Great Scot September 2018 Gt Scot_154_September_online | Page 31

ABOVE LEFT: DELEGATES AT THE NATIONAL SCHOOLS CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. ABOVE RIGHT: ANTHONY JAMES
Great young
political minds
get together
The National Schools Constitutional Convention is a meeting place
of the great young political minds of Australia. For three days, students
from every state and territory meet to discuss and debate a constitutional
issue. For the 2018 convention, the issue was: ‘Is Section 44 relevant in a
modern Australia?’.
For those who haven’t memorised their founding document, Section
44 is concerned about the qualities of individuals that would disqualify
them from being nominated as members of parliament. With the Senate
suddenly appearing to be a farcical meeting of the United Nations, Section
44 came out of constitutional law obscurity to make headlines in every
newspaper under the sun.
To get to our nation’s capital to debate a matter of such importance,
I first had to make it through regional and state conventions. While I was
at these conventions, other important issues such as compulsory voting
and lowering the voting age to 16 were mentally jousted in the chambers
of the Victorian Parliament. From the roughly 120 participants at the state
convention, I was chosen to be one of the 24 delegates from Victoria.
To help us better understand the intricacies of constitutional law, and
the circumstances around Section 44, the convention provided us with
the opportunity to hear from many professionals in the legal and political
sphere. Academics such as Professor George Williams, Dean of the Law
Faculty at the University of NSW, and Andrew Phelan, Chief Executive
and Principal Registrar of the High Court of Australia, shared their opinions
and knowledge. By the end of the convention, our group of high school
students became a knowledgeable class of individuals able to prattle off
statistics and history relevant to the aforementioned clause with ease.
Yet, while a highly intensive event, with days 14 hours long, there were
always moments to stand back and enjoy the wonderful opportunity that
had been granted to us. One was on the second night, when we attended
a dinner at the High Court, its modern, brutalist architecture embodying
the symbolism of the weight of the law of the land, fitting for the document
we were debating at the time. During the dinner, there was a moment
where, standing on the balcony looking into the foyer and out towards
parliament, the true significance of where we were and what we were a
part of set in.
To finish the convention, all the delegates proposed amendments
to the constitution and a mock referendum was held between the
delegates from each state, run by the Australian Electoral Commission.
Amendments were proposed, so that the disqualifying factor for would-be
parliamentarians only applied when the members were sworn in, not
when they nominated for the job. Dual citizens were made eligible for the
parliament as long as they did not have an active ‘acknowledgement,
obedience or adherence’ to a foreign power, or became a dual citizen
during the course of their term.
As someone who is a dual citizen, and as I discovered during the
course of the convention a possible ‘tri-citizen’, these amendments were
something that I was happy to see. I was also impressed by the results of
the referendum, with a double majority being achieved (a majority of the
national vote, and a majority of states in favour), and Victoria being the
most progressive state with a vote of 83 per cent in favour.
Other highlights included talking with Senator Penny Wong, attending
Senate Question Time and being invited to attend a formal function at
Government House with the Governor-General, Sir Peter Cosgrove.
I encourage students with a passion in the civic sphere to strive to
participate in this event. I’m thankful to all the friends I made, to the
National Curriculum Services staff who helped run the event, and to
Scotch for providing me with this fantastic extension studies opportunity.
ANTHONY JAMES – YEAR 12
www.scotch.vic.edu.au Great Scot
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