Australian Capital Television Pty Ltd V Commonwealth

Australian Capital Television Pty Ltd V Commonwealth

(5:2) the Constitution provides for a system of responsible government, and the right to free political communication is an indispensable part of that system

(4:3) part IIID of the Broadcasting Act 1942 was invalid, because it contravened this implied right

Australian Capital Television v Commonwealth (1992) 177 CLR 106 was a significant court case decided in the High Court of Australia on 30 September 1992. It concerned the constitutional validity of Part IIID of the Broadcasting Act 1942, which regulated political advertising during election campaigns, and required broadcasters to broadcast political advertisements free of charge at other times. The High Court found the laws to be invalid, since they contravened an implied right to freedom of political communication (note there is no guarantee of freedom of speech) in the Australian Constitution.

Read more about Australian Capital Television Pty Ltd V Commonwealth:  Background To The Case, The Case, The Decision, Consequences

Famous quotes containing the words australian, capital, television and/or commonwealth:

    “Beyond the horizon, or even the knowledge, of the cities along the coast, a great, creative impulse is at work—the only thing, after all, that gives this continent meaning and a guarantee of the future. Every Australian ought to climb up here, once in a way, and glimpse the various, manifold life of which he is a part.”
    —Vance Palmer (1885–1959)

    “We make needless ado about capital punishment,—taking lives, when there is no life to take.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember. All other history defeats itself.
    In Beverly Hills ... they don’t throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.
    Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.”
    —Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)

    “By this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other. Men would become little better than the flies of a summer.”
    —Edmund Burke (1729–1797)