Chapter XVIII: Relations of the Australian Commonwealth to the Crown

It has not seemed necessary to set forth the relations of the Commonwealth to the British Crown, because these relations are substantially those which have heretofore existed between the Crown and each of the self-governing colonies now united in the Federal Commonwealth. The chief difference is that the Commonwealth Parliament receives certain powers (as to extra-territorial fisheries and relations with the islands of the Pacific) which were previously exerciseable only by the (now extinct) Federal Council of Australasia (mentioned above), that it has a general power to legislate on ‘external affairs’ (a somewhat vague term, sect. 51, xxix), and that it may ‘exercise within the Commonwealth, at the request or with the concurrence of the Parliaments of all the States directly concerned, any power which can now be exercised only by the Parliament of the United Kingdom or by the Federal Council of Australasia’ (sect. 51, xxxviii). Apart from these provisions, which may give rise to some delicate questions, the principles and practice which have guided the action of the Home Government and of the Colonial Governors will apparently be preserved. Though the Imperial Parliament has an unquestioned right to legislate for every part of the British dominions so as to override all local legislation, it does not now exercise this power except for a few purposes of utility common to all, or many, British possessions, such as for the regulation of merchant-shipping or copyright, and when it does so, it secures the assent of the self-governing Colonies. So again, though the Crown has a legal right to withhold consent from Colonial Statutes, this right is rarely exerted, and then only in respect of some general imperial interest which it is supposed that the statute in question may prejudicially affect, _i.e._ the Crown’s right is not exerted in the interest of any class of persons in the Colony or in pursuance of any particular view entertained either by the Governor there or by the Ministry at home. The new Australian Constitution provides (sectt. 58-60) that when a measure passed by the Parliament is presented to the Governor-General, he may either assent to it in the Queen’s name (but subject to a power to the Queen to disallow the same within one year) or he may withhold assent; or he may reserve it for the Queen’s pleasure, in which last case it shall not take effect unless he announces within two years that the Queen has assented to it. This right of veto, though it looks on paper larger than that which belongs to the President of the United States, seeing that the President’s veto can be overridden by a two-thirds’ majority in each House of Congress, is in reality far more limited, and will constitute no check (except where imperial interests may be affected) upon the practically sovereign power of the Commonwealth Parliament.