The Australian Constitution Limits A Division Of Powers

“The Australian Constitution limits the exercise of powers throughout the Federation through both a division of powers and a separation of powers.”

Discuss this statement and analyse the ways in which the Constitution

1. Divides power amongst the members of the federation and
2. Creates a separation of Commonwealth powers

Introduction

The Australian Constitution was conceived through the process of Federation in 1901 to unify the states of Australia through one form of decentralised government.1 The Constitution describes a set of principles and fundamental rules that prescribes a division of powers between the Commonwealth and the six member states of the Federation through the Division of Powers Doctrine, and expressly defines a separation of powers between the three arms of government through the Separation of Powers Doctrine. ’The four principles of federalism’ within the Australian Constitution are represented by: a written Constitution; a separation of powers between government branches; an influential Court system; and a distribution of power between the states and the
To ensure this limitation, the Australian Constitution expressly defines each government institution and provides for their operation within Chapters 1,2, and 3. The effect of this is that the Constitution explicitly enables checks and balances in order to prevent ‘absolutism’ or one institution prevailing over the others.41 Despite the Constitution’s explicit structure to reflect the separation of powers, in reality each form of government branch does coincide, therefore threatening the original intention to uphold the separation of powers imposed by the Constitution.