 |
The Foundation for National Renewal |
 |
 |
The Model Constitution Project: |
|
|
After a decade of work, this project has borne fruit: the First Draft of a new Constitution. |
| The Project | Synopsis | Foreword & Preface | Draft Constitution |
|
Over
a span of more than ten years the Foundation for National Renewal has been
working on this draft Constitution. During that period, more and more people
have been expressing concerns about the dysfunctions of Australian society
and in particular, the way in which we are governed. However, few have been
very forthcoming with comprehensive ideas for solving these problems. An
exception to this trend has been Professor George Williams who, consistently
and over a long period, has been advocating root and branch reform. The
following newspaper article exemplifies his approach. Professor George Williams is the Anthony Mason professor and director of the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law at the University of NSW. SO MUCH GOVERNMENT, SO LITTLE DONE George
Williams AUSTRALIANS
pay a wasted $9 billion in tax each year, equal to $1100 per family. This
money is being used without gain to prop up our dysfunctional federal system
of government. These
billions of dollars are a conservative estimate of the Business Council of
Australia. It is how much the community pays for the duplication of
services, buck-passing and inefficiency that bedevils the relationship
between our federal and state governments. Even
this understates the true cost. It is the amount of extra tax we pay and
does not include the money lost to businesses in having to comply with red
tape or the price we all pay for having substandard health and education
services. Taking
some of these other costs into account, it has been estimated that the
duplication and extra co-ordination costs in the Australian federation are
an astonishing $20 billion a year. This amounts to 9 per cent of all general
government expenses or 3 per cent of gross domestic product. This
money is not just a loss to taxpayers; it is also a lost opportunity. Every
dollar might have been used to better fund schools or hospitals or to assist
with pressing concerns such as the lack of affordable housing and our ageing
population. We
face a choice. The first option is to continue to pay extra tax and accept
second-rate government services. We have been led in this direction by
generations of politicians who have found it easier to leave the system as
is rather than take up the challenge of reform. A
reason for this is that the present system benefits those in power. Without
clear lines of responsibility, federal and state leaders can seek credit for
successes but accuse someone else for inaction or failure. Blame-shifting
can be seen daily in the media. When it is over matters such as hospitals
and water scarcity, we know we have a major problem. The
alternative is to do the hard work over the longer term to fix our system of
government. This might seem impossible given our poor record of achieving
change. In fact, the international experience shows otherwise. Other
nations have been successful in tackling the same issues, including Germany,
which last year brought about major changes to its federal scheme. They show
how the Australian problem is not an inability to come up with new models
and ideas, but a failure of vision and leadership in bringing them about. What
Australia needs is a system that better allocates tax revenue between
Canberra and the states. We also need a more appropriate division of power
between governments that sets out who is responsible for which areas. The
Murray-Darling Basin is a good example. Federal intervention is necessary
but has taken far too long to emerge. The Prime Minister's $10 billion plan
has also met state resistance. This illustrates how difficult and costly the
present system can be in reallocating power and responsibility. Our
federal system has passed its use-by date. It was created in 1901, the age
of the horse and buggy, and has not been modernised to meet contemporary
needs. The
Australian constitution was drafted in 1901 to protect the position and
power of the states rather than to foster national co-ordination. This made
sense when communication across the nation was poor and no one could foresee
the need for national leadership in areas ranging from climate change to
stem-cell research. A
consequence is that it is often not possible for Australians today to know
which level of government is responsible for what. This is hard even for
those versed in constitutional law. Our constitution has major gaps and is a
poor match for how governments now operate. Over
decades Australia's federal system has unraveled. This does not mean we
should remove it entirely. Instead, we need a better system. We also need to
ask hard questions, such as whether Australia can sustain three, rather than
two, tiers of government. Reform
has been left for too long. Until this is recognised and people begin to
act, Australians will pay through the hip pocket and our future prosperity
will be undermined. This is the price of having a bloated and inefficient
system of government based upon a broken federal model. Acknowledgements This draft Constitution has evolved only by the sustained efforts of the one hundred or so Members of the Foundation for National Renewal. Their commitment and perseverance over a ten-year period has been the mainstay of this endeavour to produce a Draft Constitution that truly reflects what The People would like. Sadly, many of those who contributed have not lived to see the culmination of their efforts. Of course, there was little unanimity but the consensus on important issues was surprising and the Membership at least is pleased with this First Draft to be published to the wider community for their review, debate and amendment as required. The views of Members were sought by distributing a paper on each and every aspect of society. And the second acknowledgement must go to Ross Garrad, the Secretary of the Foundation who carefully consolidated Members’ responses into a comprehensive report. These reports exposed the trend lines and enabled the drafting of a Constitution broadly reflecting the views of this ‘Citizens’ Jury’. The original papers and Reports on Members’ responses are including in Book Two of this publication. Drafts of this Constitution have been reviewed by many others. No friends, relatives or acquaintances have escaped being dragooned into commenting; and these comments have been most valuable in refining the detail and identifying those areas requiring explanation. During this whole process, vigorous debate with members and member organisations of Beyond Federation has facilitated the essential refining of the ideas incorporated into this Draft Constitution. First among these individuals is Dr Mark Drummond. His PhD Thesis, “Costing Constitutional Change” is the definitive document on the dysfunction of the current Australian system of government; identifying as it does a waste of billions of dollars every year. Beyond Federation is an umbrella organisation that brings together many of the hundreds of individuals and organisations striving for a better Australian society. PREFACE The
Foundation for National Renewal has published this Draft Constitution to
encourage and provide a focus for widespread public debate of Constitutional
issues. The
Constitution under which Australia currently operates was adopted in 1901.
