Section
51. Legislative powers of the Parliament
52. Exclusive powers of the Parliament
53. Powers of the Houses in respect of legislation
54. Appropriation Bills
55. Tax Bill
56. Recommendation of money votes
57. Disagreement between the Houses
58. Royal assent to Bills: Recommendations by
Governor-General
59. [Disallowance by the Queen]
60. [Signification of Queen's pleasure on Bills
reserved]
Legislative powers of the Parliament
51. The Parliament [has], subject to this Constitution, power to
make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth
with respect to:--
[Introductory words edited; see Comment]
(i.) Trade and commerce with other countries, and among the States:
(ii.) Taxation; but so as not to discriminate between States or parts of
States:
(iii.) Bounties on the production or export of goods, but so that such
bounties shall be uniform throughout the Commonwealth:
(iv.) Borrowing money on the public credit of the Commonwealth:
(v.) Postal, telegraphic, telephonic, and other like services:
(vi.) The naval and military defence of the Commonwealth and of the several
States, and the control of the forces to execute and maintain the laws of
the Commonwealth:
(vii.) Lighthouses, lightships, beacons and buoys:
(viii.) Astronomical and meteorological observations:
(ix.) Quarantine:
(x.) Fisheries in Australian waters beyond territorial limits:
(xi.) Census and statistics:
(xii.) Currency, coinage, and legal tender:
(xiii.) Banking, other than State banking; also State banking extending
beyond the limits of the State concerned, the incorporation of banks, and
the issue of paper money:
(xiv.) Insurance, other than State insurance; also State insurance
extending beyond the limits of the State concerned:
(xv.) Weights and measures:
(xvi.) Bills of exchange and promissory notes:
(xvii.) Bankruptcy and insolvency:
(xviii.) Copyrights, patents of inventions and designs, and trade
marks:
(xix.) Naturalization and aliens:
(xx.) Foreign corporations, and trading or financial corporations formed
within the limits of the Commonwealth:
(xxi.) Marriage:
(xxii.) Divorce and matrimonial causes; and in relation thereto, parental
rights, and the custody and guardianship of infants:
(xxiii.) Invalid and old-age pensions:
(xxiiiA) The provision of maternity allowances, widows' pensions, child
endowment, unemployment, pharmaceutical, sickness and hospital benefits,
medical and dental services (but not so as to authorise any form of civil
conscription), benefits to students and family allowances:
(xxiv.) The service and execution throughout the Commonwealth of the civil
and criminal process and the judgments of the courts of the States:
(xxv.) The recognition throughout the Commonwealth of the laws, the public
Acts and records, and the judicial proceedings of the States:
(xxvi.) The people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make
special laws:
(xxvii.) Immigration and emigration:
(xxviii.) The influx of criminals:
(xxix.) External affairs:
(xxx.) The relations of the Commonwealth with the islands of the
Pacific:
(xxxi.) The acquisition of property on just terms from any State or person
for any purpose in respect of which the Parliament has power to make
laws:
(xxxii.) The control of railways with respect to transport for the naval
and military purposes of the Commonwealth:
(xxxiii.) The acquisition, with the consent of a State, of any railways of
the State on terms arranged between the Commonwealth and the State:
(xxxiv.) Railway construction and extension in any State with the consent
of that State:
(xxxv.) Conciliation and arbitration for the prevention and settlement of
industrial disputes extending beyond the limits of any one State:
(xxxvi.) Matters which this Constitution [leaves to be
determined, prescribed, declared (or other similar words) by] the
Parliament:
[Paragraph (xxxvi) edited; see Comment]
(xxxvii.) Matters referred to the Parliament of the Commonwealth by the
Parliament or Parliaments of any State or States, but so that the law shall
extend only to States by whose Parliaments the matter is referred, or which
afterwards adopt the law:
(xxxviii.) The exercise within the Commonwealth, at the
request or with the concurrence of the Parliaments of all the States
directly concerned, of any power which [could] at the establishment of this
Constitution be exercised only by the Parliament of the United Kingdom or
by the Federal Council of Australasia:
[Paragraph (xxxviii) edited; see Comment]
(xxxix.) Matters incidental to the execution of any power vested by this
Constitution in the Parliament or in either House thereof, or in the
Government of the Commonwealth, or in the Federal Judicature, or in any
department or officer of the Commonwealth.
