Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Australian Politics and Policy
difficult for the parliament to enact or amend particular laws by standard legislative
procedures (Bills must be passed by absolute majorities or referendum, or both).
While such provisions will not always be binding on a later parliament and require
asuitablyauthoritativesourcetobeso,theyseektoapplytoBillsthat,forexample,
abolish the Council or Assembly, alter the office of governor or seek to amend the
restrictive procedures themselves.
Thestatecourts,comprisedoftheSupremeCourt,theMagistratesCourt,the
District Court, the Children’s Court and the Family Court, although not formally
independent from the legislative and executive arms, enjoy a de facto separation by
convention. This is also protected to an extent by the integrated court structure that
chapter III of the Commonwealth Constitution contemplates for ‘courts of a State’
and by the constitutional role vested in the Supreme Court of WA by the CA in
section 73(6). 43
Other governmental agencies, sometimes referred to as the fourth arm or
integrity arm, include the Corruption and Crime Commission, the Auditor-
General, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administrative Investigations (the
WA Ombudsman), the Commissioner for Public Sector Standards and the Office
of the Information Commissioner. These offices jointly comprise the ‘Integrity
Coordinating Group’ of WA. 44
Electoral law
WA operates under the oldest electoral legislation in Australia, with the current
statute, the Electoral Act 1907 (WA), passed during the reign of Edward VII. While
manyoftheoriginalprovisionsoftheprimaryActremaininforce,ithasbeen
significantly updated in response to changing societal and political norms (see
Appendix).
The franchise
The initial entitlement to vote in elections was based on a property franchise for
those electors over 21 years of age, with the result that mostly white males met the
qualification. While the property qualification was extinguished for the Assembly
by 1907, an indirect property privilege prevailed until 1923 in that voters with
property holdings in multiple electorates were entitled to vote in each of those
districts. The property franchise remained for the Council until 1962. 45
Women were granted the vote in the Assembly in 1899, making WA second
only to South Australia (SA) to confer women’s suffrage. It was also the first state
to elect a woman to parliament: Edith Cowan in 1921. The extension of suffrage
43 Johnston 2010, 101.
44 Creyke 2012, 37.
45 Phillips 2013, 3–5.
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