 advice of the Prime Minister). Then the electors of Australia are asked to vote upon the legislation. It only passes if a majority of voters overall and in at least four states vote yes.
There isn’t a way to really amend our Constitution without going to the people.
Now, just to confuse you all, there are parts of our Constitution that don’t apply anymore. They still sit there as we haven’t asked the parliament and then the people to remove them, but they are no longer in use. What caused the parts of our Constitution to become redundant was the implementation of two Acts. These being the Statute of Westminster, which we adopted in 1942 and then the Australia Act which was implemented in 1986.
Both of these Acts changed the role of the Queen in our democracy. If you want to read a bit more about this, click here, as we have written an article about the Queen’s powers.
Now the Parliament can’t just enact any old Act and then parts of the Constitution don’t apply. These two pieces of legislation had to become law in the UK and in regards to the Australia Act, our States had to pass it too.
Changing the Italian Constitution
The Italian Constitution has been altered 15 times since it came into force on 1 January 1948, mostly through being passed by the two-thirds majority of both Houses of Parliament. Here’s the text:
Laws amending the Constitution and other constitutional laws shall be adopted by each House after two successive debates at intervals of not less than three months, and shall be approved by an absolute majority of the members of each House in the second voting.
Said laws are submitted to a popular referendum when, within three months of their publication, such request is made by one-fifth of the members of a House or five hundred thousand voters or five Regional Councils. The law submitted to referendum shall not be promulgated if not approved by a majority of valid votes.
A referendum shall not be held if the law has been approved in the second voting by each of the Houses by a majority of two-thirds of the members.
If the referendum held last week had passed it would have modified about a third of the Constitution – 47 Articles out of 139. Opponents to this change, including some within the Governing Party, had argued during the lead up to the vote that these changes would have given the Prime Minister too much power. The Italian people agreed.
Just over 59% of those who voted rejected the changes. Only about 40% voted yes and there was only about a 70% turnout for the referendum.
In the aftermath, the youngest Italian Prime Minister ever, who has served for 2 years and 287 days (making him the fourth longest serving PM since 1991) has quit.
So while there was a failure to change the Italian Constitution last weekend, here in Australia most referendums have also failed. Out of the 44 referendums only eight have passed. Constitutions provide stability and consistency and are therefore meant to be hard to change, but no so hard that change is impossible.
Referendums belong to the people and here at CEFA we are dedicated to giving them useful information, to empower a better informed voter. Let us know what you think.