John Howard had no right to commit Australian troops to Afghanistan

Placitum 32 then goes on to provide that writs for a general election shall be issued "within ten days from the expiry of a House of Representatives". The terms of those parts of the Constitution are pretty ordinary and simple to understand: any particular House of Representatives comes to an end at the expiration of its term; and when it does, clearly the incumbents, being all the Members of the House of Representatives (including the Prime Minister) are no longer. It's a case of, all up for grabs!

Not one of them has any authority as a Member (as so many so-called backbenchers will tell us during an election period), let alone as a Minister, or a Prime Minister. It will no doubt come as a surprise to the vast majority of Australians to know that the so-called Australian Constitution does not, in fact, even mention a Prime Minister.

During the life of a House of Representatives, of course the members only have such rights and responsibilities as vest in the House as defined in the Constitution.

But as I said a moment ago, once a particular House of Representatives, has been dissolved so too does a person's identity as a Member of the House of Representatives.

And there is not a hint to the contrary in the Constitution, not even pl. 48, which provides: Until the Parliament otherwise provides, each senator and each member of the House of Representatives shall receive an allowance of four hundred pounds a year, to be reckoned from the day on which he takes his seat.

Clearly it deals with the issue of payment, not membership of the House; and cannot be read, I argue, to circumvent or over-ride other parts of the Constitution dealing with membership; functions and responsibilities of members. Less so in the light of pl. 1 which states that only a legislative power vests in Federal Parliament of which the House of Representatives is only part. And while on the subject, another question might be asked: by what authority are politicians paid their remuneration once the life of any particular House of Representatives expires?

Some Constitutional lawyers - that elite, eccentric group of people committed to reading arcane matters into the straightforward and mundane - would no doubt want to argue the toss about this until their dying breaths; and while the High Court of Australia, a few years ago, amazingly read into the Australian Constitution a right to freedom of speech, there are absolutely no hidden words or codes that can be interpreted to give meaning to some of the nonsense that some Constitutional lawyers are experts at manufacturing.

If the Constitution is to be read otherwise, then clearly it needs to be changed to put these issues beyond doubt.

It was said briefly in the past week and a half, that once we are in the election period, then the outgoing Government assumes a "caretaker" role by convention (a word much bandied about by Constitutional lawyers, and occasionally by politicians), and by that reason alone, then the Prime Minister has certain authority, including in the prevailing circumstances, the power to authorise the commitment of Australian troops to a war-that-isn't.

That is sheer balderdash! There is no convention on which these people can rely.

To reiterate my point, there is nothing in the Constitution which would enable any commentator to draw such an inference; Secondly, the Constitution, by placitum 61, vests executive power solely in the Queen - for very good reason: ours is a constitutional monarchy - exercisable by the Governor-General as the Queen's representative. This provision specifically states: and extends to the execution and maintenance of this Constitution, and of the laws of the Commonwealth.

As far as I can see, that is the only power set out in the Constitution which gives a clue to the state of governance during the hiatus which is necessarily created by the Constitution, when a House of Representatives is dissolved, and before a new one comes into being.