In the "Great Mistakes of Australian History" Clive Moore tackles the problem of federation and its choice in 1901. Moore argues that the constitutional process in the 19thC failed to engage with the Pacific and Asia, as well as made the constitution impervious to change. His final point is that political expediency and compromise between the colonies to get them to agree to federation has meant that the colonial boundaries are for ever cast in stone as states. (more)
The decision of NSW vs Commonwealth of Australia, WA vs Commonwealth etc is on the austlii website. There have been referendums to modify Section 51xx to give the federal government industrial powers but they failed. The High Court decision discounts these failures in their decision. (more)
James McConvill has an article on online opinion titled,
Australia's constitution is constrained by people power
. Pretty tough headline, however the Online Opinion editors will often modify or create a new headline that they believe will fit the article best. It may not be McConvill's title but matches his argument which is that alteration to the
Australian Constitution
should not be via popular referendum but instead by parliamentary a majority in a joint sitting.
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I have broken the referendums down into the categories of centralisation, democracy, illiberalism and other in order to determine what the voters have been rejecting over the last century. It turns out that voters have been rejecting centralisation, overwhelmingly, with only three referendum being passed in the category, and twenty-four failing.
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A quick look at the federal referendums as told by graphs in percent states and electors for.
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If you have a look at a site called
'Freedom House'
, and then have a look at the country entry for '
Australia
', you will see that there are 3 divisions; 'Free', 'Partly Free', 'Not Free'.
Australia is listed as 'Free' (thanks guys). On this I mostly agree. We are freer than our northern neighbours in SE Asia (Why then would we want to consider ourselves 'part of Asia' Mr Keating?).
I do however feel that we achieve a level of freedom somewhat less than the ideal. Don't get me wrong there, I have worn the uniform of this country, I believe the political institutions of this country work reasonably well, but it could be better.
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The President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez,
raised the possibility
that he may seek a referendum so that he may be elected President longer than the Venezuelan constitution allows. Venezuela's constitution was only instituted in 1999, so it is a bit premature to be changing it.
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