Elections are commonplace events. Both in terms of their frequency, but also in the way they are taken for granted. Especially in Australia, but more generally in western democracies, their ebb and flow forms a seasonal rhythm, against which the more substantive work of government and public affairs – policy debates, law-making, administration and the (re)construction of community and national identities – is played out, through debate in the media, opinion polling and parliamentary and executive activity.

The magic long ago seeped out of our understanding and, for many, the experience of elections. They are major logistical events, certainly. But on the surface they appear to be relatively routine affairs, professionally run by full-time, non-partisan electoral commissions, who are bureaucratically guided, indeed bound, by enormously detailed legislative codes. The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 (Cth) (CEA), for example, currently extends to more than 350 pages. By contrast, the inaugural Commonwealth Electoral Act 1902 (Cth) and accompanying Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 (Cth) together spanned fewer than 45 pages.

I do not understand how, by whatever words that proposition is dressed up, it means anything else except that section 117 does not apply if the Court does not want it to.

In December 2006, the Civil Partnerships Bill 2006 (ACT) was introduced in the ACT Legislative Assembly that would extend to same-sex (and heterosexual) couples who have declared their commitment to each other by entering a ‘civil partnership’ the legal consequences that ACT laws attach to ‘domestic partnerships’ (what other Australian jurisdictions call ‘de facto relationships’). The Bill was introduced in response to the Howard Government's disallowance, in June 2006, of the Civil Unions Act 2006 (ACT) ('Civil Unions Act’), passed by the ACT Legislative Assembly almost exactly one month before. The Civil Unions Act had created an institution paralleling heterosexual marriage but open to both same-sex and different-sex couples. A civil union was similar to marriage both to the extent that a ceremony was required for it to be brought into existence and because a validly contracted civil union was to be treated like marriage for the purposes of all ACT laws.

The latest statement from the High Court on duties of excise poses an interesting question with regard to the fiscal relationship between Commonwealth and State governments. The absence of fiscal accountability in all levels of government in Australia serves to frustrate the objectives of the federal system. While the decision in Ngo Ngo Ha v New South Wales (Ha) brings some clarity to a confusing area, the High Court's adoption of a broad approach to s 90 of the Constitution has the effect of increasing the disparity between the revenue and expenditure of Commonwealth and State governments. In light of the economic and political implications of the decision, it must be asked whether the correct purpose has been attributed to the section.

Much of the core work of government is now done pursuant to contract with private sector bodies, primarily for efficiency reasons. While the phenomenon of contracting out of governmental functions has attracted increasing scholarly attention in terms of public law accountability, the use of commercial arbitration for the resolution of contractual disputes involving governments has until recently attracted scant attention. The law regulating commercial arbitration does not distinguish between arbitrations between private actors and arbitrations involving governments, treating all commercial disputes as wholly private in nature. By controlling government action, arbitrators contribute to governance but without the hallmarks of the judicial process such as impartiality, transparency, the possibility for third-party participation and judicial oversight. As such, the law does not take into account the public dimension of disputes under government contracts or the role of arbitrators as adjudicators of public law disputes. Nor do there appear to be any constitutional constraints on the use of arbitration in government contracts.

It is elementary in administrative law that there is no such thing as unfettered discretion–yet, in a development that appears to have gone largely unnoticed, statutes increasingly confer ‘absolute discretion’ on public decision-makers. This article explores and evaluates these provisions and their judicial treatment in New Zealand. It surveys the range of contexts in which they are used and the various purposes or functions they appear to serve, and evaluates each against orthodoxy. It also surveys the judicial responses to such provisions, finding that these are mixed and too often muted. Of particular concern are the ‘absolute discretion’ provisions in the Immigration Act, and the lack of a consistently resolute judicial response to these.

The taxation of sovereign wealth funds is an important issue for governments as they are both investors and need to attract investment. Operating in global markets, how these funds are taxed can affect investment location decisions. In Australia there are currently no legislative provisions for these investments and issues of residency, applicability and terminology hamper the use of tax treaties.

The basis of how sovereign wealth funds are taxed in Australia is administrative where tax exemptions are provided on the basis of private ruling applications. It is an inefficient and costly process which lacks certainty. Over the period 2009 to 2011 the government of the day proposed legislating its practices dealing with sovereign wealth funds. In 2010 Singapore introduced a fund exemption scheme, markedly different from that proposed in Australia. Yet it is a method that is able to be adapted to the Australian income tax legislation. It avoids definitional issues by targeting the entities the policy aims to cover, is compatible with a self-assessment system and provides flexibility in policy making. Recommendations with accompanying considerations are made with respect to incorporating Singapore's tax exemption for sovereign wealth funds into the Australian tax legislation.

In 1994 the New South Wales Parliament passed an extraordinary piece of legislation, the demise of which one is hard-pressed to mourn. Be that as it may, the means by which that demise was achieved are hardly to be celebrated, as the High Court decision which accomplished the task represents a further entrenchment of the unfortunate doctrine of “incompatibility” introduced the previous year in Grollo v Palmer and Others. In short, the decision in Kable v Director of Public Prosecutions (NSW) extends the doctrine of incompatibility to State courts so that State parliaments, although they remain entitled to usurp the functions of those courts, cannot assign to those courts any powers whose exercise is incompatible with the judicial power of the Commonwealth vested in those courts by Commonwealth legislation. In this respect, the decision represents the worst of both worlds by placing severe limitations on State courts without any corresponding limitations on State parliaments (except to the extent they may wish to confer powers on the courts in question). The result is that the States have judiciaries which are half-independent, and that half is the less important half.

