Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Australian Politics and Policy
recommendation occurred at a time when WA’s economic fortunes were stalling
due to falling iron ore prices. The sense of grievance was intensified when the
Commonwealth sought to exploit the situation to compel WA to implement far
reaching reforms in exchange for financial relief. 35
However, the source of much of WA’s disgruntlement can ultimately be traced to
the expansionist tendencies of the Commonwealth. Very quickly, it has been argued,
the federation collapsed into an arrangement that is more ‘centralised than was ever
envisaged or intended, indeed one of the most centralised of all true federations’. 36
The failures of the original design, judgements of the High Court and the Commonwealth’s
willingness to use its financial clout to encroach into state policy areas
has led to what one former premier has described as the ‘smothering of the states’. 37
Constitutional overview
Prior to 1890, the colony was under British control, with a locally residing governor,
the first being Captain James Stirling. While it had a Legislative Council of 18 men,
of which six were appointed and the remainder elected, its enactments had to be
reserved for Her Majesty’s pleasure, and the extent of executive power forestalled
responsible government in the colony.
The enactment of the CA brought about a fully elected Legislative Assembly
and, initially, an appointed Legislative Council, which also became an elected body
in 1893, prior to the six-year limit allowed for by section 6 of the Act. 38
Within a decade, amendments to the franchise and the Council and Assembly
were proposed by the colony’s first premier, Sir John Forrest. While initially taking
the form of amendments to the CA, it was eventually determined that a separate
and distinct constitutional enactment should be introduced. 39 To this day, WA
35 Fenna 2015a. In 2018, the Morrison federal government announced a 70 per cent floor in the
GST dollar to begin in 2022–23, increasing to 75 per cent in 2025 (Laschon 2018). While the
WAtreasurer,BenWyatt,welcomedthereform,herejectedthatitwasa‘windfall’,reasoning
that‘AwindfallwouldsuggestthatWAhadsomehowwonthelotto,gotsomemoneythatit
doesn’t deserve or money unexpectedly that for some reason wasn’t, or shouldn’t have, come to
Western Australia’ (Perpitch and Laschon 2018).
36 Fenna 2015b.
37 Burrell 2018. It is important to note that WA’s constitutions, as with all of the original states,
retained their constitutional status post-Federation with sections 106–108 preserving state
constitutions, parliamentary powers and enactments, subject to the dictates of the Commonwealth
Constitution. However, several High Court judgements, in expanding the scope of the national
government’s policy competency, have largely eroded the sphere of the states’ activities.
38 Murray and Thomson 2013, 22.
39 While there are differing explanations for this departure from consolidating the amendments, it
is likely that it avoided the possible activation of the provision in the CA 1889 which potentially
requiredanabsolutemajorityinboththeAssemblyandCouncil,ratherthanasimplemajority,
forsomeamendmentstothetextoftheCA 1889. For more, see Miragliotta 2003, 157; Murray
and Thomson 2013, 27–8.
320