Section 57 SIR: James Allan’s polemic (“The US Constitution in Trouble: Lessons from Australia”, September 2015) commending section 57 of the Australian Constitution, notes that that section (a) provides a means for dealing with “unbridgeable disagreements between the lower and upper houses, a topic not untimely in the US today”, and (b) represents an improvement upon the US Constitution. I agree with Mr Allan’s views, but still feel that they are gilding the lily. Stephen J in Victoria v Commonwealth (1975) explicated the teleology of section 57 or our Constitution thus: Few, if any, of the provisions of the Constitution occasioned so…