Who is australias head of state

These separate and distinct roles are carried out without detriment to our sovereignty as a nation, and without detriment to our independence. Republicans argue that the Queen is our Head of State and that the republic would give us an Australian as Head of State.

The Australian Constitution does not contain the words "Head of State", nor was the term discussed during the constitutional debates which resulted in the drafting of the Constitution and its subsequent approval by the Australian people. In the absence of a specific provision in the Constitution, we need to see who actually performs the duties of Head of State in order to determine who is the Head of State.

As discussed in this paper, these duties are performed by the Governor-General, and the Sovereign's only constitutional duty is to approve the Prime Minister's recommendation of the person to be appointed Governor-General, or, if the need should ever arise, to approve the Prime Minister's recommendation to terminate the appointment of a Governor-General.

Although the Governor-General is the Queen's representative for the purposes of exercising the prerogatives of the Crown in Australia, when he exercises his constitutional duties as head of the executive Government of Australia he does so in his own right and not as a delegate of the Queen.

The media have long described the Governor-General as Head of State. Bill Hayden's speech to the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in , The Australian published an edited version under the heading "The Governor-General has made one of the most controversial speeches ever delivered by an Australian Head of State.

Peter Hollingworth, is nowadays described or referred to by parliamentarians and in the media as Head of State, as a matter of course. Even Sir Zelman Cowen, himself a distinguished and learned lawyer, has described the Governor-General as Head of State, though this was before he began to espouse the republican cause.

A not insignificant contribution to this particular debate about who is the Head of State was the sudden appearance in the Commonwealth Government Directory, in , as part of a list of the Governor-General's functions, of the following: "He is the head of state in whom the executive power of the Commonwealth is vested.

But all this is only anecdotal evidence, and of no legal effect. There is, however, a great deal of compelling constitutional and legal evidence, and it is on that evidence that this paper is based. During Queen Victoria signed a number of constitutional documents relating to the future Commonwealth of Australia, including Letters Patent constituting the Office of Governor-General, [12] and Instructions to the Governor-General on the manner in which he was to perform certain of his constitutional duties.

Two distinguished Australian constitutional scholars, A. Harrison later Sir Harrison Moore, [15] who had worked on the first draft of the Constitution that went to the Adelaide Convention, and who later became Professor of Law at the University of Melbourne, expressed the view that the Letters Patent and the Instructions were superfluous, or even of doubtful legality, on the grounds that the Governor-General's authority stemmed from the Australian Constitution and that not even the Sovereign could direct him in the performance of his constitutional duties.

As Inglis Clark pointed out, The British North America Act did not contain any provisions relating to the appointment of the Governor-General of Canada, or to the exercise of executive authority in that Dominion, that were in any way similar to the provisions contained in sections 2 and 61 of the Australian Constitution relating to the powers and functions of our Governor-General; [17] nor did the Constitutions of any of the Australian States contain any similar provisions relating to the State Governors.

These provisions were peculiar to the Australian Constitution and they conferred upon our Governor-General a statutory position which the Imperial Parliament had not conferred upon any other Governor or Governor-General in any other part of the British Empire.

Unfortunately, British Ministers advising Queen Victoria failed to appreciate the unique features of the Australian Constitution, and Australian Ministers failed to appreciate the significance of the Royal Instructions which Queen Victoria had issued to the Governor-General.

In , in a Canadian case before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and again in , during the hearing of an application by the Australian State Governments for special leave to appeal to the Privy Council from the High Court's decision in the Engineers' Case, Viscount Haldane, the Lord Chancellor, made special reference to the provisions of section His point was that section 61 "put the Sovereign in the position of having parted, so far as the affairs of the Commonwealth are concerned, with every shadow of active intervention in their affairs and handing them over, unlike the case of Canada, to the Governor-General.

At the Imperial Conference, the Empire's Prime Ministers declared that the Governor-General of a Dominion was no longer to be the representative of His Majesty's Government in Britain, and that it was no longer in accordance with a Governor-General's constitutional position for him to continue as the formal channel of communication between the two Governments. The Conference further resolved that, henceforth, a Governor-General would stand in the same constitutional relationship with his Dominion Government, and hold the same position in relation to the administration of public affairs in the Dominion, as did the King with the British Government and in relation to public affairs in Great Britain.

