Australian Constitution

Australian Constitution

Australian Constitutional Convention

Contents

1Introduction3

2Federalism under attack in Australia3

3Reasons behind the move towards Centralization3

4Growing awareness for the need to have balance of power6

5The Constitutional distribution of powers7

6High Court's approach to the distribution of powers9

7Conclusion12

7Bibliograhy13



Australian Constitution

1 Introduction

The constitution of Australia provides a set of rules according to which the country is run. It provides the framework as to how the parliament would work and the powers it has, how power would be shared between the federal government and the states, and the roles and powers of the high court and the executive government. The Australian constitution was put into effect in 1901 after the six Australian colonies merged as the nation of Australia. Though the constitution was initially intended to provide a balance of power between the states and the centre with stronger states, yet over the course of the next century Australia came out to be a centralized nation. There are many reasons behind this move that had not been planned and can be explained through the distributive powers of the constitution and the role that the high court has played in the interpretation of the constitution.

The Australian colonies prior to becoming a Federation in 1901 borrowed some aspects of American law such as the elements of judicial review. However, Australia did not move towards the balance of power between the center and the states similar to America.

2 Federalism under attack in Australia

Federalism has been under attack in Australia. This is because the commonwealth has been increasing its legislative powers and employing its financial powers to intrude into areas that are the responsibilities of the states. Centralism has become the integral part of the Australian society. While the rest of the world has been moving towards decentralization, the case of Australia has been different. Australia has not acceded to this global trend despite the fact that federalism and decentralization is considered the best system when it comes to conforming to the needs of globalization. Globalization has produced two pressures; one at the supra-national level and the other one relates to bringing the government and people closer to each other. The last pressure deals with the principles of subsidiarity that signifies the importance of dealing with the matters by the lowest form of government.

3 Reasons behind the move towards Centralization

The main reason behind Australia moving towards centralization is that it has played more attention on the problems that may arise in the operation of federal system. This focus has been to such an extent that Australia has not regarded the benefits of federalism.

Some of the benefits that have not been realized by Australia and therefore, have contributed towards centralization are:

Checks on power: Through federalism, division and limitation of power is obtained. This means that individuals come to be protected from a powerful government. This improves the scrutiny of the government and thereby reduces corruption.

Diversity and choice: Citizens living in federalism have more diverse choices such as voting for one party at the national level and voting for another party ...