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Edmund Barton seated with Alfred Deakin
Thomas Watson Collection no.1
Pictorial Collection

The Convention established a constitutional committee to which Samuel Griffith was appointed chairman, and Henry Parkes, Edmund Barton, Charles Kingston, Alfred Deakin, Andrew Inglis Clark and John Downer were elected members. In turn the committee elected a drafting committee, Griffith, Inglis Clark and Kingston would be responsible for drafting the new Constitution. When Inglis Clark fell sick, Barton’s position was suddenly elevated to the drafting committee for the new constitution.

Although Barton was disappointed that the first draft Constitution had not abolished the right of appeal to the Privy Council, it was, nonetheless, an extraordinary feat accomplished in an astonishingly brief period of three days. The draft Constitution drew upon the Constitutions of Canada, the United States and Switzerland, as well as the Westminster system. One of the democratic safeguards of the new Constitution, borrowed from the Swiss, was the clause that the Constitution could not be amended except by referendum.

 
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