Talk:Joint Sitting of the Australian Parliament of 1974

legal challenge

From my shallow reading of history that the petroleum act was disallowed 13 months later but Im unable (at least in the near future) to state succintly why. Any of you young legal eagles out there able? Please help yourselves! Eric A. Warbuton 06:24, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Not super sure but I think it had something to do with whether or not it had met the technical requirements of s57. In any case it was irrelevant. The other acts were sufficient to allow a double dissolution and the court ruled in Cormack v Cope that even if one of the bills on the original double dissolution writ did not fit the criteria of s57 it did not invalidate the entire process. Shadow007 12:29, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

...And why is this page tagged for cleanup? --Stretch 04:58, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

With regards the disallowance, it comes down to the meaning of "fail to pass". This is the sort of thing a human being rather than a rule book can best determine.

In most parliamentary chambers legislation is rarely passed on the same day it is first introduced. It's even rarer in bicameral systems for both chambers to pass a bill on the same day. Instead there's normally debate about the legislation in the chamber itself, consideration of amendments and (usually) referral to a committee of the parliament. There may even be multiple votes - one on the general principle of the bill, another on the exact final text as amended. All of this takes time, and parliaments can also go into recess, so it's quite possible for legislation in the normal course of events to take longer than three months between passing the House of Representatives and the Senate without there being any intentional delay at all.

Of course equally the Senate can deliberately stall by either bottling the bill up in committee or repeatedly passing motions to defer consideration of the bill to a later date. So at the one extreme you have blatant filibustering and at the other you have normal parliamentary procedure taking time. The former is clearly the "fail to pass" that the double dissolution procedure is designed to overcome, but the latter isn't a case of the two houses being in conflict at all.

The court ruled that the Senate had been given insufficient time to consider the Petroleum and Minerals Authority Bill before it was used as a trigger for the double dissolution. I think the summer recess was a key factor and the ruling was that the three months began when the bill arrived on the floor of the Senate (February) rather than when it passed the House (13 December).

Also I'm not sure the courts can retroactively overturn a double dissolution and election itself; all they can do is rule the trigger legislation invalid if it's got onto the statute book by the double dissolution + joint sitting procedure. However the Governor General would have to take into account whether the trigger is in a position to make it and thus qualifies. It takes human judgement as to precisely where the fine line is between the Senate giving reasoned consideration to a bill the House is being overly hasty about vs the Senate filibustering on a bill the House reasonably wants passed, but this is what Governor Generals and courts are for. Timrollpickering (talk) 00:37, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Copyedit required

This article badly requires copy editing for a multitude of reasons:

• Poor/incorrect citation of Acts and legal cases;
• Poor/incorrect capitalisation;
• Such literary gems as:
  • "The Labor party was returned with a reduced majority and, crucially, less than a senate majority to enable his party to legislate."
  • "This led to the historic joint sitting. Its constitionality was clear: from Section 57:"
  • "Consequently, a proclamation by the Governor-General Sir John Kerr on 30 July, for all members of the Senate and the House of Representatives to assemble at the House of Representatives chamber in Parliament House on 6 August was issued."

I could go on but I won't. The article probably needs greater context for a reader unitiated in Australian politcs and/or law as well.

I'll do the copyedit if/when I find the time but I won't complain if someone else does it. Shadow007 07:18, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Party lines

"Voting split along party lines for all Bills: 96 ayes to 91 noes."... with 66 to 61 in the lower house, that would mean senate members split right down the middle on 30 each. Michael Townley, the independent, was admitted to the Liberal Party in early 1975, which leaves Liberal Movement senator Steele Hall... can anyone confirm Hall voted on ALP lines in this joint sitting? Timeshift 19:44, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposed expansion and name change

Joint sittings can occur not only following a double dissolution, but also:

• to elect a replacement Territory Senator to a casual vacancy (this provision has now been repealed but it was used on two occasions, see below), and
• to be addressed by a (usually foreign) dignitary (eg. Stephen Harper today; previously both George Bushes, and others I forget).

I'd like this article to be expanded to include these circumstances. This would entail a change of name to Joint Sittings of the Australian Parliament.

