Submission of the Australian Press Council to the Constitutional Convention meeting in Canberra in February 1998 to consider possible changes to the Australian Constitution.

1. Executive Summary

The Council takes no position on the question of the Head of State but argues strongly that the Australian Constitution should be changed to entrench a guarantee of freedom of speech and of the press.

2. The submission

1. The Australian Press Council is strongly committed to a liberal democracy. However, the choice of the institutions in the Commonwealth and the state is properly a matter for the Australian people.
2. The Council believes that checks and balances on power are an essential and necessary feature of a liberal democracy. It would not however be appropriate for the Council to express a preference to one form of Constitution over another.
3. Noting that several candidates were elected to the Convention on platform which proposed the insertion of a Bill of Rights into the Australian Constitution, the Council is of the view that such an issue may be the subject of debate at the Convention and make the following point..
4. The Council believes that an important check and balance on abuses of power can be affected by a constitutional entrenchment of the right of the people to be properly informed. This proposition was readily understood and accepted at the formation of the United States. There the First Amendment to the US Constitution provides that Congress should make no law abridging, inter alia, the freedom of speech or of the press. The Council believes that the Constitution of Australia should be amended to entrench a Bill of Rights which includes, but is not limited to, a right to be informed by the guarantee of freedom of expression and of the press.
5. Should there be consideration of a Bill of Rights at the Convention, the Council draws the Convention's attention to the submission made by journalist Evan Whitton on 12 January 1998, "That delegates recommend a referendum question along these lines: 'Do you believe that truth should be the basis of justice and the legal system?'" In the Council's view, any consideration of a Bill of Rights might include a consideration of the incorporation of a constitutional guarantee that truth should form the basis of the Australian legal system.

See also
1997-8 Freedom of the Press Report - developments in Constitutional Law

Return to
Submissions list
Freedom of the Press overview

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