Will Bateman - Hanks Australian Constitutional Law Materials and Commentary, 11th edition

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This is the eleventh edition of Australian Constitutional Law: Materials and Commentary, first published in 1972 under the joint authorship of Jack Fajgenbaum and Peter Hanks.

Peter Hanks was responsible for the next four editions (19801994). The sixth edition was written by Peter Hanks, Deborah Cass and Jennifer Clarke (1999). The seventh edition was written by Peter Hanks, Patrick Keyzer and Jennifer Clarke (2003). The eighth edition was written by Jennifer Clarke, Patrick Keyzer and James Stellios (2009). The ninth edition (2013) was written by Jennifer Clarke, Patrick Keyzer, James Stellios and John Trone. The tenth edition (2016) was written by Dan Meagher, Amelia Simpson, James Stellios and Fiona Wheeler. This eleventh edition has been written by Will Bateman, Dan Meagher, Amelia Simpson and James Stellios. Material from earlier editions has been retained and adapted. The book has benefited considerably from the evolving authorship over many years, and the current authors gratefully acknowledge the work of their predecessors.

Although there have been many changes in the organisation and content of this book over the past 40 years, its basic objective has remained: to examine the institutional, particularly federal, aspects of Australian constitutional law.

Despite the shifts in the constitutional law agenda, the underlying issues and dilemmas remain. These issues focus on the proper role of constitutional law and judges in a democratic polity. This edition continues the tradition of analysing the major ongoing constitutional issues facing the High Court and exploring the tensions between the principles of parliamentary democracy and judicial law-making in the context of an evolving legal, political and social environment.

Our objective is not to present a comprehensive encyclopedia of Australian constitutional law, but to explore its principal themes and examine some basic issues which affect the location and the exercise of public power in Australia. The topics we have chosen for that examination raise fundamental questions about the organisation and functioning of our system of government, and illuminate the process of constitutional adjudication.

The present edition builds on the work of previous authors, while incorporating significant re-writing in some areas. Some material has been omitted from this edition and left for more specialised publications. Other material has been streamlined to maintain the books contemporary relevance and currency. The revised chapter arrangement from the previous edition has been retained. Chapter 1 (An Introduction to Australian Constitutional Law) has been streamlined and material on Parliament moved towards the front of the book in Chapter 2 (The Parliaments and Legislative Procedures). A separate chapter on Constitutional Interpretation and Characterisation (Chapter 3) follows. Commonwealth Legislative and Financial Powers are dealt with in Chapters 4 and 5 respectively. Chapter 6 deals with Federalism: The Legal Relations, Chapter 7, The Executive and Chapter 8, The Australian Judicial System. Chapter 9 considers Express Rights and Freedoms and Chapter 10 deals with Implied Rights and Freedoms.