The Evolution of the Australian Electoral System as a Constitutional Process

George Winterton Memorial Lecture 2025

Authors

  • The Hon Chief Justice Stephen Gageler AC High Court of Australia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30722/slr.21122

Abstract

The form of popular sovereignty empowered by the Australian Constitution was framed to be government by ‘the people’ in constitutive and routine manifestations, both sustaining and sustained by the system of government it called into existence. It was framed to be dynamic — the design of the electoral system according to which the people would act in those distinct manifestations having been entrusted to development by ordinary legislation made by the Commonwealth Parliament. And this form of popular sovereignty can be seen to have evolved: through the development of a broad franchise and through the establishment of a system of compulsory and preferential voting by which that broad franchise has come to be exercised. The form of popular sovereignty empowered by the Australian Constitution can accordingly be seen today to be government by ‘the people’ writ large. In this lecture, I trace this evolution as a process by which ordinary legislation has built out the constitutional structure empowering popular sovereignty.

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Published

12-06-2025

Issue

Section

Lectures and Addresses