The fact we don't have a Bill of Rights (or even an equivalent to the First Amendment) is ridiculous. But on the plus side we stopped with the ridiculous gun-toting crap 20 years ago, so some parts of our constitution are more reasonable than other countries.

One of the more worrying issues is that the Governor-General (and thus by proxy the Queen of fucking England) has vito power over our laws.

We don't need a bill of rights. I have never had anyone give me a convincing argument on why a bill of rights is needed.

Also, its veto, not vito and the Governor General's reserve powers are a check on the Government. In the history of the Commonwealth of Australia these powers have been used twice: 1) On 13 May 1932, when the Governor of New South Wales Sir Philip Game dismissed the Government of New South Wales. 2) On 11 November 1975, when the Governor-General of Australia Sir John Kerr dismissed the Commonwealth Government.

In both cases an election was held very soon afterwards and, again in both cases, the dismissed government was massively defeated by popular vote.

I really wish they would teach better civics in schools.

> We don't need a bill of rights. I have never had anyone give me a convincing argument on why a bill of rights is needed.

We don't have any legal (let alone constitutional) right to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and a few other freedoms that are present in the US bill of rights. There are some laws that provide protections for certain kinds of political speech, but those are incredibly narrow compared to the First Amendment in the US. In fact the only people in Australia who have freedom of speech (even surpassing the US because libel laws don't apply to them) is politicians in the House of Reps and Senate -- ordinary citizens don't have those freedoms.

> I really wish they would teach better civics in schools.

To be frank we have more serious issues in our school system.

The Australian Constitution does not explicitly protect freedom of expression. However, the High Court has held that an implied freedom of political communication exists as an indispensible part of the system of representative and responsible government created by the Constitution. It operates as a freedom from government restraint, rather than a right conferred directly on individuals.

In Nationwide News Pty Ltd v Wills (1992) 177 CLR 1 and Australian Capital Television Pty Ltd v the Commonwealth (1992) 177 CLR 106, the majority of the High Court held that an implied freedom of political communication exists as an incident of the system of representative government established by the Constitution. This was reaffirmed in Unions NSW v New South Wales [2013] HCA 58.

This right is limited by certain laws a.k.a Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Its worse than you think. The Australian Constitution is highly racist. One set of laws for whites, another for the natives. This should be the first thing we fix.

Then of course, there's the fact that Australia is a British dependency. This needs to go. Australia is not a sovereign state - it is a colonial property. Yes, even still today.

The Constitution also doesn't protect the Australian Parliament as a democratic institution. It doesn't address, nor protect, the Australian environment. Equality: not guaranteed, at all, by the Constitution.

There are just so many things wrong with it.

Neither Britain or New Zealand have written constitutions, I'm not convinced that Australia's is the problem at hand, though I guess it could be that a poorly written one is worse than none at all.

Which parts of the constitution do you think are bad?

You can get started here:

https://independentaustralia.net/australia/australia-display...

E.g. it does not explicitly outline the right to freedom of expression. It is sort of implied within Government, but not necessarily.

I don't know if it is related to the constitutional issue, but someone was convicted of having Simposons pornography because it pictured child characters from the show.

The UK, Canada, NZ etc. and otger countries (to a weaker extent) have similar laws. It is ridiculous in my view.