Change country’s politics forever

THE EDITOR: Your headline for your editorial on March 20, was exactly what the Keith Noel Citizens Referendum is all about; the people deciding on real issues and not on making decisions purely on party emblem, race or voting for a person simply to prevent another from winning. For decades the electorate in this country has had to vote for every reason other than the real issues.
Your statement “ordinary people must do something and do not have the option to sit silently” is what we have been saying all through our petition and Death March in 2005.
With respect to the concept of a referendum one can see in many countries the referendum process being used for a number of issues — land acquisition by the US Navy, as in Japan recently — a new Constit-ution, soon for the Province of Ontario, Canada — the light sentencing being given to convicted criminals, New Zealand — discrimination laws, Australia. A referendum has to be decisive. There can be no maybe.
Referendums are typically called by governments as a result of a demand placed on it by the people or when a government cannot on its own make a decision. In our case a responsible government would have asked for a referendum based on the 112,000 signatures from our petition conducted last year. They failed to even acknowledge the voices of thousands of its citizens and therefore the decision by the people to hold their own referendum. Whoever decides to hold the referendum has the right to determine the issues and the wording. Like the petition, the referendum will be conducted with the highest integrity.
It is the right of each and every citizen of this country to raise their voices against issues that they feel to be not in the interest of the nation.
We ask the people of this nation to regard this referendum as a means of not only stating explicitly their views on certain issues but to changing the politics of this country forever.

STEPHEN CADIZ
The Keith Noel 136 Committee
Citizens Referendum