The Invisible Constitution in Comparative Perspective

A-G (SA) v. Corporation of City of Adelaide (2013) 295 ALR 197.

54 

Monis v. The Queen (2013) 295 ALR 259.

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Constitutional Implications in Australia 

355

also done so only after debate and deliberation over the reasonableness or 

justifiability of limitations of this kind.

The Court in recent years has also extended and expanded this understand-

ing of the requirements of representative government in sections 7 and 24 

of the Constitution to imply protections around access to the franchise. In 

Roach v. Electoral Commissioner, in the context of federal legislation disqual-

ifying all prisoners from voting in federal elections, a majority of the Court 

held that legislation of this kind amounted to an arbitrary or disproportionate 

limitation on a principle of universal access to the franchise protected by the 

Constitution.

55

 Chief Justice Gleeson held that changed historical circum-

stances over the course of the twentieth century were such that the language 

of ‘directly chosen by the people’ in sections 7 and 24 of the Constitution had 

‘come to be a constitutional protection of the right to vote’, on the basis of 

universal adult suffrage.

56

 Justices Gummow, Kirby and Crennan, in a joint 

judgment, likewise held that ‘voting in elections for the parliament lies at the 

very heart of the system of government which the Constitution provides’, and 

that the Constitution thus supported at least some ‘minimum bedrock’ of vot-

ing rights, where what was ‘at stake [was] legislative disqualification of some 

citizens from exercise of the franchise’.

57

In the implied freedom of political communication and franchise cases, 

the relevant implied limitations have thus operated both to promote a robust 

form of judicial review of the constitutionality of Commonwealth and state 

legislation and, in some cases, the protection of the political rights of individ-

uals involved. However, even in this context, with the notable exception of 

Gleeson CJ’s statement in Roach, the Court has repeatedly stressed that the 

relevant implications are to be seen as limitations on power, rather than as the 

source of individual rights;

58

 thus, as we saw with the structural protections 

implied from Chapter III, rights protection through implication in Australia 

remains indirect, and closely tied to the structural features of the Constitution.

12.1.4.  Federalism, Responsible Government and Executive Power

In one of the most recent extra-textual judicial developments, in the 2012 deci-

sion of Williams v. Commonwealth (No. 1),

59

 the High Court relied on textual  

55 

(2007) 233 CLR 162.

56 

Ibid.

, 174, [7].

57 

Ibid.

, 198, [81]–[82].

58 

In the recent decision of Gaynor, the Full Federal Court emphasised the importance of this 

distinction: Chief of Defence Force v. Gaynor [2017] FCAFC 41.

59 

Williams v. Commonwealth (No. 1) (2012) 248 CLR 156.

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356 

Rosalind Dixon and Gabrielle Appleby

and structural implications, and more specifically, the combined effect of 

the federal structure of the Commonwealth Parliament and the role of the 

Senate, and the doctrines of responsible government, to identify extra-textual 

limits on the exercise of federal executive power to spend and contract.