Chapter summarising, analysing

Government-Business Relations 1004GIR – Reading Report

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Reading full reference

Richard, Eccleston, 2009. The Constitutional Foundations of Government' in Politics for Business Students: A Comparative introduction, Pearson Education, Sydney

Main point(s) made by the author(s)

According to the writer, constitution is a representation of a country’s foundation of legal system and politics. In his book, the author seeks to discuss the characteristics and importance of political constitution. He has selected the constitution of Australia as his base of this study. The author states that it is the constitution that sets rules and principle that govern a country. He further states that the constitution outlines government structure, limits governments power, and states citizen’s legal rights. According to the author, most constitutions are a combination of traditions associated conventions, and basic legitimate documents. Though the author puts more emphases in the hybrid constitution, he has also mentioned the other two types of constitution which includes conventional constitution and codified constitution.

Evidence and examples used

The author has used several examples in his book. In one of the examples, he has mentioned examples of constitutions; the author has created a table where in each type of constitution he has provided evidence of countries governed by the type of the constitution. The author has also provided evidence to show that the Australian constitution is a hybrid constitution. There is also an example provided by the author to prove that both Australian high court and the United States supreme court have rights of changing the original implication of the constitution. In the example, the supreme court amended the Australian law that banned children from violent video games in the Brown vs. Entertainment merchants association in 2010.

Strong and convincing parts of the text

There is strong evidence that the Australian constitution has served them very well. The stability in politics and the economic prosperity is the one proof that the constitution has been good. The author has given an example of the most powerful and significant constitution in the current modern world. This example is the United States’ constitution. To support his claims the author states that the United States’ constitution has full power separation between executive, legislature and judiciary. There is also a range of individual rights that the author claims they have been omitted in the Australian constitution. It is also strong and convincing for the author to state that most of the countries rely on the support of majority in a parliament (in most cases two thirds) to amend a constitution.

Weak and unconvincing parts of the text

The unconvincing and very weak points in the text are evident provided to show that the Australian constitution does not serve its people well. It is also not convincing to say that the Australian constitution is bad because it is too difficult to amend. According to the author a constitution that can be amended with ease makes it undemocratic. It is also unconvincing to call the Australian constitution a fusion of American and British governments’ system. The constitution is very broad and therefore it cannot be varied on political basis alone.