ABSTRACT
Small changes in one part of a system are capable of setting initial conditions in train for massive transformations later, and the exploration of a relatively minor 'adjacent possible' can expand the field of possibilities for ongoing transition. In the context of Australian law, initiating changes at the constitutional level, and for a liberalist system, initiating changes that disturb the primacy of property over nature, are likely to be fertile areas for sowing the seeds of ongoing change. The argument that a fundamental guarantee of property rights and immunity to government action can be found in a head of power subsection is a glaring weakness in the reasoning that has produced cases like Newcrest and its predecessors. The interpretation of section 51 as another head of power that supplements rather than obliterates the power of acquisition that is incidental to many other heads of power does not make the subsection redundant.
