The Issue of the Commonwealth's Spending Pattern

After looking at other example of Bills of Rights around the world, with America having theirs for 224 years, Canada having implemented theirs for 30 years and the UK for 17 years, Australia needs to consider each nation’s Bill of Rights’ respective strengths and weaknesses when considering our own Bill of Rights in order for it to best suit the current and future society. Canada adopts something of the middle ground between the strongly entrenched rights in the United State’s constitution and the United Kingdom where the British parliament remains supreme with a weak level of right entrenchment, making it perfect for the situation in Australia.

Political thinkers Rousseau, Locke and Montesqieu claimed that the powers of government should be limited, divided and checked. The principle is that there should be a division of government executive, legislative and judiciary powers into three separate arms or institutions that act separately and are independent of one another (members of one branch cannot be members of either of the other two). Australia’s constitution separated powers by delegating the legislative power to Federal parliament (s.1), executive power to the Governor General (s.61) and the Judiciary to the High Court (s.71). However due to Westminster conventions (adopted from the British system of parliament) commonly practiced by the Australia government, the members of the executive (cabinet) are selected from the legislative by the Prime Minister (going against the concept of having no cross-branched members). The PM (also Westminster convention) is not mentioned in the constitution and yet exercised executive power; for example in 2003 PM John Howard exercises (s.68) by sending troops to Iraq. The constitution also provides the executive with the power to appoint the High Court Judge (s.72) and thus is could be argued that the executive has power over the Judiciary in that sense; However the constitution actively safeguards the position of the Judiciary by stating the High Court Judge “Shall not be removed except by the Governor-General in Council, on an address from both Houses of the

“In theory Parliament has total power. It is sovereign” were the words of Dicey in his book Law of the Constitution. A.V. Dicey was a British jurist and constitutional theorist in the 20th century who was adamant and argued extensively about the absolute nature of sovereignty of the Parliament which he derived from Coke and Blackstone. He had said “"Parliament" has

Section 51 (xxix) of the Constitution of Australia grants exclusive power to the Commonwealth to legislate with regard to external affairs. Since its inception, through the development of case law, the external affairs power has been found to consist of three limbs:

Kartinyeri v Commonwealth depicted the inclination of the High Court to adopt differing interpretive approaches to constitutional issues and how this may lead to a decline of judicial rights. However, the decision itself implied that the Parliament could essentially enact laws which are discriminatory or detrimental to Aboriginal persons where it is deemed necessary. It has been established that whether a law is necessary or not is something to be decided by the Parliament and not the courts. As such, it is important to limit the Parliament’s powers with respect to legislating for Aboriginal people by only allowing beneficial legislation to be

With the transition of a new President and Administration one can only think of how our economy will be in the next four years. America is a melting plot therefore we are not always going to agree on where Government spends our money. Some support more spending on education and new construction for roads while others support a less involved government. We have seen in the past that when there’s a high level of government spending our economy blooms. We can benefit from this because we have more move to spend and put back into the economy.

The Senate (Upper house) was designed by the founders to act as a reviewer or sometimes even just a ‘rubber stamp’ if the elected government has an overwhelming majority in both the Upper and Lower houses. The founders had given the Senate the power to reject a government’s budget all together, but it had never been used. The Opposition was using this alleged power to reject the government’s budgets; not because they objected to it, they only wanted the elected government to essentially run out of money and be forced to hold an election. These actions questioned the functioning of the Lower and Upper houses and endangered the structure of responsible government in Australian politics. Whitlam argued that the Senate did not have the power to stop a government from running the country and make them face the people. The Opposition said this power existed in the Constitution and ‘interpreted’ that it then must be alright for them to use it. Whitlam stated that by using this power the Opposition was breaking a tradition, a convention, which must be adhered to if there was any hope for a responsible Senate and

Spending power is the power of the federal governments to use or spend their resources in any area, even in areas of provincial jurisdiction in which conditions for provinces to follow can be applied. The spending power of the federal government can be seen as an invasive but necessary step to achieving policy goals and national ambitions without imposing a severe financial burden on the provinces, this allows Canada to be viewed as a “textbook best-practice system of fiscal federalism” (Ouiment, 2014).

The piece Advance Australia … within reason, was conveyed on the 5th of January by Amy Mackintosh, at the annual “University of Students for Youth Political Activism’ meeting held at The University of Melbourne. Mackintosh steadily argues the reasons why Australia should not have become a republic, and how the country should stay as a monarchy. The tone of the speech is very colloquial and even sarcastic, with the middle part being more analytical and serious. The speaker gives the impression that the argument for Australia to stay as a Monarchy is unbiased and logical.

However, it could be argued that because the Commonwealth is already able to legislate in almost every area of law it sees fit, with the use of the external affairs power and the grants power , it seems futile to limit the Commonwealth in this case, because the encroachment on areas of state law-making power has been taking place for decades.

The Division and Separation of power are essential to keep our societies rulers to have a restriction on their powers. The importance of each on the Australian domestic law especially in relation to the rule of law, and protecting individual rights, and the legal system.

Taxes are the dollars that we pay to government to supply the services that are not or can not be provided through the free enterprise system. Taxes have been around since the beginning of organized societies. They come in various forms. Most common are income taxes both federal and local government. These taxes are assessed on the amount of income a person earns. Other taxes come in the form of user taxes; these taxes are imposed on the people that are using the goods being taxed, such as gas tax, alcohol tax, sales tax, and luxury taxes. Property taxes make up the major revenues for local and city governments. Furthering the burden of taxation are taxes that are attached to such bills as utility

The author’s purpose for creating this source is to outline to the people of Australia what this new act would enable the government to be able to do at the time of war. This includes the ability for the Governor General to make regulations and orders for the safety of the Commonwealth. As well as the imprisonment for those who fail to comply with any regulations or orders created under this Act.

Dicey AV, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, (10th edn, 1959)

The average Australian debt is growing, and the average household debt amount is almost quarter of a million dollars. While a large chunk of this is tied to home ownership, many Australians dread opening their credit card bills each January. Facing up to end-of-year overspending is depressing, but there is a way to avoid this happening again next Christmas, but you have to start thinking about it now.