Horse 3124 - Two Kinds Of Rugby Is Silly - Please Merge

As someone who is completely neutral on Rugby and who actively thinks that Rugby League is silly, it has long been a point of confusion for me as to why the two codes simply just don't give up and reunify. One code of Rugby seems sufficient but two looks very silly.

Once upon a time in the olden days, the football clubs who didn't want to play the kicking only game but did want to play the carry and kick game, stayed away from the formation of the Football Association. They would eventually all solidify their rules set on the carry and kick game from the Rugby School and as such called themselves the Rugby Football Union. The carry and kick game started as one unified game and would continue that way from the 1860s to the 1890s. 

Rugby League is basically the result of two semi-connected schisms in the north of England in 1895 and in Australia in 1907. At the heart of the matter was a pay dispute (namely that players wanted to be paid for their displaced time) but the Rugby Football Union wanted the game to remain amateur. Given the space and time of more than a century, I would expect that the two sets of rules would diverge wildly but they do not.

Both codes have long been at the point where they are fractured to the detriment of both of them. When it comes to international Rugby League, most of the world doesn't even care. Why bother? Of the 16 Rugby League World Cups, Australia has won 12. Of the 32 finalists of those 16 Rugby League World Cups just 3 have not been either Australia, New Zealand or Great Britain/England. The really small nations such as Fiji, Samoa and Tonga like to show up at the Rugby League World Cup but really they are just made up of ex-pat players in Australia, New Zealand or Great Britain/England.

The really big representative Rugby League competition is the State of Origin Series between NSW and Queensland. This is because of that same root cause, that they only meaningful international matches are between Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain/England, with the pacific island nations looking in from the outside.

International Rugby on the other hand, has at its core the Six Nations of England, Wales, Scotland, a combined Ireland, France, and Italy; with Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Japan, and a host of secondary nations such as Namibia, Georgia, Portugal, Romania et cetera. Comparing the two lists, everyone who is represented at international level in Rugby League, also has a viable Rugby team; for small nations such as Samoa and Tonga which both have populations smaller than the local government area that I live, the amount of overlap between the two competitions is surely ridiculous. 

However, when it comes to Rugby, apart from international rugby, the Rugby Union in the southern hemisphere is a complete basket case and in the northern hemisphere is is fractured in many many ways. The entirety of Super Rugby in the South Pacific, is now just Auckland, Waikato, Wellington, Christchurch, Otago, NSW, QLD, Canberra, Victoria, WA, Fiji and Moana Pasifika. The Seven clubs of South Africa left Super Rugby in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled season and have subsequently joined what used to be called the Celtic League to form the United Rugby Championship, which now means that a Warriors v Stormers match has the unlikely away distance of more than 13,000km. I do not know for how long, ten thousand kilometer away trips for South African teams on a regular basis, or vice versa, is viable.

As for the problem of the two codes of club rugby, one will always be the poor cousin of the other. Club Rugby in Australia is a joke. The NRL (National Rugby League) competition in Australia is a very massive thing. Likewise in New Zealand, the NZRL is a joke but the National Provincial Championship for Rugby is massive. Rugby League in England at club level is very big and club Rugby sort of exists in a different space but is much smaller in terms of team numbers.

In Australia, things like the Shute Shield in NSW, and Queensland's Premier Rugby and Country Rugby could logically be rolled into the state rugby league championships under whatever the new régime would be. It probably makes sense that Warringah and Randwick should be playing against the Newtown Jets and the North Sydney Bears, as that seems to be about the level of skill which is equivalent. 

Likewise, it also makes some kind of sense to me that the existing Super Rugby should exist alongside State of Origin as different pathways to go. Probably Super Rugby exists as a weird Champions League type thing, since players already move between the two codes now. At domestic club level, having only a single competition structure makes all kinds of sense.

At a national level, I do realise that people might feel some kind of loss but really apart from the Kangaroos whose cache has been massively devalued by virtue of never really having any serious competition, a single rugby world cup was always and still is the most sensible idea.

It seems to me from a logical point of view, that the duplication of two codes of rugby is unnecessary. Melding them back into one thing would be an incredibly complicated process but not insurmountable. Really apart from the enmeshing of club rugby and a bit of cleanup to do with provincial rugby, I see no reason why two codes should exist. 

Horse 3123 - Fragments XIX: A Murder Of Crows? No. Corvid-19

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7P - PORSWI - Ronaldo Can't Find The Sixth

Ronaldo must've been licking his lips at the thought that it was all so easy and when he drilled it home, he probably thought that he has somehow would back the clock to a time when he could destroy sides at all. The man with the flag had other ideas and Ronaldo like a mad thing, blew his lid like a pressure cooker.

The replay showed the supreme height of his arrogance. Not only was Ronaldo significantly offside to the point that there was nobody else around him but as the only other person in the Swiss half apart from the Swiss goalkeeper, this offside was so blatantly offside, that it could be seen from space.

At 5-1 the match had already devolved into a circus. Gonsalvo Ramos was clearly the ringmaster and directing everyone else around him as a series of sideshows, whereas Ronaldo trying to entertain the crowd wasn't just a clown, he was the whole clown car.

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6C - MMM Country

During the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar, as the late game begins at 6am Sydney Time, I have mainly watched the first half of the 6am games and then listened to the rest of the game on a pop-up Digital Radio station called SBS Football 1. SBS Football 1 usually takes its live feed from BBC Five Live in the UK but has also taken the English language feed from DW, CBC Radio 1, stations affiliated with NPR in America, and done commentary in house for matches where it couldn't get a live feed. SBS Football 2 will usually be the same game in one of the languages of the countries playing the match, or will take French services from France Radio and Spanish services from Radio Espana et cetera.

Australia uses DAB+ which is excellent if you are on the train, because AM radio will pick up the RF junk from the motors of the train (trains in Sydney are all EMUs), and FM radio will be completely obliterated because train carriages act as giant Faraday cages.

This post is not about football on the radio.

Since I have my wee little DAB+ radio with me, I like to scan the airwaves for other radio stations which pop in and out of existence. Apart from the main stations, the ABC hosts ABC Jazz, SBS has SBS Pop Asia and SBS Pop Desi, stations like Elf Radio have appeared for the Christmas season, Nova Radio has Nova 90s and Nova 00s, and Triple M in Sydney has MMM Classic and MMM Country.

MMM Country is a truly bonkers radio station. Being on DAB+, it like all digital stations can only be received with direct line of sight to the transmitting tower; which means that it is utterly useless at being broadcast to presumably its target market, people in the country. I have no idea if MMM Country actually does broadcast in country areas but I suspect that it does not. This begs the question of who this station exists for and I fail to have any kind of sensible answer.

So not only have I found a radio station which I do not understand who it is for, I have a radio station which I do not understand its content either.

I am bewildered by country music. I absolutely love the talent on display, which absolutely must exist because country music is generally played live, in front of bigger audiences, and with actual instruments instead of keyboards, sequencers and drum machines. Technically its amazing. However the subejct material, once you remove the universal stories of love, loss, poverty, anger, revenge, and going around the carousel of human emotions to do it all again, is really weird.

As someone who is very clearly not countrified, it seems to me that one could write a country song with only a few select words:

- warm night

- cold beer (whiskey, tequila are also acceptable)

- pickup truck

- tanned legs 

- blue jeans (painted on) 

Now again, the whole idea of having a repetitive and catchy song isn't a problem because pop music has been doing this ever since the Sons of Korah were doing call and response songs on the ten-string lyre but what is bonkers to me is that as evidenced by the sheer numbers of these kinds of songs on MMM Country (which I suspect isn't a very good sample size) is that someone thinks that people will buy them.

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2C - Copyleft

Broadly speaking there are three kinds of things that fall into the realm of copyright law. Copyright usually refers to sequential works, like books, television and films, and songs and other audio works. The fact that a thing has been published in usually enough to assert the right of the owner of the work to the right to claim royalties and remuneration from it. Then there are devices, wordmarks, logos and other visual detritus which a person wants to assert is their mark for establishing a brand. The last broad category are registered designs and patents; with the former being the physical look of a good which has been produced and the latter being control over some process which describes how to make a thing.

I do not dispute that someone should have the right to extract proper profits from their work. I do not dispute that someone who owns the rights to a book, film, design, patent, computer software, or other some such has the right to be properly compensated for the use and enjoyment of their stuff. What I find annoying is when copyright law actively impedes the enjoyment of an end user, long after the original rights holder has reasonably vacated the space and extracted their benefits first.

There is a delicate balancing game going on, where a work, such as a film or book, is owned by its readers. There is such a thing as author intent but when it passes into the hands of the reader, they are free to extract any kind of meaning or importance that they like from it. Where I find the impedence of the enjoyment of the end users particularly annoying, is when after a long period of time, there have been fandoms and/or communities built around the shared enjoyment of a thing; yet they aren't allowed to transform or borrow from the original work which brought them together.

Generally speaking, registered designs expire after about 20 years. The exceptions to this are when those registered designs are part of an enduring and ongoing use. Nobody for instance would dispute the right of the Coca-Cola company to assert their right to their famous bottle. Not only is it in current use but is features very prominently in their ongoing brand and marketing.

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30T - These Is Thesises

The point of the matter is that if I want to, I can generate about 2000 words a day. This means that for a thesis length document, I could have that kind of job done in less than two months. However, writing a thesis is no mere matter of vomiting a hundred thousand words onto the page, be it electronic or paper. A thesis is by definition an academic research paper and that means by default that there has to have been at least a hundred thousand words of research worthy material which gets put through the grinder and sausaged.

The art of writing a thesis then, is not the art of writing 100,000 words. Any fool with two months can blork up a thesis length piece of gibberish nonsense schnick nuck neigh. No, the art of writing a thesis is the art of doing hours and weeks and months and years, of tedious and often difficult research and work to test hypothesis, to finally wrangle truth out of existence. 

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24C - O 0 Oh Canada?

During the first half of this game, Canada have looked as if they have no idea that they are supposed to lay down and die at the feet of Belgium. Belgium started out this match with a sense of entitlement as they made the pitch very very big indeed, by stretching out passes and making the Canadians run further than they've ever run before. Canada though, has a squad in which exactly zero players were alive when they last featured in a World Cup. To give you an idea of just how long ago Mexico '86 was, Canada's last match in a World Cup tournament proper, was a 1-0 loss to the Soviet Union.

Canada, after they got over the initial shock of being made to run like rabbits, spent a great deal of the first half pressing forwards and getting in the face of the Belgian back three. They were rewarded 11 minutes into the first half with a penalty after a handball the ball in in the six yard box. Alphonse Davis did not deliver Canada's first goal at a World Cup.

