Recently I discovered a cd titled,"The Voice of Australia". Although I had heard of THE AUSTRALIAN CONSTITUTION I knew very little about it.
Watching the cd has compelled me to research Our Constitution Further.
I am amazed at how much I am discovering.
Many of our Legal Rights have been hidden from us and we are constantly being dealt with unjustly.
The Australian Constitution is Common Law and Over Rules State Law and
Council By Laws & Ordinances.
THE RULES OF THE AUSTRALIAN CONSTITUTION APPLIES TO EVERYONE IN THE LAND AND THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS.
My Question is how many of us are aware of and understand the Constitution? in fact how many of us know of its existance?
I would be greatful for any imput and further knowledge and would be happy to share what I have already discovered.

Gypsy, I'll tell you something I've learnt about the Constitution.

All written constitutions are an attempt to limit the powers of government, because if you weren't trying to do that, there would be no need for a constitution. You could just give absolute power to government, and tell them to do whatever they want. The reason we don't do that, is because history has shown that the people in government will use their power to do what they want at everyone else's expense. They will abuse the power. Constitutions are an attempt to limit it.

The eternal problem is that the people in government often think they not should be constrained by the law. They find the law and the constitution restricts them (it was meant to). And since you have to work for a living to support them, and they have all day and every day living at your expense to work out how to expand their powers beyond the law, that's exactly what they do.

The problem with using a Constitution to limit the powers of government, is that all the so-called 'checks and balances' are arms of the government! It's Caesar appealing to Caesar.

In constitutional theory, government is divided into three arms, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. But in the Westminster system, the executive - Cabinet - has a critical influence in the legislature, thus greatly reducing Parliament's effectiveness as a check on the executive.

That leaves the judiciary, but these are all government officers, whose pay and prestige depend on government, and who are often ideologically committed to big and bigger government. For example in the Franklin Dam case, they decided that the federal government attracts to itself any power on any subject that it signs under the "Foreign Affairs' power. In doing so, they effectively neutered the section of the Constitution intended to limit the power of the Commonwealth.

And so governments assume more and more that they can do whatever they want, and less and less do we live in a free society.

I have only read parts of the Constitution (long time ago for study). It does make for heavy bedtime reading, which is probably why many people including me don't bother.

However you and Peter Hume raise some good points. The Constitution and parliamentary checks and balances are sadly lacking on many fronts.

It is surprising that more people don't utilise the Consitution in legal cases against the Government.

The Constitution is the only document that protects the people from their Governments but it's application is sorely missing even in pertinent legal cases. Many aspects are ignored in relation to distinguishing state and Commonwealth jurisdiction.

The Commonwealth is good at ignoring some important legal cases by claiming lack of jurisdiction when there are indeed many legal mechanisms that can be used in cases where a miscarriage of justice is perceived.

This is particularly with regard to police and justice matters; policing,police complaints and investigations are responsibilities of the States.

"It is surprising that more people don't utilise the Consitution in legal cases against the Government."

There are a number of good reasons why they don't. The first is that, no matter how plain the words of the Constitution are, the High Court has arrogated to itself the right of ultimate decision-making as to what the words mean.

And of course to find out what those wise heads think on any matter is prohibitively expensive. Anyone funding a High Court appeal from his own private funds is basically putting his house on the line.

The second is that the doctrine of precedent – ('stare decisis' : L. 'let the decision stand') - is interpreted precisely backwards, so that the newest cases have precedence over the oldest. Thus there is no way from precedent to know which way the Court will rule.

The High Court treats itself as a legislature, and its judges openly talk in those terms. They cherry-pick cases according to their policy implications, accepting those on which the judges think they will have greatest effect on national law.

Successive High Courts have interpreted the Constitution more and more so as to expand the powers of government; even if such interpretation makes a mockery of the entire idea of a Constitution. For example, the Franklin Dam case: - "Want more power than the Constitution gives you? No worries. Just go and sign a United Nations convention on any subject you want."

But of course, if the original intent of the Constitution was that the foreign affairs power could be indefinitely expanded at will, there would have been no point in stipulating that the powers of the government were limited, would there? Thus the High Court has deliberately and obviously subverted the whole Constitution.

Peter Spencer's case is a recent example of the gross abuse of the Constitution, and all Australians, by the High Court. The Constitution says that the powers of the Parliament are limited to, among other things, taking property "on just terms". Spencer argued that the government's taking of his property rights required just terms.

Spencer’s evidence was executive instruments, i.e. orders, signed by PM Howard. But the High Court refused to hear Spencer. They said that that the Constitution only said the Parliament (ie *the legislature*) could not make unjust acquisitions. In other words, he had not shown that the Constitution was intended to prevent *the executive* arm of government from stealing without authority from the Parliament.

But of course the Constitution was intended to prevent the executive arm of government from stealing without authority from the Parliament! If it were not, there would be no need for any limitation of the power of government. They could just do and take whatever they want. Their powers would be limitless. In history, the fundamental constitutional problem has always been to limit the power of the executive, because they are the pointy end: ultimately, they are the ones with the guns.

And if the Parliament were unable to take someone’s property without consent or payment, how could the act of the executive be in any better position because it lacks any authority in law? More deliberate and obvious subversion by the High Court.

So much for the great checks and balances of the Constitution. And the judiciary is supposed to be the “independent” arm.

So it is easy to see why people don’t choose to hazard their fortunes, or ruin their lives, trying to petition this behemoth for justice.

And thus we see that all arms of government tend inexorably toward an expansion of the powers, privileges, personnel and budget of government.

This great defect in constitutional law cannot be explained by constitutional law, with its theory of representative government, and checks and balances.

It is best explained by economic theory. Assuming only self-interest, a monopoly tends, with no competition, to serve the interests of the people running it, providing lower quality services at higher cost to the consumers. A government is a monopoly of ultimate decision-making. And so this theory predicts and explains exactly what we see, which the theory of representative government fails to explain.

The trouble is that we have an absolutely disgusting level of respect for the rule of law, from the average person on up through all manner of organisations to the highest level of government.

This means that in many cases, even when rules, regulations, guidelines, codes of conduct, acts of parliament and national constitutions are meticulously derived, agreed upon and set in stone… they then often get reinterpreted, misapplied, applied to some people and not to others or just ignored completely.

This has affected me greatly over the years in two areas – road rules and the really poor policing thereof, and the code of conduct in my workplace and the brazen infringements thereof by senior managerial staff.

My efforts to deal with both of these issues by upholding the rule of law have NOT WORKED and have earned me a bad reputation as an agitator rather than a good reputation of being a conscientious citizen who is concerned about road safety and a conscientious employee who is concerned about our conduct and professionalism.

Unfortunately, it seems that what is written in law and officially asserted as applying, and what actually applies are all too often quite different things.

The constitution is no exception. In fact, it sits totally within this quasi-legal paradigm. So, while it may contain some pretty good stuff in terms of personal rights, I don’t think any of us have got a hope in hell of getting it to become meaningful.