This page is part of the Australian Constitutional Information Site

Government Under A Book of Rules:
A Citizens' and Politicians' Manual of the Constitutional Basis of Government in Australia, by John Pyke

Contents , Copyright and Attribution

This web text, or e-book, is still under development. You may find links, to later Chapters, that don't work, because the later Chapter isn't there yet. But please report any other errors, of content, coding, or linking, to me. Most later Chapters are at least half- written, and some are nearly complete, so I hope I will be posting a couple more each month - but we shall see. John Pyke

Contents

The following files are full of cross-links, so you can jump from one to another, or you can just read them in order like a regular textbook. They're also full of links to other sites, so you can chase the links forever and forget where you started! [Hint: right-click on any link to get a menu which includes opening it in a new browser window (or in Netscape 7, to open it under a new tab); then the window showing the page where you started will still be there on the task bar or under the original tab.]

Introduction

Part 1: History - The Development of Some Politico-Constitutional Ideas:

A. Constitutionalism, or Government Under Rules

B. Some Other Ideas from Britain - Sovereign Parliaments, Cabinets and Colonisation

C. The Arrival of These Ideas in Australia

Part 2: The Rules Now, in Australia

A. Rules that Set Up Institutions of Government:

B. Rules that Impose Limits:

Copyright and Attribution

This is an original work*, written by John Pyke. I assert the right to be identifed as the creator of this work, and reserve copyright. However, I licence any person to make a copy of this work for his or her own use, and copies for non-profit distribution to family or friends, and I licence teachers in schools or universities to make (or authorise the making of) multiple copies for non-profit distribution to their students, in each case subject to the condition that authorship is attributed to me and that this paragraph is fully included in the copy.

Note that in Australia there is now a general statutory obligation to correctly attribute authorship (as there has been in many other countries for some time) under Part IX of the Copyright Act 1968.

[Which means I'll come after you with a team of other lawyers, much meaner than myself, if you misattribute any of this stuff or make money out of it, but otherwise, please spread the info around to all and sundry!]

*Some parts of Chapters 1-4 and 6 were written as a consultant to the now-defunct Electoral and Administrative Review Commission of Queensland and the deal was that the Commission and I had joint copyright, but these have been substantially rewritten.

Compilers of "authority lists" for indexers please note - I'm the John Richard Pyke who was born in Melbourne, Victoria, in 1940.

Written by John Pyke, with a little help from DiDa! First posted 5th February 2002, last corrections June 2006.