Symmetric entrenchment of manner and form requirements

State Parliaments currently have power to entrench legislation by using the ordinary legislative process to enact manner or form requirements. This power can be abused by a political faction, with a temporary majority in Parliament, using the ordinary legislative process to prevent its opponents from later amending or repealing the legislation in the same way. This article examines one method of minimising the risk of abuse: prescribing the principle of "symmetric entrenchment", which requires that, to enact any new manner or form requirement, a State Parliament must comply with that same requirement. The article shows that this would not require extraordinarily difficult constitutional reform, such as an amendment of the Commonwealth Constitution or the Australia Acts. It could be achieved in each State by legislation that would be given binding force by s 6 of the Australia Acts. The article also shows that symmetric entrenchment is preferable to two alternative methods of minimising the risk of abuse, which we call fixed entrenchment and asymmetric entrenchment.