The rest of the story of the first half as Canada is concerned is that they were simply unable to convert any of their 11 chances into a goal. Belgium when they did press forward looked like they were supremely cool and when X scored the only goal of the match, any kind of Canadian confidence instead of big and bouncy was deflated and became wrinkly and small.

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23S - The Net Weight Of A Cruise Ship

During the voyage of a cruise ship, the net weight of that cruise ship is the heaviest immediately after all of the passengers have been loaded on board. Matter can not be created nor destroyed; which means that the only thing that can happen from this point onwards is that all of the fuel on board, both for the ships engines and the people on board for their internal combustion, is chemically converted and some of it is burned. The results are then energy and the release of two major gases, which are Carbon Dioxide and Dihydro Monoxide. 

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17M - Prithee Mustang?

There's just something which feels altogether wrong about the Mustang. The wheelbase is slightly longer than a Falcon but not markedly wider. The seating position is lower but you don't really feel any more grounded. Although I have driven Falcons where the steering was vague, or the suspension tired and floaty, it still did a better job of communicating its road attitude through the seat of your pants to you.

I am not sure if this is the kind of car which does well in A/B testing with an American public, who likely wants smoother cars so that they can eat up the miles on smoother interstate highways but it just doesn't do it for me. The Toyota GT86 which is very pitchy, or a BMW 4er which is equally as anonymous in communicating its road dynamics to you, both do the job better.

Maybe the Mustang is for people who like the thought of the 8 cylinder rock concert up front but are too old to rock out properly. The Falcon coupe that I had oh so many years ago, was only a six cylinder but the amount of power and torque coming from up front was more than enough to scare the jinkies both out of you and back into you.

The current Mustang is in my not very well paid opinion a true GTO type car - Grand Turismo Obligato - that is, it exists because Ford feels that they are obligated to make this car. Mustang II was like this at the time. Fox Body Mustang which has now received a sort of nostalgic love, is looked on more fondly now that it was at the time. Mustangs 3 and 4 were both anonymous. It could very well be that the problem here is me. I have driven both the original Mustang and various Falcons; so in my mind, the car is supposed to somewhat good but instead, the current Mustang is just this vague thing which isn't sure of itself and doesn't communicate anything to the driver.

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Horse 3122 - Constitutional Survey - XIII (Final)

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128. Mode of altering the Constitution

This Constitution shall not be altered except in the following manner:

The proposed law for the alteration thereof must be passed by an absolute majority of each House of the Parliament, and not less than two nor more than six months after its passage through both Houses the proposed law shall be submitted in each State and Territory to the electors qualified to vote for the election of members of the House of Representatives.

But if either House passes any such proposed law by an absolute majority, and the other House rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with any amendment to which the first-mentioned House will not agree, and if after an interval of three months the first-mentioned House in the same or the next session again passes the proposed law by an absolute majority with or without any amendment which has been made or agreed to by the other House, and such other House rejects or fails to pass it or passes it with any amendment to which the first-mentioned House will not agree, the Governor-General may submit the proposed law as last proposed by the first-mentioned House, and either with or without any amendments subsequently agreed to by both Houses, to the electors in each State and Territory qualified to vote for the election of the House of Representatives.

When a proposed law is submitted to the electors the vote shall be taken in such manner as the Parliament prescribes. But until the qualification of electors of members of the House of Representatives becomes uniform throughout the Commonwealth, only one-half the electors voting for and against the proposed law shall be counted in any State in which adult suffrage prevails.

And if in a majority of the States a majority of the electors voting approve the proposed law, and if a majority of all the electors voting also approve the proposed law, it shall be presented to the Governor-General for the Queen's assent.

No alteration diminishing the proportionate representation of any State in either House of the Parliament, or the minimum number of representatives of a State in the House of Representatives, or increasing, diminishing, or otherwise altering the limits of the State, or in any manner affecting the provisions of the Constitution in relation thereto, shall become law unless the majority of the electors voting in that State approve the proposed law.

In this section, Territory means any territory referred to in section one hundred and twenty-two of this Constitution in respect of which there is in force a law allowing its representation in the House of Representatives.

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Section 128 lays out the method by which the Constitution can be altered and it s a big monstrosity of a thing.

The Short version of s.128 is:

1. There needs to be 67% approval in both of the Houses for a Constitutional alteration to be put to the people.

1a. If not, the Governor-General can override this and still put it to the people.

2. There needs to be a majority of electors.

2a. In a majority of states.

2b. People who live in a territory are not part of 2a.

3. And if the parliament wants to fiddle with the proportionate representation of any State, then that state has to also agree with it.

Before the 1977 referendum, only electors in the six states could vote at a referendum. Since the 1977 amendment was carried with 77.72% of the vote (see 2) and passed 6 states to nil (see 2a), the voters of the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory have been eligible to vote in referendums. The law post 1977, now means that territorian votes are now counted towards the national total but the Territories do not count as states for the purpose of the requirement for a majority of states (see 2b).

Of the 44 referenda which have been held in Australia, only 8 have passed. That's just 18%. If you include the 4 plebiscites , then this improves to 20% but it's still awful. This and the fact that I think that rights are things which should always be subject to constant review due to old rights becoming obsolete and new rights being discovered, is the reason why I like that the Constitution doesn't have a bill of rights and not should it. If 4 times out of 5, a referendum is not going to pass, then something really important should be decided by legislation. To this end, is the teleology of the Constitution, that is the "why" of the thing. 

The telos of the Australian Constitution can be found all the way back in clause 5:

"This Act, and all laws made by the Parliament of the Commonwealth under the Constitution, shall be binding on the courts, judges, and people of every State and of every part of the Commonwealth, notwithstanding anything in the laws of any State;"

- Clause 5

The Constitution, is the set of rules which defines how you make rules. I very much think that a Bill of Rights, which is a claim by the people on the entity which has the set of rules, in principle runs counter to what the Constitution is for.

More broadly a constitution is in essence a contract between:

- the entity and each member: which in this case is between the Commonwealth and the people as a whole.

- the entity and each director: which in this case is between the Commonwealth and the directorship which is the parliament.

- the entity and the secretary: which in this case is between the Commonwealth and the Governor-General.

- every member with every other member: which in this case is between the people and the people.

People just don't live very long in relation to nations. People are like dandelions. They spring up and blossom for a while, the winds of history snuff them out just as quickly and leaves nothing to show that they were ever here at all. Unless you are someone famous or infamous, your name is just as likely to blow away on those same winds of history. The nation ultimately belongs to the living and not to the dead; so anything that the dead might have had to say to us, can be taken as advice but is still mostly only just that. 

Contracts should be able to be changed if the terms are disagreeable to the parties. Making the underlying contract difficult to change because you falsely believe in the forever wisdom of some imagined patriarchy in the past, is the height of stupidity.

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Oath

I, A.B., do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, Her heirs and successors according to law. SO HELP ME GOD!

Affirmation

I, A.B., do solemnly and sincerely affirm and declare that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, Her heirs and successors according to law.

(NOTE – The name of the King or Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland for the time being is to be substituted from time to time.)

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Victoria, Edward Seventh next and then,

George the fifth in 1910.

Ed the Eighth soon abdicated,

Then George The Sixth was coronated.

After which Elizabeth,

Charlie Three upon her death.

Then Will and Kate might soon arrive,

And might well reign while they're alive.

George the Seventh maybe after,

If there is no foul disaster.

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Horse 3121 - C2 - Adequate

Christmas 2022 is different from the recent few that we've had in that it will not be accompanied with the very real fears of COVID-19 coming to dinner. Instead, we've all been invited by the media to engage in a glorious worldwide mass super-ultra-spreader event in what is already being called by this sentence: SARS Cov-2, Electric Boogaloo. 

This year, a big marketing push which is different from previous years, is the "The Most Triangle Time Of The Year" campaign for Toblerone; which is trying to unseat Ferrero Rocher as the gift of choice for people that you don't know very well (and maybe don't like). In the Twittersphere this has been met with howls of derision and or praise, as this is one of those classic arguments where because the stakes are exactly nil, then this is the most important argument in the history of ever. There are those people who apparently hate Toblerone and cite that it is too pointy and hurts to eat and then there are those from whom this is several kinds of fantastic. 

But lo! I fall into a third and interesting category. I am the radical centre. As someone who has already rated lots of various kinds of chocolate (see Horse 2878) then I already have a scale and a rating which I can apply. Here it goes. Toblerone is...

C2 - Adequate.

Whoa!

I realise that there is nothing wrong with things that are C2 Adequate but they're not particularly brilliant either. You know what? That's fine. Even the concept of a thing being C2 Adequate maps back onto the rating of C2 Adequate. There's nothing wrong with things that are C2 Adequate but they're not particularly brilliant either. You know what? That's fine. Even the concept of a thing being C2 Adequate maps back onto the rating of C2 Adequate. There's nothing wrong with things that are C2 Adequate but they're not particularly brilliant either. You know what? That's fine. Even the concept of a thing being C2 Adequate maps back onto the rating of C2 Adequate. There's nothing wrong with things that are C2 Adequate but they're not particularly brilliant either. You know what? That's fine. Even the concept of...

[ctrl-k]

I do not think that we celebrate the adequate and the mundane enough. I think that because humans are in part hedonistic, which is partly useful in bio-electro-mechanical meatbag machines, that we have a tendency to always want new and better experiences when in actual fact being satisfied with what is perfectly adequate is good enough. There are two engineering maxims that encompass this perfectly. Firstly YAGNI (You Ain't Gonna Need It) which can be applied to the design and purchase of a whole bunch of things; and secondly "Good Enough is good enough", which is related. 

Toblerone - C2 Adequate

The most exciting things about Toblerone are its shape and the little bits of nougat/nuts in it. Otherwise, it is a C2 Adequate chocolate. Admittedly the name Toblerone is fun to have turned into custom nonsense like Toboblernone ot Tobrollerbob but apart from that, it doesn't even warrant description. Toblerone is a thing which exists.

The Entire State Of Victoria - C2 Adequate

Melbourne has trams which are fun and trains which are fun but if you don't happen to live within close proximity of those, then Melbourne is just like any other city. Victoria is not simply just Melbourne though. It has some country areas, alpine areas, plains areas, seaside areas; so as far as wanting anything markedly different from the other states in the Commonwealth, it can not deliver. 