It was also decided that a Governor-General should be provided by his Dominion Government with copies of all important documents and should be kept as fully informed of Cabinet business and public affairs in the Dominion as was the King in Great Britain.

The Imperial Conference decided that, henceforth, recommendations to the King for the appointment of a Governor-General would be made by the Prime Minister of the Dominion concerned, and not by British Ministers as had been the case until then. This decision further strengthened the constitutional role of Governors-General and their relationships with their Dominion Government. Scullin, in insisting on advising the King on the appointment of Australia's next Governor-General.

Scullin's insistence on the right to recommend the appointment of Sir Isaac Isaacs as Australia's first Australian-born Governor-General became the genesis of the new rule for the appointment of Governors-General throughout the Empire. Our early Governors-General were British. They were appointed by the Sovereign on the advice of British Ministers and were in reality British civil servants.

Their role was to represent British interests in Australia. However by convention, she acts on the advice of the Prime Minister. The three powers that are generally identified as reserve powers are: appointing the Prime Minister, dismissing the Prime Minister, and refusing to dissolve Parliament. In conclusion, who would have thought that the Governor-General can potentially exercise such wide ranging powers? Hi there! We want to make this site as good as it can for you, the user.

People in Parliament. This diagram shows a number of positions in the Australian Parliament and how they relate to each other. The President of the Senate runs the meetings of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives runs the meetings of the House of Representatives.

Attribution — you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work. Waiver — any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. Who's who in the current Parliament Meet the leaders in the current Australian Parliament, from our head of state to party leaders and Presiding Officers.

Government and opposition leadership—House of Representatives. The Federal Executive Council. The Federal Executive Council is the constitutional mechanism for providing ministerial advice to the Governor-General. It is not a forum for policy debate or deliberation and its proceedings are entirely formal. In practice the minimum number of Ministers or Parliamentary Secretaries that is, two in addition to the person presiding are rostered to attend.

Meetings of the Council are presided over by the Governor-General or a deputy appointed by the Governor-General usually the Minister with the title Vice President of the Executive Council. The matters dealt with at each meeting are recommendations by Ministers, for the approval of the Governor-General in Council, that something be done—for example, that a regulation be made, a treaty be ratified, or a person be appointed to a position.

The role of the Queen. Australia is a constitutional monarchy. A monarchy is a country where the position of head of state is inherited.

A constitutional monarchy is one where the powers of the monarch or sovereign—the King or Queen—are limited by law or convention, and generally exercised only according to the advice of an elected government. The head of state is a formal, symbolic and ceremonial position, as opposed to the position of head of government, which has the administrative power to govern the country.

In some systems of government the head of state and head of government are the same person—for example, in the United States the President has both functions. Queen Elizabeth is also Queen of the United Kingdom and several other countries which used to be part of the former British Empire.

In Australia the powers of the Queen have been delegated by the Australian Constitution to her representative in Australia, the Governor-General. The Constitution gives the Queen the power to disallow an Australian Act of Parliament, but this has never been done and it is extremely unlikely that it would ever be done. The Judiciary. The Constitution vests the judicial power of the Commonwealth—the power to interpret laws and to judge whether they apply in individual cases—in the High Court and other federal courts.

The High Court is established by the Constitution. Other federal courts are created by legislation of the Parliament. Judges can only be removed from office by the Governor-General following a request for the removal from both Houses of Parliament on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity. One of the major functions of the High Court is to interpret the Constitution.

The High Court may rule a law to be unconstitutional—that is, beyond the power of the Parliament to make—and therefore of no effect. The Constitution cannot be changed by an Act of Parliament alone—a referendum of the people is necessary. The High Court of Australia. For more information. Table 1 — The Executive Government of Australia.

Formal appointment pursuant to Constitution. Head of Executive Government and one of constituent parts of the Parliament, but these functions are delegated to the Governor-General. May disallow an Act of Parliament but this has never been done. Only necessary personal function is to appoint the Governor-General. May on occasion perform acts normally carried out by the Governor-General, such as opening a session of Parliament or assenting to an Act of Parliament.

Represents the Queen as head of Executive Government and one of constituent parts of the Parliament. In most matters must act as advised by the Federal Executive Council.