Constitutional Reform | AustralianPolitics.com

Wyatt Promises Indigenous Recognition Referendum Within Three Years

July 10, 2019

The Minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt, has announced that the Morrison government will hold a referendum within three years to entrench Indigenous Recognition in the constitution.

Minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt, speaks at the National Press Club

Speaking at the National Press Club in Canberra today, Wyatt stressed that the government would only proceed if it was certain that a referendum would succeed. “It will take time, it will need to be measured,” he said.

“We need to design the right model to progress to a point at which the majority of Australians, the majority of states and territories and indigenous Australians support the model so that it is successful.”

Wyatt said he would work across the political spectrum to develop the model. He said the ALP’s Indigenous spokeswoman, Linda Burney, would be “integral” to the process.

The minister said he was committed to bringing an indigenous voice to parliament, but that this may not be part of the constitutional reform.

George Williams On Dual Citizenship And Same Sex Marriage Survey

August 30, 2017

Professor George Williams, Dean of Law at the University of New South Wales, has addressed the National Press Club on the dual citizenship issue and the same sex marriage postal survey.

Williams suggested that the Turnbull government is “running against the grain of existing High Court authority” in relation to the marriage survey and the seven dual citizenship cases currently before the court.

In his address, Williams called for a range of constitutional reforms.

Williams, 48, has been Dean of Law since 2016. He was admitted to practice in 1993 and served as an associate to Justice Michael McHugh in the High Court. He has worked as a solicitor and barrister and has extensive academic experience at a number of universities.

A member of the ALP, Williams has unsuccessfully contested preselection on two occasions.

Watch Williams’ Address in full (59m)

Listen to Williams’ speech (33m)
Listen to the Question and Answer session (25m)

Transcript of Address to the National Press Club by Professor George Williams.

The Constitution is not normally front-page news in Australia. Despite the profound impact it has on our politics and society, it is easy to see why.

The United States Constitution reflects its revolutionary origins in beginning with the famous call “We the people.” By contrast, our Constitution is contained in a British Act of Parliament that opens with:

Whereas the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania…

“Whereas” is hardly the sort of beginning that gets the heart racing. In addition, these words are not even complete. They fail to mention Western Australia, which joined the Federation just before the commencement of the Constitution in 1901.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s New Year Message

January 1, 2014

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has released a 2014 New Year Message in which he says he will “start the conversation” about recognising the first Australians in the Constitution.

In relation to indigenous recognition, Abbott said: “I will also start the conversation about a constitutional referendum to recognise the first Australians. This would complete our Constitution rather than change it.”

Listen to Abbott’s message (2m)
Watch Abbott (2m)

Text of media release from Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

If ever we should enter a New Year full of optimism, it is 2014.

The State Of The Federation: Ted Mack

October 26, 2013

This is the text of Ted Mack’s Henry Parkes Oration, delivered in Tenterfield tonight.

Mack Ted Mack was an independent councillor and Mayor of the North Sydney Council in the 1970s and 1980s.

He was elected as the independent member for North Shore in the NSW Legislative Assembly in 1981 and was re-elected in 1984 and 1988, retiring two days before he became eligible for a parliamentary pension.

In 1990, he was elected as the independent member for the federal seat of North Sydney, defeating the incumbent Liberal, John Spender. He was re-elected in 1993 and retired in 1996.

In this speech, Mack argues that “no serious observer of politics in Australia, except those with specific interests, can pretend that we do not have major problems with our system of government or that we are incapable of achieving any improvement after a century of experience”.

Abbott: Indigenous Issues Will Be At The Heart Of A Coalition Government In Word And Deed

March 15, 2013

Tony Abbott says engagement with Aboriginal people will be one of the hallmarks of an incoming Coalition government.

Speaking to The Sydney Institute tonight, Abbott said a non-Labor government would be “complacent, even neglectful” if it failed to address “the most intractable difficulty our country has ever faced”.

Posts published in “Constitutional Reform”

Wyatt Promises Indigenous Recognition Referendum Within Three Years

George Williams On Dual Citizenship And Same Sex Marriage Survey

Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s New Year Message

The State Of The Federation: Ted Mack

Abbott: Indigenous Issues Will Be At The Heart Of A Coalition Government In Word And Deed