My purpose in this book is to change the way Australians think about their constitutional system of government. Baldly stated, the argument is that Australia has a constitutional system that is fundamentally federal and republican rather than parliamentary and monarchic. That is not to deny the parliamentary and monarchic elements, but to put them in proper institutional perspective as subsidiary parts of the larger constitutional system. This larger constitutional system is controlled by the Australian Constitution, which is essentially federal and republican.

In being federal the Constitution sets up two spheres of government, Commonwealth and State, and divides powers between them. Clearly, as the legislative branches of such governments, which are controlled by the basic law of the Constitution, parliaments in the Australian system cannot be sovereign or supreme in a Westminster sense. The Australian Constitution is republican because it is entirely the instrument of the Australian people who are sovereign. The monarchic forms of Queen and vice-regal surrogates remain as the formal parts of the executives for both the Australian and State constitutions but are entirely subject to the will of the people, as are the legislatures or parliaments. Hence, in substance and effect, the Australian constitutional system is truly republican because the people are sovereign and all the institutions of government are subject to the rule of the Constitution with its checks and balances.