Depending on who you are, the current Labor Government which is headed by Premier Dan Andrews is either a shining light in the darkness or the devil incarnate. This discourse is aided and abtetted by The Age, the Herald Sun, Channels 7, 9 and to a lesser degree 10. Victoria as a state is either super-brilliant or has become a cesspit of Danistan. There is no middle ground here. When you take an average of the discourse, what you're left with is a state which is C2 Adequate.

Sport Utility Vehicles - C2 Adequate

Nobody buys an SUV because they expect a performance machine. Nobody buys an SUV because they expect something fun. I think that the vast majority of people who buy SUVs simply want to go from A to B, without ever thinking aboiut going to C or D. E is right out of the question. These people just want something big enough to put their stuff and their sprogs into and that's it. These are the kind of people for whom the quality of the stereo is important, for whom things like the seats and air-con are important, and for whom the car is mostly irrelevant. 

I have no doubt that SUVs are brilliantly engineered but they do most jobs, badly. If you want to haul things, get a ute, or a van, or a wagon. If you want something fuel efficient, get a hatchback. If you want something sporty, get a proper sports car. SUVs are all the compromises that anyone can think of, all combined into a perfectly adequate product. 

Coldplay - C2 Adequate

Nothing else needs to be said about this.

Wednesday - C2 Adequate

People will cite Friday as the day that everyone looks to the weekend, or Thursday as the day when people feel that the week is dragging on but there's nothing really to say that Wednesdays are good or bad. They just are. If you're doing work on a Wednesday and if needs to be carried on with, it's still going to be there the next day. If you need something done by a tradesperson, then Wednesday is generally a day that they will be available to do it on. As far as days of the week goes, Wednesday is in the top 4 and in the bottom 4. It just exists.

People - C2 Adequate

In the aggregate, people are selfish, stupid, obnoxious and daft, cruel, unthinking, and blinkered. We only ever really see what's immediately in front of our faces and then try to extrapolate the entire universe based upon our own limited experience. There are some truly hideous people who weaponise cruelty and blinkering through the use of power and violence and these people probably account for about 5% of everyone in the world. Then there are those people such as teachers, hospice nurses, bus and train drivers, some police officers, charity workers and medical workers in the field, and people who give pastoral care, who make the rest of use look like the pond scum we are. These are the good people who seem to derive energy from helping others. This is not about them.

Most of us, the great 95% of people are selfish, stupid, obnoxious and daft, cruel, unthinking, and blinkered but evidently, we are capable of pleasantness, being kind, doing things out of a sense of altruism, being affectionate, and actually daring to love people. In the aggregate we create families, commonwealths, communities, tribes and nations, and that also includes smaller pieces of data which includes amazing feats of physical endurance, creativity, and building great things. I live in a city of about 5 million people; which mostly came about by accident, where people have built houses, roads, schools, hospitals, shopping centres, et cetera. That's pretty neat. 

On the whole, as people are both cruel and selfish and kind and create families and communities, we are gloriously C2 Adequate. 

Cadbury Vegemite - F

Still poor.

Horse 3120 - A Plastic Spoon In My Mouth

The 2022 edition of the FIFA World Cup increased the playing squad numbers of the teams from 23 to 26, as a concession to the allowance that there are now 5 substitutions allowed in most levels of football. While I have seen kit numbers which are exotically bonkers (including numbers as high as 99, numbers like 0, 00, 03, and nerdy things like π and e) in other competitions, I am old enough to be able to remember 10 World Cups and 9 of those only had 23 players in a squad; which meant that the highest kit number was 23. 26 is a slightly weird thing to look at.

After speaking to a good friend of mine, I was asked about whether or not having 5 substitutions changed the game for the better or worse. This is quite a sensible question as as there are only 11 players on the pitch, having the ability to change 5/11 (45%) of the playing staff at once, will markedly change the complexion of both the side and can markedly change the complexion of the match. From a team management perspective this is quite excellent because if you are trying to break a 0-0 duck or are losing badly, then any, all, and as many options as possible is more gooder¹. 

Let's take a trip back in time to the beginning of professional football. In the 1870s, sides were still amateur and in the age of 'improvement', sport itself was endowed with probably a sense of greater nobility than was necessary. 11 players were named on a side and maybe a concession would be allowed to replace someone if they were obviously injured but in general the 11 players which started the match would be the 11 players who ended it. This presents problem in and of itself. If you have a player who is injured and especially if they are in a critical position such as playing as the goalkeeper, then an injury could vastly change the outcome of a match. 

It wasn't until 1958 that 1 player could be named as a 12th man; which brought football in line with cricket. From what I have seen from looking through FA Cup Final lists, the number 12 was almost always a second goalkeeper or there would be someone in the existing XI who could be changed out of their existing kit and into the goalkeeper's No.1 kit. 

It wasn't until 1987 that 2 players could be named in addition to the 11 on the pitch and curiously, this usually meant that the substitutes would be assigned the kit numbers of 12 and 14. 13 was usually ominously missing². Plenty of fixtures were played where no substitutes were made at all, right up until the 1980s. The prevailing theory was that a manager would play their best XI and that they'd have the best chance of winning. Of course it was really only in the 1980s when the quality of players started to be objectively measured that anyone did consider that someone from the best XI might actually be worse at the 60 minute mark than someone who was nominally worse but fresher.

In 1994 and after the invention of the Premier League, when wages exploded as a result of money from BSkyB and massive amounts of revenue from advertising, that the clubs started complaining that 2 players was not enough. The 1994/5 season saw the introduction of 3 substitutes from 3 reserves.

The 1998 FIFA World Cup, which at this stage was football stepping into the hundreds of millions of dollarpounds in revenues, allowed 3 substitutes from 5 reserves. and this remained until the grand unpleasantness of 2020 when the SARS Cov-2 pandemic decimated playing squads and so the rules were changed yet again to allow 5 substitutes from 9 reserves.

At international level though, since national football associations were sending squads of 23 around the world, instead of naming just 5 on the bench, the whole remaining 12 were named. A manager at international level now had the ability to substitute anyone from their touring squad onto the pitch. 

Of course this does beg the question of what would happen if unlimited substitutions were allowed and we have answered that very question in international football. What happens, is quite frankly, absurd. The most heinous example that I can think of of unlimited substitutions was in 2003 when England played Australia at Upton Park. Sven Goran Eriksson swapped out all 11 players at half time; which meant that for the second half, Australia was playing an entirely different side³. 

So what do I think? 

If I was Grand Poohbah and Lord High Everything Else, then in my not very well paid opinion, we have already seen the sweet spot for the numbers of substitutions allowed and the depth of the bench allowed. I think that 3 substitutes from a bench of 5 allows a manager to select a forward, a midfielder, a defender, and a goalkeeper, and someone else; to replace anyone who is injured or very tired, with a like for like player. Three substitutes is I think, the upper bound of what is sensible in order to not fundamentally change the complexion of the side on the pitch.

Managers and coaching staff will want as many options available to them all of the time because their objective is to win football matches. Of all the things that don't matter, sport is the thing which matters most of all, and since sport doesn't matter, then winning by all means necessary and within the rules available, should always be first, foremost, and last, on the minds of all of the players and managers and coaching staff who play by proxy.

Likewise, the people who play the really stupid sport of money, up in the corporate boxes (and who have ruined the game for everyone else) also want as many options available to them all of the time because their objective is also to win football matches. Players aren't just players but assets who need to be protected for maximum optimal usage.

Also as a corollary to this, as players are listed as multi-million dollarpound assets, the people up in the corporate boxes want to display their assets more often. As playing squads are now 40 and 50 odd players deep, the idea that the same XI would play week in and week out, has been unheard of in a very long time. Having massive squads also necessitated players having permanent squad numbers, simply because the entire XI might change from one week to the next and even if they didn't, a player might be listed in different positions from week to week and that would mean that they had different numbers throughout the season. Having players in the same kit number is also handy for replica kit sales.

I have watched a lot of World Cup Finals and FA Cup finals (albeit not necessarily in prosecution of this question) and I think that matches from the 1960s and 1970s do have a quality which is not evident in modern matches. That level of tiredness which descends is something which is lost in the modern game. Players had to dig deep within themselves to find something late in a match. I do not think that this happens to anything like a degree of that any more. Players are professional, players are fitter and stronger, and players are playing with the knowledge that they can be replaced. They now play with that knowledge and are far more prone to throw themselves around like ragdolls. When both managers and players knew that the 11 players who started the match, were also going to be the same 11 players who ended it, the game was played at a slower speed through sheer necessity. It looks absolutely amazing now that the Preston North End side with won the League and Cup Double in 1888/89, not only undefeated but also passing through the FA Cup without conceding a goal, only used 11 players all up. 

As someone who has played the game and watched the game, I actually like the idea that players get tired and that performance can drop off during a match. It does mean that substitutions are a tactical card which can be played and under the conditions of 3 substitutions from 5, the impact of a triple substitution is crazy and immense. I also like the idea that management needs to be careful so that they do not run out of options. I think that 3 substitutions from 5 is the sweet spot, where both the tiredness of players and the unexpected impact of substitutes is most entertaining.

¹I like the distinction between "better" and "gooder" because they imply something slightly different. 

²The first ever player to appear in a No.13 kit in an FA Cup Final squad was Kevin Hitchcock who was listed as the replacement keeper for Chelsea in 1993. It would not be until 2002 when William Gallas actually appeared on the pitch as a player in the No.13 kit.

³This match answered that philosophical poser of the Ship of Theseus (or Captain Cook's Axe). It turns out that if you do replace every single part, then you still end up with the same thing; even if you replace all of the parts at once. England was still England and as such, England was still rubbish6

Horse 3119 - Constitutional Survey - XII

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127. (repealed by referendum - 1967)

In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted.

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Section 127 warranted an entire post by itself; even though it was repealed more than 50 years ago. The referendum which repealed Section 127 did not do a whole lot in terms of actual legislative change (see below) but the referendum was very much a symbolic demonstration of solidarity, for first peoples who had been made to suffer shamefully by a history full of mistakes and deliberate knavery.

The most generous reading of Section 127 would suggest that the reason why it existed at all, was to do with the physical difficulty posed in conducting the census which was necessary to calculate the entitlements for State representation in the House under Section 24. In this reading, the reason for Section 127's existence is the practical problem of physically counting Aboriginal people across the wide expanses of nothingness, which most of the continent of Australia is. This however is way too simplistic to be sensible. 

