The Invisible Constitution in Comparative Perspective

Taxation (Uther’s Case).

39

 Uther’s Case concerned a challenge to state legis-

lation that removed the Commonwealth’s priority for debts. While a majority 

of the Court dismissed the challenge, Dixon J upheld it, explaining that ‘[i]n 

a dual political system you do not expect to find either government legislating 

for the other’. But, he explained, the Constitution, through section 109, had 

given ‘supremacy’ to the Commonwealth,

40

 and the state Parliaments, with 

their powers drawn from those of the colonial Parliaments, had no power to 

regulate the legal relations of the Commonwealth with its subjects.

41

This position was then adopted by a majority of the Court in the 1962 case of 

Commonwealth v. Cigamatic Pty Ltd (in liq),

42

 where Dixon, now Chief Justice, 

explained the principle as one that ‘must go deep in the nature and operation 

34 

Austin v. Commonwealth (2003) 215 CLR 185.

35 

Clarke v. Commissioner of Taxation (2009) 240 CLR 272.

36 

See e.g., Queensland Electricity Commission v. Commonwealth (1985) 159 CLR 192; Re Aus-

tralian Education Union; Ex parte Victoria (1995) 184 CLR 188; Victoria v. Commonwealth 

(Payroll Tax Case) (1971) 122 CLR 353; Austin v. Commonwealth (2003) 215 CLR 185; Clarke v. 

Commissioner of Taxation (2009) 240 CLR 272; Commonwealth v. Tasmania (1983) 158 CLR 1 

(‘Tasmanian Dam Case’).

37 

Re Australian Education Union; Ex parte Victoria (1995) 184 CLR 188.

38 

Ibid.

39 

(1947) 74 CLR 508.

40 

Ibid.

, 529.

41 

Ibid.

, 531.

42 

(1962) 108 CLR 372.

---

 

Constitutional Implications in Australia 

353

of the federal system’.

43

 Since then, in the 1997 Henderson’s Case decision, 

the Court has affirmed the principle, while also somewhat reformulating it, 

as an implied immunity that protects the capacities of the Commonwealth, 

but subjects them to state regulation in their exercise.

44

 That case involved 

a challenge to the application of the Residential Tenancies Act 1987 (NSW) 

to the Commonwealth’s statutory authority, the Defence Housing Authority.  

A majority of the Court affirmed the doctrine, but reformulated it so as to turn 

on a distinction between an implied immunity that protected the capacities of 

the Commonwealth, but subjected them to state regulation in their exercise. 

The usefulness of such a distinction was criticised heavily by McHugh J, and 

Kirby J argued that the only coherent formulation of the implication was as a 

reciprocal version of the doctrine in Melbourne Corporation.

Tracing their providence back to Dixon J, one of Australia’s most celebrated 

legalistic jurists, the Melbourne Corporation and Cigamatic doctrines are now 

well-established and accepted implications of Australian federal constitutional 

law. They are fundamentally structural protections of government institutions 

and, at least for the Commonwealth, constitutional powers. In their formula-

tion and application, they have had little rights-salience.

12.1.3.  Representative and Responsible Government

In the last three decades, the High Court has developed important implica-

tions protecting the operation of political democracy in Australia or, in the 

Westminster-derived language of the Court, the institutions of ‘representative 

and responsible government’. The first implication that was drawn by the 

Court in this context was the implied freedom of political communication. 

The principle was initially identified by the Court in ACTV v. Commonwealth 

and Nationwide News v. Wills in 1992. In these earlier cases, however, there 

was substantive disagreement between the judges as to the basis for the impli-

cation and the strength of its relationship to the text of the Constitution. It was 

finally refined in the 1997 decision of Lange v. ABC, where a unanimous Court 

held that ‘freedom of communication on matters of government and politics is 

an indispensable incident of [the] system of representative government which 

the Constitution creates’, via provisions such as sections 7, 24, 64 and 128.

45

 

43 

Ibid.

, 377.

44