Just as a comparison, I have posted the winning entry from the Canberra Times
competition below
the efforts of Howard and Murray.
What does everyone think?
Trudy
Trudy and Rod Bray wrote:
> THE AGE
> Tuesday 23 March 1999
>
> Draft preamble to the Constitution
>
> This is the text of the draft preamble to the
> Constitution released today by Prime Minister John
> Howard:
>
> '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.'
****************
After 100 years of Federation, at the start of a new Century and
Millennium, the People of Australia -secure in our identity, mindful of
our history and confident of our future -have elected to reshape our
Constitution as an expression of independent and united nationhood.
This new Constitution acknowledges the achievements of our past. All
Australians are the inheritors of our history: from the first
indigineous inhabitants who peopled this country for thousands of years
before European settlement and whose living culture and sacred
connections with the land so enrich the life and fabric of contemporary
Australia; to the first settlers of the original six colonies, whose
energy, courage, invention and tolerance laid the foundation for
continuing prosperity and of the free, open, stable, civil society we
all enjoy; and to successive immigrants from all corners of the world,
whose cultural inheritance forms part of the living mosaic of Australian
nationality.
This Constitution affirms our future and enshrines our values. We are a
free, sovereign and independent people; of many origins but a single
destiny; of diverse backgrounds but common goals; inheritors and
guardians of an ancient and unique land; dedicated at home to freedom,
justice and equality under the law; abroad, to peaceful partnership with
neighbors and the extended family of nations from which we come; and in
perpetuity to the tolerant and humane advancement of all our people.
Diane Ferry
Kingston
Canberra
>
>
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