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This article presents a reply to the article by Laurence E. Lynn, professor of public affairs at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service, which provides an erudite review of the history of Public Law 94-142 and a thoughtful consideration of the degree to which the law has realized its sponsors' objectives. Lynn considers the law to mandate public schools to change their treatment of handicapped children. He cites examples of dramatic change in the personal and educational lives of children whose needs have been properly evaluated and met for the first time in consequence of the new requirements.

The Final Report of the Referendum Council, which includes the Uluru Statement from the Heart, is a formal claim on the Australian people and its governing institutions. The claim is for a new conception of the unity of the Australian people so that for the first time historically it includes the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first sovereign nations of Australia. This is the significance of the recommendation that a First Nations Voice to Parliament be established in the Australian Constitution. This is not just a claim on the Australian constitution; it is a claim in public law that offers a new political‐constitutional horizon of intelligibility for the Australian constitution. In the current reception of the Final Report, this has not been properly understood. The historical challenge and significance of the Final Report of the Referendum Council and the Uluru Statement from the Heart concerns the consensual assertion on the part of the First Nations of Australia of a formal claim in public law. The claim is that the Australian polity and institutions of government be reconceived and changed so that they include rather than exclude the first sovereign nations of Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article examines the constitutional scholarship of John Griffith. Centring on Griffith's seminal article ‘The Political Constitution’, the analysis reveals a more complex and pessimistic thinker than the standard image of Benthamite radical would allow. The article then examines the cogency of Griffith's vision – particularly his thesis that rights discourse ‘corrupts’ law and politics – against recent developments. It concludes by reflecting on Griffith's radical debunking style. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]