Nerdness Attack

[ideasinmotion]

Today my guy and I were watching an episode of 'The West Wing', about the fictional President Bartlett and the senior White House Staff, and Toby the Communications Director is standing next to his assistants desk and asks her for a copy of the Constitution. She said she didn't have one and he asked another girl. When she replied 'no' he yells

Comments

[dave_baker]

I have a copy of the Australian constitution. It's somewhat dull, because all it really does is lay out state and federal powers.

[ideasinmotion]

How is that any different from the U.S. Constitution?

[dave_baker]

The main difference is that it's not a full constitution- it doesn't mention the prime minister, it doesn't have a bill of rights, or any of the other things in the US constitution. All it does is lay out state-federal relations. The rest is covered by what is referred to as the 'unwritten constitution'- that is, practices that have evolved and are carried out but are not explicitly acknowledged by law.

[ideasinmotion]

Interesting. So what powers does a prime minister have that are unwritten?

[dave_baker]

In theory he is the 'first among equals'- that is, the PM has no special powers. However, in practice, it's far from that- the PM is generally given (by the party) the power to assign cabinet positions and fire people from them, and take on many of the roles that would normally be the privy of the head of state, if that office wasn't a non-democratic position- which includes meeting dignitaries, representing the Australian state, etc etc. On a whim the PM can take away power from various ministers- he went to the climate change summit to pretty much make the environment minister impotent, and has become so active in foreign policy that the foreign affairs minister has become somewhat a minor player when compared to the previous one.

So it's not really here nor there.