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The High Court's approach to section 51 has changed over time. Initially, the court adopted the 'Reserved Powers' doctrine, an interpretive view that the Australian States had implicitly retained competence in core areas, which were unable to be displaced by the Commonwealth even through reliance upon the powers enumerated in s51.
Section 51(xxxvii) of the Constitution of Australia (also called the referral power) is a provision in the Australian Constitution which empowers the Australian Parliament to legislate on matters referred to it by any state. As Australia is a federation, both states and the Commonwealth have legislative power, and the Australian Constitution ...
Reserved powers, residual powers, or residuary powers are the powers that are neither prohibited to be exercised by an organ of government, nor given by law to any other organ of government. Such powers, as well as a general power of competence , nevertheless may exist because it is impractical to detail in legislation every act allowed to be ...
State constitutions in Australia are the legal documents that establish and define the structure, powers, and functions of the six state governments in Australia. Each state constitution preceded the federal Constitution of Australia as the constitutions of the then six self-governing colonies. Upon federation in 1901, the states ceded certain ...
In its design, Australia's federal system was modelled closely on the American federal system.This included: enumeration of the powers of parliament (s. 51) and not those of the States, with the States being assigned a broad 'residual' power instead (s. 108); a 'supremacy' clause (s. 109); strong bicameralism, with a Senate in which the States are equally represented notwithstanding great ...
More recently, the external affairs power has been used to remove the States' power to criminalise male homosexual activity. This followed an adverse report by the Human Rights Committee on Tasmanian provisions. The Human Rights Committee was established under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Australia is a party.
The reserved powers doctrine was a principle used by the inaugural High Court of Australia in the interpretation of the Constitution of Australia, that emphasised the context of the Constitution, drawing on principles of federalism, what the Court saw as the compact between the newly formed Commonwealth and the former colonies, particularly the compromises that informed the text of the ...
In some cases, as with human rights or environmental protection, the activities regulated by treaty-implementing legislation have not been international in nature but rather located solely within Australia or even solely within a particular State. In Australia, developments in international law have no direct effect for domestic purposes unless ...