The Constitution
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Australia is unlike the United States, where the Founders regarded the doctrine of separation of powers as one of the most important principles of constitutional government. As Sir Harry Gibbs properly reminded us more than 30 years ago, there is no real separation of powers in Australia. This a situation that needs to be rectified
July 23, 2024
36 mins
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To prevent states that denied the vote to Aborigines -- Queensland and Western Australia -- gaining extra seats in the House of Representatives by virtue of their presumed but untallied Aboriginal populations, Section 25 was inserted to penalise those states, not to penalise the Aborigines. How can a prominent legal scholar not know this?
October 10, 2023
3 mins
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The Constitution is a product of our Westminster system and represents the traditions revered by the men who drafted it. Since Aboriginal culture contributed precisely nothing to the document, adding feel-good words in the name of 'recognition' should inspire an outcry that parallels the dismay of those outraged that white hands have been gussying up 'sacred' Aboriginal art
July 28, 2023
4 mins
The latest
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After a dismissive mention by Chris Kenny in one of his pro-Voice exercises in mangled fact and history, I blitzed The Australian -- from its editor-in-chief down -- with a polite request for space to respond. No answer was forthcoming, so it will be here where I address the gross misconceptions under which a normally rational peddler of opinion continues to labour
May 4, 2023
8 mins
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If the Yes case gets up and a Voice is jammed into the Constitution there will be no escaping the obligation to define just how much Aboriginal blood is required to 'make representations'. Will it be 50 per cent aboriginality or 25 per cent? How about 12.5 per cent? If that's still too high, perhaps Bruce Pascoe could advise. Did you ever think Australia would seriously consider its very own Nuremberg-lite laws?
March 23, 2023
6 mins
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A vanity project and media vehicle that keeps a hanky-headed self-promoter in the headlines, ARM has a fresh scheme for the selection of candidates and, from that shortlist, an elected president. It all sounds very simple and it is -- as simple as the thinking, to use that word advisedly, which could and would elevate narcissistic demagogues. Then again, perhaps that is what republicans actually want
April 4, 2022
31 mins
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The High Court and the Parliament Perhaps Lewis Carroll would […]
June 28, 2018
20 mins
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More than any other comparable democracy in the English-speaking world, […]
May 1, 2016
8 mins
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The wish seems to be that legislative power is expressed in a more positive way. This sounds like a nice thing to do, but it involves huge trouble and expense for which there is no need -- the single and pointless exception being Section 25, whose removal would be tidy, do no harm and achieve nothing
December 30, 2015
22 mins
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Guns and Marriage, Go Together in the Amended Madisonian Carriage: […]
September 1, 2015
26 mins
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Our Constitution says it all for all of us: it […]
April 1, 2015
5 mins
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A discussion with the former Chief Justice of the High […]
March 1, 2015
34 mins