Section
86. [Customs, excise, and bounties]
87. [Revenue from customs and excise
duties]
88. Uniform duties of customs
89. [Payment to States before uniform
duties]
90. Exclusive power over customs, excise, and
bounties
91. Exceptions as to bounties
92. Trade within the Commonwealth to be free
93. [Payment to States for five years after uniform
tariffs]
94. [Distribution of surplus]
95. [Customs duties of Western
Australia]
96. Financial assistance to States
[Sections 86-87 deleted; see Comments]
Uniform duties of customs
88.Duties of customs [must be] uniform.
[Edited; see Comment]
[Section 89 deleted; see Comment]
Exclusive power over customs, excise, and
bounties
90. The power of the Parliament to impose duties of customs and of
excise, and to grant bounties on the production or export of goods, [is]
exclusive.
[Edited; see Comment]
Exceptions as to bounties
91. Nothing in this Constitution prohibits a State from granting any
aid
to or bounty on mining for gold, silver, or other metals, nor from granting,
with
the consent of both Houses of the Parliament of the
Commonwealth expressed by resolution, any aid to or bounty on the production
or export of goods.
[Unaltered]
Trade within the Commonwealth to be free
92. Trade, commerce, and intercourse among the State, whether by
means of internal carriage or ocean navigation, shall be absolutely free.
[Edited; see Comment]
[Sections 93, 94, 95 deleted; see Comment]
Financial assistance to States
96. The Parliament may grant financial assistance to any State on such
terms and conditions as the Parliament thinks fit.
[Edited; see Comment]
Customs, excise, and bounties.
86. On the establishment of the Commonwealth, the collection and control of duties of customs and of excise, and the control of the payment of bounties, shall pass to the Executive Government of the Commonwealth.
One of the principal aims of federation was to establish a customs union, with no customs barriers within Australia and a uniform tariff upon imports wherever imported into Australia - but section 88 gave the Commonwealth a breathing space of up to two years before the uniform tariff must be imposed. For the time being the customs posts in each State would continue to charge duties at the rates imposed by the law of that State. However, from the first day of federation, the Commonwealth was to take over the task of collecting the duties. This section gave it the task, section 69 gave it the public service Departments, and section 85 gave it the buildings and other property to use in the task). What the Commonwealth would do with the money collected was detailed in section 89.
Section 86 only had transitional force. Once the Commonwealth had enacted its tariff law, it would necessarily have executive power over the collection and control of the duties prescribed - and since, on the imposition of the uniform tariff, power over customs, excise and bounties was to become vested exclusively in the Commonwealth (section 90), the executive responsibility for those matters could then belong only to the Commonwealth.
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The full section reads:
Uniform duties of customs.
88. Uniform duties of customs shall be imposed within two years after the establishment of the Commonwealth.
It might be argued that section 88 has no continuing effect. Since customs and excise duties are a form of taxation, the Commonwealth's power to impose them comes from para 51(ii). Under that paragraph, all Commonwealth taxation has to be uniform, at least in the sense that it may not discriminate "between States or parts of States". So, strictly, section 88 is not the source of the requirement for a uniform tariff; it merely gave the Commonwealth both a breathing space and the eventual deadline for its imposition. [The uniform tariff was actually imposed almost 14 months ahead of the deadline, on 8th October 1901.]
However, the prohibition on discrimination in para 51(ii) has been interpreted to allow some difference between parts of States, as long as the discrimination is simply between them "as places" and not "as parts of States", whereas section 88 surely anticipates that customs duties will become totally uniform and remain totally uniform. It seems best, therefore, to show a "continuing" version of section 88 demanding real uniformity.
Customs duties of Western Australia.Obviously, this has expired.
95. Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution, the Parliament of the State of Western Australia, if that State be an Original State, may, during the first five years after the imposition of uniform duties of customs, impose duties of customs on goods passing into that State and not originally imported from beyond the limits of the Commonwealth; and such duties shall be collected by the Commonwealth.But any duty so imposed on any goods shall not exceed during the first of such years the duty chargeable on the goods under the law of Western Australia in force at the imposition of uniform duties, and shall not exceed during the second, third, fourth, and fifth of such years respectively, four-fifths, three-fifths, two-fifths, and one-fifth of such latter duty, and all duties imposed under this section shall cease at the expiration of the fifth year after the imposition of uniform duties.
If at any time during the five years the duty on any goods under this section is higher than the duty imposed by the Commonwealth on the importation of the like goods, then such higher duty shall be collected on the goods when imported into Western Australia from beyond the limits of the Commonwealth.
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