Forrest pondered the Governor-General's possible options, should she act pursuant to Section 61 of the Constitution.

Section 61 had been a prime target for removal for the republic push in 1999.

Section 61 said:

"The executive power of the Commonwealth is vested in the Queen and is exercisable by the Governor-General as the Queen's representative, and extends to the execution and maintenance of this Constitution, and of the laws of the Commonwealth."

There was no intention that comparable responsibility would ever be placed upon a president in any republic that might have replaced Australia's Constitutional Monarchy. So should it have ever been that covert electoral fraud took hostage to any extent the political process in Australia, the 'safety fuze' currently effectively provided in the form of the Governor-General's reserve powers to send a government to the polls would be gone.

Now there was a conundrum, wasn't there? Electoral fraud having taken hostage the elective political process, a Governor-General sends a fraudulently electorally assisted government back to those self same tainted polls!

How could anyone be confident the outcome of any fresh election was truly representative of the electorate's choice? And what if any alternative political organisation available for the electors to choose had also been effectively taken hostage over the years by the same fraudulent process?

The present situation in Oz was a case in point. The opposition is now led by the person who led the republic push in 1999. Should a Governor-General send, directly or indirectly, one Commonwealth and five State governments (all being presently Labor governments) to the people over the power swindle, what real choice would exist for the electors? That between Tweedledumb and Tweedle-even-dumber?

No wonder, in the face of all those little niggling worries and signs of something being not quite right in Oz Election Land, so many refused to face the possibility of widespread insidious electoral rorting. Vehement denial of such a thing had to be a Dogma, an Article of Faith!

But Forrest knew a completely lawful way out.

It had been entertaining seeing the Great Republican display his knowledge of Sections 53 and 56 of the Constitution, and simultaneously the lack of it amongst the rest of his colleagues, and also government members, in his little stunt in relation to the single pension. They'd had to get the Clerk to explain the Constitutional position to them!

Woo Hoo!

Forrest felt the need to pause for a while before resorting to the Constitution yet again in furtherance of the coup in Oz. Good and all a diet as the Constitution was, many were simply not used to such food for thought, and might easily get legislative indigestion if they had to cop too much at a sitting.

Around the OLO traps there were frequent observations being made by posters that the differences, policy wise, between the major political parties were becoming all but indistinguishable. Now, of course, such a phenomenon could well be a natural consequence of all persons of influence in both party groupings just happening to have a uniformly sound grasp of the realities of governance in Gert-by-Sea, and just happening to come up with similar policies as a result.

Alternatively, this perceived indistinguishability could have resulted from the outworking of an across-the-board nobbling of politics by means of many years' of sustained electoral manipulation having produced a crop of likemindedly ductile politicians across the political spectrum, the idea being that those behind the nobbling would get the policies they wanted irrespective of which major party was seemingly 'in charge', or happening to get elected.

It would be a worry if the latter scenario applied, because that would mean that even if the Governor-General gave the gubernatorially generalistic bullet to the Commonwealth government, and the five eastern States' Governors did likewise in their respective domains, the relevant electoral law as at the time of the Big D (or Big A, as you prefer) applying would have no prospect of being changed was it revealed to be in any way facilitative of electoral rorting.

But this minor detail didn't faze Phorrest.

Just had to sneak back.
COSTA!he is gone.
His head sits on the top of the heap.
Post one in this thread told of betrayal.
Of fear the party had fallen into private owner ship.
This post revels in the sweetest fruit.
Victory.
Revenge
Even hope for a future I thought we never had
Give it to them FG
My cup runs over with joy.

As the days were lengthening at their most rapid rate during the year, Forrest was waking earlier and earlier.

This morning had been slightly different though. Forrest was woken by the email alert at 4:38:58 AM. There had been a new post on the '9/11 Truth' topic! The last but one had been just after one o'clock, and Forrest had seen it already. Clearly Forrest wasn't the only one whose mind was occupied by some of the more unsettling aspects of high-rise living.

Forrest had immediately gone for a ride in his lift. It helped focus his thinking, riding in the lift: 'Windmills of the Mind' and all that jazz. Besides which it was quite environmentally responsible just riding in the lift in the early hours of the morning. Off-peak electricty was plentiful. Pity not to use some of it up. "Puts a few more pennies in the budget black hole" Forrest said (as in respect to just about everything when it came to Forrest talking) to himself.

