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In November 1969, the West Australian Government, like all other State
Governments of Australia applied, “Wheat Quotas”, a restriction of the
amount of wheat a farmer could sell.
This was done at the insistence of the Government of the Commonwealth of
Australia. The Australian Government was concerned that the farmers might
over produce and if the Export Trade did not take up this surplus, then
the Australian Government would, under the “Guarantee Price”, have to be
paying for this surplus.
So, the States agreed to limit the amount of wheat a farmer could have for
sale, by a reduction of 10% against previous year’s production. Any 10%
reduction did not worry us at all.
We had for the previous twenty years, annually produced a minimum of 6,000
acres, up to a maximum of 13,000 acres of wheat. Then in November 1969,
after having grown our thousands of acres of wheat and ready to harvest
and deliver it, the Quotas were issued. Our Quota was equivalent to 100
acres. As we had thousands of acres of wheat, we were in a bad way in
relation to our wheat crop. So, I went to Perth to have a look at the
“Wheat Quota Act”, with the intention to then frame up a legal protest, in
respect of getting our Quota rectified.
However, when in Perth, I found that the West Australian Government did
not have an “Act of Parliament”. They had acted without having a law to
do so, but they did have a “Wheat Quota Bill” in Parliament, which would
become law if Parliament passed it. So, I had a look at the Bill.
Two clauses in the Bill concerned me. One stated, “That no Appeals would
be allowed”, and the second, “That no compensation would be allowed”.
I consider that this then cut across all sense of Justice, that if
injustice was done, there was to be no right of remedy.
I returned home and immediately lodged three protests:
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One with the Wheat Quota Board.
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One with the then Premier of Western Australia, Sir
David Brand.
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One with the then Governor of Western Australia, Sir
Douglas Kendrew.
The Wheat Quota Board and the Premier never replied to my protest, the
Governor replied and said that he had called for Ministerial advice, and
that, “no rectification of our Quota would be allowed”. Now, he was
acting in the name of the Queen and he had no Law by which he could apply
such a Quota. So by this action he made Her Majesty liable, in Tort, for
applying an unlawful imposition.
I then had to do something to get our harvesting going in full swing. So,
I lodged, what was probably the then largest claim that the Crown in
Western Australia had ever encountered, by using the Wheat Quota back on
them to calculate a claim, under the Law of Tort. This claim came out to
be $52,000 000 and was plus Interest from 1st January 1970.
I did believe, that in showing how the Crown was affected by such a Quota,
when applied on them, that they might very well say, sorry, and fix up the
Quota.
But what did happen, was, that a day after the Governor received my claim,
a prominent West Australian Minister, went over to help the Minister of
Agriculture who was advising the Governor on our problem, Then, two weeks
later, he returned to Parliament and introduced a Bill into Parliament
whereby the West Australian Governor would get the Power to “Resume” our
lands.
I immediately raised this matter with the Governor and pointed out that
not only were we upset by this type of attitude to resolve a problem, but
the intention to resume our land was also quite “Unlawful”.
Our lands were with a “Freehold Title”, and those Titles, signed by the
Governor, in the name of the Queen, it stated, “No more than One Twentieth
of the lands could be resumed for any purpose”.
This I pointed out to the Governor and requested that he inform the West
Australian Government that they could not resume our lands.
When a month went by and no response from the Governor had occurred, we
were most concerned.
At this stage it was thence considered that only two
alternatives existed.
1. We could sit as
we were and proceed to sue Her Majesty in her Courts under the claim which
we had lodged. However, firstly you needed her permission to sue her, and
we might never get such permission, if we did in time get such permission,
then we might not have any lands. This then was not very satisfactory.
2. The other
alternative was to exercise the International Law Entitlement to form a
Self Preservation Government by seceding. The entitlements were:
a) The Economy has been taken.
b) A
threat to the loss of the lands existed.
These both existed, and
in both cases we had simply been asking the Government to abide by their
own Laws. If one believes that a person of a Government department has
done something wrong to you, all one can do, is sue that person, but in
our case there was no Government person to sue, when both matters were
being dealt with between the Sovereign Queen and myself.
Thus, our matters were
taken out of Common Law and put into a higher Category of Law, which
exists, but cannot normally be used.
Therefore the decision to exercise this entitlement and to secede was
taken on: 21st April 1970
If anyone asks has our secession succeeded?
Then we simply say.
“We are still here”.
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