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The surprising Constitution of Australia

Recently I watched a video about Australia yet again policing people's speech, in this instance a comedian who made edgy jokes about Australian aboriginals being summoned to a "human rights" tribunal to be judged for his sins.

Out of curiosity I searched if Australia has a Constitution. I was curious about this because the United Kingdom does not (which might be a bit surprising), and Australia being a former colony is extremely similar to the UK in many ways (including nowadays by being a complete totalitarian police state where the police can literally assault you for no reason whatsoever and face no consequences. I'm not making that up.)

I experienced two surprises when I made the search.

The first, more minor surprise, was that Australia indeed has an official Constitution.

The second, more fundamental surprise, related to its contents.

You see, in the vast majority of constitutional countries the Constitution primarily establishes two things: The form of government, and fundamental citizen rights. (The Constitution of some countries may have other stuff in them as well, but those two tend to be the most important primary sections.)

Usually the former content deals with the form of government, how parliamentary representatives are elected, how the head of state is elected, what the roles of different governmental branches are, and so on. The latter content establishes fundamental human rights for all citizens of the country and, usually, restrict and limit what kind of laws the government can pass and what they can do to citizens.

To my surprise, the Constitution of Australia only and exclusively sets the form of government of the country. It does not have a single statute about citizen's rights. Not one. No freedom of speech, freedom of the press, right to travel, right to a fair trial... nothing. Not a single mention of anything of the sort.

No wonder the country is a totalitarian police state hellhole where people are taken to court for hurting people's feelings and the police can violently smash a random person's head onto the ground without any consequence.

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