Queensland did not actually rewrite their constitution as I mentioned in another post.
Yeh they did. They didn\'t have a formal constitution prior to 2001, just the standard grab-bag collection of acts and statutes that are only called a constitution under Westminster systems.
I looked at Queensland in detail in January 2005;
Focus on Queensland
. It lists some of the twenty-seven acts that were collapsed into a formal constitution.
Canada did a similar thing in the 80s. They had several acts, including ones of British origin that were replaced with a formal written constitution.
Japan and Germany were fascist states
Germany came from the Weimar Republic which fell into a state of emergency from which it never came out of. It was a liberal democratic state before executive decree replaced it. The Japanese Meiji Constitution mimicked Westminster government, right down to a House of Lords and Privy Council. It could be argued the military held control over the Diet by the Emperor being the Chief of the Armed Services.
A rewrite of a constitution is done when there is reason to modify so many sections it is worth rewriting.
There are numerous problems with the Australian Constitution and to add to it, the High Court have excaserbated the problem by moving the meaning of its words away from an explicit reading. That is why I was quoting Turnbull and Jefferson in the article. They said similar things.
Excise, corporations power, tied grants, not to mention the reserve powers, the implied position of the prime minister, the lack of separation of powers, no bill of rights etc etc.
Plus it is too hard to modify. Where a constitution is supposed to meet the liberty demands of each generation; ours is a stagnant anachronism that is showing it flaws, age and prejudices.
It does need a rewrite into a modern document matching modern principles of liberty, government and politics.
cam
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