Skyring wrote:
slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
You have accused Adam of misrepresenting the constitution, when he was paraphrasing it very precisely. (Your subsequent claim that "shall be" and "is" have different meanings in this context is false, and you have offered no reason for your view.)
Again, this is simply not true. Several times I have pointed out the similar wording in s101 where "shall be" cannot be equated to "is". By saying that the Constitution says that the Governor-General is the representative of the Queen Adam is downplaying the historical aspect of the text, and my point, expressed several times, is that we have moved on. The Governor-General is no longer quite the representative of the Queen and her government that he was at Federation. The role in this respect has diminished and his role as representative of the people rather than the government has increased.
The principle that the law is always speaking would allow for some degree of interchangeability between the present and future tense.
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