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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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