The Federal Coalition Joint Party Room has today overwhelmingly endorsed
a draft preamble to the Federal Constitution to be put to the Australian
people in conjunction with the referendum on whether Australia should
become a republic later this year.
In issuing the text of that draft the Federal Government is inviting
public comment on it and that comment will be considered before the
final preamble document is put to the Australian electorate.
The preamble itself will be a schedule to an Act authorising the matter
to be submitted to a referendum. That legislation will be circulated
by the Federal Attorney-General, the Hon Daryl Williams MP.
The legislation will contain a clause declaring that the preamble
has no legal force or effect and cannot be invoked in the interpretation
of the Commonwealth Constitution. The text of the draft preamble approved
by the Joint Party Room is attached.
With hope in God, the Commonwealth of Australia is constituted by
the equal sovereignty of all its citizens.
The Australian nation is woven together of people from many ancestries
and arrivals.
Our vast island continent has helped to shape the destiny of our Commonwealth
and the spirit of its people.
Since time immemorial our land has been inhabited by Aborigines and
Torres Strait Islanders, who are honoured for their ancient and continuing
cultures.
In every generation immigrants have brought great enrichment to our
nation's life.
Australians are free to be proud of their country and heritage, free
to realise themselves as individuals, and free to pursue their hopes
and ideals. We value excellence as well as fairness, independence
as dearly as mateship.
Australia's democratic and federal system of government exists
under law to preserve and protect all Australians in an equal dignity
which may never be infringed by prejudice or fashion or ideology nor
invoked against achievement.
In this spirit we, the Australian people, commit ourselves to this
Constitution.