The Alfred Deakin Vision: Friday 11th 8.30pm

Alfred Deakin believed that Australia needed more than a constitution. It had to be built and he set about establishing the machinery of government, the institutions necessary to the proper functioning of a new nation state, and some far-reaching social legislation.

Deakin's American friend, the idealist intellectual Josiah Royce, was greatly
struck by Deakin's "frank and intelligent confidence in the power of the state
to do a great deal for its subjects". As Attorney General in the Government of Edmund Barton, Deakin established the High Court of Australia and he established Australia's system of centralised wage fixing.

He was the political leader that effectively, institutionalised the Australian ideal of
the "fair go", introducing a system he called "New Protection", that linked
tariff protection to high wages and reasonable working conditions so that
Australia would be a nation where no-one was "left behind".

Speakers: Judith Harley
"Alfred Deakin – My Grandfather’s Legacy"   [Transcript]

Judith Harley is the daughter of Thomas White and his wife Vera Deakin. She studied Australian History at Melbourne University, is a former President of the Women's Committee of the National Trust and is closely involved with the Royal Historical Society of Victoria. More...

The Hon. Sir Anthony Mason AC KBE.
"Deakin’s Vision Australia’s Progress".   [Transcript]

Alfred Deakin intended that the High Court would not just interpret and safeguard the Constitution, but that it would also make law. Sir Anthony Mason, was Chief Justice at the time of one of the most significant and controversial decisions in the Court's history, the Mabo decision. He reflects on Deakin's vision for Australia at the time of Federation, and the issues that confront us as Australians today - issues like our place in the world, the Republic, Reconciliation, globalisation, education, and the environment. More...

Join our online forum to discuss vision in Australian politics. Have Australia and its politicians lost sight of the ideal of nation-building?

"I should say that our written Constitution, large and elastic as it is, necessarily limited by the ideas and circumstances which obtained in the year 1900....[Amendment is] a comparatively costly and difficult task and one which will be attempted only in grave emergencies. In the meantime, the statute stands and will stand on the statute-book just as in the hour in which it was assented to. But the nation lives, grows, and expands. Its circumstances change, its needs alter, and its problems present themselves with new faces. The organ of the national life which preserving the union is yet able from time to time to transfuse into it the fresh blood of the living present, is the Judiciary, the High Court of Australia or Supreme Court in the United States. It is as one of the organs of Government which enables the Constitution to grow and to be adapted to the changeful necessities and circumstances of generation after generation that the High Court operates . Amendments achieve direct and sweeping changes, but the court moves by gradual, often indirect, cautious, well considered steps, that enable the past to join the future, without undue collision or strife in the present."

- Deakin's second reading speech on the Judiciary Bill, Commonwealth Parliament, 18 March 1902.