The Senate has the entire transcripts of the Australasian Conventions which took place prior to Federation. This was where most of the aspects of what form of government Australia would take were trashed out. There were competing interests, philosophical and provincial. Alfred Deakin was one of the most influential of the participants, and ultimately got his way in most things. There is an interesting exchange between Deakin and Baker on responsible government and constitutions.

From the transcript;

Deakin: If you are about to make this change you should go further. You should either not make this change, which is out of harmony with our existing institutions, and cannot be brought into harmony with a constitution in which there is responsible government rooted in a popular chamber; but if you do take this step, you should at once, and boldly, adopt bodily those foreign constitutions to which you have gone for precedents.

If you want the Swiss Constitution, take the Swiss Constitution; if you want the American Constitution, take the American Constitution; but do not attempt to mix them with the British Constitution.

To Deakin responsible government embodied that nearly all legitimacy for sovereignty and action came from the lower house where the executive and legislative mingled. Deakin seems to believe that lower house being a People's Chamber , and having popular support, is the only place that rights and the level of allowed liberalism can be suitably determined. This is a very paternal and elitist view.

Baker replies to Deakin asking why not an Australian constitution?;

Baker: Why cannot we have an Australian constitution?

Deakin: I have not the slightest objection to having an Australian constitution; but an Australian constitution that was begun by setting aside the political experience of the civilised world would have a poor chance of doing any good.

Any constitution that is built up must be built on the experience gained of other constitutions in other parts of the world.

Barton: To what experience of federal constitutions is the hon. member appealing?

Deakin: I am appealing in the first instance to the fact that there are radical distinctions between the American Constitution and those of these colonies.

The radical differences are, that in America the executive is separated from the legislature; that the two chambers and the executive work all three independently; that, although the whole three are often, if not at war, entirely at issue, there is provision for carrying on the government notwithstanding.

There is no such provision in the constitution which is sketched here. Here your responsible government is to be made responsible to the representative chamber.

Deakin is unable to see Australians as being able to innovate the constitutional or political system beyond what already exists. This is probably why our constitution is pretty crappy by world standards - missing out on even the most basic innovations of the enlightenment. Peter Botsman devoted a book to its shortcomings .

In Deakin's vision of responsible government we see where it comes into conflict with Republicanism. To republican philosophy, rights are inalienable and outside the domain of the legislative and executive authority. Deakin makes no such distinction, claiming that the responsible nature of the executive cabinet and the fear of elections are enough to ensure that rights are not trampled.

Australia has a pretty poor history in this regard, and the constitutional structure chosen at federation carries some of the blame.

Deakin continues;

Baker: We have not agreed to responsible government yet!

Deakin: It is in this sketch; and if hon. members depart from the sketch let them do so on rational grounds. If they are about to take a new constitution let them take one of which we have some experience, and not a hybrid-something from the Swiss, something from the British, and something from our own.

They are taking irreconcilable elements that cannot be made to work in harmony.

If hon. members desire to adopt the Swiss Constitution, let them adopt it. There they have no dissolution of the popular chamber, the government is elected from the two chambers, and the system forms a consistent whole. It may be worthy the consideration of the Convention whether we should or should not adopt that consistent whole.

It may be worthy of consideration whether we should not adopt the American Constitution with perhaps a little amendment. But what I wish to say, in answer to the hon. and learned member, Mr. Barton, is that to introduce the American Senate into the British Constitution is to destroy both.

Ironically, the Australian Senate, which later became a proportional system, has been one of the few checks and balances on the House of Representatives responsible government's excesses.

It is fashionable to claim we are a republic already, but responsible government and republicanism come into conflict in several areas of political structure. Deakin's words emphasise these differences.

Republicans seek to balance the powers of the differing arms of government and hold them in check so they cannot devolve into tyranny or selfish kleptocracy.

These require that the constitution carry checks against executive and legislative tyranny. It also requires that the legislative, executive and judicial be balanced in their powers. Dispersed as much as possible across as many individuals as is possible without paralysing good governance.

Republic comes from the latin Res Publica which means the public space. Accountability for government comes from its actions, output and machinations being entirely in the public sphere.