People like the Attorney-General Sir Samuel Griffith said that "the Aborigines did not count [as citizens], hence they did not need to be counted". Perhaps there was the remote possibility that if Aboriginal people were counted in the census, then they might start demanding the basic rights of citizens, such as the franchise and the right to be heard by the parliament. Given that the states had since the inception of the several Crowns in Australia, been active in the process of dispossession and extermination of Aboriginal people, then the newly minted Crown which held the personhood of the Commonwealth of Australia, was hardly likely to want to extend rights which the states in some cases, did not confer. Other provisions of the Constitution such as Section 109, explicitly state that when there is a difference between State and Federal legislation that Federal legislation overrides State legislation; which means that had those right been conferred and confirmed at Federal Law, then whatever provisions that the States has, would be rendered void. Besides which, the excuse that there would be little benefit in counting people whom the several states has already decided were lesser classes than steerage passengers, was more than enough to keep the rest of the predominantly white population happy.

How you read Section 127 is very dependent on what existed elsewhere in the Constitution. As stated, Section 24 in reckoning the number of members that each state is entitled to in the House of Representatives, needs to take a census of the population. Any statistics which are needed to calculate the numbers of population which exist, are derived from the power in Section 51(xi). 

As usual money spoke for money and in the debates in the 1897–98 Federation Convention, particularly delegates from Victoria and New South Wales kicked up a stink about Queensland being entitled to extra seats and possibly extra monies from the Commonwealth purse by way of grants, if a provision like Section 127 was not included. They argued that the states with larger Aboriginal populations would be entitled to benefits and some expression albeit half-heartedly was expressed that those benefits would not flow to Aboriginal peoples.

Section 127's purpose therefore can only be taken to be the prevention of inclusion of Aboriginal people in section 24 determinations, because doing so would prevent any Indigenous populations from having any influence in determining the numbers of members of the House, as decided by the Australian Electoral Commission. The actual language of section 127 is pretty sneaky and doesn't actually include the words "statistics" or "census"; which means that the Commonwealth still retained the power to collect data on the Aboriginal populations. This combined with the specific exclusion clauses from the "race power" Section 51 meant that the actual responsibility for dealing with Aboriginal people was left to the individual states; who either ignored them or saw them as a problem or a pest.

From this side of more than 50 years after Section 127, we may be tempted to think that its repeal conferred rights upon Aboriginal peoples. It did not. It did not confer citizenship, nor the right to vote, nor necessarily an improvement in conditions, nor even any kind of recognition of any original sovereignty which was denied in the first place. Citizenship and the right to vote were largely dealt with in various acts of state parliaments by about the end of 1962. The repeal of Section 127, merely changed the terms upon which other items in the Constitution derived. Symbolically though, it was an important step towards justice; but only one step.

The difference between the repeal of Section 127 and modern attempts to make reconciliation between the Commonwealth and First Peoples, is that the 1967 Referendum encountered very little opposition, even from quarters like the IPA and other conservaterati because the repeal of Section 127 didn't radically alter the power dynamics of the nation. What is yet to come; which might result from referenda for Voice et cetera, will change the power dynamics of the country and to be honest, if First Peoples actually do get a say on what happens to them and their traditional lands, they might very well object to mining and other exploitative practices and the conservaterati certainly can not have that. 

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Horse 3118 - You Are Not The Arbiter Of "Fairness"

And so this is Christmas. This means that for the vast majority of people, they are looking forward to their calendars clicking over and then getting the new date of 2023. People like me who live in the land of accounting and taxation, have already been living in the year 2022/23 for the past five and a half months. This is just the half way point. 

As this is Christmas, there is always a spike in the number of clients who want to put their affairs in order before they go on holidays. One client in particular, who earns enough in dividends, interest and rent, to earn more in just the interest on those dividends, interest and rent, than the median wage, came in for her now infamous annual complaint:

"Why do I have to pay all this tax? It's just not fair." 

We calculated that the amount of tax that she would have to pay, was more than $50,000. That sounds like a lot until you consider what kind of income is needed to produce that kind of tax bill. 

Admittedly, some of this comes from the fact that as she is old, she will remember a time when the prices of things were tenfold cheaper and then tenfold cheaper again. This however doesn't change the central reason why she thinks that having to pay tax at all is likely unfair. I suspect that she might very well complain at the apparent unfairness of having to pay $1 in tax. What is 'fairness' though? What is unfair? Why do we think we can decide? 

Fairness, or rather our perception of fairness, like everything else in the world, is I think, warped by the central unavoidable fact that the centre of the universe is 19mm behind people's eyeballs. We are the heroes of our own story. We all pretend to be the heroes on the good side. As heroes of our own story, I think that our very concept of fairness, is itself warped and in very many cases, our idea of fairness is nothing more than rational (or irrational) self-interest masquerading behind the filter of our own perception.

Suppose I come at this from another angle. Fairness, that is the idea that consequences should logically follow from a set of rules which are applied and appropriate punishments metered out for transgressions of those rules, is backed by an appeal to some moral authority. The rules exist; therefore there should be some moral arbiter who gets to decide how those rules are applied. It must be said though, that that appeal to some moral authority, necessitates the invention of that moral authority. Things can not be judged as fair unless there is some judge to judge things as fair.

This is why we appoint referees in sports. The football World Cup, having just been played in Qatar and been won by Argentina, has a very small number of rules and a very small number of judges and referees who are on neither of the sides which are playing. This is also why we appoint judges in courtrooms, police officers in the streets, and politicians in parliaments. All of them are charged with the responsibility of judging, enforcing, and making the rules. Underlying all of this, is what looks like an innate sense of right and wrong. We think that we have a mens conscia recti, a mind aware of what is right, but do we really? Or is it yet again just our rational (or irrational) self-interest masquerading behind the filter of our own perception?

We expect the world, we expect the kosmos at large, to comply with our sense of fairness. Even from small children, our parents tell us that there are rules and enforce them. "Because I said so" is not only a statement that there are rules ("I said so") but a statement that there is an authority ("Because I"). The "Because I" in this case, is a parent. Our teachers teach also tell us that there are rules. Work hard and you will pass an exam. All kinds of teachers teach us that following the rules comes with rewards for doing so. Be good and you will receive some lollies (or possibly not). Press button; receive bacon. Be bad and you will get no lollies. Fail to press button; receive no bacon.

Reality though has other ideas. Even if you study really hard, you could still fail an exam. Even if you work really hard, you could still miss out on a promotion. Even if you are really polite and act nicely, that other person might not return your affection. Here's the problem. We expect the world, we expect the kosmos at large, to comply with our sense of fairness. The problem isn’t that life is unfair; it is that people have a broken idea of fairness, which stems from the fact that we all are the heroes of our own story.

As we are the heroes of our own story, we have a tendency to get frightfully disappointed when other people do things which don't validate our sense of our heroship. Think about that person who you took a fancy to but didn't return or validate your affection. That person is a complete and autonomous person in their own right. That person has an entirely different set of experiences, of desires, or wishes, and affections, that are different to you because they are not you. That person is someone with years of lived experience which are completely different to yours. Worse, they deal with hundreds and maybe thousands of people in a year, that also are not you. Exactly what are the odds that you are not the first pick for their affections? Just because you feel something for them, does not mean that they are obliged to return that affection. Your own sense of heroship might very well be offended their decision is not about you. If this is a judgement which is about you, then apply that same juddgement in the other direction. Equally think about the people whom may have expressed some kind of affection to you but you did not reciprocate. 

Apply this same judgement to positions of authority. People will often say that they hate their bosses, or their parents, or politicians, or the police, or the judiciary. Why? Because they also do things which don't validate our sense of our heroship. We think that their judgements are unfair and stupid. Why? Because they don’t agree with us and validate our sense of our heroship. They jolly well should. It is an outrage! I am the hero of my own story and therefore I am unquestionably the greatest authority on everything ever in the whole world!

Granted, there are some horrible people in positions of authority. There are bosses who are unkind and uncaring. There are parents who are neglectful. There are politicians who are self-serving. There are police who are corrupt. There are members of the judiciary who are not just. This is not to say that they are all evil monsters, who are trying to feather their own nests, line their pockets with money, or deliberately trying to multiply your misery. The truth (and this is hideously unpopular) is that most people who have been placed in positions of authority have displayed some instance of character, of responsibility, and perhaps some degree of skill and initiative which put them there. People who have been placed in authority are generally aware of the power that they hold and I would say that most are trying to do their best job that they can, which might entail different outcomes to your wishes, and certainly under different circumstances to your own.

People who have been charged with the responsibility of judging, enforcing, and making the rules, likely know things that you do not know. Your boss is likely acutely aware of the climate of the economy and does not want to go bankrupt. Your parents likely have learned from experience and know that there are things which are dangerous. Politicians, the police, and the judiciary, are not only engaged in the process of making the rules and enforcing them but they are also shaped by the society which put them there and must respond to it. They will also have been required to learn the rules from an academic and vocational standpoint, so that they can make and enforce the rules.

All of these people will have different priorities to you. Likely, their actions have nothing to do with how you feel but rather, they are trying to do the job that has been charged to them. Their actions are not inherently unfair because quite often, our sense of fairness is actually not actually genuine but rather, a skillfully constructed masquerade, by ourselves and for ourselves, as the hero of our own story. Drop the mask, and quite often all we see is a desire for wish fulfilment and a cloak to hide our own bad behaviour. If we violate the rules, then as the heroes of our own story, we want to do massive rewrites of either the rules or the circumstances, or the story of those rules and circumstances because we even offend ourselves.

Can you actually imagine just how chaotic and insane the kosmos would be if it played to everyone's sense of 'fairness'? With eight billion of us on the planet, that is a lot of people for whom the kosmos would constantly have to change and adapt for. The truth is, the kosmos is playing by proper rules. Society is playing by proper rules, even if they are relative. They do make sense. They are knowable and searchable. Sometimes they are complicated. Sometimes they are not comfortable. Sometimes they offend our sense of our heroship. Breaking them has consequences. Fairness is not dependent on how you feel about it. The rules exist; therefore there should be some moral arbiter who gets to decide how those rules are applied. That arbiter is likely not you. 

Aside:

An effective single-digit rate of income tax on many many thousands of dollarpounds of income, is likely fair. It is less than the effective rate of consumption tax on a Whizzo chocolate bar. The amount of tax on that is only pennycents in the dollarpound.

Horse 3117 - Hat-Trick and Heartbreak: El Cielo Es El Límite

Argentina 3(4) - France 3(2) AET.

22' Messi (pen)

36' Di Maria

78' Mbappe (pen)

81' Mbappe

FT-2-2

108' Messi

116' Mbappe (pen)

AET 3-3

FRA XooX

ARG XXXX

Sometimes when the stakes are ridiculously high and after the duck has been broken, football ceases to be a match of small differences and instead becomes one of wildly swinging fortunes as the two sides vie for ascendency. Both sides came out swinging in this match; with the organised tiki-taka-triangles of Argentina being able to create space against a very disciplined France who held three solid lines. 

