Monday, October 09, 2006

Letter to the Attorney-General of the Commonwealth

Dear Sir,

I refer to your letter of 26 September 2006 in response to my letter of 25 May 2006 to the Hon. Peter Costello MP. You stated: “As Attorney-General it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the issues you have raised as they have been heard and determined by the courts”. I have obtained an advice from the High Court Registry that the Governments and Parliaments could request the High Court to readdress the matter if they wanted to do so. Please kindly advise whether the advice of the High Court’s Registry is wrong.

Further, I am grateful for you directly responding to my letter as usual. However I would like to know why you failed to directly respond to the Notices of a Constitutional Matter, which were directly addressed to you under section 78B of the Judiciary Act and certified by the High Court. You did not respond to my letter of 21 April 2006 either, which was posted to you with the Notices. This is the only time you did not respond to my letter yourself.

A lawyer from Australian Government Solicitor responded to the Notices, and wrote: “If special leave to appeal is granted, the Attorney-General might decide to intervene in the appeal”. In my opinion that indicated you had a desire to intervene in the appeal. Even though the letter was filed to the High Court, the High Court understood it as: “No Attorney-General has indicated a desire to intervene”. It seems that you disagreed with the High Court’s understanding otherwise you would have asserted, in your letter, that you did not indicate a desire to intervene in the appeal at all. You did not want to find out why the High Court misunderstood your desire in respect of the Notices and whether that was a simple mistake made by the Registry or an associate to the Judges.

In my letter of 25 May 2006 to the Hon Peter Costello MP, I stated: “It is about an accountant who was sacked because she complained internally and externally about her superior coercing her to ‘cook the books’. The employer accepted what she claimed, but the Federal Court struck out her claim of unlawful termination certified by the Industrial Relations Commission and held that her claim of unlawful termination “had been instituted vexatiously or without reasonable cause” because she did not file a complaint against her former superior’s unlawful instructions and activities “to a Court or Tribunal” before she was terminated.”

Furthermore, we have asked many solicitors whether a court can directly deal with workers’ complaints about their bosses’ unlawful instructions and activities before they are dismissed, but no solicitor has told us that a court can do so. Therefore, Australian workers have no legal right to uphold and obey laws in the workplaces at all in accordance with that law made by the Full Federal Court in the Judgment of Hilda’s case.

According to your response, in my opinion, you were glad to see that employers’ instructions prevail over laws and the Constitution in the workplace by virtue of that law, otherwise you might have said that it was an unfortunate situation, and that you might raise this issue to the parliament and do something about it. If I am wrong please correct me.

As you know we will raise this matter to the Senate. Therefore, we would appreciate that you can clarify your positions on the preliminary issues below:

1. Would it “be inappropriate” that an accountant ‘cook the books’?

2. Would it “be inappropriate” that an employer instructs its accountant to ‘cook the books’?

3. Would it “be inappropriate” that an employer retaliates against its employee after the employee complains about its unlawful instruction and activity?

4. Would it “be inappropriate” that a legal system refuses to provide protection to the people from retaliation whist the people are trying to uphold and obey law?

5. Would it “be inappropriate” that an Attorney-General does nothing after informed that a person is punished because he or she was trying to uphold and obey the laws of Australia?

6. Would it “be inappropriate” that anyone, any organization or any court contravenes the Covering Clause 5 of the Constitution, which provides: “This Act, and all laws made by the Parliament of the Commonwealth under the Constitution, shall be binding on the courts, judges, and people of every State;……”?

7. Would it “be inappropriate” that an Attorney-General fails to intervene in a matter in the High Court whilst he or she knows that the matter is a Constitutional matter defined by the Judiciary Act, and of public importance?

8. Would it “be inappropriate” that you did not respond to the Notices of a Constitutional Matter yourself?

9. Would it “be inappropriate” that the High Court misunderstood your desire in response to the Notices?

I look forward to hearing from you.

(file below is downloadable as .jpg file)

a letter from the Attorney-General of Commonwealth dated 26/09/06