> Do you, or do you not have rights as an Australian?
It isn't a black-and-white thing "you have rights or you don't".
Constitutions serve several purposes – to lay out the basic structure of the national government (the executive, legislature, judiciary, etc); in a federation, to establish the division of powers between the federation and its constituents (states/provinces/etc); to establish procedures for amending the constitution; and to protect individual rights.
Different constitutions differ on how much they have to say about that last topic. Some constitutions say a lot, others little. The American constitution originally had little to say on that topic, but then the Bill of Rights and Reconstruction amendments added a lot. The Australian constitution is somewhere between the two: it has a bit more to say than the original (pre-Bill of Rights) US constitution had to say, but a lot less than the current US constitution has. Protection of individual rights is not an either-or, it is a matter of degrees, and the Australian constitution provides significantly less of a degree of it than the US constitution does.
It is however possible to have rights in practice without them being guaranteed constitutionally. In Australia, there is no constitutional right to freedom of non-political speech, but in practice the law allows a wide freedom for that–but not unlimited, and narrower than US law does. Part of it not being a constitutionally entrenched right, is that Parliament could change the law tomorrow to significantly narrow it, and one would have no recourse against such a law through the courts.
You seem to view constitutional law as being all about individual rights, when there is a lot of constitutional law which has nothing directly to do with that topic.
You seem to view constitutional law as being all about individual rights
No. I view the important parts as the individual rights. This is the reason why the United States wins: It guarantees individual rights. If Australia does that as well, then this is why it also wins. If it's just pretending, then it may not win in the long run.
It isn't a black-and-white thing "you have rights or you don't".
Constitutions serve several purposes – to lay out the basic structure of the national government (the executive, legislature, judiciary, etc); in a federation, to establish the division of powers between the federation and its constituents (states/provinces/etc); to establish procedures for amending the constitution; and to protect individual rights.
Different constitutions differ on how much they have to say about that last topic. Some constitutions say a lot, others little. The American constitution originally had little to say on that topic, but then the Bill of Rights and Reconstruction amendments added a lot. The Australian constitution is somewhere between the two: it has a bit more to say than the original (pre-Bill of Rights) US constitution had to say, but a lot less than the current US constitution has. Protection of individual rights is not an either-or, it is a matter of degrees, and the Australian constitution provides significantly less of a degree of it than the US constitution does.
It is however possible to have rights in practice without them being guaranteed constitutionally. In Australia, there is no constitutional right to freedom of non-political speech, but in practice the law allows a wide freedom for that–but not unlimited, and narrower than US law does. Part of it not being a constitutionally entrenched right, is that Parliament could change the law tomorrow to significantly narrow it, and one would have no recourse against such a law through the courts.
You seem to view constitutional law as being all about individual rights, when there is a lot of constitutional law which has nothing directly to do with that topic.