The Constitution, Reform, and Public Engagement

This is the fourth in a special series of posts reflecting on 25 years of the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law. To see other posts in this series, click here.

Paul Kildea

15.10.2026

My first contact with the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law (the Centre) was as an undergraduate law student in 2001. The University of New South Wales Faculty of Law (as it was then called) had just recruited a new professor by the name of George Williams, and he was looking for students to enrol in an internship course. I was uncertain. The Centre was brand new. Would the experience be worth six units of credit? Would the work be interesting? And who was this George fellow, anyway?

I decided to take a chance, put in an application, and was happily accepted. Within a few weeks, I was helping to draft submissions on human rights, the republic, and much else besides. I drank coffee and talked politics with the Centre’s new recruit, Megan Davis. My one-day-a-week was varied, stimulating, and fun. And it was the beginning of a connection that, incredibly, has now spanned a quarter of a century.

I cringe a little when I remember my first conversation with George after coming on board as an intern. Was the Centre going to be an ivory tower operation or would it participate in public debates and advocate for law reform? I did not use those words exactly, but that was the thrust of my question. This was a time when the reconciliation movement had stalled, the Tampa affair was just around the corner, and I was beginning to understand that governments are not always on the side of the least fortunate. I wanted the Centre to be part of the response to that – to nudge government back in the direction of fairness, democracy, and the rule of law.

This idea, of course, was not new to George. From the start, he viewed the Centre as a place that would blend scholarship with policy engagement. I eventually saw that first-hand over the course of my internship. It is a philosophy that has been carried forward by all subsequent Centre Directors and remains alive in the work of its Project Directors and members. In 2026, as in 2001, the Centre provides a site for lively academic exchange while keeping one foot firmly planted in the real world.

My internship soon came to an end, but I re-joined the Centre in 2009 and have since served as the Project Director of the Federalism Project, and the Elections and Referendums Project. In those roles, I have been fortunate to be part of a community of scholars dedicated to the study of public law, informed by an ethos of public engagement.

When I joined the Federalism Project, Australia was in the midst of a spirited debate about ‘the state of the federation’. Then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had called for a federal takeover of health, while the Opposition Leader at the time, Tony Abbott, wanted a clearer division of roles and responsibilities. Others said it was time for federal financial relations to be overhauled. There was a lot for public lawyers to talk about.

As Project Director, I joined George and Andrew Lynch (the Director of the Centre between 2008 and 2013) in exploring and evaluating different ideas for federal reform. One of my first tasks was to organise a two-day federalism roundtable that remains one of the most enjoyable experiences of my academic career. It brought together legal and political science academics, and senior state government officials, to discuss and debate the health of Australia’s federal system.

There were papers on intergovernmental relations, grants schemes, the High Court, and constitutional change. Health, water, and childcare were featured as policy case studies. It was my first experience of the Centre’s ability to bring smart and interesting people into a room and see what emerges. In this case there was a vigorous sharing of knowledge and perspectives and we all walked away with a deeper understanding of an area that we all felt to be important. The papers were later published by Federation Press in the volume Tomorrow’s Federation: Reforming Australian Government.

That roundtable, alongside other research, was the foundation for various forays into public debate on Australian federalism. These included submissions to inquiries, appearances at parliamentary committee hearings, and media contributions. The titles of my opinion pieces give a flavour of our work at the time: among them, ‘Healthy Cooperation’, ‘Abbott’s Populist Federalism Pitch No Silver Bullet’ and ‘We Need to Talk About COAG’.

That last title reflects the emphasis that the Centre’s Federalism Project placed on looking beyond the Constitution to the machinery of intergovernmental relations. We consistently put the case for the Council of Australian Governments and other cross-jurisdictional bodies to work more transparently and with clearer lines of accountability. Those are issues that continue to resonate today, albeit in relation to a different institutional architecture led by the National Cabinet.

