It is an indisputable fact that the Australian Founding Fathers designed a strongly Federalist constitution, with the Federal Government holding few enumerated powers, and the vast bulk of political authority reserved for the states, and that this was overwhelmingly endorsed by the Australian people at referendum. As Sir Samuel Griffith, principle author of the Australian Constitution and later Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, stated at the Constitutional Conventions, the Australian colonies had been “accustomed for so long to self-government” that they had “become practically almost sovereign states”. Following Federation, the separate states continued as autonomous bodies, “surrendering only so much of their power as is necessary to the establishment of a  general government to do for them collectively what they can not do for themselves”. Federal powers were to be limited – defence, interstate commerce, lighthouses, and so forth. Read more