Despite the Australian Constitution having been one of the most stable since its commencement in 1901, it is becoming fatally flawed. The Naked Australian Constitution examines these flaws and the lack of public appreciation of those defects. This is due to several serious errors, including the racial basis of its origin, and the misleading nature of its text—with the High Court having interpreted it in a remarkably subjective manner, undermining the few express requirements and freedoms in the Constitution while also applying concepts that are not required by the constitutional text. As a result, the Constitution is now what the High Court says it is, instead of what it was expected to be by its drafters. Most Australians have no knowledge of the Constitution or its operation, but with the growing subjective application of the Constitution, this constitutional digression requires remedy by a Constitutional review. Ian Killey argues that without review, the Australian people will eventually see the Australian Constitution for what it is rapidly becoming—an Emperor with no clothes.

This is not a text book. It is what one person has learnt over more than half a century in a range of industries, locations and positions. It is designed to be read easily by anyone interested in a career in industrial relations or human resources or who is just curious as to what this vaguely understood activity is all about. I’ve tried to write in the conversational style I would use if I were sitting with you in an office or a tutorial room. Each page contains only one or two thoughts, so some pages are quite short. That’s to help you think about what I have to say. I’ve tried to cover the full ambit of the industrial officer role so, naturally, it has not been possible in a book of this size to address every aspect in full detail. Where I think it might be useful, I’ve referred to the works of other authors that deal with some subjects in much greater detail than I do here. Why ‘The Naked Industrial Officer title’? I use the name ‘industrial officer’, even though it is somewhat outdated in many organisations. I use it to cover all positions that fall within the ranks of the industrial relations profession. I have used the word ‘naked’ in the title as I will be attempting to strip away much of the mystery that surrounds industrial relations in the eyes of other branches of management. And for those who are new to the profession.

This book provides an engaging and distinctive treatment for anyone seeking to understand the significance and interpretation of the Constitution.

Australia's constitutional crisis of 1975 was not simply about the precise powers of the Senate or the Governor-General. It was about competing accounts of how to legitimate informal constitutional change. For Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, and the parliamentary tradition that he invoked, national elections sufficiently legitimated even the most constitutionally transformative of his goals. For his opponents, and a more complex tradition of popular sovereignty, more decisive evidence was required of the consent of the people themselves. This book traces the emergence of this fundamental constitutional debate and chronicles its subsequent iterations in sometimes surprising institutional configurations: the politics of judicial appointment in the Murphy Affair; the evolution of judicial review in the Mason Court; and the difficulties Australian republicanism faced in the Howard Referendum. Though the patterns of institutional engagement have varied, the persistent question of how to legitimate informal constitutional change continues to shape Australia's constitution after Whitlam.

The High Court, the Constitution and Australian Politics is an in-depth exploration of the relationship between decisions of the High Court and broader political currents in Australia. It begins with an investigation of the patterns and effects of constitutional invalidation and dissent on the High Court over time, and their correlation with political trends and attitudes. It also examines the role of constitutional amendment in expressing popular constitutional understandings in the Australian system. Subsequent chapters focus on the eras marked by the tenure of the Court's 12 Chief Justices, examining Court's decisions in the context of the prevailing political conditions and understandings of each. Together, the chapters canvass a rich variety of accounts of the relationship between constitutional law and politics in Australia, and of how this relationship is affected by factors such as the process of appointment for High Court judges and the Court's explicit willingness to consider political and community values.

Americans call themselves a democracy, but they are not. America has redefined democracy to make it conform to the capitalist economy and rule by wealth elites. When American leaders say they wish to make the world safe for democracy, they really mean that they want the world, including Australia, to subsume itself into this US project. Any process resulting in Australia absorbing more of the United States' corporatist political culture will result in the serious erosion of our own democratic ideals. Australia should resist this, especially at a time when such corporatist politics is losing its legitimation. We are better served by our own robust system of democracy.