Conversations with the Constitution: Not just a piece of paper

Describes the bitter power struggles of the Australian constitution's forging, and paints the founding fathers as implausible heroes who managed a profound historical achievement. It talks about parliaments, courts, judges and ministers not just as colourless instruments of the Constitution, but as the walking wounded of political psychology; and it sheds light on today’s great constitutional controversies: Do we need a Bill of Rights? Can federalism work? How can parliament work better? Can we ever be a republic?

‘A blunderbuss of a book. Craven is outrageous, shocking, vulgar, over-the-top. Yet from his larrikin prose may emerge a heightened interest in the Constitution which, for most Australians, is a black hole of ignorance and indifference.’ – Justice Michael Kirby, High Court of Australia

‘With good humour, Craven makes a strong case for our Constitution as a respectably practical document for a working federation of free people. The fine minds which drafted it deserve our admiration, and the democratic processes which gave it birth made it, genuinely, a people’s document that has stood the test of time.’ – *The Hon Bill Hayden AC, Governor General of Australia, 1989–1996*

Greg Craven is one of Australia’s best-known constitutional lawyers, and is Professor of Government and Constitutional Law at Curtin University in Perth. Craven was a leading republican advocate in the 1999 referendum, and was a delegate to the 1998 Constitutional Convention. He is widely regarded as one of the leading conservative intellectual voices on Australian constitutional issues.

Do you think Australia’s Constitution is a dry and dusty document, barely relevant to the 21st century?

Conversations with the Constitution will force you to think again. It shows the Constitution as a vibrant artefact of Australian culture, its history full of personalities, idiosyncrasies and even humour.

Author Greg Craven comprehensively debunks the idea of the Constitution as an accidental relic. He speaks of it irreverently but affectionately as one of the great democratic instruments of the modern world: a constitution, written by its own people, that has presided over a century of stable and fundamentally decent government. Conversations with the Constitution describes the bitter power struggles of the document’s forging, and paints the founding fathers as implausible heroes who managed a profound historical achievement. It talks about parliaments, courts, judges and ministers not just as colourless instruments of the Constitution, but as the walking wounded of political psychology; and it sheds light on today’s great constitutional controversies: Do we need a Bill of Rights? Can federalism work? How can parliament work better? Can we ever be a republic?

Conversations with the Constitution mixes the sacred with the profane to produce one of the sharpest and quirkiest books on Australia today.