YES, we can… … rewrite the Australian Constitution

Klaas Woldring is a migrant from the Netherlands who migrated first to South Africa with his wife Aafke in 1959. The couple re-migrated to Australia in 1964. The Apartheid experience resulted in further part-time study in Government and Economics and an academic career in Australia. This book deals with Australia’s inability to renew the Constitution. Many have shown that the Constitution is no longer serving its diverse society as it should. Much has changed since 1901 but the Constitution has not. The question Why is that so? features prominently in this text. Answers are provided which explain why piecemeal tinkering will continue to fail to remedy the situation. Why not rewrite the Constitution and replace the existing one, in one Referendum, by using the amendment provision Section 128 for that laudable purpose? The adversarial political system blocks real progress in every direction. Sadly, it also turns most politicians into systemic casualties and habitual oppositionists. A new electoral system can change all that and reflect the diversity of politics. Changing the lay-out of the legislatures could further assist to change the toxic culture of Australian politics.