The event that occurred at Port Arthur, in Tasmania, on Sunday, the 27th. Of April, 1996, was much more than a tragedy. In terms of victims, it exceeded such previous events as the New South Wales 1914 massacre when two Camel Drivers observing Australia’s Declaration of war, started their own war on a train carrying civilians on a Sunday picnic.
It exceeded the Hoddle Street and Queen Street massacres both graphically and statistically, as well as just about every other known massacre of this type in the western world, ie. a single crazed gunman within a community.
Because of the enormity of the Port Arthur incident, and the Federal Government’s handling of the many related decisions in the aftermath, many of which infringe upon the various rights and duties within the Australian Constitution, doubts, and questions start to arise.
What if Port Arthur was an act of terrorism? That supposition raises definite questions regarding the actions of the Australian Governments, both State and Federal.
Because of the Federation style Constitution of Australia, many laws, including all Firearms laws are the duties of the States, and there can be no infringement by the Federal Government in Canberra.
What this means is the 1979 United Nations Convention on the ‘Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women’ treaty, which was made into law in Australia, by the Federal Government, in 1983, in relation to firearms, is unconstitutional, and thus invalid.
This does not infringe upon the tenet that ‘Commonwealth law overrides State law in any conflict’. For such an infringement, the Commonwealth, or Federal law must be within the rights laid down by our Constitution, and in this case it does not.
The State laws then override the unconstitutional Commonwealth law. To overcome this obstacle, the State Police Minister’s meeting was called on the 10th. May 1996, where there was apparent coercion used on certain State Minister’s to reach a decision compatible with the Federal Government.
Under the Australian Constitution, this is also unconstitutional, and thus unlawful. It also demonstrated the media’s involvement in some of the Government’s workings.
That the ministers had to reach a decision in time for the 6.00pm news may not only be considered unconstitutional, but also demeaning of the role of government. It also sets a precedent, which will create further turmoil in the future.
It is now worthy to have an understanding of the States Firearm laws, and how they have evolved over the last twenty-five years. I use the case of Victoria, as that is the State I reside in, and Victoria’s laws are the laws I used to police.
In 1987, the Premier of the State of Victoria, John Cain, attempted to create new firearm laws in accordance to the United Nations Convention on The
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. There was strong opposition to the draconian methods applied by John Cain, and, the Act to implement those new laws was watered down significantly.
In fact in Victoria, there had been several changes to the law in respect to firearm ownership. In 1972, a Shooter’s Licence was introduced with classifications of A, B, and C, for the right to own and use the various types of firearms. These licences were only issued by police, and certain persons were either restricted or banned from holding such a licence. Any person convicted of a felony had to wait 7 years before being eligible to hold a shooter’s licence. Any person convicted on offences relating to firearms had a similar waiting period.
There was though an avenue for appeal open to people who had earned such convictions. In 1984, John Cain brought in a safety exam similar to the written drivers test, for persons applying for a shooter’s licence,
and in 1985, brought in a Central Firearms Registry which was to be controlled by the State Police at their Russell Street Branch.
It was the Firearm’s Registry that received the first rebuttal by many firearm owners, especially those that had immigrated to Australia from Communist Countries. These people were aware of the implications of a
government having too much control over their lives, and had no faith in bureaucracies.
All these laws however were for the legal and proper ownership of firearms. The illegal use and possession of firearms haven’t changed much at all. It was and still is illegal to alter the length of the barrel of any firearm. Any firearm under a certain length was considered a concealed weapon and was thus illegal.
Except in the sporting clubs, the ownership and possession of pistols was and is illegal. Security guards are required to be strictly licenced, and police are not permitted to be armed whilst not on duty. Sporting
Pistol Shooters are also extremely well policed. Machine guns were banned outright, except for the military.
Then there are laws regulating when and where firearms can be used. It is an offence to discharge a firearm in a populous place. Shooting from a
highway or carriageway is illegal. Drunk in possession of a firearm is illegal and so on.
Then there are the real beauts. A person, being a Felon in Charge of a firearm, doesn’t just mean having a firearm on his possession. If his companion is found carrying a firearm,then the felon is deemed to be in possession. If a firearm is found in a felon’s motor car, then that is deemed as being in possession, even if the car was two miles away from the
felon at the time.
So it must be understood that the new firearm laws were intentionally brought in to impede the lawful firearm owner. They have no relevance whatsoever to the criminal possession or use of firearms, and they were never intended to have such relevance.
