Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Australian Politics and Policy
Table 1 Results of the 1978 advisory referendum on self-government
Proposal % Votes
Self-government 30.54 33,480
Local government 5.72 6,268
Present arrangements 63.75 69,893
Source: ACT Legislative Assembly 2015.
and executive responsibility. The result of the referendum was overwhelmingly in
favour of retaining Commonwealth administration (see Table 1).
By the late 1980s, however, the ACT population had grown to almost 300,000,
and the Commonwealth, despite the results of the referendum, decided that the
ACT should become a self-governing jurisdiction. This required four separate Acts
of the Australian government:
• Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988 (Cth)
• Australian Capital Territory (Electoral) Act 1988 (Cth)
• Australian Capital Territory (Planning and Land Management) Act 1988 (Cth)
• Australian Capital Territory Self-Government (Consequential Provisions) Act
1988 (Cth).
These Acts were signed into law on 6 December 1988. The first of these is essentially
theconstitutionoftheACTandsetsouttheframeworkforgovernmentand
thesystemofgovernance.TheAustralian Capital Territory (Planning and Land
Management) Act 1988 oversees the ACT Plan and the Spatial Plan, which set out
the development provisions for the ACT, and comes under the auspices of the
National Capital Authority.
Self-government in the ACT
Today, the ACT is governed by a unicameral 25-person Legislative Assembly,
elected under the Hare-Clark electoral system (see below). The ACT does not have
its own police service; instead, general policing is carried out by the Australian
Federal Police.
The government of the ACT is a hybrid organisation. 5 Like a state government,
it is responsible for developing and implementing policy across the normal
5 Halligan 2015.
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