The Intentions of the Framers of the Australian Constitution Regarding Responsible Government and Accountability of the Commonwealth Executive to the Australian Senate
- Publication Type:
- Thesis
- Issue Date:
- 2020
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This thesis aims to uncover the extent to which the framers of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia conceived of the Commonwealth Executive as politically accountable to the Australian Senate. It explores how, through key financial controls, the political accountability of the Commonwealth Executive to the Senate was incorporated into the 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 by the framers, not just in pursuit of federal concerns but also in pursuit of broader aims of accountability sourced in the role and benefits of upper chambers in bicameral parliamentary systems. This reflected the form of strong bicameralism with which the framers were most familiar through their own experience of constitutional practice in Australia’s colonial parliaments. The thesis also considers the continuing relevance of the aims of dual accountability from Australian constitutional history to the High Court’s interpretation of the need to protect a line of accountability to upper chambers in Australia.
Accordingly, this thesis concentrates on the role of upper houses in Australia’s colonial parliaments prior to the Australasian Federal Conventions of 1891 and 1897-98 and on the record of the Convention Debates themselves. The investigation concludes that, when the framers came to design the 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, they transposed many of the ideas they had already developed about the appropriate role and benefits of an upper chamber to the new federal constitution. Whilst federal concerns were undoubtedly important in devising the role of the Senate, the framers were also motivated to include the forms of political accountability with which they had experienced under their own bicameral systems. Those systems provided for distinct lines of political accountability of governments to upper houses. Such accountability had been particularly conspicuous in disputes relating to parliamentary control of public finance in Australia’s colonial constitutional history. The thesis also argues that concerns regarding accountability to upper chambers that were already present in Australia’s pre-Federation history have remained relevant to the High Court’s interpretation of the accountability of the Commonwealth Executive to the Australian Senate. It concludes with an examination of the post-Federation judicial interpretation of this constitutional relationship.
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