Hi everyone,
First of all, thank you for signing the petition. It’s great to see that you are willing to stand up and say enough is enough. The petition seems to have stepped up a gear in the last 24 hours with well over 600 new signatures, but realistically we are still in the very early stages.
The power of spreading the word
I’m asking for your help. Please share the petition on your social media channels. Sharing is easy, simply click on the share button on the petition’s main page. Alternatively, you can copy and paste the link into your post.
Sharing the petition is the most effective way to boost our cause. Each and every one of you are influencers within your own network of friends – you’ll get a lot better traction than some random guy (me) saying ‘hey, sign this petition’.
If everyone shared the petition and managed to get just 10 of their friends to sign, and share as well, then you can see how the numbers would quickly compound into the tens of thousands.
Try to utilise hashtags such as #WeElectPM, #Auspol, #Libspill, #liberalparty, #laborparty etc. for more impact when posting on social media.
I have also set up Twitter and Facebook pages under the @WeElectPM handles in an effort to centralise things.
In fact, I don't even care if you fail to read the rest of this post, as long as you've left to share the petition, I'm happy :)
There are high profile people out there who agree with us
Dave Sharma, Australia's ambassador to Israel from 2013 to 2017, recently wrote an article which states that during his time as ambassador he’d dealt with only one Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu – Conversely, he served four different Australian prime ministers - Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull.
He says that “To lose one prime minister may be misfortune. To lose two may indicate carelessness. But to cycle through four prime ministers in four years… suggests something more profound - a structural flaw at the heart of Australian politics”. He suggests that we should be prepared to make constitutional changes if need be.
He then makes the following point - “…our politicians, by proving themselves so willing to depose sitting prime ministers without reference to the electorate, have shattered a norm on which much of the stability of the Australian political system rested. Perhaps it is up to us - the voting public - to repair this damage”. In closing he says that “Neither a directly elected head of government nor longer parliamentary terms - both options which warrant serious examination - are unusual for liberal democracies”.
So there you have it, someone from the political class saying exactly what we are saying. Despite what defenders of the current system say (and trust me, I’ve been messaged by several defenders of our existing Westminster system), it is indeed possible to change the status quo.
Dave Sharma is not the only high profile person to pipe up
Nick Greiner, the federal Liberal president, has joined calls for the liberal party to change the rules to make it harder to overthrow a leader.
Former PM Kevin Rudd has also thrown his 2 cents into the argument, effectively agreeing with Nick Greiner.
And if that weren’t enough, Bennelong MP John Alexander and fellow liberal backbencher Melissa Price have also gone public, calling for the rules to be changed.
The point is that our petition is not on the fringes of the debate. There is broad acknowledgement that something needs to change, but it’s got to start somewhere. So let’s not take the foot of the accelerator.
Kind regards,
Wayne
References to the content I’ve outlined above can be found on the links below:
Dave Sharma, Australia's ambassador to Israel article: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/how-to-fix-the-flaw-at-the-heart-of-australian-politics-20180822-p4zyyl.html
Nick Greiner, the federal Liberal president, has joined calls for the liberal party to change the rules: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/aug/26/canberra-coup-culture-must-change-says-liberal-president-nick-greiner
Former PM Kevin Rudd agreeing with Nick Greiner: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/kevin-rudd-calls-on-the-liberal-party-to-match-labor-s-leadership-rules-20180824-p4zzgb.html
Bennelong MP John Alexander and fellow liberal backbencher Melissa Price call for change: https://www.9news.com.au/national/2018/08/24/07/55/lib-mp-wants-rules-to-stop-leader-turmoil