A Call to Arms – Sitrep 5

Don't forget to post your letters on 12th /13th August to Parliament House!

Have you got your letters ready to post on 12th /13th August yet? If not, you only have a few days left…….so please, don’t delay….the success of this “raid” is dependent on the volume of mail that arrives at Parliament House at the same time!   

Parliament resumes sitting on 16th August and we strongly urge you, your family and friends, to become part of the “OPERATION LETTER RAID” Campaign.

We will not give up until we have won the battle!

The Operation (Tasks)

Everyone is to send a minimum of three registered letters, preferably five, addressed to politicians at Parliament House.

The aims of this OPERATION are as follows:

• To encourage our people to take an “active” role, and not sit back and let others do the work.
• To take ownership of this campaign and actually participate – every action is a step closer to success!
• To swamp Parliament House with “hard” material. All letters have to be registered, signed for, delivered to offices, opened and read by the staff, because they cannot assume that every letter they receive has been written by one of us. By rights, every letter should be answered.
• To clearly demonstrate to politicians that there is a large group of our Defence community who are completely disillusioned with the current indexation method of our DFRB/DFRDB superannuation.
• Most importantly – to clearly demonstrate to the politicians that we are an organized and a cohesive group who can coordinate such actions, thereby implying that we can organize other activities. 

Timings

All these letters must be addressed to Parliament House, not to the individual electoral offices. We encourage people to write three letters: one to their local MP (regardless of political party), one to a State Senator and the third to our erstwhile Prime Minister.

Letters are to arrive at Parliament House on either Tuesday, 16th (the day Parliament resumes) or Wednesday 17th August, (the day before Vietnam Veterans’ Day.)

This means your letters must be posted on either 12th August or 13th August.

In the interim, members are encouraged to “trickle feed” letters, specifically to the Independents and to those ALP members holding marginal seats. If you do not receive a reply to your letter, then we would strongly urge you to take the initiative, and follow up with a further letter demanding a considered reply. These should also be sent on 12th/13th August.

All letters to Senators must be addressed to:

Senator…..
The Senate,
Parliament House,
CANBERRA, ACT 2600

For those still feeling energetic….. please copy your letters and forward them on at the same time to the Electoral Offices of the Senators who voted against the Bill, to ensure they are totally bombarded!! A complete listing of Senators and all their electoral offices can be obtained HERE

The List of Senators who voted against the Fair Indexation Bill can be found HERE

Alternatively, members are encouraged to write to a politician who is holding a marginal seat. The list of marginal Federal seats can be found HERE

Letters to Members of the House of Representatives are to be addressed as follows:

Member’s Name, MP
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra, ACT 2600

It is worth noting that the number of Defence/Commonwealth public servants, living in the majority of marginal seats, far outweighs the number of votes required to unseat the sitting Member in each of those seats. When writing to these politicians, remind them that their seat will be targeted at the next election. (A comprehensive table giving all relevant information can be found on our website: www.justafairgo.net Please include the various figures in your letter to your particular politician. e.g.

“I note you hold your seat by………votes. However, I also note that there are ……….DFRB/DFRDB recipients and Commonwealth Public Service Pensioners living in your Electorate. I think you should consider this, going into the next Election.”

The success of OPERATION “LETTER RAID” will be guaranteed if you consider this formula.

• There 1,000 members on this emailing address
• If each member writes and mails three letters = 3,000 letters
• If one other relative in each household writes another 3 letters = 3,000 letters
• If each member then sends this SITREP to five other members and requests each new recipient and one relative of each new recipient, to each write three letters = 30,000 letters

TOTAL 36,000 LETTERS and this is only the beginning…….

There are some recipients of this SITREP who will on forward it to more than 100 (in some cases more than 1,000) other people, who hopefully, will do the same thing and all recipients will write their three letters. Not a lot to ask, we could easily achieve over 50,000 letters arriving at Parliament House within a span of two days.

Let’s make it happen! – People Power will Win!

The success of this operation is critical for the overall success of our fight for “a fair go.”

Please don’t think about writing a letter – just do it!

To turn your dreams to a fact, it’s up to you!
If you have a soul and a spirit
Never fear it, you’ll see it thru.
Hearts can inspire other hearts with their fire
For the strong obey when a strong man shows them the way.

News just in….thanks to Michael Currie from Warnbro in Western Australia.

The Sound Telegraph ran an article on 27th July, 2011 “Government cheating Diggers”……. an extract from their article reads:

“Defence Force Superannuants, Australia wide, are up in arms and fighting back after the Senate rejected the Defence Force Retirement & Death Benefit (Fair Indexation Bill) 201 on the 16th June, 2010.

As self funded retirees, members are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain a basic living style, as the value of their pensions is eroded.

The Government insists that the cost is prohibitive at about $20 million (sic) per year, while pouring billions of dollars overseas for foreign aid and to score “brownie” points, without mentioning some of their failed schemes, including the current carbon price fiasco.

A large percentage of affected persons, their families, friends and fair minded people will have a decided swing against our current government come the next election, which could be sooner than later with the shape that our current leaders are in.”