[In respect of section 51 generally, see Note on
sub-sections, "placita" or paragraphs]
Exclusive powers of the Parliament
52. The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have
exclusive power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of
the Commonwealth with respect to--
(i.) The seat of government of the Commonwealth, and all places acquired
by the Commonwealth for public purposes:
(iii.) Other matters declared by this Constitution to be within the
exclusive power of the Parliament.
[Paragraph (ii) deleted; see Comment]
Powers of the Houses in respect of
legislation
53. Proposed laws appropriating revenue or moneys, or imposing
taxation, shall not originate in the Senate. But a proposed law shall not
be taken to appropriate revenue or moneys, or to impose taxation, by reason
only of its containing provisions for the imposition or appropriation of
fines or other pecuniary penalties, or for the demand or payment or
appropriation of fees for licences, or fees for services under the proposed
law.
The Senate may not amend proposed laws imposing taxation, or proposed laws appropriating revenue or moneys for the ordinary annual services of the government.
The Senate may not amend any proposed law so as to increase any proposed charge or burden on the people.
The Senate may at any stage return to the House of Representatives any proposed law which the Senate may not amend, requesting, by message, the omission or amendment of any items or provisions therein. And the House of Representatives may, if it thinks fit, make any of such omissions or amendments, with or without modifications.
Except as provided in this section, the Senate shall have equal power
with the House of Representatives in respect of all proposed laws.
[Unaltered]
Appropriation Bills
54. The proposed law which appropriates revenue or moneys for the
ordinary services of the Government shall deal only with such
appropriation.
[Unaltered]
Tax Bill
55. Laws imposing taxation shall deal only with the imposition of
taxation, and any provision therein dealing with any other matter shall be
of no effect.
Laws imposing taxation, except laws imposing duties of customs or of
excise, shall deal with one subject of taxation only; but laws imposing
duties of customs shall deal with duties of customs only, and laws imposing
duties of excise shall deal with duties of excise only.
[Unaltered]
Recommendation of money votes
56. A vote, resolution, or proposed law for the appropriation of
revenue or moneys shall not be passed unless the purpose of the
appropriation has in the same session been recommended by message of the
Governor-General to the House in which the proposal originated.
[Unaltered]
Disagreement between the Houses
57. If the House of Representatives passes any proposed law, and
the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to
which the House of Representatives will not agree, and if after an interval
of three months the House of Representatives, in the same or the next
session, again passes the proposed law with or without any amendments which
have been made, suggested, or agreed to by the Senate, and the Senate
rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the
House of Representatives will not agree, the Governor-General may dissolve
the Senate and the House of Representatives simultaneously. But such
dissolution shall not take place within six months before the date of the
expiry of the House of Representatives by effluxion of time.
If after such dissolution the House of Representatives again passes the proposed law, with or without any amendments which have been made, suggested, or agreed to by the Senate, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, the Governor-General may convene a joint sitting of the members of the Senate and of the House of Representatives.
The members present at the joint sitting may deliberate and shall vote
together upon the proposed law as last proposed by the House of
Representatives, and upon amendments, if any, which have been made therein
by one House and not agreed to by the other, and any such amendments which
are affirmed by an absolute majority of the total number of the members of
the Senate and House of Representatives shall be taken to have been
carried, and if the proposed law, with the amendments, if any, so carried
is affirmed by an absolute majority of the total number of the members of
the Senate and House of Representatives, it shall be taken to have been
duly passed by both Houses of the Parliament, and shall be presented to the
Governor-General for the Queen's assent.