I've been doing some work on Casual vacancy, including material about the Territory Senators, that can be copied across. Info on the foreign dignitaries wouldn't be hard to compile, but at the moment there's no suitable place for such information - that I can think of. In any case, I don't like the idea of having the 3 sets of circumstances covered in 3 separate places. Far better for them to be all in one article.

Another option would be to have a separate article about Joint Sittings generally, with a link to this article and to Casual vacancy. But that would still leave the foreign dignitaries unaccounted for. Further, there seems to be a general lack of awareness about the way replacement Territory Senators are chosen were chosen between 1973 and 19831988, and it would be educational to have all these matters in the one article. That would be my strong preference. -- JackofOz 06:39, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

As I understand it there is a difference between the 1974 joint sitting and joint sittings that are convened, for example, to hear speeches from foreign dignatories. In the latter case the two houses are not sitting as a legislative body but rather simply gathering in the one place (generally the House) for convenience whereas in the 1974 sitting the two houses actually convened as a legislative body. Shadow007 06:50, 11 September 2007 (UTC); edited at 06:51 (UTC)

Thanks, Shadow007. I appreciate that difference. However what about the Territory Senators? There have been 2 such sittings, 1981 and 1988 (as compared with the single sitting pursuant to section 57 in 1974), and they both sat as a formal deliberative (if perhaps not legislative) body. -- JackofOz 07:32, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Was it the full senate? Timeshift 08:07, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

It was the full Senate sitting jointly with the full House of Representatives. I haven't found the Joint Sitting Hansard yet, but this is relevant.

However, I've since discovered that I was only half right. Margaret Reid was elected in the joint sitting of 5 May 1981 as per the link I just gave you, under s.9 of the Senate (Representation of Territories) Act 1973, as amended by the Senate (Representation of Territories) Amendment Act 1980. But by the time the next territory casual vacancy occurred - when Margaret Reid herself resigned in 2003 - those acts had been repealed. Under s. 44 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, the ACT or NT legislature now chooses the replacement senator - see this, p. 8815 - just as the state parliaments have always chosen replacement senators under s.15 of the Constitution. I'm amazed this law change slipped under my radar (I must be getting old). So it seems there was only ever one joint sitting in relation to Territory senators casual vacancies, not two. Still, my point remains in principle. -- JackofOz 13:28, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

A further correction, for general info. There were in fact two joint sittings to elect replacement territory senators (both from the ACT) - 5 May 1981 for Margaret Reid, and 16 February 1988 for Bob McMullan. I've re-amended my response to Shadow007 above; and I've put all the details in the casual vacancy article, for those who might be interested.

Btw, this method is still actually on the statute books for filling casual vacancies in the hypothetical event that an external territory such as Norfolk Island ever gets a Senator. This is possible under the law, but extremely unlikely - their population would need to increase to the point where they'd qualify for not 1 but 2 House of Reps seats (an impossibly huge increase), and then they'd also get a Senator. -- JackofOz 03:22, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

The point remains that this was the only meaningful and practical joint sitting. Timeshift 09:11, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Constitutitonal background

This was a useful article for me, but it didn't really explain what section 57 of the constitution is, or why a joint sitting is called for. Under what circumstances can this take place? Why didn't Whitlam do this the first time around, rather than having a double dissolution? Perhaps someone could clarify this in the article. Stevage 03:16, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

First colour broadcast

"It was also the first Australian television broadcast in colour". Are we sure about this? According to Australian_television: "Test broadcasting of colour began in the late 1960s. In 1967 ATV-0 telecast the Pakenham races in colour under the supervision of the Broadcasting Control Board." (ref) ThePizzaKing (talk) 10:47, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, this at The Aunty Jack Show, commonly cited as the first program shown in colour in Australia (but perhaps only when regular programming turned to colour): "Nevertheless, the cast returned for a special two years later to mark the inauguration of colour television in Australia on 1 March 1975. The special beat ABC's commercial rivals by beginning 3 minutes early, at 11:57 pm 28 March 1975 in black and white and then wiping to colour at midnight."

In any case, the claim is dubious. —sroc 💬 01:42, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

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