Book contents
12 - A federal commonwealth
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
Summary
A federal constitution is the last and final product of political intellect and constructive ingenuity; it represents the highest development of the possibilities of self-government among peoples scattered over a large area. To frame such a constitution is a great task for any body of men.
Alfred Deakin (1898)Democracy demanded that government should be carried on within the sight and hearing of the people. Any form of union adopted must have as its object the safeguarding and not the supplanting of the right to local self-government. It must come not to destroy but to fulfill their autonomy. Fortunately this was just what federation was intended to effect; it was a device by which the individual existence of a State could be ensured without the surrender of sovereign powers of self-control.
John Cockburn (1901)Federative logic
The Commonwealth of Australia is in substance an integrative federation in the sense that the terms of the Australian Constitution were almost wholly determined by the representatives and electors of several mutually independent bodies politic, the self-governing colonies of Australia. As such, the Australian Constitution presents a particular kind of federating logic which makes it comparable, in varying degrees, with other covenanted associations, particularly other integrative federations, such as Switzerland and the United States, the two decisive models for the Australian framers. Since the terms and structure of the Australian Constitution were determined in this manner, it seems reasonable to suppose that a theory of the Constitution will not effectively account for the textual detail and structural relationships contained therein unless it interprets these in the light of the federating logic that shaped the deliberations of the 1890s.
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- The Constitution of a Federal CommonwealthThe Making and Meaning of the Australian Constitution, pp. 337 - 370Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009