[sanderjd]

If your point is that it's harder to pass an amendment in Australia than the US, based on your description, I would disagree. The US system requires more than a majority vote by representatives, in a couple different ways. The Australian system does sound more democratic.

[cyphar]

I would still argue that it is harder to pass amendments in Australia, based on the simple fact that America passed 10 constitutional amendments in the first 2 years of the US Constitution being active (which is more than Australia has passed in 117 years) and that of the 33 amendments that have been proposed 27 of them were accepted (which is a much higher success rate than Australia's 8 passed out of 44 proposed).

So while purely looking at the proportion of YES votes needed and ignoring who is casting the votes, you might be able to argue it could be harder to get something passed in the US because in Australia it requires a super-majority of the public (which is generally a smaller percentage than a majority of 3/4ths of states) which means that it is not purely the role of the government to decide the rules that restrict the government's power. This means that the concern of a constitutional bill of rights in Australia being "pointless" because it would be easy for the government to overturn doesn't make much sense.