There has been a vigorous debate both judicially and academically about the correct approach to constitutional interpretation. An aspect of that debate has involved the role of assumptions in informing our interpretation of the Constitution. I have argued elsewhere that ‘some assumptions form part of the fabric upon which the written words of the Constitution are superimposed … where the assumption is integral to a proper understanding of the structure and text of the Constitution, it can be both used and applied in constitutional interpretation.’

The ‘executive power of the Commonwealth’ is conferred by s 61 of the Commonwealth Constitution. Section 61 provides that ‘the executive power of the Commonwealth is vested in the Queen and is exercisable by the Governor-General’. Neither that section nor any other informs us as to what ‘the executive power’ is. Nor does the structure of the Commonwealth Constitution provide much of a hint of it.

Race, religion and royalty (the Three ‘Rs’) have been salient aspects of Malaysia’s constitutional struggle. These elements have defined the country’s constitutional settlements during the pre-independence constitution-making process, generated constitutional crises and continued to figure into day-to-day governance and constitutional practice. There have been instances where operation of and compromises around the Three Rs have facilitated constitution-building. Yet, more often than not, as this article illustrates, the constellation of these three forces have challenged the building and sustaining of a constitutional democracy. Since the historic political change in May 2018 in particular, the Three Rs have become even more significant in shaping the critical junctures in Malaysia’s constitutional journey. To illuminate a more comprehensive understanding of the role of race, religion and royalty in Malaysia’s struggle for constitutional democracy, this article explains how these elements have defined (and continued to define) controversies relating to the distribution of political power and the protection of fundamental rights. Fundamentally, these aspects implicate checks and balances and constraints on political power. This article also demonstrates the ways in which the struggle for constitutional democracy implicates a range of actors and interests: aside from individual citizens, there are the monarchy, the elected government, the courts and group (ethnic) interests. This article then draws on institutional and political explanations in accounting for Malaysia’s constitutional struggle. In particular, aside from changing political fundamentals, it argues that the Constitution provides the opportunity structure and institutional resources for the Three Rs to shape Malaysia's struggle for constitutional democracy.

In commencing his sprawling collective portrait of 19th century Britain a few years ago, A N Wilson stated simply, ‘[t]he Victorians are still with us.’ The truth of this, he went on to explain, lay in the fact that, though much changed, the world which they created persists. Although we seem to be at a great remove from the concerns, innovations and ideals of that era, Wilson ably demonstrated that the world left to us by the Victorians was immutably different from that which existed beforehand. As such it marked a break with the past and set in place the parameters within which the modern age has continued to develop.

The extent to which the motives of providers and recipients (of care) diverge can be seen in the nursing home market – nominally under regulation, but at the worst deteriorating into a real estate market with revenue generating aged persons attached to the property like serfs to the manor.

The profit making people in the nursing homes know full well how to be quite ruthless and brutal in trying to mobilize emotional responses in the community against a government so that they can exploit the taxpayer by forcing a government into paying out more money … when it suited the private commercial nursing home people, patients were moved on litters out of their nursing homes to the edge of the footpaths of the street outside the homes. It was arranged for the media, particularly the visual media, to cover the whole exercise. All sorts of emotional displays were indulged in.

Problems similar to those that have, for many years, occupied the courts of the United States, Canada and Australia in interpreting a federal charter now confront the judicial arm of the European Community. Professor Zines develops a comparison between the approach that has found favour in the European Court and the approach of the courts of those Federations, although he admits that such a comparison has innate limitations. From a study of the revelant cases Professor Zines concludes that the European Court, by adopting a functional approach, has strengthened community rather than state interests. He discusses in detail how the Court has achieved this result by relying on the broad economic and political objects which are recognised as underlying the Treaty, rather than by strict legal construction of its provisions.

Most High Court decisions which touch upon the Australian Constitution are posthumously examined in academic literature. Some, though too few, have been subjected to more lengthy and detailed analysis. The Franklin Dam case is not an exception. Within eighteen months, it has consumed a substantial number of pages of commentary. Prominent are discussions concerning specific constitutional powers — corporations, race, external affairs and nationhood — and prohibitions — ss 51(xxxi) and 100 and implied restrictions. General premises and themes which underlie the processes of constitutional adjudication have attracted rather less attention. There has been some enunciation of interpretative principles and discussion of the political dimensions of judicial review. Further elaboration would be invaluable. Perhaps, commentators are waiting for the dust to settle before advancing to these, and other, more nebulous aspects of constitutional decision-making. When they do so, the dimensions of Australian constitutional law scholarship could be irretrievably enhanced.

Policy formation has displaced the diffused and incremental operation of the common law as our primary means of social regulation … In the process, the nature of legislation itself has undergone a major change. It no longer consists of rules that displace or supplement the common law: contemporary legislatures … enact a wide range of … provisions that bear little resemblance to our traditional concept of law. For these functions we have no adequate theory, no general account of how such statutes should be designed ....

Laws imposing taxation shall deal only with the imposition of taxation, and any provision therein dealing with any other matter shall be of no effect.

Amongst the nations of the South Pacific only Australia and New Zealand have no constitutionally entrenched Bills of Rights. New Zealand has no written Constitution at all, whilst in the Australian Constitution there are a number of provisions which have the potential to guarantee some civil and political rights.

The founding fathers of the Australian Constitution were pragmatic people. Almost all of them were parliamentarians and many of them either were, or had been, Premiers or senior Ministers in the governments of the various Australian colonies. They were not leisured gentlemen who took time to consider philosophy, let alone write any of their own. They were not concerned about the rights of humankind, nor did they see their role as one of creating an Australian federal parliament and a government that was required to guarantee, uphold and preserve the rights of the people. On the contrary their aim was to achieve some hard, practical, political goals.