stubby331
Posts: 268
Joined: 10/24/2001
From: Perth, Western Australia
Status: offline
|
FYI
Perspective 28 October 2004 - Greg Craven
This is the print version of story
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/perspective/stories/s1229618.htm
There are many boring things in Australia. Our daytime television is boring.
Our suburbs are boring. Our Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition are
both very, very boring.
Yet if people were asked to name the most boring thing in the whole country,
there probably is only one reason why the Constitution would not top the poll.
It is so boring, many people are not even aware of its existence.
Those who do know we have a Constitution compare it unfavourably with its
American cousin. It has no ringing flourishes, no revolutionary overtones, not
showy guarantees of rights. If there were an Olympic medal for dullness, it
would win by streets.
There is only one problem with this popular dismissal of the Constitution. It
is as wrong as it is possible to be without voting for Pauline Hanson.
The Constitution is fascinating precisely because it is so staidly civilized:
because it is not a product of, nor has it presided over fire, pestilence and
revolution.
The urbanity of our Constitution begins with its making. Within our standard
international context – ourselves, the United States, the United Kingdom,
Canada, New Zealand and South Africa – only one nation has a Constitution
drafted by elected representatives and adopted democratically by its own
people.
That country is Australia. For all its popular rhetoric, the American
Constitution never trusted the people with its own adoption. Far too messy.
Again, only one member of this constitutional club has a Constitution that can
be amended by its population, rather than its political elites. Once more, it
is Australia – with its daggy referendum process – that is the democratic
standout.
What this means is that our Constitution, for all its indifferent reputation,
is a document of genuine authority. Alone of comparable documents it genuinely
is a constitution by the people, of the people, for the people.
The style and drafting of the Constitution also are unfairly caricatured. We
seem to believe it runs to hundreds of pages, is full of ‘heretofores’ and
‘wherehasbeens’, and has provisions as uplifting as acne advertisements.
It is true the Constitution contains no revolutionary calls to arms. It hardly
could, as our evolution from a British colony was entirely peaceful. Mal
Gibson will never star in a bloody colonial epic named Barton for the simple
reason that not a drop of blood was spilt for Federation.
But the Constitution is not the legal equivalent of a bad translation of
Proust. For a start, it is astonishingly short: you can read it in less than
half an hour. Even more amazingly, it is remarkably well-written. Any
comparison of the Constitution with a major modern law – the dreaded Income
Tax Assessment Act, for example – quickly reveals the Constitution is by far
the more readable document.
Nor is euphonic language the ultimate criterion for a Constitution. Stalin’s
Russia, after all, had easily the prettiest constitution in world history,
with improbable human rights standing coyly in every corner.
The real test of a constitution is much blunter. Does it provide for
democratic, stable government, and for how long has it done so? The Australian
Constitution has met this modest test for one hundred and four years, although
it might be objected this is setting the bar ridiculously low.
Yet the slightest reflection suggests otherwise. Glancing around, how many
other constitutional orders can claim likewise? The list is tragically thin:
the United States (ignoring the million deaths of the Civil War); the United
Kingdom (making due allowances for the brutalities of empire); Canada; New
Zealand; Switzerland and Sweden.
Australia’s despised Constitution at last gets us onto a select list that does
not consist of cricketers and the aquatically distinguished.
Sceptics will object that we are too kind to Australia’s Founding Fathers.
They will argue that women did not vote on their Constitution, that they were
cheerful racists, and had no interest in the rights of indigenous people.
All true, but utterly irrelevant. The test of a Constitution is not whether it
originally reflected the values of its times – inevitably, it will – but
whether it proves able to promote the values of later times.
This the Australian Constitution has done. For all the limitations of its
genesis, it has presided over votes for women, the advent of multiculturalism,
and reconciliation.
The next time we think about our boring Constitution we should ask ourselves a
hard question. Just how boring is it to have one of the world’s oldest, most
successful and democratic constitutional documents? With Constitutions, boring
is good.
_____________________________
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)
|
Printable Version
Transcript from Australian Broadcasting Corp on Constit... - 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread