What we need and don't have is a bill of irrevocable rights, which by definition, will include citizen's initiated referendum, preceded by the required volume of signatures!

We ought to have the referendum in question and at the next federal election to both simply it and minimise the expense! When Our first Australians were asked to go away, have a conference then come back with an agreed proposition. None thought that a highly autocratic, pompous PM, would dismiss it out of hand, with the nonsense, we have no remit!

And as put, just did not include a third house nor the power of veto! Just a standing body and consultation!

What was wrong with that Malcolm?

The constitution, written for another time and another place! Needs a thoroughgoing review and revision/updating.

Look, if we reboot to 1770, we most of us, came from elsewhere! [You know, that place where the weather is always fine?]

Today, more Australians are native born than migrants!

And a revised Constitution would factor that in and the fact that swearing a solemn oath on a holy book, transfers your allegiance and citizenship!

Give complex rationalists their heads and they'll complicate the the hell out of anything!

But particularly that which only ever needs the application of this nation's rarest commodity! Good old fashioned common sense!
Alan B.

Thanks for posting a sensible discussion on a topic which so often becomes emotional.

I agree that the first several suggestions are close to the mark.

The last is problemmatic. The Senate has grown more powerful, eg since Ministers arrived there, after previously being confined to the Reps. I'm unsure of the actual process by which this happened, but winding it back should be considered. Was John Gorton the last to migrate from the Senate to the HoR in order to become PM? IMHO, the whole ministry should be in the HoR, which then becomes the originator of most legislation. The Senate would return to being a House of Review. Anything that can't get through the HoR shouldn't be on the table in the Senate.

Further, the Senate has increased from 10 to 12 per state in my lifetime. If minor parties are such a problem, and I don't argue here for or against, that suggests reduction in numbers and hence increase in quota should be considered.

A blunter stick might be to require a minimum vote, say 3 or 5%, in order to stay in the Senate count. So, Step 1: Throw back the undersized fish. That still leaves PHON, Nats, Lib and Lab, perhaps also Zenophon Party in the hunt. The votes would not be lost - they would stand as popular votes on the issues that they represent, before their votes are distributed at the next step. Every elector's vote still counts.

Ideally, of course, the actual power of the Senate to propose and to amend bills could be reviewed, but this could not be the first objective.

Plus, of course, Greens.

That makes half a dozen above the cut, possibly more. I know that Ricky Muir with his handful of votes turned out better than expected, but put this beside the confused and confusing rabble that occasionally populate the red benches of the Senate. Is that what Australians, generally, really want?

The Constitution is only 'out of date' for those people who think that the history, past experience and the wisdom of their forebears is irrelevant: disrespect, impatience and the desire to tear everything down is the order of he day. It is easier to wreck something you don't wish to comply with – or that which trendies, malcontents and country-hoppers don't agree with, than it is to grow up and get on with things. The purveyors of mass immigration and multiculturalism certainly have a lot to answer for. Critics of our Constitution are juvenile whingers with developmental problems.

Given the stupidity, self-obsession and Australia-hating in this country, the Constitution is the very last thing that needs meddling with.

“Six months of consultations between the Turnbull Government and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders (predictably) have fallen in a heap”. I don't know why Brendan O'Reilly 'predicted' that result, but the reason would have to be that the whole idea of Recognition is so silly, that even Turnbull could see that Australians would not accept it. So, for the time being at least, the Constitution will not be mucked up in the name of divisive, suicidal politics pushed by all the me-too drones in Canberra. So, that's one referendum we don't “need” to have.

As for the absurd proposal to change Section 44 just because we have a lot of migrants: stuff and nonsense! While it is always on the cards that Muslim immigration, if permitted to continue, could change Australia, your average immigrant does not come here to change anything about us. It is a few self-hating, Marxist locals who wish to do that, and they must be stopped.

The Constitution is not on the minds of many Australians at all. Given the abysmal state of education, I would be surprised if they knew we had one, or that they would know what a Constitution is. Leave it alone!

Singleton Engineer. Couldn't find a single thing to disagree with in your DTE erudite, commonsense, cogent and credible clarity!

More power to your pen!
Cheers Alan B.

Dear Alan B.,

I agree with you totally.

Prof. Bruce Baskerville an expert in the Australian
Constitution writes:

"When the Australian Constitution was drafted in the
1890s, allegiance was given to the Crown, not to a
territory. We all shared the status of British
subjects, and a person born in Australia could be elected
to parliament in Britain, New Zealand, Canada, and other
places, and vice versa. There was no need for renunciation or
denunciation of allegiance."

The following link explains further:

http://mrbbaskerville.wordpress.com/2017/07/21/ahistorical-history-on-the-run-section-44i-of-the-australian-constitution/

Today, we have problems because of a law that is no longer
relevant to Modern Australia and people like our previous
Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, who was born in
Tamworth Base Hospital, whose great grandmother was born
in Tamworth, whose great grandfather was born in Glen Innes,
Barnaby served in the Australian Army Reserves and yet
somehow he's not Australian? Yet we have a British-born
Head of State?

It makes no sense.