WHAT WAS CLAIMED
A 1988 law took away the rights of Australians and was a treasonous act by the PM.
OUR VERDICT
The law did not change any individual rights, it just changed legal terminology.
AAP FACTCHECK - Bob Hawke didn't take away the legal rights of Australians while he was prime minister and wasn't guilty of treason, despite claims being made online.
Experts say the only thing affected by 1988 legislation introduced under the then-prime minister was terminology, which was amended to recognise the separate development of Australian common law from its English counterpart.
The claim appears in a Facebook post featuring images of prime ministers Bob Hawke and Gough Whitlam, plus a list including Mr Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, John Howard, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.
"ALL OF THEM ARE GUILTY OF TREASON AND WILL BE SENTENCED TO DEATH," the caption said.
Mr Hawke died in 2019 and Mr Whitlam died in 2014. Mr Fraser died in 1915.
In a large graphic, a text box alongside an image of Mr Hawke references the Law and Justice Legislation Amendment Act 1988, which was passed when he was PM.
"Takes away our English Common Law and changes it to 'Common law of Australia' where we have no rights," it said.
Experts told AAP FactCheck the claim that the 1988 law stripped Australians of their rights is false.
Harry Hobbs, a constitutional law expert at the University of NSW, said the act did not take away any rights but just changed terminology to remove references to the UK.
"It is part of that same trend towards a greater recognition of our own separate identity - and as a legal matter, that British decisions were no longer determinative in Australia, Dr Hobbs told AAP FactCheck.
Cheryl Saunders, a public law expert at the University of Melbourne, said the terminology change was legitimate as English common law had only provided a foundation for Australian common law.
"That is still the case," Professor Saunders told AAP FactCheck.
"Appropriately, however, it can be altered by Australian legislation and declared by Australian courts as it evolves."
Further text in the post claims the passing of the Australia Act 1986, also under Mr Hawke's leadership, was done "without a Referendum or getting consent from the Australian people".
According to experts, however, this was neither treasonous nor unlawful.
Dr Hobbs said the Australia Act was a series of laws passed by the Australian and UK parliaments that severed the legal and constitutional ties between the UK and Australia.
At the time, the UK still had the power to enact laws in each of Australia's states, and people still had the right to appeal state supreme court decisions at the Privy Council in the UK.
"This was seen as undesirable by many in Australia as it maintained a colonial relationship," Dr Hobbs said.
Some argued at the time that changing the constitutional relationship between Australia and the UK could not be done without a referendum, but legal challenges after the act passed were dismissed by Queensland's Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of Western Australia and the Federal Court of Australia.
Dr Hobbs said that was because Section 51 (xxxviii) of the Constitution said the Commonwealth parliament had the power to pass laws "at the request or with the concurrence of the Parliaments of all the States directly concerned".
Each Australian state had passed a law requesting and consenting to the federal and UK parliaments passing laws to end the latter's power to make laws affecting the states.
Prof Saunders agreed that a referendum wasn't required because states authorised the federal parliament to pass the Australia Act under Section 51 of the Constitution.
David Heilpern, Dean of Law at Southern Cross University, called the claims "utter legal gobbledegook" and said there is no basis for accusing Mr Hawke of treason.
He also said there was no need for a referendum to pass the Australia Act, and the lack of one did not affect the validity of the law.
Professor Heilpern said the claims have no basis in fact and were "classic sovereign citizen tropes".
"They have never been upheld by any court in Australia or elsewhere as having legal validity," he told AAP FactCheck.
The sovereign citizen movement is a group of political activists who declare themselves immune from the law and reject police and court authority, according to Macquarie University.
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