Review: David Mossop, The Constitution of the Australian Capital Territory (Federation Press, 2021)

The Australian Capital Territory is a quirk of federation, an artefact from the era of whalebone corsets and telegram boys in which the parochial squabble between New South Wales and Victoria about which jurisdiction would host the national capital was resolved with the answer ‘neither’. It is a jurisdiction that critics dismiss as an over-indulged metropolitan council, a location for bureaucrats who did not quite cut it in the Australian Public Service, a domain of quinoa puddings and feel-good government policies that on occasion are a matter of woke self-congratulation. Critics can be unkind. The Constitution of the Australian Capital Territory (Federation Press, 2021) by Justice David Mossop of the ACT Supreme Court offers a different and welcome perspective that is of value for scholars, practitioners and policy-makers within and outside the Territory.[1] The 258 page book complements authoritative studies of other jurisdictions, for example Twomey’s The Constitution of New South Wales and Harris’ A New Constitution for Australia.[