[Unaltered]
Royal assent to Bills
58. When a proposed law passed by both Houses of the Parliament is
presented to the Governor-General for the Queen's assent, he shall declare,
according to his discretion, but subject to this Constitution, that he
assents in the Queen's name, or that he withholds assent.
Recommendations by Governor-General
The Governor-General may return to the house in which it originated any
proposed law so presented to him, and may transmit therewith any amendments
which he may recommend, and the Houses may deal with the
recommendation.
[First paragraph edited; see Comments]
[Sections 59,60 deleted; see Comment]
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The only change is that "has" replaces "shall have".
This is the section which expressly states Parliament's power to make laws on the subjects of all the temporary provisions: see its full form and the explanation of the way it works in the Example.
Since I have restated most of those sections as express grants of power, I could perhaps have deleted this paragraph as redundant. However, some of the redrafted sections still refer only indirectly to a Parliamentary power (eg, an annual sum "to be determined by the Parliament" in section 3) so I have followed the example of the drafters (and Macbeth) and "made assurance double sure" by leaving this provision in, in a form which fits the edited sections.
[Return to Section 51, paragraph (xxxvi)]
[Return to Section 51, paragraph (xxxviii)]
In one other section (section 44) of the Constitution a part of a section identified by Roman numerals is cross-referred to as a "sub-section" (click to see this example). Chief Justice Griffith seems to have started the fashion for calling the grants of power, or "heads" of power, in section 51, "placita". In modern drafting practice, however, numbered or lettered parts of a section which all form part of the same sentence are called paragraphs - and for the last ten years or more the Justices of the High Court have uniformly used the latter term for referring to the Roman-numbered items in section 51.
Paragraph, or sub-section, (ii) gives the Commonwealth Parliament exclusive power over:
(ii.)Matters relating to any department of the public service the control of which is by this Constitution transferred to the Executive Government of the Commonwealth:
This does not make the entire public service the subject of exclusive Commonwealth power; States might not have much power to make laws that affect the Commonwealth service, but that would be because of section 109 or the controversial "implied immunities" doctrine. Paragraph (ii) refers only to the five "departments" referred to in section 69: namely, customs and excise; posts, telegraphs and telephones; defence; lighthouses, lightships, beacons and buoys; and quarantine - in in fact only the first three were ever transferred because there were no separate colonial "departments" of quarantine, or lighthouses and beacons. There are some old cases where para 52(ii) was thought to have some relevance to disputes involving the powers of the Post Office or the Defence Department, but I have omitted it because it seems odd, 96 years after the three departments were transferred, to mark their successors as being somehow more exclusively subject to Commonwealth legislation than other departments.
The first paragraph has the further words at the end "or that he reserves the law for the Queen's pleasure." In colonial days reservation of Bills "for the Queen's pleasure" meant in reality that the Queen's British (mainly English) advisers had the right of veto over it. Such a practice would be totally inconsistent with Australia's status as an independent nation; reservation for the Queen's pleasure is a non-option these days.
For the Governor-General even to withhold assent contrary to the advice of his/her Ministers would cause a constitutional crisis, but I have left that in the edited section, more as a matter of observing the conventional forms than because I think it really has current operation.
These sections provide:
Disallowance by the Queen.
59. The Queen may disallow any law within one year from the Governor-General's assent, and such disallowance on being made known by the Governor-General by speech or message to each of the Houses of the Parliament, or by Proclamation, shall annul the law from the day when the disallowance is so made known.Signification of Queen's pleasure on Bills reserved.
60. A proposed law reserved for the Queen's pleasure shall not have any force unless and until within two years from the day on which it was presented to the Governor-General for the Queen's assent the Governor-General makes known, by speech or message to each of the Houses of the Parliament, or by Proclamation, that it has received the Queen's assent.
They are "dead letters" these days.
[Return to space left by Sections 59 & 60]