Describe Australia’s Consitution

On the beginning(a) January 1901 Australia became adept nation. Prior to this Australia consisted of six separate colonies who all answered to British authority. The British government then passed the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 (UK) and federation was achieved. The British government had provided Australia with a theme which was a set of rules which the government had to dramatise in order to run the country. Parts of the formation include the partition of situation amongst the different levels of government and the establishment of the High Court.Australia is a constitutional monarch. This is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of arouse and because the British monarchy still plays a division in the Australian parliament, the government has a Governor-General. The Governor-General is the representative of the monarch or head of state (now Queen Elizabeth II). He or she exercises the supreme supply of the Commonwealth. The constitutio n grants the Governor-General a wide range of powers. The most important power the Governor-General has is found in section 58 of the constitution. When a proposed law passed by both Houses of Parliament is presented to the Governor-General for the Queens assent, he shall decl ar that he assents in the Queens name. This way they exact the power to decide which laws come into force. The constitution divides up the powers between the federal government and the states. This is covered in Chapter 1, Part V in sections 51 to 60. It specifies the legislative powers of the federal parliament which enables them to make laws.Section 52 outlines the easy lay powers of the federal government. The state parliament was given residual powers, these are the be matters which are not referred to in the constitution on which the states can legislate. The federal parliament was given the power to make laws on all matters listed in section 51. The state government can also make laws in many of the areas listed in section 51. This is an example of concurrent power which are powers held by both the state and federal parliaments.Each state has its own constitution along with residual powers. Some of the main powers of the state governments are in the areas of crime hospitals and public transport. When there is conflict between federal and state governments the solution is found in section 109 which states When a law of a State is inconsistent with a law of the Commonwealth, the latter shall prevail, and the former shall, to the cessation of the inconsistency be invalid. This means that federal overrules state.According to section 51, the federal government can pass laws on foreign relations and dish out and commerce around the world, taxation, currency, immigration and emigration etc. They also have the power to pass laws on the naval and military defence of the commonwealth, naturalization and aliens and the provision of maternity allowances. This is just a handful of wha t the many areas listed in section 51 are. Overall the entire Australian government answers to the constitution. This constitution combined six colonies into one country. A country that is now one of the most powerful countries in the world.