Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Let me join with the Chairman of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs in supporting the tabling of this important report on reforming our Constitution. On constitutional issues, I suspect that the chairman and I might well be very many kilometres apart. I am a constitutional monarchist and I strongly support the essential principles of our Constitution, as no doubt does the honourable member for Isaacs, but on certain issues we might have a different approach. When I first heard about this proposed roundtable discussion I had a modicum of concern that it might be a slow boat to republicanism by stealth. I want to place on record my admiration for the chairman and the way in which he conducted the roundtable discussion. We were able to attract participants of an extraordinarily high calibre. The discussions were particularly interesting and focused on what was attainable rather than on what was necessarily desirable. When we looked at the mechanisms for changing our Constitution, particularly the double majority requirement whereby a majority of citizens in a majority of states must sign up to a constitutional change for it to actually occur, the participants in the forum did not state what they would like but looked at what was possible. There seemed to be general acceptance that removing the requirement that there be a majority of people in a majority of states would be seen as an attempt by politicians to subvert the constitutional process and that any proposed amendment of the Constitution to take away that safeguard would undoubtedly be rejected by the Australian people.

In the discussion it became very clear to me—and it came up in much of the comment made by the participants—that if there is to be constitutional change then the Australian people ought to have an ownership of the process of constitutional change. At the present time we have had constitutional conventions, we have had a debate on whether Australia should become a republic and we have had motions put forward through the federal parliament by way of bills to change the Constitution. I suppose one of the benefits we have as Australians is that, as a nation, we are sceptics. When people are pushing a change, our first reaction is to ask: ‘Why on earth are these people pushing this particular change?’ What became very clear to me personally and what came though loudly and clearly in the committee discussions was that if there is to be any sensible consideration of changes to the Constitution then the community must enjoy a sense of ownership of the process.

There is no doubt in 2008, well over 100 years from when the Australian colonies federated to form the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, that if you look at the Constitution today you can see that it is not operating in the way that the founding fathers intended it to. And there is no way that the founding fathers, even with the greatest foresight in the world, could have predicted the needs of Australia in 2008 compared with the needs of Australia in 1901, which then became the Commonwealth of Australia. There has been, by a series of different processes, a concentration of power at the centre. Whether or not you think that is healthy or unhealthy is a matter for individuals to decide, but the reality is that, largely through constitutional interpretation, a referral of powers from the states to the Commonwealth, cooperative schemes and the power of the purse, the Australian government does in fact have a greater say than it did.

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