COMMONWEALTH
OF AUSTRALIA
CONSTITUTION ACT
An
Act to constitute the Commonwealth of Australia [9th
July 1900]
Whereas
the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia,
Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing
of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble
Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and under the
Constitution hereby established:
And whereas it is expedient to provide for the admission
into the Commonwealth of other Australasian Colonies
and possessions of the Queen:
Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent
Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the
Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this
present Parliament assembled, and by the authority
of the same, as follows:
1.
This Act may be cited as the Commonwealth of Australia
Constitution Act.
2.The
provisions of this Act referring to the Queen shall
extend to Her Majesty's heirs and successors in the
sovereignty of the United Kingdom.
3. It shall be lawful for the Queen, with the
advice of the Privy Council, to declare by proclamation
that, on and after a day therein appointed, not being
later that one year after the passing of this Act,
the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia,
Queensland and Tasmania, and also, if Her Majesty
is satisfied that the people of Western Australia
have agreed thereto, of Western Australia, shall be
united in a Federal Commonwealth under the name of
the Commonwealth of Australia. But the Queen may,
at any time after the proclamation, appoint a Governor-General
for the Commonwealth.
4.The Commonwealth shall be established, and the
Constitution of the Commonwealth shall take effect,
on and after the day so appointed. But the Parliaments
of the several colonies may at any time after the
passing of this Act make any such laws, to come into
operation on the day so appointed, as they might have
made of the Constitution had taken effect at the passing
of this Act.
5. This Act, and all laws made by the Parliament
of the Commonwealth under the Constitution, shall
be binding on the courts, judges, and people of every
State and of every part of the Commonwealth, notwithstanding
anything in the laws of any State; and the laws of
the Commonwealth shall be in force on all British
ships, the Queen's ships of war excepted, whose first
port of clearance and whose port of destination are
in the Commonwealth.
6. "The Commonwealth" shall mean the Commonwealth
of Australia as established under this Act.
"The
States" shall mean such of the colonies of New South
Wales, New Zealand, Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria,
Western Australia, and South Australia, including
the northern territory of South Australia, as for
the time being are parts of the Commonwealth, and
such colonies or territories as may be admitted into
or established by the Commonwealth as States; and
each of such parts of the Commonwealth shall be called
"a State".
"Original
States" shall mean such States as are parts of the
Commonwealth at its establishment.
7. The Federal Council of Australasia Act,
1885, is hereby repealed, but so as not to affect
any laws passed by the Federal Council of Australasia
and in force at the establishment of the Commonwealth.
Any such law may be repealed as to any State by the
Parliament of the Commonwealth, or as to any colony
not being a State by the Parliament thereof.
8. After the passing of this Act the Colonial
Boundaries Act, 1895, shall not apply to any colony
which becomes a State of the Commonwealth; but the
Commonwealth shall be taken to be a self-governing
colony for the purposes of that Act.
9. The Constitution of the Commonwealth shall
be as follows: THE CONSTITUTION
This Constitution is divided as follows:-
