Pericles,

Most helpful insight. Could James' mission be to bumdrum the legal profession with respect to the Constitution? A retired judge's wife once told me there were relatively few constitutional lawyers practising in Australia. Very little money in it, apparently. That could create an opportunity for 'snowing' the rest of the profession.

False Assertion 3. Paragraph 3, "...there is precious little in our constitution to get the heart racing." Wrong again. Section 61 managed it 31 years ago as from tomorrow. This section underpinned everything Sir John Kerr did. Hearts were set racing that day! It's not hard to imagine Section 72 (ii.), at some future time, setting hearts racing, either.

False Assertion 4. Paragraph 5, "...a stale document reflecting the attitudes and values of our dead ancestors, ...". Also wrong. I, and plenty like me, are not dead yet. If the inference intended was that many people do not share the concerns or appreciate the skills and foresight of the drafters of the Constitution, be assured that that is not so. The measure of the dis-ease of our body politic today is in the extent of attempted departure from, rather than adherence to, the precepts of the Constitution.

False Assertion 5. Paragraph 6, "...rarely, if ever, is the referendum process for changing the constitution raised...." There has been nigh on a century of repeated assertion, often subtle, but recently much more strident, to the effect that Section 128 does not mean, in its fourth paragraph, what it clearly says. Fortunately, most of the time, these assertions have been irrelevant, and the referendum provisions have served us well.

False Assertion 6. Paragraph 8, "This is money clearly wasted." If that's right, how about we junk elections too? The price of democracy is everlasting voting, every so often.

False Assertion 7. Paragraph 10, "One way around this, however, is to just get rid of the current constitution in its entirety." This statement, in terms of the Crimes Act 1914, is plain straight sedition. It proposes overthrow of the Constitution.

Anyone got any more false assertions on page one?

McConvill writes that Australia could "tidy up" the corporations power so that "Parliament can make any law affecting a corporation. At present, the parliament can only make laws in relation to “foreign corporations, and trading or financial corporations formed within the limits of the Commonwealth”, hence the WorkChoices challenge presently before the High Court".

The Workchoices challenge is not really about what Parliament can make laws for (any corporation vs "foreign corporations, and trading or financial corporations formed within the Commonwealth"). Most corporations in Australia already fall within the latter description.

The main question is what kinds of laws Parliament can make with respect to these entities - what kind of connection the law has to have with corporations in order to be supported by the corporations power.

Forrest, I don't think you should get too excited. I'm pretty sure this article is satirical - no trained lawyer would make a bona fide statement suggesting that "alter" could be interpreted to exclude "rewrite". Or that the constitution can be repealed by our parliament when it's considered to be an Imperial, not Cth act (the question of whether or not it can be repealed by the mother country is somewhat more interesting, although to my mind answered).

So don't bother trying to count "false assertions" I say. Either this guy's taking the piss or he's not worth the time it takes to be critical.

Hehe, and you probably shouldn't just allege "sedition" (I think you meant s24AA(1)(a)(i) treachery) like that in a public forum against a named individual, particularly since you may have misinterpreted the actus reus component of that section.

Don't want to spoil your fun though.

Forest,
I would not even give the author the curtasy of a serious reply. his article is ludicris.

I am simply glad our constitution has been a brake on stupid politicians thus far. The polys have too much power now and citizen initated referenda is sorely required to enable us to keep control.
Multiculturalism is a good example of polys acting stupidly. There are plenty of other examples.

Thank our lucky stars that the constitution was written in the days when polititions cared about doing what was best for Australia.

One would be stark raving to trust the present lot of snake oil salesmen on either side.

Nay, Banjo, but he doth ask for it. Forsooth, but I should let him have it! Would that a winged Griffith would alight upon him and rend his carrion flesh from off his bones for this disrespect to our noble foundation document. But we lesser mortals must content ourselves with issuance of sober refutation and measured reproof in the face of these outrageous assertions.

Now to inject some new life into the debate.

False Assertion 8. Paragraph 7, "Since federation, there have been 44 referenda in Australia in which only eight have been successful." Wrong. There have only been seven that have been successful in accordance with the provisions of Section 128 of the Constitution as to determination of result.

Yes, I know that the Parliamentary Handbook says there have been eight, but it is not so. The 1946 Social Services referendum did not meet the second of the Constitutional requirements that it pass with a majority in a majority of States. The informal vote at that referendum was not taken into account in the manner provided in Section 128, and as a consequence the number of 'Yes' votes required to constitute a majority was not calculated correctly.

In Tasmania, where the official record declares that the referendum passed with a greater number of 'Yes' votes than 'No' votes, had the informal votes been taken into account as the Constitution required in determining how many 'Yes' votes constituted a majority, it can be seen that in fact the question fell short of a majority by 4,978 votes. That leaves that referendum having only secured a majority of 'Yes' votes in three States, and therefore not in a majority of States as the Constitution requires.

That this situation has remained unnoticed for 60 years is a measure of the zeal that Parliamentarians have had for our Houses. There was clearly little risk of that zeal ever consuming them. Even the self-styled 'independent umpire' that conducts elections and referenda, the Australian Electoral Commission, has championed to this day the error that this departure from Section 128's provisions constitutes.

The Left perhaps arent happpy about decentralisation, so: 'why not confirm the Commonwealth’s dominance in the text of the constitution?'.

The constitution is designed to limit the powers of government, but the Leftists think they have a monopoly on intelligence, thus they are in favour of: 'getting rid of the dysfunctional referendum process that gives too much power to the Australian public who aren’t equipped to exercise it effectively.'

Like all good narcissists, they dont like you and I. Down with peasantry, up with surfdom they cry, saying 'Co-operative federalism between the Commonwealth and states has not worked effectively, and with power naturally leading towards the Commonwealth anyway, let’s just speed up the process.'

Thus they have arrived at the conclusion all by thereselves that 'Our dysfunctional federalism can be fixed by replacing our dysfunctional constitution'. All they have to do is ignore the will of the people, withold the right to referenda, and declare Australia a Republic modelled upon a China/Russia mix of C.....M Then they will have a monopoly monology, a Marxologists monoparty state, a Gentry Services Tax to sustain them, and a two-teired socialist system to seperate the masses from the State.

Too easy.

Enter Labor, 2007-08.