Chapter 21 - Relations
with the House of Representatives
Simultaneous
dissolutions of 1983
Following the general election for the
House of Representatives and the periodical election for the Senate in October
1980, the Fraser Government had a secure majority in the House (82-66), but
after 1 July 1981 only 31 votes in a Senate of 64 (the Opposition had 27,
Australian Democrats 5 and Independent 1).
The government’s
minority situation was revealed in consideration of Sales Tax Amendment Bills
(Nos 1A to 9A) 1981. These proposed laws were finally passed by the House on 27 August 1981, and received by
the Senate on the same day. Following debate in the Senate, the bills were
returned to the House on 23 September 1981 requesting amendments. The House resolved
on 14 October
1981
not to make the requested amendments. The Senate considered the House’s
position and declined to pass a resolution “that the requests be not pressed,”
the effect of which was to press the requests. This action, it was argued in
the Prime Minister’s advice to the Governor-General recommending simultaneous
dissolution of the two Houses, constituted “failure to pass”: “Pressing the
requests was simply prevarication,” the Prime Minister claimed.
In the event, the requests were returned to the House which declined to
consider the message containing them. The bills were not again considered by
the House and on 7 May 1982 the relevant Order of the Day was discharged from the
notice paper.
In the meantime, on 16 February 1982, bills in the same form were again presented to the
House of Representatives. They were passed the following day and transmitted to
the Senate on 18 February 1982. After debate the Senate declined, on 10 March 1982, to give the bills
a second reading.
Other bills, Social Services Amendment Bill (No. 3) 1981, States Grants
(Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1981, Australian
National University Amendment Bill (No. 3) 1981 and the Canberra College of
Advanced Education Bill 1981, were also cited as coming within section 57 for
simultaneous dissolution purposes when Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, on 3
February 1983, tendered advice to Governor-General Stephen. All of these bills
had been twice rejected outright by the Senate.
According to the
Prime Minister, the 13 proposed laws were “of importance to the Government’s
budgetary, education and welfare policies”. A second consideration was that Australia was facing “a very
difficult economic period with potentially great social consequences”. He
continued:
It is of paramount importance in facing
the difficult economic circumstances that lie ahead that the Government knows that
it has the full confidence of the Australian people and that the Australian
people have full confidence in its Government’s ability to point the way
towards recovery. I regard this as of such paramount importance that on this
issue alone I believe that I am justified in asking Your Excellency to dissolve
the Parliament and issue writs for a general election in both Houses. (PP
129/1984, p. 5)
Later in the day the Prime Minister wrote, in further correspondence
with the Governor-General:
... I regard a double dissolution as
critical to the workings of the Government and of the Parliament.
Clearly, there is a need for the
Government, in the critical period we face, to have decisive control over both
Houses of Parliament. Even though the last session continued well past its
normal time, indeed close to Christmas, some significant Government legislation
was not passed by the Senate. There are measures that we have not even put to
the Parliament because we know that they would not achieve passage through the
Senate. (ibid., p. 41)
In responding the Governor-General wrote that he had satisfied himself
that there existed measures meeting “the description of measures such as are
referred to in section 57 of the Constitution”. He continued:
Such precedents as exist, together with
the writings on section 57 of the Constitution, suggest that in circumstances
such as the present, I should, in considering your advice, pay regard to the
importance of the measures in question and to the workability of Parliament.
I note that your letter states that the
thirteen proposed laws are “of importance to the Government’s budgetary,
education and welfare policies”. I also note that in the case of each of these
measures a considerable time has passed since they were rejected or not passed
for a second time in the Senate. I have considered their nature; the nine Sales
Tax measures seek to impose tax on a range of goods now exempt; three of the
other measures provide for the limited re-introduction of tuition fees in
tertiary education institutions; the last measure, a social service measure,
seeks to preclude spouses of those involved in industrial action from receiving
unemployment and special benefits.
As to the importance of these measures,
viewed in the context of the extraordinary nature of a double dissolution, I am
not myself in any position, from their mere subject matter and context, to form
a view about the particular importance of any of them.
It was in those circumstances that I
spoke with you by telephone early this afternoon about the workability of
Parliament, seeking further advice from you on that score; this was a matter to
which you had already referred, in a prospective sense, in your original
letter.
As a result of your second letter to
me, in which you speak of difficulties of the immediate past and described a
double dissolution as critical to the workings of the Government and of the
Parliament, I am now satisfied that in accordance with your advice I should
dissolve the Senate and the House of Representatives simultaneously. I note
your assurance as to the availability of funds to enable the work of the
administration to be carried on through the election period. (ibid., p.
43-4)
At the election, actually fought on issues of economic management,
interest rates, industrial relations and union power, saw a victory for the
Opposition which won 75 seats in the House of Representatives to 50 for the
Liberal-National parties. The result in the Senate contest was: ALP, 30;
Liberal, 24; National, 4; Australian Democrats, 5; and Independent, 1.
The simultaneous
dissolution of 1983 again highlighted “grey areas” in relation to disagreements
between the Houses. One was the stockpiling of several bills in anticipation of
simultaneous dissolution, a matter to which the Governor-General referred when
he eventually accepted the Prime Minister’s advice (“... a considerable time
has passed since [the proposed laws] were rejected or not passed for a second
time in the Senate” [ibid., p. 43]). At least in circumstances
where there is no withholding of supply by the Senate, such a use of stockpiled
bills, perhaps stale and unrelated to a particular situation, does not appear
to be within the intent of section 57 of the Constitution.
It was to meet this aspect of simultaneous dissolution practice that
Senator David Hamer (Liberal, Victoria) proposed amendment to the Constitution
so that such dissolutions had to take place within three months of the Senate
rejecting or otherwise failing to pass a bill for the second time (Constitution
Alteration (Double Dissolution) Bill 1983; agreed to by the Senate but failed
to gain absolute majority, 13/10/1983, J.386-7).
A new and more contentious
element in the events leading to the simultaneous
dissolution of 1983 is the treatment of the sales tax bills. As the above
account shows, the initial parliamentary consideration of these bills ended in
the House, not the Senate. The fault lay with the House in deliberately and
wrongly breaking off communication with the Senate and shelving the bills. The
issue of the Senate’s right to press suggested amendments to bills which it may
not amend is addressed in Chapter 13, Financial Legislation.
At the time it was
contended that sufficient grounds for simultaneous dissolutions existed on the
basis of the legislative history of the sales tax bills. Whether the
Governor-General would have been satisfied that the Senate had failed to pass
the bills on the first occasion is an interesting question.
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