|
Copy List
Government abuse of Australian Constitution, why?
The guilty actions by the Federal
Government regarding the Australian Constitution relative to compulsory
fluoridation have been kept secret from the people.
During 1988, a Government "selected"
Committee investigated the Australian Constitution with the view to their
suggestions of change.
An interesting letter on this subject by
Dr. P.R.N. Sutton, D.D.Sc. FRACDS, was published in The Environmental and
Planning Law Journal Vol.6:58-59, March 1989.
"Fluoridation and the Constitution.
A secretive omission affecting civil
conscription for compulsory medical treatment was made in a publication of
the Constitutional Commission, 140,000 copies of which were printed and
freely distributed prior to the recent referendum.
In its 1988 booklet, Australia's
Constitution, Time to Update, the Commission suggested several changes
to the Constitution, with explanatory comments. However, in printing s.51
(xxiiiA) it omitted some words without comment, so that this
omission will not be noticed unless comparison is made with the wording of
the present Constitution.
The facts are:
(1) The powers of the Parliament are
set out in s.51 of the Constitution. Section 51 (xxiiiA) states, in part:
'The provision of maternity
allowances, widow's pensions ... medical and dental services (but nor so
as to authorise any form of civil conscription), benefits to students
and family allowances.'
(2) The booklet Australia's
Constitution, Time to Update 'summarises the recommendations of the
Constitutional Commission's five Advisory committees'. At page 29, under
Social Services, it states s.51 (xxiiiA) but omits the eleven words in
parenthesis: (but not so as to authorise any form of civil conscription).
(3) That omission was drawn to the
attention of the Attorney General in a letter to the Attorney General,
dated 21 February 1988. A reply from the Attorney General in a letter on
13 July 1988 stated:
'The words to which you have
referred were omitted in error from the reference in that summary
to existing Commonwealth powers with respect to social benefits. I
regret this error ...
(4) However, that statement does not
agree with that of the Secretary of the Constitutional Commission, Mr I.
G. Cunliffe, in a letter to P.R.N. Sutton dated 24 March 1988, replying to
an inquiry whether that omission was intentional, he said:
"the words '(but not so as to
authorise any form of civil conscription)' were omitted deliberately.
The reason they were omitted was that I regarded them as not relevant
in the context of the discussion at page 29 ..."
(5) One of the important effects of
deleting this section of the Constitution would be to remove the
prohibition against any kind of civil conscription by medical and dental
services acting under Government direction, leading to compulsory
treatment and medication, even for non-contagious diseases.
"In English Law,
medical treatment without consent is permitted only by court order or for
the mentally ill or for minors ... Fluoridation of the water puts every
individual in this position."
A present example of this is the
process known as the fluoridation of drinking water supplies, which in
reality is, as Professor Arthur Amies said, compulsory medication with a
chemical substance to young and old, well and ill, without individual
examination and regardless of need or desire.
A Research Fellow in Law at Nuffield
College, Oxford, Paul M. McCormick ("The Legal, ethical and political
implications of fluoridation" (1987) 5 Cancer Control Journal 84 85)
said that fluoridation is "an affront to human dignity" for it is
compulsory medication.
"done without the permission of the
person at the receiving end. In English Law, medical treatment without
consent is permitted only by court order or for the mentally ill or for
minors with the consent of their guardians . ... Fluoridation of the
water puts every individual in this position."
Fluoridation forces every member of
the population to ingest, in uncontrollable extra doses, for the whole of
their lives, a substance - fluoride - which the United States Food and
Drug Administration has banned from addition to food because of its
toxicity (Federal Register 40:23248 1975). The President of the Bradford
Law Society, John Eaton, pointed out that if a dentist forced his patient
to take fluoride tablets he would be guilty of assault (cited in (1988)
Australian Fluoridation News, March April, 4). However, our
governments, by fluoridating our essential drinking water, are forcing
each of us to ingest many doses, each day, of that same substance.
In Victoria this medication has been
made compulsory by the Health (Fluoridation) Act 1973, which specifies
continuous fines if water authorities do not fluoridate their populations.
In that letter of 13 July 1988, the
Attorney General stated:
"You have also suggested that State
legislature providing for compulsory fluoridation of public water
supplies may be contrary to the prohibition on civil conscription in
s.51 (xxiiiA) of the Constitution. However, the prohibition applies only
to the Commonwealth Parliament so that even if compulsory fluoridation
by States did involve civil conscription (which is most doubtful) it
would not infringe s.51 (xxiiiA)."
However, this opinion of the
Attorney-General appears to be contrary to par. 5 of the "Constitution of
Australia" of 9 July 1900, which states:
"This Act, and all laws made by the
Parliament of the Commonwealth under the constitution, shall be binding
on all courts, judges, and people of every State and of every part of
the Commonwealth, notwithstanding anything in the laws of any State..."
Also, the Constitution states in par. 109:
"When a law of a State is
inconsistent with a law of the Commonwealth, the latter shall prevail,
and the former shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be invalid."
These contrary statements and opinions
by the Commonwealth Government and its Constitutional Commission require
clarification.
Ineffective, for claims that
fluoridation is very efficacious in reducing dental decay substantially
have not been established scientifically. These claims were challenged
nearly 30 years ago (f'.R.N. Sutton, Fluoridation: Errors and
Omissions in Experimental Trials, Melbourne University Press,
Melbourne, 1960).
It is now known that fluoridation is
unethical, ineffective and unsafe. It should now be argued that it is
illegal. Many consider that it infringes the prohibition in the
Constitution which prevents government medical and dental services from
using civil conscription, a prohibition which omissions in one of its
official booklets suggests that the Constitutional Commission may have
been attempting to remove from the Constitution in a clandestine manner."
In spite of the efforts of the Constitution
Committee, the Government was wise enough to withdraw this proposal from the
referendum.
Copy List
|
