Australian States' and Territories' Constitutions
History of the States' Constitution Acts
See the national Archives' Founding Documents site - a beaut site with copies of (nearly) all of the "founding documents" - documents about the establishment of the colonies, and the original versions of their Constitution Acts.
Current Texts
I'm planning to write more about the nature of the States' "Constitutions" in the Government Under a Book of Rules pages. In the meantime, be aware of these three things:
- these "Constitutions" are, mostly, ordinary Acts of the State Parliaments, which can be amended by the politicians ("Claytons'" Constitutions, not real Constitutions), so they don't limit powers much, although -
- there are some few sections in each of them which are "entrenched" by a requirement that a special amendment procedure must be followed (see a table of these provisions), and
- the States' Constitutions are all subject to the Commonwealth Constitution [see section 106 of the latter], and there are some real, and very significant, limits on State Parliaments' powers in that latter Constitution (also to be explained in Government Under a Book of Rules when I have the time).]
Now see the texts:
New South Wales:
Constitution Act 1902
South Australia:
Constitution Act 1934
Victoria:
Constitution Act 1975
[The Victorian State Government webmasters seem to have an obsession with constantly redesigning their sites and changing all URLs - so if the above link becomes useless here's one to the AustLII copy of the same Act.]
Queensland:
There are four Acts making up the Constitution of this State. Most of the constitutional text has now been consolidated into the Constitution of Queensland 2001, but some important provisions that can only be changed by referendum have been left floating in the Constitution Act 1867 and the Constitution Act Amendment Acts of 1890 and 1934. You can read the significant sections of the latter 3 Acts in the "Attachments" to the Consitution of Queensland 2001, but to read their full text you will need to click them separately. See also the Premier's skite page about the passage of the new Constitution.
Tasmania:
Constitution Act 1934
Western Australia:
The Constitution Act 1889 has to be read with the the Constitution Acts Amendment Act 1899. You can get them from AustLII [1889 Act and 1899 Amending Act] or from the WA Constitution Centre [1889 Act and 1899 Amending Act] - or here is an unofficial consolidation of the two Acts, prepared by the WA Government to make it all easier to read.
Constitutions of the Self-Governing Territories
These "Constitutions" of the two self-governing Territories are the Self-Government Acts passed for them by the Commonwealth Parliament. The latter Parliament has a general power to make laws for the Territories under section 122 of the Commonwealth Constitution, so it can amend the Self-Government Acts (and has done so since their original passage). The two acts are:
Constitutional Review Processes
Several of the States have established formal review bodies to consider the reform of their Constitutions, either to anticipate what changes to the State Constitution would be necessary if Australia became a republic or for other purposes. These bodies have posted Issues Papers, Reports, etc on the Web.
Queensland
Consolidation
The former EARC (Electoral and Administrative Review Commission) decided in 1993 that its job - review of electoral and administrative laws, obviously enough! - would not be complete without a review of the mess of documentation that made up the State's Constitution. It recommended that first the "mess" should be consolidated into one plain-English document, with one significant change (re the security of tenure of Supreme and District Court judges), and that further reform and a possible change of status of the Constitution, so that none of it could be amended without a referendum, should be considered later.
Its recommendations were considered by several Parliamentary committees and by a separate Queensland Constitutional Review Commission over eight years and the consolidation was finally enacted as the Constitution of Queensland 2001. It commenced on 6th June 2002. For the various Issues Papers and Reports that have got us to this stage, click the link to this history page.
Further Issues
The Legal Constitutional and Administrative Review Committee (LCARC) of the Queensland Parliament has now produced an Issues Paper covering what it sees as the possible second stage of reform. It canvasses peoples' views on issues such as the way executive power ought to be described in the Constitution, how the Parliament ought to respond to petitions, whether the independence of various statutory office holders and judges ought to be better guaranteed, and other more technical matters. Submissions were required by 31st May 2002. I understand the Committee has considered those submissions and has made many of the basic decisions as to what it will recommend, but detailed work has yet to be done on its report.
Victoria
Following the last election, the new government set up a
Constitution Commission to investigate and report on possible reform of the Legislative Council, the term of Parliament, and the number of members of both Houses of Parliament.
It has now presented its Report (several supposed links in the report to maps do not work). It recommended that the Legislative Council should be elected by proportional representation and that both Houses should have a fixed term of 4 years.
South Australia
After the last election, an independent member (and former Liberal Party member), Mr Peter Lewis, held the balance of power. He agreed to support a government formed by the Labor Party on condition that they agreed to certain terms in a written "Compact for Good Government", including the holding of a Constitutional Convention - see in particular the annexure to the Compact which spells out the agenda for the proposed Convention. [He was subsequently elected as Speaker, so he is now Hon Peter Lewis.]
The Compact specified that the Convention would report its recommendations to Parliament by 30th June 2003. It is currently expected that the Convention will be held in December 2002, but arrangments have not yet been completed. In the meantime, the University of Adelaide is organising a preliminary conference in August to discuss the issues that might be discussed by a Convention.
Western Australia
In 1998 the WA government announced a series of Constitutional Forums and a Peoples' Convention to discuss the implications for the State if Australia should become a republic. A web site was set up with relevant material in anticipation of these forums and convention, but it has not been updated since its first establishment. If anything was ever resolved by these bodies it seems not to have been posted on the web - I guess as the republic seemed less likely everyone just (yawn) lost interest.....
A Bill of Rights for the ACT?
Technically, if the ACT Parliament does pass a Bill of Rights it will be a bit less than "constitutional" because it will still be subordinate to Commonwealth law, and able to be over-ridden by the Commownealth Parliament. But it will be the next best thing to constitutional, especially if the ACT Parliament gives it "entrenched" status, as it can do under the Self-Government Act, section 26. So I thought I should mention here that the ACT government has set up a committee to investigate and report on whether the ACT should have a Bill of Rights.
For details, see the Committee's Web page. Note that submissions are due by 30th Sepatember.
Back to OzConstInfo index page.
Written by John Pyke, with a little help from DiDa!. Last edited 16th July 2002.