Dr Nicholas Aroney from the TC Beirne School of Law explores the motivating ideas and purposes behind the Australian Constitution in a new book to be published this month.
In The Constitution of a Federal Commonwealth: The Making and Meaning of the Australian Constitution, Dr Aroney takes a unique look at the making of the Australian Constitution by examining the books the framers of the constitution read, and the ideas they called upon, when they set out the rules by which the nation of Australia was to be governed.
Dr Aroney said his book placed the Constitution, and especially its federal aspects, into its philosophical context; something that hadn’t been done in a serious way before.
“The Australian Constitution is generally thought to be a technical, legal document, but embedded in the words are several important ideals and principles about the nature of the system as a whole which inform the meaning of each part,” he said.
“The Making of the Australian Constitution looks closely at the books that the framers of the constitution read themselves, the ideas that were promoted in these books and then shows how the framers used those ideas, adapting them for their own purposes.”
Along with the books they read, Dr Aroney said the framers also drew on the constitutions of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Germany and even Norway for guidance.
But he said lying at the philosophical heart of the constitution was a belief in the value of local self government and the idea that Australia was meant to be a federal commonwealth – a commonwealth constructed out of several constituent commonwealths.
“The federal commonwealth of Australia is about the people of Australia being able to govern themselves at a national level, but it is also about the peoples of each state and each locality being able to rule themselves as well. The Australian Constitution doesn’t only enable the people of Australia to govern themselves, but it also enables the peoples of Tasmania, Queensland and New South Wales to do so.”
Dr Aroney said it was this ideal of local self government that gave rise to Australia’s system of representative parliament at both the state and federal level.
“The nation of Australia wouldn’t exist without a federation of the Australian states, or some form of union, and the Constitution was the particular form it took,” he said.
“The Constitution has enabled the Commonwealth to function fairly adequately as a nation. But by maintaining the existence of the States it has also placed a limit on the powers of the Commonwealth, with the benefit that citizens have a second level of government to which they can appeal."
“Because neither level of government has absolute power to rule the country we have a system which preserves freedom and liberty. Both levels of government need to negotiate with each other in order to pursue various government objectives.”
But despite its longevity, Dr Aroney said the Constitution had by no means provided Australia with a trouble-free political history and had created its own tensions, most notably in 1975 when political manoeuvring resulted in the dismissal of then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.
“Nonetheless, I would say that the system has worked reasonably well; Australia is one of the oldest continuing existing democracies in the world and has preserved a reasonable and stable standard of living during that time. There is certainly room for improvement but I would say the fundamentals are essentially right,” he said.
The Making and Meaning of the Australian Constitution is published by Cambridge University Press and is due for release in December 2008.
Story courtesy of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Law , Research Profile 2008.