It is then worth while to study the police response to firearms and violence. In the Victoria Police, there are many specialised squads of detectives, such as the Bureau of Criminal Intelligence and The Armed Robbery Squad. The Homicide Squad is a small elite squad of detectives. The relevant words there are ‘small’ and ‘elite’.
From 1970 to 1984 this squad used to deal with an average of about 100 murders per year. There is no reason to believe that these figures have altered drastically since then. They also dealt with attempted murders. Most of these murders were the result of domestic violence, either within families or groups. In most domestic cases, the means used depended on the
perpetrator.
Most men used a firearm. Most women used a knife. In all homicides, the
main weapon used was the knife, not a firearm. A study of suicides is equally interesting. Up until 1968, Suicide was considered a felony offence in Victoria. A person was liable to be sentenced to 10 years gaol for committing the felony of suicide.
Just think on it for a moment. In actual fact that law made it possible for attempted suicides to be charged and sentenced to a term of five years gaol, as any attempted felony was automatically a Misdemeanour. That would really solve our apparent current problem on youth suicide wouldn’t it.
In the 1970’s and 80’s the highest suicide risk group was doctors. The
means used were varied. Drug overdoses was a common method, especially with females. Jumping off tall structures was another common method. Jumping into the paths of trains
was another. The use of a firearm was also a method. The slashing of the wrists was more often used as a simulated attempted suicide rather than the real thing.
Poisoning such as the use of Carbon Monoxide gas from the exhaust of a motor car was another method.It can then be said fairly safely that the laws and regulations in regard to firearms, were reasonably adequate.
However the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women was accepted as law in Australia by a Federal
Government who had signed a treaty with the United Nations, irregardless of any consultation or lack thereof, with the Australian people.
The inability of The State Governments of implementing the required standards created some problems for the then Labour Party. John Cain had been forced to water down his government’s implementations, and some other State Governments refused to consider implementing such laws.
Thus Barry Unsworth, the N.S.W. Labour Party member stated publicly in 1988, that Australia would not have uniform gun laws until there was a massacre in Tasmania. In actual fact there will never be uniform gun laws in Australia until after Australia becomes a Republic and the Australian Constitution is rewritten in a Centralist format.
In 1990, the National Committee on Violence released its paper,
Violence: Direction for Australia, and again pushed forward their illogical and flawed tenets.
Australia then signed another treaty on the rights of children, that removed the parent’s rights to chastise their children. This was put forward as law by the Labour Party Federal Government, and accepted by Labour State Governments, but was ruled unconstitutional when there was a major outcry from the Australian population.
This clearly demonstrated to the bureaucracy in Canberra that only a major demonstration of violence would create the emotions needed to adopt the implementations required to carry out the United Nations treaties.
Barry Unsworth had stated the fact in 1988.
If that is what was required, then that was what we would receive.
Australians were about to receive parental chastisement from our betters.To implement such a strategy, certain people would have to be informed, which would have included at some stage the caucus of the
Australian Labour Party.
A tacit approval would have been received. A team to implement the strategy was required. It couldn’t be done by Australians for two reasons.
The first, we lacked the expertise, and secondly, we lacked the compulsion to murder innocent people.
To obtain the services of such persons required the knowledge of
‘Intelligence’ personnel, more than likely from America. Thus to set the ball in motion, a high ranking bureaucrat with full credentials would travel overseas, and win the confidence of the organisation that controls such teams.
The Ideology behind such thinking would only come from Idealists or intellectuals and not from the man in the street, who understands the more basic problems with his fellow man. The practicable concepts that have been ignored would have been well appreciated by the farmer, the working
policemen, and the sportsman, but to a person closeted within the walls of academic logic, the practicable flaws would be irrelevant.
To create such an incident, there would need to be a team. It would be a two or three man team. There would be the main player, and then someone to watch his back to prevent accidents from happening. The site would
have to be selected, and again careful thought as to get the best effect with the minimum danger.
Port Arthur as a tourist site is perfect for such an incident, as has been demonstrated by other massacres in Egypt, and Sri Lanka.If you want the job done properly, then hire a professional.
Martin Bryant was never a professional, nor was he good at anything except being the fall guy. He lived with, and was looked after by his
father, until about six months prior to the incident, when his father died, of a suicide, so says the coroner.
Number 1 rule; Parents of disabled children (includes intellectually
impaired) don’t commit suicide. They have a belief in the duty they are required to give to those children. They will struggle on and on, for the sake of their children.
They don’t give up
An intellectually impaired person going on a rampage such as in Port Arthur! They cannot do it. Bryant didn’t possess the mental ability to continue through such an event. To the ignorant or the uninformed, there is no reason why Bryant could not do such a thing, but if you consider the mental implications, then there are grave problems.
