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Similarities Between The American Constitution And The Australian Constitution

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The Australian and American Constitution : A Comparison Both the United States and Australia were colonized by the British Empire. British colonization in America began in 1607 in Jamestown. However, after the American War of Independence in 1783 , Great Britain had to find a new place to colonize. There was a great desire for a convict settlement because of overcrowding in British prisons, so in 1788 colonization began in Australia. When settlers arrived at the Sydney Cove, they completely disregarded the aboriginals and declared it a "no man's land". Later, similarly to America's "Manifest Destiny", the British crossed the Blue Mountains west of Sydney to open new frontiers, which brought more conflict with the aboriginal settlement. As …show more content…

A referendum is a vote by citizens over the age of 18, just like voting in an election. However, instead of voting on politicians like in an election, in a referendum people vote on a specific change to the Constitution. In a 1967 referendum, over 90% of Australian voters voted to change the Constitution to give the federal parliament the power to make laws in relation to Aboriginal people and to allow them to be included in the census. However, this referendum still did not recognize Aboriginal people as the first people of Australia. Even though now the Aboriginal people are mentioned in the Constitution, as former High Court Justice Michael Kirby said, " Constitutionally speaking we are still basically White Australia, however much we boast that we have changed." In fact, section 51 of the Constitution allows laws to be passed to the disadvantage of Aboriginal people, and section 25 enables state laws to discriminate and disqualify people of a particular race from voting in state elections. Although America's older version of the Constitution may have had something similar to this, it is very different from the United States Constitution today because the people in the U.S. are very sensitive to discrimination and fourteenth amendment forbids that from

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