Episode 40: Saving Australian democracy and sovereignty by building a new Constitution - Part 1

Find the full transcript: Episodes 40, 41, 42 & 43: Saving Australian democracy and sovereignty by building a new Constitution - An essay in four parts by Bronwyn Kelly.

Introduction from Bronwyn Kelly:

Subscribers and others familiar with my writing will be aware of my most recent book, The People’s Constitution: the path to empowerment of Australians in a 21st century democracy. I’d like to thank readers for their positive comments. But now it is time to think about how we might begin to make a people’s constitution a reality.

In this and my next three posts on the Australia Together Podcast I’ll be reading a new major essay which builds on much of the research in The People’s Constitution, taking it to the next step. The essay sets out a practical way forward for the making of a new Constitution by the collaboration of Australians. I suggest in the essay that if we learn how to do this well as a nation - and we can - then we can rescue our democracy and sovereignty, both of which are very much at risk of loss at the moment.

It will not be surprising that the new type of Constitution I’m proposing is one which gives a reasonable share of power to a party in our democracy who currently has none – the people. But to establish some practical ways of achieving progress towards that, I pose four questions in this essay and I’ll suggest answers over the next four episodes of the Podcast. The questions are:

1. Why does Australia need a new Constitution? (Part 1, Episode 40)

2. What’s wrong with our democracy? (Part 2, Episode 41)

3. How can Australians take back their democracy and sovereignty? (Part 3, Episode 42)

4. How can Australians achieve a peaceful coexistence of sovereignties and self-determining political equals? (Part 4, Episode 43)

At the outset, it is worth noting that the answer to the last two questions is the same: the answer to how we can take back our democracy and sovereignty and achieve a peaceful coexistence of sovereignties and self-determining political equals is for the people of Australia to establish what I call “non-exclusive terms of trust” with the parliaments they elect. This will need to be done by mounting what in other writing I’ve called a National Collaborative Process for the Development of a New Australian Constitution. This is a process that should be run by the people of Australia, independent of politics. The function of this essay is to help develop an understanding of the sorts of statements we will need to include in these terms of trust and how any and all Australians can become involved in the process of specifying them.

Listeners will note that the essay starts from a premise that Australians may well have already lost control over the one power they had under the Constitution – the power to choose who shall govern them. It is likely that this premise will be disputed, particularly by Australia’s two major political parties, although I cite substantial evidence for it. But disputes about it do not detract from the need to reverse or at least stem the loss, and on this basis I have suggested in the essay that the most urgent questions of our times are:

How do we wrest back control over the choice of who governs us and how do we establish some control over what they may rightly do with power?

If we answer these questions well, we can save our democracy and put the nation on a path to achievement of a peaceful coexistence of cultures, self-determining political equals, and sovereignties in a post-colonial world.

What’s in this Episode?

In Episode 40 I read Part 1 of the essay on Saving Australian Democracy and Sovereignty by Building a New Constitution. I ask, Why does Australia need a new Constitution? The short answer is: to save our democracy and sovereignty.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bronwynkelly.substack.com