The opening period of play saw Argentina hold the ball and parry it about; while France held firm and when they did get the ball, broke through with alarming speed. Indeed when De Paul brought down Hernandez outside the area and France got an early free-kick, it already looked like this match would be anything but predictable. The first real inkling that this match would not end in a scoreless rabble, was 19 minutes in, when Grizemann made a lightning run up the right hand flank; then delivered a swinging ball which Olivier Giroud couldn't bring down, and the ball sailed tantilisingly close but over the bar.

Two minutes later, when Argentina made a foray deep into French territory, Dembele shoved Di Maria in the back and as he was the last man and Di Maria was in an obvious scoring position inside the box, the referee had no hesitancy in pointing to the spot, despite the protestations of Le Bleus. Lionel Messi who surely must be playing in his last ever match for Argentina and whose biggest contribution to the match thus far was simply to exist, sent the ball calmly to his right while Lloris dove the other way.

It was now having opened their account that Argentina stamped their authority all over the match; with France being unable to even touch the ball for extended periods of time. When France did manage to win the ball, it was easily stolen off them and once again, Argentina did a slow gambeta into boredom. France could hold the ball occasionally and it was on one of those occasions after they'd managed to punt the ball forwards and drive into the Argentine half, that the sky-blue and whites countered.

When Tchoumeni lost the ball, Messi passed the ball to Martinez, who then drove the ball to the sideline, before passing it back inwards to McAllister who himself drew two players before passing it off to Di Maria. Di Maria who had been dangerous before, now had his own chance to score and while Lloris tried to make himself as big as possible, Di Maria's low shot still bobbled over him to double the advantage.

At 2-0 down at half time, France returned to the pitch as deflated as they'd left it before the break. Argentina's dominance on the ball only got stronger and they should have put the match beyond doubt just after the hour mark when McAllister got on the end of another Di Maria attack; only to miss his shot badly.

If anyone was going to step up and try to stop the bleeding, it was Mbappe. Playing just shy of half-way, he became the go to player for France to make attacks on the counter and his 70th minute strike from the edge of the area, being the first time that France even made an attempt that half, was very high and wouldn't trouble the keeper at all. 

It was on one of these runs, in a role-reversed copy of the first half, when Otamendi who was the last defender, brought down Kolo Muani in the area and Mbappe stood up fot the penalty. He drilled it to the left of the Argentine keeper and with 12 minutes to go, suddenly France had a chance of drawing level.

The equaliser would come just three minutes later when Coman swung the ball inwards to find Thuram, who passed the ball off to Mbappe and suddenly with the match sitting at 2-2, this match was destined to be a classic. For ten minutes as the two sides became increasingly desperate, they also became undisciplined and what had been an orderly football match fell into thuggery which was only ended by the final whistle.

The first period of extra time was a very very cautious affair with nobody really wanting to collect a card and risk being sent off. Those first 15 minutes of extra time resulted in no shots that were noteworthy, by either side. Three minutes into the second half though and the French defence broke down; with Martinez breaking free and firing a shot which Lloris managed to spill to the feet of Lionel Messi; who duly tapped home a routine follow-up goal for a striker, for barely 3 yards away. 

Perhaps this match should have been won by Argentina there and then and so they attempted to try and park the bus in front of goal. Unfortunately, Montiel let his arms hanging out of the window, only to have a shot hit his arm in the area. Once again France were given an opportunity to draw level and Mbappe took the penalty, to score his hat-trick and only the second hat-trick in a World Cup final; with the other being Geoff Hursts's hat-trick in 1966. 

Maybe there was a chance for France to unexpectedly win this game in a seven goal thriller but Mbappe's off-load to Kolo Muani just couldn't be converted in the 119th minute. After being 2-2 at the end of regulation time and 3-3 at the end of added time, this match then went to a penalty-shoot out. 

It is fitting that Montiel having conceded the penalty with a handball, should be the one to redeem himself and slot home Argentina's fourth penalty in a row; which gave them an unassailable 4-2 win in the shootout. His penalty sealed the match, which gave Argentina a third star.

I think that I may have finally made peace with penalty shoot-outs. As a wholly unsatisfactory method of deciding a match, it makes some degree of sense if after 120 minutes of football and you still can not find a winner, then this lottery is slightly less unsatisfactory than any other lottery because at least this way adds a sense of tension and some degree of skill. 

This being the last match of the 2022 World Cup, it is worth asking what we've seen. I think that we've seen some rather good football being played, an absolutely amazing final and following a pandemic, a chance for fans from all over the world to attend; which didn't happen at the Tokyo Olympics. We also had our first first African semi finalist; so it can not be all that long until we finally get an African nation in the final. What this World Cup also came with was extreme exploitation of workers (to the point of death in some cases) and bought through the process of corruption, which means that even what does glitter as gold, was tarnished.

I think that we can also finally say that perhaps Lionel Messi is the greatest football player of all time. He was part of a Barcelona side that won the Sextuple and has been part of sides that have won the Copa America and the Copa de Mundial. Arguably in wearing the La Albiceleste No.10, he was wearing the heaviest shirt in the tournament and I am sure that having scored twice in the final that he has claim to being a better player than Diego Maradona.

Horse 3116 - The A-League Grand Final's Move To Sydney

https://keepup.com.au/news/why-sydney-is-the-new-home-of-the-a-leagues-grand-finals

From 2023, A-Leagues fans will be no different, as Sydney becomes the home of the Isuzu UTE A-League and Liberty A-League Grand Finals for the next three seasons.

- A-League Statement, 12th Dec 2022

The A-League in a process that is as mystifying as it is senseless, decided to award the Grand Final to the Sydney Football Stadium on a permanent basis for a period of years. Although this does add a degree of permanence to the finals, as Australia is vast an unwieldy, doing this is a great inconvenience to anyone who isn't Sydney, Western Sydney, Macarthur, the Central Coast, or Newcastle. Amazingly, this squeaked through with majority support of the clubs; which I can only take it to mean that the clubs who were okay with this were Brisbane, Melbourne City, and Obligatory Western Melbourne FC. For everyone else, this would have them hopping mad.

I can understand Football Australia's desire to want to establish tradition because so much of the world that we live in, is built upon tradition and collective story. Tradition and story both work better when they repeat themselves on a regular basis. By doing so, tradition and story benefit from a past which is predictable and reliable. The problem that the A-League has is that in wanting to sever itself from the ethno-cultural shackles of the past, it kind of had to invent its own future. It did this at a time when there was no proper national Cup; so cam to the then logical conclusion that the people would want a finals series after a regular season. A structure like this is fine if you have one league with no hop of promotion and relegation, or perhaps many conferences which is what exists in the United States but that's all that that structure should be used for. A finals series is sensible if you have a multi-group stage followed by a knockout phase, which is what the World Cup, European or Asian Champions League do, but for a league, it is unnecessary and silly.

The cultural centre of Australian football is in principle, either a cousin of the English, or broadly European. With the exception of Switzerland which has its own insane and unique way for deciding who its league champions are, all leagues in Europe play a league without a final series and the champion is the team with the most points at the end. There is nothing wrong with this at all. It is sensible.

The cultural centre of Australian sport generally though, has been slightly different. Both the AFL and Rugby League have had finals series for quite some time; so nobody questioned the sensibility of having a finals series in principle or even if it was fit for purpose. I suppose that the A-League wanted some sense of carnival for its last game of the season and having a Grand Final was the vehicle to do that. This is despite the fact that a Cup format already has that by nature and once the Australia Cup was established, it should have been that carnival.

If I were Grand Poohbah and Lord High Everything Else, then football in Australia would be organised with a League in which everyone plays each other twice or four times, both home and away, or three times where the number of home and away games that the sides get are all equal. It would be 4 points for a win; 2 points for a score draw; 1 point for a scoreless draw; 0 points for a loss. The league champion would be the team who has earned the most points at the end of the year. This is far more sensible as it means that teams end up playing all the way until the end of the season. Granted that this can mean that a team might be crowned champions-elect well before the end of the season but the truth is that if that happens, then such a team is deserving of being league champions. However, I am not Grand Poohbah and Lord High Everything Else and the solution arrived at, appears to be a solution in search of a problem. My solution for the Grand Final of the A-League, would have been to eliminate it on the basis that it is silly and pointless.

As for the Cup, well we have one of those now. It is possible for a rank amateur team of tradies and butchers to win the Australia Cup, although it is highly unlikely. The structure of a cup is such that everyone must win every game that they play and because it is a knockout competition, by its nature it produces a Cup Final. This is also sensible. Maybe there is a place for the Cup Holders to play the League Champions in a Charity Shield type match but I do not think that this is necessary. 

When it comes to Cup Finals, in most cases in Europe, the Final is played at a ground which is not home to anybody. If this was the case in Australia, then the Cup Final should rightfully be played at Bruce Stadium, Stadium Australia or the MCG but all of these places are equally bad for watching football in. Olympic style stadia have weird ends that are perfect for athletics and oval sports but not football which is played on a rectangle. Of these grounds, my choice for playing the Australia Cup Final would be Bruce Stadium; not only because it is mutually horrible for everyone but as it is in the nation's capital, that seems to me to be the logical home for it.

All of this is quite apart from the fact that neither Football Australia nor any of the clubs in the A-League own their own grounds. This is one of the perpetual problems for sport generally in Australia, where teams are tenants of their grounds rather than owners. I find it insane that AFC Wimbledon which is a third-tier English football club can own its own ground in London but professional teams in Australia are either unwilling or unable to. I would have thought that from both a cash flow and taxation perspective, that it would make more sense to pay for and own an asset rather than pay for the rental of one and have no say in the running of it at all. From that perspective, the best answer would have been for Football Australia to build its own ground somewhere and then lease that ground out to tenants while it is not in use. If I could pick anywhere in the country, then an 80,000 seat stadium in Albury would have been the perfect venue.

Horse 3115 - Constitutional Survey - XI

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Chapter VI. New States.

121. New States may be admitted or established

The Parliament may admit to the Commonwealth or establish new States, and may upon such admission or establishment make or impose such terms and conditions, including the extent of representation in either House of the Parliament, as it thinks fit.

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I have no idea if the sweaty men in the basements of the Sydney and Melbourne Town Halls ever assumed that Australia would be like the United States and just keep on adding new states willy-nilly thither and yon but Section 121 has never even once been triggered. Since Federation, the Six Colonies which became states; being New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia, are all that there have ever been. Maybe they thought that New Zealand would change its mind but when 1904 happened and New Zealand had its status changed to a dominion in its own right, then that possibility faded forever. Maybe they thought that Fiji or Papua New Guinea would sign up but that never happened either. 

