Australia Act 1986
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The Australia Act 1986 is an act of the Parliament of Australia (No. 142 of 1985) and the Parliament of the United Kingdom (c.2 1986) which eliminated the remaining ties between the legislature and judiciary of Australia and their counterparts in the United Kingdom. In particular, the act resolved the anomalous power of the United Kingdom's parliament to legislate over the individual Australian states, a power that it had exercised since colonial times and which had not been affected by the 1931 Statute of Westminster. The Australia Act of 1986 was modeled after the Canada Act 1982.
Sir Ninian Stephen, Governor-General of Australia, assented to the act on December 4, 1985 and it came into effect on March 3, 1986 by a proclamation signed by Queen Elizabeth II at Government House, Canberra. Enabling legislation to bring the act into force was passed by the parliaments of the United Kingdom and each of the Australian states.
One of the most significant powers of the act was the termination of appeals from Australian courts to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London. The act removed the Privy Council from the remaining "direct lines of appeal" in the Australian legal system (particularly in state legal systems) placing greater emphasis on the High Court of Australia as the final court of appeal under Australian law.
Prior to this act, the Privy Council (Limitation of Appeals) Act 1968 made the High Court the final court of appeal on both Constitutional and Federal Matters. The exception to this was inter-se constitutional matters, i.e., constitutional disputes between the Commonwealth and/or State Governments, which were still permitted to appeal to the Privy Council if the court issued a certificate under section 74 of the Australian Constitution. The Privy Council (Appeals from the High Court) Act 1975 removed appeals from the High Court to the Privy Council in both codified and common law matters. With these two Acts in place, nearly all appeals from the High Court to the Privy Council were removed. However, direct appeals from State Supreme Courts remained possible until the passing of the Australia Act and its associated State Legislation.
Theoretically, a final remaining appeal to the Privy Council over inter-se constitutional matters might still be achieved by a certificate issued by the High Court. This is because the Australia Act, although pivotal in furthering the sovereignty of Australia, could not alter the Australian Constitution, as a national referendum is required to do so. However, the High Court has explicitly declared on numerous occasions that it will never grant such a certificate.
Another function of the Australia Act was to establish some form of independence to the states of Australia. Imperial Acts such as the Statute of Westminster 1931 granted the Commonwealth of Australia various degrees of nationhood, but failed to apply to the State Governments. Because of this, prior to the passage of the Australia Act, these states essentially remained colonies under the British Crown. For example, the British Parliament retained the right to advise the monarch on her choice of state governors.
The revamping of constitutional arrangements at both federal and state level required each state parliament to pass its own enabling legislation. The long title of these state acts (such as the Australia Acts (Request) Act 1985 of New South Wales) were "An Act to bring constitutional arrangements affecting the Commonwealth and the States into conformity with the status of the Commonwealth of Australia as a sovereign, independent and federal nation." Collectively the federal, state and British acts were known as the "Australia Acts".