The Centre’s federalism contributions have fluctuated with political developments and changes in personnel. Its work on referendums and constitutional reform, on the other hand, has been constant. Australians are famously pessimistic about the prospects of achieving constitutional change but, at the same time, cannot seem to stop talking about it. This has helped to keep public lawyers occupied.

During my time at the Centre, I have worked on a whole raft of reform issues, including four-year parliamentary terms, section 44 of the Constitution, the republic, and constitutional recognition of local government. In the middle, there was also a rare federal plebiscite on same-sex marriage. That vote prompted a host of interesting questions and the Centre weighed in on many of them, including the decision to run the ballot as a voluntary ‘survey’ and the ability of the Commonwealth to spend money on it. The experience piqued my interest in plebiscites more broadly and helped inspire my later research into direct democracy at the state and local levels.

The constitutional reform question that the Centre has spent most time on is the constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It has engaged with this issue steadily, and sometimes intensively, for the best part of two decades. It has worked to raise public awareness, explain the law, and shape the proposals being discussed.

Gabrielle Appleby and Sean Brennan, in particular, made extensive, sustained contributions through their work on the Uluru Dialogues, led by Centre alumna Megan Davis. But many of us were involved, stretching from the Gillard government’s 2010 announcement of an Expert Panel, through to the development of the Voice proposal and the eventual referendum defeat in 2023. There were countless workshops, public forums, media contributions, and submissions, not to mention the publication of two books. The work has continued in the aftermath of the vote, as the country continues to process the result of the referendum and debate the meaning of the ‘No’ vote.

Over the years, the Centre has also argued for improvements to the referendum process. One of my earliest pieces called for an overhaul of the referendum pamphlet, improved civics education, restrictions on misinformation, and the staging of citizens’ assemblies and periodic constitutional conventions. Other scholars were making similar arguments, and I was optimistic that change was around the corner. But, ten years later, we were making the same arguments in the run-up to the Voice referendum, again without much success. That referendum will be remembered for many things, but not for its high standard of public debate.

Making the case for law reform, it turns out, takes time – sometimes, lots of time. It also requires persistence. Ideas that seem obvious to you may be received poorly by others, or they require further development, testing, and repeating before they are taken seriously in mainstream debate. That is perhaps something I did not appreciate as an undergraduate student.

Looking back over my time at the Centre, three things stand out about the work that it does.

First, it is highly responsive to contemporary challenges. On federalism, constitutional reform and beyond, it seeks to respond to real-world questions and problems as they emerge. This is a big reason behind its success and longevity. It seeks to engage with the world as it is and shape debates about its future.

Second, the public-facing work of the Centre is deeply grounded in the scholarship of individual members. The opinion piece that gains attention is sometimes the product of years of thinking and writing. This helps to explain why the Centre enjoys such high levels of trust. It is understood that, when an argument is made, whether one agrees with it or not, it is reasoned, evidence-based, and fair-minded.

Finally, the work of the Centre ultimately reflects the interests and expertise of its members. It is not a single-issue organisation, nor does it speak with one institutional voice on every question. Its strength lies partly in the range of perspectives that its members bring to public law, and in the collegiality with which those perspectives are tested and developed.

Twenty-five years after I replied to that internship advertisement, I see that my awkward ivory-tower question was misplaced. Over that period, the Centre has demonstrated the value of combining expertise, independence, and public engagement. That combination was important in 2001 and, if anything, is even more valuable now. There is a growing need for people and institutions that can expand knowledge, analyse legal and political developments, expose weak arguments and think creatively about reform possibilities. The Centre continues to do that every day. I feel fortunate to have encountered this community as a student, and even more fortunate to have found my way back to it and to have remained part of it ever since.

Paul Kildea is an Associate Professor at UNSW Law. He teaches and researches in public law, with a particular interest in referendums, electoral law and federalism. Paul is the Director of the Elections & Referendums Project at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law.

Suggested citation: Paul Kildea, ‘The Constitution, Reform, and Public Engagement’ (15 October 2026) <https://www.auspublaw.org/blog/2026/10/the-constitution-reform-and-public-engagement>