The use of firearms is another tactical problem. Bryant didn’t have the ability to gain the expertise to use the firearms in such a manner.
Another major flaw was the fire at Seascape Cottage. Why would any person especially a person of Bryant’s inability remove his only known form of protection? It is assumed that Bryant started the fire, because the police certainly did not.
Something similar to that of the siege at Waco, Texas a couple of years
earlier. This time though, Bryant was able to escape from the inferno, unarmed. If he had been the assailant at Port Arthur, then why did he not come out with all guns blazing? Dual personalities?
No, he was just intellectually impaired.The media had a field day.
They continue to have a field day at every opportunity, irregardless of the pain and suffering they cause to survivors and the relatives of the victims.
However, our illustrious Prime Minister waived the required investigation by the Coroner’s Court, so as not to add to the pain and suffering of the survivors. This is another infringement on our
Constitutional rights.
We are not permitted an Inquest. The Coroner’s Court is part of
the Judiciary. How can a politician interfere with the judiciary? Why?
In fact, the removal of the Coronial investigation has created more pain and suffering as many survivors wanted to know all the implications of what happened in that horrific incident.
The Coroner’s Court is in fact one of the most powerful investigative courts in Australia. It can hear all types of evidence that is not permitted in any other court. It can listen to ‘hearsay’ evidence and innuendo.
It has more powers than any other court, and yet it was dismissed.
No Investigation. It was NOT permitted.
How can a politician, who has no power to interfere with the powers of the Judiciary, whatsoever as granted under our Constitution, behave in such a manner?
Why ??? What could have been uncovered?
At the Committal hearing Martin Bryant pleaded not guilty. However he changed his plea for the full court, and ended that investigation into the proper facts of the massacre. He will now stay in gaol for the rest of his life.
End of Story, or is it.
One of the problems is that I now hear that the Tasmanian survivors and their support group believe that what they survived was in fact a ‘terrorist attack’.
How can that be ? How could our government permit such an atrocity to occur on our native soil with impunity ?
Could it be that our government was involved ?
To what extent could that involvement go ?
Why is there a thirty year embargo on the evidence of the Port Arthur Massacre ?
If, if, if, if all of this is correct, and there is no proof one way or the other, then what is the direction Australia is heading?
We are going for a Republic. Have no doubt of that. Australia will become a Republic in the very near future.
So what ! What’s wrong with Australia becoming a republic?
Nothing.
But who is orchestrating these moves. The same idealists who
initiated Port Arthur. What will the cost be to Australians?
Look at the paths trodden by those bureaucrats. They have attempted to rebut the Australian Constitution in regard to the rights of the States to make their own laws, in preference to treaties signed with the
United Nations, without due notice to the Australian people.
By what sovereignty can any person or persons make laws outside our government, and then inflict those laws upon us?
That is dictatorship, and America and the United Nations are practising it upon the Australian people. They have even broken the sanctity of a person’s home, and the rights of parents to raise their children within their religious beliefs. Parental chastisement is part of our religious beliefs and practises.
It was also our right under both Common Law and Statute, being in the Summary Offences Act 7405, section 24.
In a world that is not perfect, and with people, none of whom are perfect, these Idealists make laws for the perfection of their beliefs, and then punish those of us who are by our very nature, human.
They take the extremist point of view, and then use that point as the norm, or average, and not enough Australians are aware of their skulduggery.
My predictions are that we will lose our Federal Government along with its Constitution. It will be replaced by a Centralist Government.
Our Constitution will be replaced by one written by the very same
Idealistic Intellectual Ignoramuses who wrote the documents on the National Committee on Violence.
This new Centralist Government will recognise any Convention, treaty, or
pact made with the United Nations.
Think on it. A group of little bureaucrats from wherever, except Australia, will have the ability to make the laws for Australia, and those
laws will override any legitimate laws Australians already have in place.
With that goes our last piece of sovereignty and all our democracy.
The (New) Labour Party will be the dominating political power in Australia, and any other party that endeavours to oppose that party will be eliminated by any means possible.
Australians will lose that final shred of democracy that we are holding onto.
The Australian way of life, so much appreciated by all who migrated here will be lost and we will live in a New World Order, generated by the flawed concepts that flow from those Idealistic Intellectual Ignoramuses, in Canberra and the United Nations.
Those very same bureaucrats who perpetrated the Port Arthur Massacre.
Written by Andrew S. MacGregor.
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