It is perfectly clear a law not submitted to voters cannot be approved by them and, therefore, cannot be presented to amend the Constitution. Here behold the Voice referendum question's sleight of hand: the short question Australians are being asked to endorse or reject is not -- repeat is not -- what would be added to the Constitution. Should 'Yes' succeed, it will prevail only until the High Court inevitably rules against it

Most Australians want first peoples recognised in the Constitution. The polls leave no doubt about the strength of that sentiment, and this suits a government doing its devious best to make sure voters remain uninformed about the thrust of all three elements the Voice proposes. What we are witnessing is a classic bait-and-switch, a veritable constitutional fraud

The constitutionality of the Voice referendum turns in the first […]

Should the Yes case succeed, the Voice will be an important part of Australian constitutional sovereignty.  But -- and it is a big 'but' indeed -- this will be a merged and therefore unified sovereignty.  Think of this way: any treaty between A and B when A is part of B is a logical nonsense. Only lawyers keen to frolic in the inevitable cases, arguments and appeals should vote for something that entails such a contradiction

Daniel Love and Brendan Thoms are Australian Aborigines (a claim […]

The High Court and the Parliament Perhaps Lewis Carroll would […]

The rejection of an Australian republic in 1999 was decided a few months after Sue v Hill. Had it gone the other way the High Court’s decision might have been excused as prescient. Instead, the majority's muddled logic sowed dragon's teeth that have sprouted into the current and ongoing debacle