Section 121 is still the avenue whereby the Northern Territory may become a state but not the Australian Capital Territory because of other provisions in this Constitution. 

With reference to those words "including the extent of representation in either House of the Parliament, as it thinks fit", I think that this is the vehicle which should be pursued to achieve the ends of the Uluru Statement From The Heart.

Section 121 allows for the admission of new States to the Commonwealth as it (the Parliament) thinks fit. When the Parliament thinks that anything is fit, it passes simple legislation. There is no need for a referendum because the terms of the Constitution aren't being changed and subject to the next three Sections, there wouldn't be any change to the existing states because of territory.

If First Peoples (and I use that term deliberately because this includes all Aboriginal peoples, Torres Straight Islanders, Tasmanian Aboriginal peoples, and peoples from islands not otherwise mentioned), are admitted as a 'virtual' state, which isn't dependent on territory but rather as a single electorate covering all First Peoples, the this satisfies all terms of the Uluru Statement From The Heart elegantly. The request that Aboriginal people should have a say on legislation that directly affects them, would not only be addressed with at least Six Senators which would be justly due but specific details can be worked out through the usual process of Senate Select Committees. 

This would also finally address the implications that Mabo v Queensland No.2 (1992) set up. The underlying injustice which the Uluru Statement quite rightly tells the truth about, is the as yet unadmitted fact that First Peoples had and retained their original sovereignty and that this was never surrendered or ceded. In this respect, this is like the several State Crowns which other provisions of this Constitution tacitly admit exist, through the saving of constitutions, laws, court decisions, and governors' rights.

This would pose a new problem for First Peoples; namely, do they want to be Federated into the Commonwealth? In practical terms its going to be nigh on impossible to undo the past but through Treaty, Truth Telling and Active Reconciliation, then something approaching a just arrangement could be arrived at. 

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122. Government of territories

The Parliament may make laws for the government of any territory surrendered by any State to and accepted by the Commonwealth, or of any territory placed by the Queen under the authority of and accepted by the Commonwealth, or otherwise acquired by the Commonwealth, and may allow the representation of such territory in either House of the Parliament to the extent and on the terms which it thinks fit.

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The most obvious places where Section 122 applies, is the Australian Capital Territory, the Northern Territory, and Jervis Bay Territory. For a very brief period of time when the Northern Territory was subdivided, this also applied to Central Australia Territory as well.

The big territories of the ACT and NT, get members of the House and two Senators due to the operation of various acts. Jervis Bay Territory has this curious standing of being included in the House seat of Eden-Monaro and NSW when it comes to Federal representation, even though the laws of the ACT apply in JBT. For a very long time, the ACT and NT had no Senators at all and so were actively excluded from the upper house. With no voice in the house of review, they couldn't even voice their displeasure at what might happen to them. This all looks too familiar in the light of Section 121.

Section 122 also tacitly admits where the various Crowns that make up the Commonwealth actually reside. The territories, which do not have their own sovereignty, can in fact be directly ruled from Canberra and there isn't a thing that they can do about it. There isn't even the faint veil of Section 109 protection which says that the Commonwealth while having supremacy at least doesn't try and interfere in the affairs of the lesser Crown, because in the case of the territories, there is no lesser Crown.

The Commonwealth in its most heavy-handed and patriarchal periods, has made law such as the Northern Territory intervention, or making policy decisions to do with uranium mining in the Northern Territory, seemingly without any reference to or consideration for anything that the territories might wish. There have been attempts to curb the power of the Federal Government with instruments such as the Restoring Territory Rights Bill but as this is mere legislation and not a constitutional impediment on Federal power, anything that is passed can be repealed just as easily.

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123. Alteration of limits of States

The Parliament of the Commonwealth may, with the consent of the Parliament of a State, and the approval of the majority of the electors of the State voting upon the question, increase, diminish, or otherwise alter the limits of the State, upon such terms and conditions as may be agreed on, and may, with the like consent, make provision respecting the effect and operation of any increase or diminution or alteration of territory in relation to any State affected.

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I am unsure if the invention of the Australian Capital Territory in 1913 warranted a referendum of the people of the state of New South Wales, who then had a hundred square mile hole blown out of it. 

Section 123 has as far as I know, never been invoked because of border disputes between states and I suspect that given the experience of South Australia and Victoria who had arguments about where the Surveyors-General drew their lines, nobody is keen to go through those arguments again. There are some weird oddities which occur at the intersection of South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales, where the Murray River forms a border. 

The only real conditions where I can think of where Section 123 might be invoked, is if there was a border town whose residents felt that they might be better served by changing states. Maybe this might occur along the NSW/Queensland border or perhaps along the NSW/South Australian border but as for the other massive border which cross the continent, there's not many people who live that deep in the outback who would have that kind of dispute.

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124. Formation of new States

A new State may be formed by separation of territory from a State, but only with the consent of the Parliament thereof, and a new State may be formed by the union of two or more States or parts of States, but only with the consent of the Parliaments of the States affected.

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Section 124 assumes that a state will be bound by area and not as a 'virtual state' which I would have proposed for First Peoples under Section 121. The assumption that states are and would be bound by area, is reasonable. Statehood movements for New England in northern New South Wales and Far North Queensland which alternatively might be called Capricornia, have appeared from time to time but they don't seem to progress very far.

The consent of the Parliaments thereof, and the interaction with Section 123 which calls for the approval of the majority of the electors of the State voting upon the question, has never been attempted as far as I know and would be a big hurdle to overcome. In the case of the subdivision of the Northern Territory into the two parts of the Northern Territory and the Central Australia Territory, Section 124 was never pursued as this section only applies to the States.

Ironically the biggest opposition to the formation of new States would likely be the people who would be in the new State. If we imagine that New England separates from New South Wales, then they would also separate themselves from the state budget of New South Wales. I do not actually know if the wealth condensation which has occurred in Sydney actually subsidies the roads, water and sewerage, railways, et cetera of country New South Wales but I can guarantee that if New England were to demand separation and win it, then those subsidies would cease immediately. This scenario would likely play out for Far North Queensland, Riverina, and any other proposed state. 

It is pretty obvious that in order to form a by state "formed by separation of territory from a State", that it would need referenda passed in the relevant states affected. If my proposal for a virtual First Peoples' State was enacted, then the terms wouldn't actually be the separation of territory since the whole entire of the Commonwealth would be take as a common electorate. Since the terms requiring a referendum would not be met, then no referendum would need to be held on this basis.

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Chapter VII. Miscellaneous.

125. Seat of Government

The seat of Government of the Commonwealth shall be determined by the Parliament, and shall be within territory which shall have been granted to or acquired by the Commonwealth, and shall be vested in and belong to the Commonwealth, and shall be in the State of New South Wales, and be distant not less than one hundred miles from Sydney.

Such territory shall contain an area of not less than one hundred square miles, and such portion thereof as shall consist of Crown lands shall be granted to the Commonwealth without any payment therefor.

The Parliament shall sit at Melbourne until it meet at the seat of Government.

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The Australian Capital Territory was proclaimed in 1911; with the city of Canberra being officially proclaimed in 1913. The nearest point of the ACT is about 140 miles away in a straight line from the obelisk in Sydney. The actual area of the ACT is about 910 square miles; which is far bigger than the 100 square miles laid out in the Constitution.

For the first 20 odd years of the Australian Parliament, it tended to sit in the Victorian Parliament building; with the two houses in their respective counterpart's chambers. I imagine that when the move to Canberra happened in 1927, that parliamentarians were happy not to share premises with someone else but not all that overjoyed with the smallness of the building that they'd been placed into. Parliament House I (1927-1988) was intended to be a library but for not quite sixty years, the increasingly cramped quarters would have to do.

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126. Power to Her Majesty to authorise Governor-General to appoint deputies

The Queen may authorise the Governor-General to appoint any person, or any persons jointly or severally, to be his deputy or deputies within any part of the Commonwealth, and in that capacity to exercise during the pleasure of the Governor-General such powers and functions of the Governor-General as he thinks fit to assign to such deputy or deputies, subject to any limitations expressed or directions given by the Queen; but the appointment of such deputy or deputies shall not affect the exercise by the Governor-General himself of any power or function.

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Section 126 is arguably the most dangerous section in the Constitution. It seems harmless enough because I can not think of anyone who actually has been appointed as Deputy Governor-General but just because it looks harmless, does not make it so.

Section 126 empowers the Governor-General to appoint literally "any person, or any persons jointly or severally" to any "powers and functions of the Governor-General as he thinks fit to assign to such deputy or deputies, subject to any limitations expressed or directions given by the Queen". Think about this. This is the capacity of the Governor-General to appoint literally "any person" to any power that he thinks fit. 

There are no qualifications stipulated. There are no barriers or legal disabilities placed upon either the Governor-General or their Deputy. Presumably this includes all of the Reserve Powers mentioned in the Constitution, which includes the full and express use of the military for any reason; as well as any other plenary unfettered power that the Governor-General can dream up. 

If Section 126 isn't the almost express approval of the Constitution for the Governor-General to appoint and install a military junta without any kind of brace, bit, fetter, or restraint, then I don't what is.

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Horse 3114 - Why Have A Run-Off Election At All?

https://www.npr.org/2022/12/07/1141363509/democratic-sen-raphael-warnock-wins-re-election-in-georgias-runoff-election

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock won re-election in Georgia's runoff election against Republican football player Herschel Walker, who was backed by former President Donald Trump.

- NPR, 7th Dec 2002

The United States of America prides itself as being a shining beacon of democracy. That is until you look at any of the mechanics of its democratic institutions; in which case the line of rhetoric immediate shifts to the United States being a republic (small r) rather than a democracy. The Constitution is so awful that it has been copies exactly zero times and the states are such a mosaic of schnibbity-nibbity schnick-nuck-neigh that you may as well be looking into the abyss.

I was asked on a motorsport forum of all things what I thought of the Georgia run-off election as an outsider. It was held up as some kind of example of the goodness and fitness of the system for purpose but as I shall prove, it's an attempt to make a silken purse from a sow's ear. I mean, it sort of, kind of, almost, nearly does the job but it's still not as good as it otherwise could have been.

America typically has open primaries where the parties let the public select who their candidates will be. I personally think that a private organisation opening itself up to public manipulation is bonkers but there you go.

On that front the Democratic Party only had two candidates; so a simple vote already finds the majority of electors.

