The warning signs must already be there as the Prime Minister gives the 2014 Neville Bonner oration in Sydney at the invitation of Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy whom, we understand, are\u00a0implacably opposed to any changes to\u00a0the Constitution.\u00a0 In the address, the PM encourages the constitution’s “fiercest defenders\u00a0whose temptation is to\u00a0dismiss all change as\u00a0constitutional vandalism”\u00a0to consider changing (that is,\u00a0‘completing’)\u00a0it by acknowledging “indigenous Australians”.\u00a0 This is referred to as\u00a0a “grace note in this most serviceable of foundation documents”\u00a0 We know about\u00a0grace notes and how unnecessary\u00a0they are from the\u00a0introduction of the Queen’s new knighthoods in March this year (see previous 2014\u00a0News Items).\u00a0 The challenge according to the PM is to find a way to acknowledge Aboriginal people in the Constitution without otherwise changing it –\u00a0a somewhat confusing and conflicted notion.\u00a0As well as saying,\u00a0with a few twisty bits,\u00a0that\u00a0modern Australia has an “indigenous heritage, a British foundation and a multicultural character”, the PM\u00a0stated “I don’t seek to remove the Crown” adding he understands that “change is often\u00a0far\u00a0more trouble than it is worth”.\u00a0It was also announced that the House of Reps Committee chaired by Ken Wyatt will report on the proposed changes to the Constitution soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The warning signs must already be there as the Prime Minister gives the 2014 Neville Bonner oration in Sydney at the invitation of Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy whom, we understand, are\u00a0implacably opposed to any changes to\u00a0the Constitution.\u00a0 In the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-18","wpcat-18-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1544"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1545,"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544\/revisions\/1545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}