It was only agreed to after 50 years of debate and, although much cognisance
was taken of the Constitution of the United States of America, the
Australian Constitution was never intended as a Constitution for the
independent nation Australia has become. In
fact, the primary purpose of the Constitution was to amalgamate six
semi-autonomous British Colonies into a Federation. The pressing issues at
the time were the perception that a continental approach would be necessary
to repel an expected invasion by Russia and the impediments to trade between
the Colonies created by customs posts at the borders. The
fact that the visionaries at the time were able to persuade six governments
to give up some of their power to a yet-to-be-formed Federal Government was,
in itself, a minor miracle. However, although some of the drafters of the
Constitution had in mind a number of changes to the way government had
operated in the past, they were not able to include these in the
Constitution and the new Federation slipped into adopting the Westminster
system of government used by “the Mother Country”. Although
there is general agreement that the 1901 Constitution has served Australia
well for more than one hundred years, there is now widespread concern that
the document has outlived its usefulness and is now more divisive than
unifying. There is also widespread concern that the 1901 Constitution is no
longer valid. The 1901 Constitution is an Act of the British Parliament and
the Australia Act 1986 (passed by both UK and Australian Governments)
rescinded any residual power of the British Parliament over the governance
of Australia. There
is also general agreement that the Australian system of government is in
dire need of root and branch reform to better equip our nation to cope with
the complexities of the world in the 21st Century. In
short, Australia needs a new Constitution. Unfortunately,
although the drafters of our Constitution very cleverly included provision
that it could only be altered by the People voting at referendum, they left
the power to initiate such a referendum in the hands of the politicians.
Consequently there have been only 44 attempts to update the Constitution and
only eight of these have passed at referendum. So the Constitution has not
been kept up to date and is now so far removed from what is needed that the
only sensible thing to do is to start from scratch. This
Draft Constitution is an attempt to create a whole new prescription for the
sort of society we wish to live in and the sort of government to which we
are prepared to consent. In
preparing this Draft Constitution, the Foundation for National Renewal has
not been constrained by any perceived need to take too much notice of how
things have been done in the past. Instead, we have reverted to first
principles with a view to prescribing the best possible society and the best
possible system of government. As
can be seen from Book Two, the Constitutions of many other nations have been
considered and good ideas from those have been adapted to suit Australian
culture. A
primary focus of this Draft Constitution is that it establishes the
sovereignty of the People. We did not set out to write a republican
constitution but this is what evolved when desirable attributes were
incorporated and undesirable concepts were rejected. Similarly,
the rights and responsibilities of the People are enshrined in this Draft
Constitution to provide inspiration and to ensure these rights cannot be
usurped by politicians. It
is clearly established that all power emanates from the People and reverts
to the People. All organs of the State are accountable to the People and the
People are provided with the means to ensure the will of the People prevails
over all else. Basic
laws are enshrined as a benchmark of the sort of society we aspire to and to
obviate the necessity for reams of statue law that ordinary Citizens have no
hope of ever understanding. Common law is abandoned in favour of easily
understood constitutional and statute law. This
Draft prescribes a clear separation of powers between the Legislature, the
Executive and the Judiciary to ensure enhancement of democracy and to avoid
autocracy, dictatorship and dominance of the bureaucracy. Thus the
much-discredited Westminster System is abandoned. The
system of government prescribed in this Draft Constitution has been
carefully designed to ensure transparency and accountability through
simplicity. Checks and balances are incorporated to avoid nepotism, cronyism
and corruption but to allow dynamism and creativity at every level. The
electoral system is prescribed to provide intimate, responsive and
accountable representation of the People. By enshrining the electoral and
voting systems in the Constitution, tampering by vested interests is
prevented. A
President elected by the People is the Head of State and he also presides
over the Executive which is in turn accountable to the Parliament. The
Judiciary has been restructured to provide a system in which truth and
justice prevail over the letter of the law, precedent and technicalities and
the right to trial by jury for serious offences is reinstated. A
totally revamped monetary and fiscal system has been incorporated to ensure
the efficient operation of the Australian economy and to minimise the
deleterious effect of the vagaries of international financial dealings and
globalisation. And
finally, the Draft Constitution provides that Australia shall not be
committed to war without a referendum and that, in the event of war, the
whole Nation is committed to the war effort. ************* You
are encouraged to make notes as you read through this Constitution and to
communicate your likes and dislikes to the Foundation for National Renewal. After
wide public debate and amendment as required, this Draft Constitution will
be put to the People in the form of a plebiscite to gain general approval.
It will then become a blueprint for gradual Constitutional reform – much
of it initiated by you, the People, using Citizen Initiated Referenda. A
new Constitution will be adopted by the People at referendum when the People
are satisfied the ground rules are in place to ensure the sort of society
they aspire to and to provide the sort of government to which we are
prepared to consent. Note: In
this draft Constitution the paragraphs in italics are not part of the Draft
Constitution; they are inserted as annotations to explain meaning or convey
explanation of what effect the new provision will have on society.
|
|||
E-mail: constitution@national-renewal.org.au Last updated 24 March 2009 |