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During the two World Wars, the power was held to apply very broadly, even to domestic issues. In October 1914 the Australian Parliament enacted the War Precautions Act 1914, [5] which gave the Governor-General a broad power to "make regulations for securing the public safety and the defence of the Commonwealth". [6]
It was held by the High Court of Australia in Farey v Burvett [2] that during wartime, the scope of the federal Government's power under Section 51(vi) of the Australian Constitution (under which the Act was passed) expands to meet the exigencies of wartime.
The Constitution Alteration (Post-War Reconstruction and Democratic Rights) Bill 1944 [1] was an unsuccessful proposal to alter the Australian Constitution to give the Commonwealth an additional 14 powers for a period of five years, with Prime Minister John Curtin saying that maintaining wartime controls was necessary for Australia to re-adjust to peacetime conditions.
Constitutional law in the Commonwealth of Australia consists mostly of that body of doctrine which interprets the Commonwealth Constitution. The Constitution itself is embodied in clause 9 of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, which was passed by the British Parliament in 1900 after its text had been negotiated in Australian Constitutional Conventions in the 1890s and approved by ...
As s51(ii) of the Constitution only allows the Commonwealth to impose federal taxation for federal purposes, it could not cover the field of taxation with any law. Nevertheless, the Commonwealth introduced a uniform income tax through an intricate scheme of four pieces of legislation.
Federalism was adopted, as a constitutional principle, in Australia on 1 January 1901. Relatively few changes have been made to the formal constitution since Australian federation occurred; in practice, however, the Commonwealth government has increasingly assumed a position of pre-eminence in many areas of governance through the acquisition and negotiation of additional powers and ...
The Statute took effect in Australia in 1942 with the passing of the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942, with retroactive effect to 3 September 1939, the start of World War II. The adoption of the Statute repealed the application of the Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865 in relation to federal legislation.
The Constitution of Australia (also known as the Commonwealth Constitution) is the fundamental law that governs the political structure of Australia. It is a written constitution , which establishes the country as a federation under a constitutional monarchy governed with a parliamentary system .