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Chapter 13 - Financial legislation
Requests
and section 57
Section 57 of the
Constitution, which authorises the simultaneous dissolution of both Houses of
the Parliament by the Governor-General in prescribed circumstances of
disagreement between the Houses (see Chapter 21), refers to the Senate
rejecting, failing to pass or passing a bill with amendments to which the House
of Representatives will not agree. It is a significant
question, which has not been considered, whether the Senate in making or
pressing requests for amendments to a bill could be said to have failed to pass it within the
meaning of the section. In that circumstance the Senate has not passed the bill
with amendments. Certainly if the Senate makes or presses requests it cannot be
said to have failed to pass the bill until the House of Representatives has
definitely rejected the requests and the Senate has then had an opportunity to reconsider
them. In that respect the government appears to have been in error in declining
to consider the Senate’s pressed requests in relation to the Sales Tax
Amendment Bills (Nos 1A to 9A) 1981 (see SD,
22/10/1981, pp 1547-8, particularly the statement by Senator Harradine
that the action taken by the government in the House of Representatives “was
not only unconstitutional but also ... ensured that the time clock for action
to be taken under the dissolution provisions of section 57 of the Constitution
could not run”).
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