Justice Keane reached similar conclusions and quoted28 more fully the statement of Justice Isaacs in The King v. Boston: The fundamental obligation of a member in relation to the Parliament of which he is a constituent unit still subsists as essentially as at any period of our history. That fundamental obligation ... is the duty to serve and, in serving, to act with fidelity and with a single-mindedness for the welfare of the community. (emphasis in original)
The judgments in the High Court indicate that Members of Australian Parliaments have a duty to act ‘in the public interest’; that they have a ‘fundamental obligation’ to ‘serve’; that they should act ‘with fidelity with a single-mindedness for the welfare of the community’; that they are obliged ‘to act according to good conscience, uninfluenced by other considerations, especially personal financial considerations’; that they should avoid putting ‘themselves in a position where their duty to the people they represent and their own personal interests may conflict’.