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Absolutism In Australia

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Based on this classification, Evans argues that apart from its formal headship, all of Australia’s institutions exercising public power are ‘modern republican’. His comment suggests that in addition to following Montesquieu’s doctrine of separation of powers, which seeks to divide the power of the government into three separate institutions, the Australian system also distributes power through a system of checks and balances. However, unlike the American Constitution of 1787, which, as table 1 and figure 3 demonstrates, divides the judicial, the legislative, and the executive into three relatively separate institutions that are “confined to the exercise of its own function”, Australia’s system of “rule from above” has led to what a former Vice …show more content…

However, early republican ideas did influence Australia’s political culture. As McKenna and Hudson note, since the colony of New South Wales was established in 1788, convicts were inspired by the bloody outcome of the French Revolution and with the works of Thomas Paine. As a result, it was during this period that a radical form of republicanism emerged as working-class convicts “quickly asserted their independence from the British caste”. In this sense, as loyalty to the Crown and traditionalism became the framework for political activity, the shooting of the republican pig highlighted that republicanism and anything outside of this traditional framework was considered to be the antithesis of the common law. The idea of republicanism as the monarchy’s political ‘other’ exacerbated in the 1830s. This is demonstrated by Governor Darling’s letter in 1827, which states, “the colony can no longer be preserved…the free press and bias legislative councils may result in an Australian republic”. His letter highlight’s that the struggle between the colonialists and the republicans was beginning to shape the political culture of New South Wales. It should be noted that the divisiveness over ‘the republic’ also led to different strands of republicanism. For instance, in addition to separatist yeomanry-radical and conservative-aristocratic republicanism, theological republicanism was promoted under clergyman John Lang. In contrast to the aspirations of the Irish radicals, Lang insisted that loyalty to Britain and equality under God would be the first priority for an Australian republic. However, as Lang’s attempts to appeal to the interests of the anti-Transportation League failed, Deniehy’s utopian republicanism, which was based on nationalism and democracy, gained mass support during the Eureka rebellion in 1854. Within two years, the emergence of colonial self-government

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