Constitutional Change in Australia

Abstract

The story of constitutional change under the Australian Constitution has several strands. On the one hand, the Constitution is relatively difficult to change with an unusually rigorous amendment procedure. The Constitution’s rigidity is buttressed by a strong tradition of judicial legalism, characterised in the constitutional context by a commitment to textualism and a moderate form of originalism. The picture of constitutional change that the Australian model presents is thus particularly complex, demonstrating the cross-cutting forces of constitutional form, legal tradition and politics. It shows, moreover, that understandings of, and approaches to, constitutional change may themselves change over time. The Australian Constitution is one of the oldest written constitutions in the world. It was drafted by the members of a series of constitutional conventions held over the 1890s and subsequently adopted by the peoples of the colonies by referenda. The formal process of textual change is provided for by s 128 of the Constitution, titled ‘Mode of altering the Constitution’.