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Thompson, Elaine --- "The Constitution and the Australian System of Limited Government, Responsible Government and Representative Democracy: Revisiting the Washminster Mutation" [2001] UNSWLawJl 53; (2001) 24(3) UNSW Law Journal 657

[*] Associate Professor, School of Politics and International Relations, University of New South Wales.

[1] Gordon Reid and Martyn Forrest, Australia’s Commonwealth Parliament 1901-1988: Ten Perspectives (1989) 85.

[2] Australian Capital Television Pty Ltd v Commonwealth [No 2] [1992] HCA 45; (1992) 177 CLR 106 (‘Electoral Advertising Bans Case’); Nationwide News Pty Ltd v Wills [1992] HCA 46; (1992) 177 CLR 1 (‘Industrial Relations Commission Case’).

[3] While it is usual to refer to adult male suffrage, it is inaccurate in that it was only white adult male suffrage. Indeed, upon Federation, the Aboriginal people (both male and female) of South Australia lost their voting entitlement. When that colony gave its people universal suffrage there was no race-based exclusion.

[4] Campbell Sharman, ‘The Senate and Good Government’ (Papers on Parliament Series No 33, Department of the Senate, 1999).

[5] Ibid 158-9.

[6] See, eg, Sydney, Australasian Federal Convention Debates, 17 September 1897, 782-9 (Richard Baker).

[7] Sydney, Australasian Federal Convention Debates, 16 March 1891, 383 (Dr John Cockburn).

[8] Sydney, Australasian Federal Convention Debates, 17 September 1897, 735.

[9] Quoted in Sydney, Australasian Federal Convention Debates, 10 September 1897, 296 (J H Symon).

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid 301 (Sir Isaac Isaacs).

[12] However, the franchise for the Victorian Upper House remained restricted until 1950.

[13] Paul Palisi, ‘The Role of the Senate’ (Senate Brief No 10, 1998)

briefs/brief10.htm> at 24 September 2001.

[14] Harry Evans (ed), Odger’s Australian Senate Practice (8th ed, 1998) [19.5],

senate/pubs/Html/chap1905.htm> at 24 September 2001.

[15] See, eg, Senate Legislative and General Purpose Standing Committees, The First 20 Years 1970-1990, at 24 September 2001.

[16] ‘The Senate and Responsible Government’, The Independent Monthly (Geelong), June 1994, 8.

[17] Community Affairs; Economics; Employment, Workplace Relations, Small Business and Education; Environment, Communications, Information Technology, and the Arts; Finance and Public Administration; Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade; Legal and Constitutional; and Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport. See Department of the Senate, ‘Senate Committees’ (Senate Brief No 4, 1998) at 14 October 2001.

[18] Evans, above n 14, [16.1], gov.au/senate/pubs/Html/chap1601.htm> at 14 October 2001.

[19] John Uhr, ‘Parliament’ in Brian Galligan, Ian McAllister and John Ravenhill (eds), New Developments in Australian Politics (1997) 68, 80-1; quoted in Ian Marsh, ‘Parliament and the Executive’ (Paper presented to the School of Political Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney, April 1999) 9.

[20] Sydney, above n 8, 709ff.

[21] Ibid 732.

[22] The entry of the UK into the European Union modifies this view somewhat, in that decisions made by the European Parliament, and indeed the very existence of the Union itself, limits the idea of the absolute sovereignty of any of its constituent parts.

[23] United Kingdom, HC Debates, House of Commons, 30 August 1848, vol 101, cols 205-6.