Australian democratic success taken for granted. By Reg Hamilton in The Spectator.
William Wentworth said: ‘Every man that is honest and industrious can sit under his own vine and his own fig-tree.’ (1853 Constitution debates) He wanted the good life, not political turmoil.
Australia’s big idea was that we never saw government as the meaning of life. …
William Wentworth suggested in 1853 that ‘in early life he was a Radical, in middle age a Whig, and he intended to die a Conservative.’ He opposed democracy. …
Alexander Campbell said in 1853 that: ‘I contend for universal suffrage as the birthright of every Englishman.’ In 1858 he said that giving all men the vote was just ‘the grand principle of representation according to population, a principle which the ancient Saxons tried hard to workout’. (NSW Parliament). …
Australians wanted to build a ‘great nation’ not theories, as William Wentworth said:
‘The labouring classes are better off than in any other country. Would to God the poor starving thousands in the mother country could share in their abundance, for all we want are the sinews of the labourer to make this colony a great nation.’ (Legislative Council 1853) …
These were the ideas Australians used for over half our modern history to build a nation. We rarely mention them now. …
Many are willing today to express admiration for Australia’s democracy, and its compulsory voting and an independent Australian Electoral Commission. But then avoid declaring how well our Constitution functions. Although the Constitution is the basis of our democracy.
We forget the replacement of absolute monarchy by Parliament. The freedom of ordinary people from imprisonment without due process. Religious freedom rather than theocracy. Those were the nightmares of old Europe and Asia, and of many places today and terrible poverty resulted. …
Young Australians and immigrants are not taught enough about the Australian evolution of Parliament and its founding documents and ideas. … There is much to be said for evolving British liberties. If only someone would say it.
Btw, to change the topic slightly, Section 115 of the Australian Constitution states that
A State shall not coin money, nor make anything but gold and silver coin a legal tender in payment of debts.
This provision restricts the States from issuing currency or declaring anything other than gold and silver coins as legal tender.
Modern legal opinion is that this does not invalidate modern Australian currency, because the Commonwealth Parliament, under Section 51(xii) of the Constitution, holds exclusive power to legislate on currency, coinage, and legal tender. This power enables the federal government to issue paper money and modern coins as legal tender.
However, it is obvious that the Constitution is not being followed, because the States use the Australian paper currency in all financial or legal roles. Debts are paid in Australian paper currency, not gold or silver. The Constitution’s stipulation that the Australian states use gold and silver exclusively is there to prevent the use of paper currency. It was put there for good reasons, which we’ve now forgotten.
This seems like an arcane objection that can be easily overlooked, at least while the Federal paper currency works well. But now that the debasement of paper currencies throughout the West is emerging as an obvious danger, it is perhaps worth pointing out that the upcoming problems would have been avoided if the Constitution had been obeyed to the letter.
Governments and banks cannot print gold or silver. They can quite properly issue credit — and note that the stuff in your bank account (really just a number on a computer) is technically credit. But it is improper for them to conjure the underlying base currency out of thin air. It always, eventually, leads to major problems. Our Constitutional founders knew that.