D - Raphael Warnock - 702,610

D - Tamara Johnson - 28,984

With 702,610 votes, Warnock wins with 96.03% of the vote. That's a veritable thumping.

The Republican Party had 6 candidates.

R - Herschel Walker - 803,560

R - Gary Black - 157,370

R - Latham Sadler - 104,471

R - Kedum King - 57,930

R - Josh Clark - 46,693

R - Jacob McCullan - 28601

With 803,560 votes, Warnock wins with 67.04% of the vote. That's also a veritable thumping.

This mean that for the Senate Election in November, there were three candidates on the ballot paper. The votes broke as follows:

D - Raphael Warnock - 1,946,117

R - Herschel Walker - 1,908,442

L - Chase Oliver - 81,365

Warnock with 1,946,117 votes, secured 49.44% of the vote. Walker with 1,908,442 votes, secured 48.48% of the vote. Chase Oliver with 81,365 votes, secured 2.08% of the vote. 

The State of Georgia already concedes that it has a problem. If Raphael Warnock had been elected in on a First Past The Post system (which should be more properly called the 'most votes wins' system), then he would have been elected with the disapproval of more than half of all of the votes. This is how many elections in the United States operate and it is madder than a jack rabbit jumping up and down on a trampoline in an elevator. 

To solve the problem Georgia then holds a run-off election, where the two best candidates go up against each other again; to decide who wins the Senate seat. Those votes fell as follows:

D - Raphael Warnock - 1,816,096

R - Herschel Walker - 1,719,483

Warnock with 1,816,096 votes, secured 51.36% of the vote. Naturally with more than 50% of the vote, this looks like Raphael Warnock should win the Senate seat.

But there's a problem. Making people go back to the polls a second time, is stupid. Already we can see that both sets of vote tallies for the two candidates are smaller than in the general election. In the general election, 3,935,924 votes were cast but only 3,535,579 votes were cast in the run-off election. This means that  400,345 voters have gone missing. I question the logic of a system where just over 10% of all voters who showed up the first time, were either so lazy or cheesed off, that they wouldn't show up a second time. As it is, even if you assume that every single Libertarian voter was valiantly obstinate and didn't like the other choices, then that still doesn't explain the remaining 318,980 voters who didn't even vote for their own party representative. These people are lost somewhere between the two elections and maybe drifting nebulously in the primaries.

That's good? That's fir for purpose? I say nay nay. 

I already think that the idea of voluntary voting is itself stupid. In Australia, voting is not a right but rather a civic duty. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, then it seems to me that even though it is a paradox, extracting that consent by very deliberately asking the question, is the only way to get that consent. You only get the consent of the governed, when you get a majority of people in agreement with a thing.

This explains why, even if by self-interested historical accident, Australia ended up with compulsory voting framed as a duty and the jewel of voting in Australia, a preferential voting system. By asking for preferences, Australia get something which more closely approximates the consent of the people than any other voting system. Other systems which appear to have a weird almost religious following online (be they star voting, approval voting et cetera) never really achieve that central necessity which preferential voting does.

There are 9 candidates in all from the three political parties in this election. If they were all on the ballot paper and a single transferrable preferential vote was used, then not only would the run-off election be unnecessary because all run-offs would be held at the same time, but even the primaries themselves could be done away with.

With nine boxes, which voters would number 1 through to 9, they could indicate their choice and in the event of any instant run-offs, their vote would be instantly transferred to their next choice. Instant Run-Off Voting ends up with 50%+1 of the votes going to the winner, because those people whose first choices are not heard, still get heard later.

If there were no primaries and no run-off elections, then the whole circus would be far far shorter than it is now. Of course if this was applied to the presidency or other positions, then not only would the circus be shorter, but the clowns and the strongmen would have less need to parade around like fools and thugs for 18 months.

But as for the Georgia Run-Off Election, it is a band-aid solution to a completely unnecessary problem; where a better and cheaper system already exists. I guess that it's a semi-worthy first step in lieu of anything else but if that's where it stops, then by operation it's demonstrably silly. 

Horse 3113 - Tout Est Possible : Les Blues Pourraient Ajouter Tne Troisième étoile

England 1 - France 2

18' Tchouameni

51' Kane (pen)

78' Giroud

France started this game as the more positive of the two sides; knowing full well that they had the ability to not only match England man for man on the pitch but that they were also able to open up spaces through better movement off the ball and better movement in transitional play. The opening period of play saw France try to move the ball around at a furious tempo, having seen England ease themselves into every match thus far in the tournament.

The opening scare was given at the ten minute mark when Tchouameni delivered a swinging ball inwards from deep in the England left back corner; which was met with a thrust down header by Olivier Giroud. It was only the hands of Pickford which kept the scoreless deadlock. France were here to make a point and do it quickly.

England should have realised that Tchouameni was dangerous but they seemingly forgot that he existed and gave him way to much space in the last third of the pitch. Tchouameni was rewarded with his persistence in the 18th minute when again he was allowed to roam around in way too much space and gave himself time and space to belt home a shot from 30 yards away.

France immediately decided to close up up after this and became compact in defence. This became a feature of the rest of the game as France used more than necessary force on repeated occasions, to keep out any English marauders. When Sakr was brought down in the 19th minute, Luke Shaw's free kick was inane and useless. However England, knowing that they had to do something, kept on driving more players forward. England, spurred on by the possibility of a goal continued to press and French tempers flared; as exemplified by when Harry Kane was brought down in the 26th minute in what should have been a penalty but nothing was given.

The half ended 1-0 to France but England came out in the second period, a bit more spritely after the break. French defending again resorted to cynically bringing down English players and the referee would have done nothing when Bellingham was brought down by Tchouameni. Harry Kane stood up to take the spot kick and banged one to Lloris' left hand side; as he probably would have done many many times on the training pitch at Tottenham Hotspur.

With the scores 1-1, England finally looked like they might have a chance but Maguire missed a rather easy header and Shaw's 71st minute pass which found Sakr just outside the 6 yard box was sprayed wide. Against the run of play and after having managed to win a corner off a deflection, a period of French hesitancy was suddenly rewarded with Griezmann floated a ball into the 18 yard box; which found the head of Olivier Giroud and France were back in the lead. 

England looking to bounce back from this, since time was running out, pressed higher up the field and France again reverted to roughhousery. Within a minute of the restart, Mason Mount who while being the last man on goal was shoved in the back by Fernandez, with the Frenchman making no attempt to play for the ball at all. The referee had to give a penalty for such a brazen and blatant foul and Fernandez should have been given a straight red card but the referee was only persuaded to hand out a yellow.

The number that will haunt England fans in this World Cup is 83, for that was the minute in which England's hope melted like snow in a pizza oven. Harry Kane the scorer of the first penalty, stood up to take the second, and put the ball so wide and so high that it may have to be registered as a piece of space debris. 

That was it. England weren't going to be given anything that obvious ever again. Harry Maguire was brought down by Fernandez in the 87th minute; probably because the latter now knew that he was immune from any kind of punishment and the last roll of the dice came in the 90th+10 minute of the game when Sakr became the fifth player to be brought down by the French defence and Marcus Rashford's free kick attempt from 47 yards out, could only ever be optimistic at best.

This England 1 - France 2 game will be remembered for Harry Kane's monumental fluff of a penalty and England couldn't be any more England as they find ever more new and exciting ways to crash out of a World Cup. In this match, England managing to lose on penalties (even in a match that didn’t go to penalties) is comedy gold and shows a simply incredible commitment to the bit.

Now obviously I am disappointed but I can not make disparaging remarks about Gareth Southgate's management of England. To make it through to the semi-finals in Russia, the final in England, and now the quarter-finals in Qatar, shows that England is being managed properly. A knock-out competition demands that whomever the World Champion is, has to have held up four times having escaped the group; with an allowance of one loss in the group stage, that means 6/7. Or to put this another way, that would mean winning 32 games in the Premier League which would give you 96 points, and teams have won for less. At the beginning of the tournament, I predicted that either France, Argentina or Brazil would win all of the marbles but having now seen Brazil crash out and Argentina look fragile, France has solidified as the obvious favourite.

Of course the popular press will inevitably start shouting every which way and say that it's good enough to lose to France or lose in finals and semi-finals butthis is the inherent problem with hope. Hope sets you up for a greater degree of disappointment when it does finally fail. I'd argue if anything that England has to go back to the old ways, which included losing to Iceland and failing to get out of the qualifying rounds because that's understandable and not as sad when it does go bang. As for Gareth Southgate, the chap is a class act. He should be asked to stay on as England manage unless he wants to do something else such as be Prime Minister or UN Secretary General.

Harry Kane needs a knighthood, Jude Bellingham needs a bikkie and a cup of tea, and England generally needs to become more like Australia, Uruguay, Canada, or Japan, and accept that golden generations are allowed to fail and that playing well (which is what England did) still might not be enough to capture lightning in a bottle.

Horse 3112 - Constitutional Survey - X

Chapter V. The States.

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106. Saving of Constitutions

The Constitution of each State of the Commonwealth shall, subject to this Constitution, continue as at the establishment of the Commonwealth, or as at the admission or establishment of the State, as the case may be, until altered in accordance with the Constitution of the State.

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The six Crowns still existed after Federation. The Six Parliaments which were the Colonial Parliaments, then became the Six State Parliaments. Likewise, the Constitutions of those States, be they written or not, were explicitly made to continue after Federation.

The Crowns of the States had at the time of Federation and in every case, differently worded but similar absolute plenary powers. One of the consequences of Section 106 is that the Crown which was created at Federation, can not actually tell the States that they can not make a law about a thing. There are interactions with the two sets of laws but Section 106 in saving the Constitutions of the States, those absolute plenary powers were more or less retained by the states.

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107. Saving of power of State Parliaments

Every power of the Parliament of a Colony which has become or becomes a State, shall, unless it is by this Constitution exclusively vested in the Parliament of the Commonwealth or withdrawn from the Parliament of the State, continue as at the establishment of the Commonwealth, or as at the admission or establishment of the State, as the case may be.

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A colony which had plenary powers to make laws in all cases whatsoever, on becoming a State and thanks to Section 107, also retained absolute plenary powers. There have been some critical arrangements over the years, such as the states declining the power to lay and collect income tax but this is still only really a voluntary arrangement and in reality there are no real impediments to collecting income tax again.

Likewise, when it came to the Uniform Gun Control Legislation which followed after the Port Arthur Massacre, this happened due to a set of agreements between the states which was negotiated by the Commonwealth, rather that the Commonwealth actually having the ability to force its will on the States.

