of doubt about procedure, guidance would be sought in the practice of the UK
House of Commons (Reid 1987, chs 1 and 2). The Australian colonies retained
their identity and, upon formation of the Commonwealth, became states
(Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900, section 6); each state
retained its governor, who continues to be appointed by the Queen (in her
new capacity as Queen of Australia) on the advice of the premier of the state.
Ironically, Canada’s provinces have been, certainly in the past half-century,
decidedly more robust in asserting their own identity than have the Australian
states. In Australia, the Federation in this period has been increasingly marked
by centralization offinance and homogenization of public policy.
Just as there was little public participation in Canada in the composition
or adoption of the British North America Act, neither did it contain any
provision for such subsequent amendment as may be desired. For more
than a century, formal amendment was possible but it required a journey to
Westminster. It is only since 1982 that it has been possible for Canadians
alone to amend the Constitution Act, but there is no express provision for
popular participation or approval.
In both adoption and amendment of the Australian Constitution there is a
distinctively democratic (participatory) quality which is not to be found in
the constitutional arrangements of the UK or Canada. That Australia took this
course is partly a consequence of the breadth of research underlying the
framing of the Constitution by participants such as Alfred Deakin and Andrew
Inglis Clark; a readiness to search beyond British practice (both Deakin and
Clark visited the USA); and the general liberalism of the federal era.
Since the Second World War, the referendum has been used very occasion-
ally in the UK and Canada, invariably in a plebiscitary manner. But it remains
an ad hoc mechanism that has to be reactivated for each use. A positive result,
when achieved, is not indisputably binding as in Australia.
14.2 The Governor-General and the Monarch
The Australian Constitution provides that‘A Governor-General appointed
by the Queen shall be Her Majesty’s representative in the Commonwealth’
(section 2). It also states that the‘executive power of the Commonwealth
is vested in the Queen and is exercisable by the Governor-General as the
Queen’s representative, and extends to the execution and maintenance of
this Constitution, and of the laws of the Commonwealth’(section 61).
There is no comparably concise constitutional statement of the Governor
General of Canada’s role. On other specific matters in relation to, for instance,
summoning and meetings of parliament, the two documents contain com-
parable provisions.
Australia’s Distinctive Governance