sworn the oath or made the affirmation, the penalty is £500 for every
offence, together with vacation of his or her seat …
There have been cases where Members and Peers have inadvertently
neglected to take the oath and they have sometimes been relieved of the
consequences of their omission by an Act of Indemnity. Such an Act cannot,
however, prevent a Member’s seat from being immediately vacated; a new writ
must be moved for at once.[53]”
Conclusion
The ultimate test of this approach will be the response of the
High Court of Australia to the claim that most of the existing statutory laws
of at least the Commonwealth are invalid. That is the case developed in the
letter to the CEOs of the councils. Here it is almost certain that the High
court would reject the application for review, on any number of grounds,
including lack of standing of the applicant, that there are no “special interests,”
or private rights of the individual at stake. And supposing that the case did
get review, how likely would it be for the High Court to accept the argument that
most of the laws of Australia are invalid?
In Coe v Commonwealth [1993] HCA 4, the High Court
considered, whether there was an Aboriginal nation exercising sovereignty in Australia.
Despite Mabo there was no sovereignty
that could co-exist with the sovereignty of the Crown. Thus, mutatis mutandis, this would also apply
to individuals as well, so Tim’s case would collapse on this precedence.
Should the letter writing be done? It may
be useful in rallying the troops, but this has been tried in the past, since
the 1990s, and has not got anywhere. There are no magical legal arguments to
save the day; it must be hard grind political action at the grass roots.
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