5 - The referendum process

Summary

The Australian nation has undergone very substantial change, yet the Constitution has been changed very little through the formal amendment procedure of referendum. This has been despite the Labor Party's commitment to radical constitutional change and persistent efforts by Commonwealth governments in promoting constitutional reviews and putting proposals to the people at referendum. The most recent and least successful attempt at major constitutional change was the Constitutional Commission set up by the Hawke Government and chaired by the former solicitor-general, Sir Maurice Byers. Its purpose was an overhaul of the Constitution to coincide with the celebration of the bicentenary of European settlement in 1988. Four modest proposals from the commission's preliminary report were voted on in September 1988; they were defeated by record margins. This ended any prospect of the commission's more ambitious recommendations, including an entrenched bill of rights as a new chapter in the Constitution, being put to referendum and reinforced the widespread view that Australia remained ‘constitutionally speaking … the frozen continent’ (Sawer 1967: 206).

This chapter presents an alternative view of Australia's record on constitutional change by referendums, arguing that it is neither exceptional nor surprising, especially if compared with experience in comparable countries. The Australian Constitution was established on principles that were fully democratic and federal at the beginning of the twentieth century, and since then it has not been subject to regime change because of revolution or conquest.