Sue V Hill - Consequences

Consequences

The court declared that Hill was not validly elected at the 1998 federal election. However, they did not declare the whole election invalid, acting on an earlier decision of the court, because although no effect could be given to voters' preferences for Hill, their other preferences were not invalid, and those could be used to determine who should be elected in Hill's stead. The court did not reach a definite decision about what action should be taken, remitting that question to a lower court. Eventually, Len Harris, the number two candidate on the One Nation ticket, was elected in Hill's stead, taking up his seat on 1 July 1999.

The invalidation of Hill's election caused some controversy in Australian political life. Hill herself viewed the challenge to her election as an attempt by big business and the rich to destroy her, as revenge for One Nation's critique of them during the election campaign. One Australian Broadcasting Corporation correspondent observed the irony that One Nation, a populist nationalist party, was "now suspected of not being quite Australian enough." Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown, despite being politically opposed to One Nation, attacked the decision for disenfranchising the people who had voted for Hill.

Aside from this immediate effect, the case represented a clear recognition that the Australia Act 1986 finally and completely ended all legal ties between the United Kingdom and Australia, and that Australia has been a fully independent and sovereign nation in its own right since at least 3 March 1986, when the Act came into force. Some commentators have criticised the evolutionary approach adopted by the court, and the court's resultant failure to find a certain date on which Australia became independent, arguing that the distinction is more than merely symbolic and could have real consequences. However, even Justice Callinan, who questioned the evolutionary approach in this case, affirmed in a later case (Attorney-General Western Australia v Marquet) that the effect of the Australia Act in finally recognising independence could not be doubted.