Amendments
As mentioned above, successful amendment of the Constitution requires a referendum in which the "Yes" vote achieves a majority nationally, as well as majorities in a majority of states.
Forty-four proposals to amend the Constitution have been voted on at referendums, of which eight have been approved. The following is a list of amendments which have been approved. For a complete list of all referendums and plebiscites held, see Referendums in Australia – Referendums and plebiscites by year.
- 1906 – Senate Elections – amended Section 13 to slightly alter the length and dates of Senators' terms of office.
- 1910 – State Debts – amended Section 105 to extend the power of the Commonwealth to take over pre-existing state debts to debts incurred by a state at any time.
- 1928 – State Debts – inserted Section 105A to ensure the constitutional validity of the Financial Agreement reached between the Commonwealth and State governments in 1927.
- 1946 – Social Services – inserted Section 51 (xxiiiA) to extend the power of the Commonwealth government over a range of social services.
- 1967 – Aborigines – amended Section 51 (xxvi) to extend the power of the Commonwealth government to legislate for people of any race to Aborigines; repealed Section 127 which stated that "In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted."
- 1977
- Senate Casual Vacancies – part of the political fallout of the constitutional crisis of 1975; formalised the convention, broken in 1975, that when a casual vacancy arises in the Senate, the state parliament concerned, if it chooses to fill the vacancy, must choose the replacement from the same party as the departing Senator if that party still exists.
- Referendums – amended Section 128 to allow residents of the Territories to vote in referendums, and be counted towards the national total.
- Retirement of Judges – amended Section 72 to create a retirement age of 70 for judges in federal courts.
Read more about this topic: Constitution Of Australia
Famous quotes containing the word amendments:
“Both of us felt more anxiety about the South—about the colored people especially—than about anything else sinister in the result. My hope of a sound currency will somehow be realized; civil service reform will be delayed; but the great injury is in the South. There the Amendments will be nullified, disorder will continue, prosperity to both whites and colored people will be pushed off for years.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)