Media Statement - 9th July 2008
Cabinet Secretary, Senator John Faulkner, today marked Constitution Day at the National Archives in Canberra.
On 9 July in 1900, Queen Victoria gave royal assent to the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, passed by the British Parliament, signifying the creation of the nation of Australia.
Senator Faulkner said: “The creation of Australia’s Constitution was orderly, parliamentary and profoundly democratic. I hope that Constitution Day will be an opportunity for all of us to begin engaging with the Constitution and with the process of constitutional change.”
Senator
Faulkner took part in a Forum on the Constitution and officiated at a
citizenship ceremony where immigrants from Sudan, the Russian
Federation, India, the United Kingdom, Belarus, Poland, China and
Malaysia became Australians.
Senator Faulkner told the
Forum that: “Our Constitution was drafted as neither an act of defiance
nor one of reconciliation. It was created by pragmatic idealists,
crafting a blueprint for a new nation, combining high hopes with low
compromises.
“Their vision – a nation for a continent – was a grand one. The problems they had to overcome were more pedestrian. .. our founding fathers struggled to negotiate the finicky interrelations of multiple jurisdictions, competing agendas and different sized railway gauges. Is it any wonder our Constitution is technical rather than sweeping, mechanistic rather than grandiose?”
Senator Faulkner said: “Australians’ commitment to democracy is deep, longstanding, bordering on the radical. We have been world leaders in democratic innovations such as women’s suffrage, secret ballots, and compulsory voting. Any changes proposed for the Constitution can only hope for success if they pass the test of Australia’s instinctively democratic and egalitarian temperament.”
The Constitution Day activities, jointly organised by the National Archives and the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, were aimed at encouraging Australians to understand more about their Constitution and how it relates to their lives.
As part of the today’s activities, Senator Faulkner also launched Making Australia Home. The project will describe, preserve and digitise records held by the National Archives that tell the stories of the 7 million immigrants who arrived in Australia during the twentieth century.