If there is one thing that this referendum is proving, it is that there is a small section of Australians who are completely unhinged. Helpfully they often mark themselves by carrying the red ensign (sometimes upside-down) and/or by trying to invoke some utterly bonkers and irrelevant legal nonsense like claiming that their rights under Magna Carta or some Maritime Law have been trampled.
One of the favourite mottos of the unhinged is the call for you to "do your own research". This call is basically an appeal to authority except that the authority being invoked is usually some equally insane trail of nonsense which also isn't true. The other thing that that call for you to "do your own research" does, is try to place the burden of proof upon you to prove the pile of nonsense wrong, by which time they will have moved on and claimed moral victory.
This week as pre-polling stations opened, the usual garbage that ballot stuffing is going on, or that the AEC has some magical unlimited funds whereby they can employ hordes of people to rub out and change votes, was added to by several instances of wingnuts and self-declared sovereign citizens demanding to the see the Writ which commanded that the referendum take place. I have also seen reports where in several places across the country, there have been instances of wingnuts being arrested for causing a public nuisance and disturbance after getting aggressive with the AEC workers when demanding to see the Writ.
In the first instance 'no, don't do it'. Although the people working at polling centres are paid by the AEC but they are there on a voluntary basis. The AEC does not have a massive permanent staff because it doesn't conduct elections on a weekly basis. In the second instance 'no, don't do it'. It is rude and gauche.
Immediately upon hearing about this, my thoughts wandered to ponder if these wingnuts actually know what a writ is. One of the delicious ironies of the "do your own research" crowd is that quite often they have not done their own research and fail to understand basic concepts. Put simply, a 'writ' is an instruction to do a thing; which usually stems from a piece of law and/or a standing authority which has the power to order a thing happen.
In this case the writ is the instruction from the Governor-General (David Hurley) to the Australian Electoral Commission to organise and hold the polling and vote with regards the referendum. Similar instructions exist when Governor-General dissolves parliament and instructs the AEC to hold an election for members of the House and Senate. Writs also exist when the Governor-General sends the country to go to war, or when they wish to expel Members of the House and/or Senate, or commissioning and/or decommissioning a Minister of the Crown. Writs invariable contain includes relevant dates for various events to happen, or commencement dates for things to happen if the expiry date is not yet known.
Yet another completely unhinged about these wingnuts demanding to see the Writ, if acting with aggression and/or violence wasn't already rude and gauche and stupid, is that the Writ to the AEC for this referendum has been a matter of public record almost immediately after it was issued. For the record, the writ can be found here:
https://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/referendums/files/writ-for-2023-referendum.pdf
The bill to cause this referendum passed through and was approved by the House and Senate and was enacted into law by the Governor-General; by exactly the same process as any other law. What I find interesting here is that it is the Governor-General himself who has commanded in as many words, "I command you...", to the AEC to conduct the referendum. This is different to normal legislation where words like "it is my pleasure that", or "I hereby order that", a thing happen. I suspect (for I do not actually know) that there is a legal distinction between an instruction from the relevant Minister of the Crown to their own department and the command coming from the Governor-General as the King's representative.
Probably in demanding that the AEC workers produce the Writ, these wingnuts hope to achieve some kind of personal moral victory by raging against the machine of government? I don't know and do not understand what if anything, getting mad at someone doing their job, actually achieves.
For the wingnuts demanding to see the writ... okay... now what?
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