[thechat] What?? WHAT?????

[isaac]

Paul, do you remember anything about changes to some kind of pledge within
the last year, in which Howard forced the inclusion of a religious reference
for his own personal preference?

Oh, that's right - the preamble that got voted down (pasted below). For
everyone else: he got help from a known poet to write this. And then tacked
on "With hope in God," at the start. And it pissed off enough people that it
was voted down at a referendum.


isaac


---
Prime Minister John Howard's draft preamble (1999)

With hope in God, the Commonwealth of Australia is constituted by the equal
sovereignty of all its citizens.

The Australian nation is woven together of people from many ancestries and
arrivals.

Our vast island continent has helped to shape the destiny of our
Commonwealth and the spirit of its people.

Since time immemorial our land has been inhabited by Aborigines and Torres
Strait Islanders, who are honoured for their ancient and continuing
cultures.

In every generation immigrants have brought great enrichment to our nation's
life.

Australians are free to be proud of their country and heritage, free to
realise themselves as individuals, and free to pursue their hopes and
ideals.

We value excellence as well as fairness, independence as dearly as mateship.
Australia's democratic and federal system of government exists under law to
preserve and protect all Australians in an equal dignity which may never be
infringed by prejudice or fashion or ideology nor invoked against
achievement.

In this spirit we, the Australian people, commit ourselves to this
Constitution.