Sections 106 and 107 also have interactions with other sections such as 51 which defines what kind of powers that the Federal Parliament has, and Section 108 and 109 also defines what happens when those powers and laws come into conflict with each other. 

Section 107 is also one of those sections which dares to imagine more states than just the original Six. The clause "or establishment of the State" at least admits the possibility that the could be extra states admitted but as yet, we've not seen any.

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108. Saving of State laws

Every law in force in a Colony which has become or becomes a State, and relating to any matter within the powers of the Parliament of the Commonwealth, shall, subject to this Constitution, continue in force in the State; and, until provision is made in that behalf by the Parliament of the Commonwealth, the Parliament of the State shall have such powers of alteration and of repeal in respect of any such law as the Parliament of the Colony had until the Colony became a State.

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Take careful note of the specific wording of Section 108: "Every law in force in a Colony". Since various adoption and reception acts adopted the then corpus of English Law as having effect in Australia, then this means that Every Law which was in force continued and continues to be in force until such time as that law is repealed of superseded.

That leaves you with some very very old laws which existed on the books; which by virtue of never being addressed by the Federal Parliament or the State Parliaments.

One of my favourite instances of the effect of this, is that Australia does have a Bill of Rights, despite what people may say. Since the Bill of Rights Act 1688 was in force at the time of Federation and has not yet been repealed, altered or otherwise, then that Bill of Rights continues to remain within the corpus of law which has been received. It also means that provisions of the Statute of Marlborough which includes those provisions called the  Distress Act 1267 are still in force.

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109. Inconsistency of laws

When a law of a State is inconsistent with a law of the Commonwealth, the latter shall prevail, and the former shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be invalid.

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One of the things that was thought to be of value, which was taken from the United States Constitution, was a Supremacy Clause. Section 109 is that Supremacy Clause. It is pretty straightforward.

The unwritten power of Section 109 is that because the operation of a Commonwealth Law, insofar as much as it relates to an inconsistency between Federal and State Law, effectively hands the power to strike off, to the Commonwealth Parliament. This is the reason why the Marriage Act 1961, could overrule anything with regards whatever positions that the states' marriage acts may have stated.

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110. Provisions referring to Governor

The provisions of this Constitution relating to the Governor of a State extend and apply to the Governor for the time being of the State, or other chief executive officer or administrator of the government of the State.

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I am at a complete loss to know what if anything, that the practical effects of Section 110 actually are. This is an almost non-operative section, with effects that I have no idea what they are.

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111. States may surrender territory

The Parliament of a State may surrender any part of the State to the Commonwealth; and upon such surrender, and the acceptance thereof by the Commonwealth, such part of the State shall become subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Commonwealth.

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There are at least two instances of note where a State has surrendered territory of sufficient significance to the Commonwealth, that are noteworthy.

The Australian Capital Territory was surrendered to the Commonwealth in 1913, so that the Commonwealth would have a seat of government which was roughly of sensible distance fro both Melbourne and Sydney. New South Wales completely surrounds the Australian Capital Territory; to the point where Canberra Railway Station is actually part of the NSW Regional Rail network. 

Two years later in 1915, New South Wales further surrendered Jervis Bay Territory to the Commonwealth and although the laws which apply for civil government in the Australian Capital Territory have effect in JBT, JBT has never been part of the ACT.

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112. States may levy charges for inspection laws

After uniform duties of customs have been imposed, a State may levy on imports or exports, or on goods passing into or out of the State, such charges as may be necessary for executing the inspection laws of the State; but the net produce of all charges so levied shall be for the use of the Commonwealth; and any such inspection laws may be annulled by the Parliament of the Commonwealth.

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This is going to sound daft but Australia has always been deeply cautious about disease enetering its borders. One only needs to drive between capital cities to encounter things like fruit fly exclusion zones in many places. Mostly inspection points are for health reasons though early on, there was the possibility of needing to inspect goods to check to see if they were being imported into one state and being passed though and may have come from nefarious foreign powers.

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113. Intoxicating liquids

All fermented, distilled, or other intoxicating liquids passing into any State or remaining therein for use, consumption, sale, or storage, shall be subject to the laws of the State as if such liquids had been produced in the State.

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This has some interesting effects.

Firstly this relates to the possession and sale of alcohol and other drugs. Section 113 meant that the Commonwealth didn't have to do anything whatsoever about passing uniform laws and let the states deal with these things as they saw fit. Secondly this relates to the production of alcohol and other drugs and also meant that Commonwealth didn't have to do anything whatsoever.

Thirdly and perhaps most craftily, it meant that the Commonwealth could still impose taxation and excise, so long as this was done in a uniform manner. A Commonwealth law would still mean that taxation and excise on drugs and alcohol would be permissible because they would still be subject to the laws as they applied within the state; because of the interaction of Federal and State law.

Also, the Commonwealth got on the job really quickly with the seventh, eighth, and ninth acts passed by the newly minted Commonwealth Parliament being the Beer Excise Act (1901), the Distillation Act (1901) and the Excise Act (1901).

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114. States may not raise forces. Taxation of property of Commonwealth or State

A State shall not, without the consent of the Parliament of the Commonwealth, raise or maintain any naval or military force, or impose any tax on property of any kind belonging to the Commonwealth, nor shall the Commonwealth impose any tax on property of any kind belonging to a State.

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Yeah, nah states. All of those military corps that you used to own are now the property of the Commonwealth. Also, no state armies any more, yo.

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115. States not to coin money

A State shall not coin money, nor make anything but gold and silver coin a legal tender in payment of debts.

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Yeah, nah states. If we want to maintain the faith and credit of the Commonwealth, then we can't have the states issuing their own currency. I imagine that when the framers of the Constitution wrote this, they were looking over their shoulder at Scotland which to this day retains the right and ability to issue Pounds Scots. I also note that at the time of Federation, there may have been some real fears of a state thinking that they had the ability to issue Australian Pounds because there were mints in Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth. 

What is curious is that even subject to Section 115, the first issue of Australian coinage proper didn't happen until 1910. The Pound Sterling was the de facto currency and even though Half Sovereigns and Sovereigns had been minted at the various mints. They were Pounds Sterling and actually legal tender right across the British Empire. Britannia ruled the waves and people's pockets. 

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116. Commonwealth not to legislate in respect of religion

The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

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One of the misconceptions that people have about what a Constitution is and does, is that it should contain some kind of Bill of Rights. I personally think that a Bill of Rights is a monumentally stupid thing to have in a Constitution because if new rights are discovered and/or fought for an won, or older rights expire and/or by operation cause mayhem and destruction, the enumeration of rights ends up being a gravestone and a millstone for future generations. A Constitution is a set of rules which defines what the legal person that has been created can and can not do. Rights as legal claims, should always be secondary and defined by separate pieces of legislation.

Section 116 places a limit on what the Commonwealth can do; specifically it places a limit on the Commonwealth with regards to religion. The implication of Section 116 is that Australia is legally a secular nation; despite what people might say with regards prayer in Parliament. Section 116 also doesn't debar the Parliament from using public monies to fund religious institutions like schools, or making grants to buildings like Cathedrals and Mosques; as these things fall well short of actually 'establishing' any religion.

This section also debars the Commonwealth from using religion as a barrier to employment by the Commonwealth. I suspect that we have had a Jewish Governor-General, I live in an electorate with a Muslim MP, and there have been a number of First Peoples MPs over the years.

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117. Rights of residents in States

A subject of the Queen, resident in any State, shall not be subject in any other State to any disability or discrimination which would not be equally applicable to him if he were a subject of the Queen resident in such other State.

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In theory this section was designed to equalise rights of citizens across the Commonwealth but in practice, this section ended up limiting the rights of first peoples in some states due to the way that obligations and duties were worded. In Queensland for instance, the state of Queensland limited the right of first peoples to vote, limited the rights of migrants to cross borders, and limited the abilities of people from Pacific Islands to work in Queensland. The Commonwealth, which still hadn't actually defined what citizenship in Australia was at law (and wouldn't do so until 1948), simply decided to apply the disabilities or discriminations of a person in one state to all of them.

If someone wasn't actually officially a citizen in Queensland, then they would remain to be officially not a citizen in the other states. The most generous reading of this is that it is devious. 

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118. Recognition of laws etc. of States

Full faith and credit shall be given, throughout the Commonwealth to the laws, the public Acts and records, and the judicial proceedings of every State.

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Section 118 has no practical applications. There are interactions with the newly created Commonwealth law and existing State law and provisions about what happens if they are in disagreement but recognition of state law, does not and can not to anything in the real world. This is a subtle distinction to make but I shall unpack this further.

State Law and the States' power to enforce State Law remained. An action done in a state, was and remained subject to the applicable laws of the state. A crime done in a state, was and remained subject to the applicable laws of the state and the punishment that the state might meter out. This did not change. Apart from a few disabilities at law which were created by the Commonwealth Constitution, the states retained in most cases the power to "make laws in all cases whatsoever". 

It doesn't actually matter a jot what the Commonwealth chooses to think about State Law. Either there is a convergence where the two sets of law meet, or there isn't. Therefore, Section 118 in practical terms, has no effect.

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119. Protection of States from invasion and violence

The Commonwealth shall protect every State against invasion and, on the application of the Executive Government of the State, against domestic violence.

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Arguably the first duty of a nation, is the protection of itself. Section 119 is the explicit direction that there shall be military forces and that they shall act in the event of unpleasantness. On opening day of the Commonwealth, the various State Military Corps were effectively transferred to the Commonwealth; which given that they'd recently been to South Africa to fight in the Boer War as a unified collective unit, wouldn't really have been that difficult to fathom. 

Section 119 also explicitly gives the Commonwealth to deploy troops against "domestic violence" which is such an ill-defined term as to be laughable. That can imply the deployment of the military against riots, protests, impromptu militias, cross-border unpleasantness (though you'd hope that they'd all be on the same side), and even that curious incident when Commonwealth forces were deployed against Emus. As far as I know, the Emu War was the only military conflict fought by the Commonwealth on Australian soil and it resulted in a decisive Emu victory.

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120. Custody of offenders against laws of the Commonwealth

Every State shall make provision for the detention in its prisons of persons accused or convicted of offences against the laws of the Commonwealth, and for the punishment of persons convicted of such offences, and the Parliament of the Commonwealth may make laws to give effect to this provision.

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Although there are two sets of law (being both State and Commonwealth), evidently the Commonwealth did not want the extra expense of housing prisoners and criminals. Truth in point, there is little net benefit in a duplication of these kinds of services when in practical terms, the actual provision and maintenance of these services is identical. 

If you are in the pokey for a State crime, that's not that much different for being in the pokey for a Commonwealth crime. 

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