While our current Constitution has served us well during the 20th century, it is has significant limitations.
The following campaigns address areas of the Constitution which are either weak, or where we have fallen behind international best practice. The aim of each campaign is to develop a list of new governance clauses that can be added to the existing Constitution to modernise it.
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Australian Republic: Unshackling Australia from its Colonial Past
Our British history and traditions are important, but the next natural step in Australia’s evolving democracy should be to become a Republic. While keeping existing political safety mechanisms in place, we need a new vision of what we might aspire to as a Nation. It makes little sense to call Australia an ‘independent’ nation while the crown of a foreign power remains our Head of State.
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Sustainability: Delivering Prosperity While Protecting Our Environment
The need to protect our fragile environment combined with the need to wisely use our resources, means that Australia must come up with practical solutions to real world sustainability problems. We need constitutional safeguards that envision not only a better quality of life for all citizens, but that cannot be undermined by political apathy, greed or expediency.
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Indigenous Recognition: Recognising all Cultural Groups, Especially Indigenous Australians
Forging a new relationship between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, all other cultural groups and Australian governments that is based on mutual understanding, recognition and respect.
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Local Government Recognition: Devolving Local Governance to Local Government
We need to solve the ongoing power struggle between our three tiers of government that should have been settled at Federation. There needs to be certainty around direct funding of local government by the Federal Government, and an exploration of the best ways to regulate or reform local government.
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Human Rights: Guaranteeing the Rights and Responsibilities of Individuals and Institutions
We think of Australia as a tolerant society, but significant inequalities exist throughout the community. A constitutional Bill of Rights would formally establish the equality and dignity of people, no matter what their background, race, gender, religion or sexuality, while placing constraints on the exercise of executive power. Such a Bill would compel governments to be more sensitive to, and inclusive of the individuals, communities and organisations they serve.
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Government Responsibility: Setting High Standards for Public Service Delivery
Australians increasingly expect more of government. Through the Constitution, citizens should be able to hold elected and appointed officials accountable to high standards of public service delivery in health, education, transport and so forth. These standards would not only improve the provision of services now, but would reflect the best way of running our public services in the future.
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Civic Engagement: Non-Adversarial Political Processes that Engage Citizens in a Collaborative Partnership
As citizens we desperately need non-adversarial political processes where public policy, proposed legislation and changes to the Constitution can be meaningful discussed by the wider community. Informed by a broader citizens’ knowledge base, Australians need to be involved in public problem solving and government rulemaking. Such processes would require elected officials to ‘share power’ with citizens, take public advice and be transparently accountable for their actions.
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Suggest a new campaign: newcampaign@rethinkaustralia.org
