Chapter 21 - Relations
with the House of Representatives
Simultaneous
dissolutions of 1914
Following the 1913 general election for the House of Representatives
and periodical election for the Senate, the new Liberal government under Joseph Cook had a narrow
majority in the House (38-37) but was in a significant minority (29-7) in the
Senate. These were the circumstances in which the first simultaneous
dissolutions of the two Houses of the Commonwealth Parliament occurred the
following year.
The occasion for the simultaneous dissolutions was the Government
Preference Prohibition Bill. The bill was first passed by the House on 18 November 1913, only to be
rejected in the Senate on the second reading on 11 December 1913; in the next session
the proposed law was again passed by the House on 28 May 1914 and again rejected
by the Senate on the first reading on 28 May 1914.
On 10 June 1914 the
Prime Minister informed the House of Representatives that, subject to provision
of funds for carrying on the public service during the election period, the
Governor-General had granted a double dissolution on the basis of advice that
the “Parliament was unworkable, that it was impossible to manage efficiently
the public business... .” (HRD, pp 1970-1).
There was debate about the decision to dissolve on the ground that the
measure in question was not a national or vital one. The Deputy Leader of the
Opposition in the Senate, Senator G.F. Pearce of Western Australia, contended that a simultaneous dissolutions should only
occur when the Senate, by its treatment of the financial measures of the
Government, rendered government impossible. Pointing to the collocation of
section 57, which follows immediately upon those sections of the Constitution
dealing with the financial powers of the Houses, Pearce argued that the House
of Representatives was specifically mentioned in section 57 because it is there
that money bills must originate. (SD, 15/5/1914, pp 1009-23)
Quick and Garran claim that section 57 may apply to any bill (Annotated
Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth, 1901, p. 685), but Pearce’s
argument found support in a speech to the Federal Convention by Edmund Barton, Leader of the
Convention:
“Deadlock” is not a term which is
strictly applicable to any case except that in which the constitutional machine
is prevented from properly working. I am in very grave doubt whether the term
can be strictly applied to any case except the stoppage of legislative machinery
arising out of conflict upon the finances of the country. A stoppage which
arises on any matter of ordinary legislation, because the two Houses cannot
come to an agreement at first, is not a thing which is properly designated by
the term “deadlock” — because the working of the Constitution goes on — the
constitutional machine proceeds notwithstanding a disagreement. It is only when
the fuel of the machine of government is withheld that the machine of
government comes to a stop, and that fuel is money. (Debates of the Convention,
Sydney, 1897, p. 620)
Pearce’s approach would likewise seem to be supported by the advice of Chief Justice Griffith to the
Governor-General. According to Griffith, the power of dissolution should not be exercised
simply because the conditions specified in section 57 exist:
It should, on the contrary, be regarded
as an extraordinary power, to be exercised only in cases in which the
Governor-General is personally satisfied, after independent consideration of
the case, either that the proposed law as to which the Houses have differed in
opinion is one of such public importance that it should be referred to the
electors of the Commonwealth for immediate decision by means of a complete
renewal of both Houses, or that there exists such a state of practical deadlock
in legislation as can only be ended in that way. (Quoted in L.F. Crisp, Australian
National Government, 4th ed., 1978, pp 404-5)
Pearce also observed that the government had not made any attempt to
resolve the deadlock by means of a conference between managers of the two
Houses.
On 17 June 1914 the Senate agreed to an address to the Governor-General
requesting that the correspondence which passed between the Governor-General
and his advisers in regard to the double dissolution of the Parliament might be
made public. The address stated, inter alia, that:
The decision of Your Excellency appears
to be fatal to the principles upon which the Senate has hitherto acted, which,
we submit, are in strict accordance with a truly Federal interpretation of the
Constitution. The Constitution deliberately created a House in which the States
as such may be represented, and clothed this House with co-ordinate powers
(save in the origination of Money Bills) with the Lower Chamber of the Legislature.
These powers were given to the Senate in order that they might be used; but if
a Senate may not reject or even amend any bill because a Government chooses to
call it a “test” bill, although such bill contains no vital principle or gives
effect to no reform, the powers of the Senate are reduced to a nullity. We
submit that no constitutional sanction can be found for that view, which is
repugnant to one of the fundamental bases of the Constitution, viz, a
Legislature of two Houses, clothed with equal powers, one representing the
people as such, the other representing the States. And we respectfully submit
that the dissolution of the Senate ought not to follow upon a mere legitimate
exercise of its functions under the Constitution, but only upon such action as
makes responsible government impossible, e.g. the rejection of a measure
embodying a principle of vital importance necessary in the public interest,
creating an actual legislative deadlock and preventing legislation upon which
the Ministry was returned to power. These conditions do not exist in the
present case. (J.86-8)
The Address also stated that there was not a deadlock between the
Houses, referring to the following statement:
SESSION
1913
Bills passed and assented to - 23
Bills passed by Senate only - 6
Bills
passed by Senate without amendment - 18
Bills
passed by Senate with amendments - 5
Amendments
disagreed with (Bills laid aside by House of Representatives)- 3*
Bills
rejected by Senate - 2
* Including Committee of Public Accounts Bill No. 1
The Governor-General declined to respond to the Senate’s request. He
stated, however, that the grounds for the decision were to be found in the
Prime Minister’s statement, made with his permission, to the House of
Representatives.
The Parliament was dissolved on 30 July 1914. At the election
on 5
September 1914, the Labor Party led by Andrew Fisher won 42 seats in the House of Representatives against 32
by the Liberal Party, with one Independent; the result in the Senate was:
Labor, 31; Liberal, 5.
The correspondence relating to the dissolutions was tabled in both
Houses on 8 October 1914 (PP 2/1914-17).
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