The real world of OLO was obtruding a bit these days upon Forrest's otherwise single-minded pursuit of truth, justice, and the Australian way. Black ops were always a worry, and never more so than when one was in the middle of planning a spectacular demonstration of Constitutional Monarchy in action.

Could the WTC job have been the mother of all black ops?

One thing that niggled Forrest concerning the suggestion that a controlled demolition may have been also involved in those buildings' collapses was the fact that some years earlier there had been what seemed to have been a terrorist attack in the basement of one of those buildings. What an opportunity the subsequent crime scene investigation would have provided for the very sorts of people who characteristically could be expected to have expertise in black ops to have had unimpeded and unobserved access! They could even have emplaced any demolition preparations at that time! Forrest wondered.

Through the one-way bullet proof glass Forrest carefully observed the outside face of the building.

The Governor-General can't go for a minute without a Federal Executive Council.

It has been conventionally the case that the Governor-General chooses Federal Executive Councillors from amongst the membership of the Parliament. It is not binding upon the Governor-General that she do so.

In circumstances where, for example, the across-the-board integrity of the electoral process itself may be in question, temporary apparent departure from the convention upon which responsible government is based, ie. that ministries be chosen from the Parliament, is defensible. Section 64 of the Constitution prescribes a conditional limit to the tenure of office of Federal Executive Councillors of three months.

Was there to be such an unprecedented departure from convention as to the appointment of a Federal Executive Council from elsewhere than among the membership of the Parliament, The Governor-General is constitutionally free to appoint whomsoever she will to such office. Such choice, unless it were to be made by lot, would necessarily involve the exercise of political judgement on the part of the Governor-General. Aloofness from the making of political judgements has heretofore been a characteristic of all who have held this office.

Constrained thereby to the making of such choice by way of lot, the Governor-General would be confronted by the absence of any legal power to compel such as upon whom the lot falls, to serve as Executive Councillors and Ministers of State. Recasting of the lot, in any attempt to substitute for those who may beg off in the absence of there being any legal compulsion to serve, would only degrade the integrity of the process of selection by lot.

What if, however, there existed a class of persons, outside the bounds of what could normally be regarded as 'politics', that had already been chosen by lot and were potentially under legal constraint to serve should the Governor-General so command?

Forrest called to mind the dictum of never asking a question, in Question Time, to which you did not already know the answer.

Forrest was abiding by it here.

Back to the Constitution!

Well may it be said "Back to the Constitution", but with nothing saved to pay for the acts of the Governor-General in effecting a coup in Oz, how?

When it came to appropriating money from the treasury, the good old Constitution was tighter than a proverbial piscatorial anus. Section 83 of the Constitution provided that "No money shall be drawn from the Treasury of the Commonwealth except under appropriation made by law."

Withdrawals for payment of the salaries of the Queen's Ministers of State were clearly Constitutionally provided for in Section 66, as was that of the Governor-General herself in Section 3. By necessary implication, so too would be moneys required to conduct Federal elections, should ongoing provision not already exist in the estimates already voted by the Parliament as at the time of any dissolution thereof. That was about it.

Supply: the money needed to sustain the business of government.

It was the rock opposite to the hard place in which, increasingly, it was now coming to be recognised that the nation of the Ozzians was between. The hard place being the increasingly widespread disdain and distrust of the offerings by way of would-be representatives endorsed by the established political parties, nobbled as it was suspected they all were, on the part of the Ozzian electors at large.

Supply, the lawful appropriation of moneys from the treasury, was utterly dependent upon being voted by the Parliament. Without a Parliament sitting and voting supply, the money for running all of the apparatus of government could only be kept being lawfully drawn from the consolidated revenue fund up to the extent of the last vote thereon. When the moneys already voted ran out, functions of government would have to start shutting down.

The Governor-General could not run the country on executive authority alone for any extended period by drawing upon the Treasury.

Should many Ozzians, between them, be prepared to subscribe to a fund set up by the Governor-General, not under the Commonwealth Treasury, perhaps Oz could be run somewhat longer on executive authority alone.